This is an outtake shot of Leo while I was helping Chloe make her valentine cards on the other end of the table. I had set him up with some Alex Dots and Dashes paint markers
For the record, although it was labeled ‘washable,’ the ink left a blue stain on Leo’s face for the rest of the day. The washable Crayola marker that Chloe used came right off. Good to know!
When I was away visiting my mom without the kids, I found myself with a little extra time on my hands. One evening I stopped into AC Moore, a craft store we don’t have on the west coast. I bought new yarn and knitting needles and later returned for this Quilled Creations Quilling Kit with the 50% off coupon they gave me. We have a beautiful quilled snowflake ornament that my mother-in-law made, and I figured this would be the perfect time to try it.
Quilling takes patience and fine handling, but it is rewarding to see how strips of paper can be rolled, curled and bent into different shapes. The card shown above was my first attempt. I sent it to my mother-in-law as a thank you for coming to help watch the kids while I was away. Below is an intro video found on youtube, to better show how its done, but I have found the best inspiration is on Etsy. I forsee some quilled jewelry in my future.
This is a drawing that Chloe made yesterday. I totally, totally love it. For the longest time she was mostly a scribbler. We never guided her drawing, but sometimes she would as us to draw something for her. Now suddenly she is starting to make all kinds of recognizable drawings. They are really fun to see, and sometimes come with imaginative scenarios or stories that blow me away.
The other photo shows her explaining the people in the picture: Daddy is in the middle. He is carrying her and Leo, one on each arm. He’s strong! Mama is in the back next to me, and Barkley (our dog) is the puffball in the corner under Leo.
The toy is a Fisher Price Kid Tough Travel Doodle Pro with Light. It’s been a great! I bought it for Leo to play with during our holiday flights to Colorado and Cancun, and also because he was always fighting over Chloe’s Toulouse-LapTrec from B. Toys (both definitely on my list of best toy purchases ever). The Travel Doodle has a little stowaway light the kids like to switch off and on, and turns off by itself (genius! why doesn’t anyone make a kids flashlight that does this?). For Chloe I pack her travel Aquadoodle which is much thinner and lighter, but mostly now she just draws on her ipad. We also have the large floor Aquadoodle that both kids can play with at the same time. All have been a big hit, and worth every penny.
PS. I just found out when getting the link to the Toulouse-LapTrec that all versions before 2011 have been recalled, which includes Chloe’s. Looks like they might send a new one. Hers is the chocolate brown version, but now it looks like they only come in olive green and red.
When we added the third bedroom to our two-bedroom house, the middle bedroom did not fare well. Not only did it lose a window (and lots of natural light), but the remaining window looks out at a blank fence that partially obscures the house next door. Someday, I’d like to do some landscaping on that side of the house, but until then these pinwheels spruce up the view nicely. And Chloe likes them. A lot.
Total cost: $7 at the dollar store. (And a special thanks to the cable guy who left his u-shaped staple gun here).
Homemade Finger Paint Recipe from Easie Peasie
Shaving Cream Bathtub Paint from Having Fun at Home
Sponge-soaked finger paints for less mess from Baballa
Making Pretend Make-up from Nail Polish from Not So Idle Hands
Cornstarch Sidewalk Paint Recipe from Pink and Green Mama
All finds thanks to the lovely eye-candy that is Pinterest.
We like foaming hand soap in our house (see the previous post for just one of the reasons why). For kids, it’s less messy than bar soap, and it pumps out, spreads and rinses off easier than regular liquid soap. We even use it in shampoo form – more suds for the hair and less running into the eyes.
Seeing two empty pump bottles laying around made me wonder if we could re-fill them with our own home-made version. And guess what? All it takes is just a portion of liquid soap mixed with water. We filled our pump containers about an eighth full of regular liquid soap and filled them the rest of the way with water. Voila! Turns out the technology isn’t in the soap formula, but in the pump itself.
I’m so happy we discovered this. Now a bottle of regular soap lasts us so much longer, and each amount of soap costs a fraction of what it did before.
Extra fun: I peeled off the labels on our used soap pumps and gave them each a makeover. See the “before” photo here. The colorful one above is for Chloe’s bathroom and the black and white one below is for ours.
Update: Even though I used “permanent” Sharpie markers, the ink actually comes off if scraped too hard. They’d probably last longer if sprayed with a fixative. I wonder what would be a better medium? Some sort of paint?
Floral designs inspired by Sandra Isaksson.
I guess with two graphic designer parents it is no surprise that Chloe loves art and crafts of any kind. Thankfully, it keeps her occupied for long periods of time, too.
When I’m tired or don’t have the time to clean paint brushes, I give Chloe Q-tips. They provide a different painting experience, and allow me to toss them when she’s done.
We have a bad habit of ruining play-doh by leaving it out to dry. Making it at home makes me feel less guilty, and its cheap and easy. Here’s the recipe and instructions, but you must let the salt dissolve in the water first, or the play-dough ends up with a grainy texture.
The photo at the top shows Chloe making a collage with her My First Scissors. They are rated for kids as young as four years old, but Chloe uses them just fine at 2 and a half (and under supervision). When she asks to “do cutting” I just hand her some pages from our recycle bin along with a glue stick, scissors, and a sheet on which to paste. It occupies her time, helps to develop good hand skills, and she enjoys it. All good things.
Covering a wall with butterfliesDo you ever search the web to find a little bit of happiness? To me, the web is kind of like a magazine, full of ideas and inspiration and eye-candy (depending on where you look). One blog that is always good for the aforementioned qualities is Color Me Katie. She’s a photographer living in Brooklyn and shares lots of happy and colorful things, from crafts, to street art, to improv. I envy her rare gift that makes the ordinary extraordinary. Take a look at these photos and see if her feel-good work doesn’t make your day a little bit more sunny. 🙂
Putting Rubber Duckies in street puddles
Drawing a kitty face on a toe
This is another collage that wowed me today. Artist Jenny Odell compiled satellite images from Google and created a really unique set of images. The one above 125 Swimming Pools is my favorite followed by 77 Waste and Salt Ponds and 144 Empty Parking Lots below. Jenny writes “The view from a satellite is not a human one, nor is it one we were ever really meant to see. But it is precisely from this inhuman point of view that we are able to read our own humanity, in all of its tiny, reliably repetitive marks upon the face of the earth…” You can read more about what she has to say here.
(via DesignSponge)
I’ve been looking for wall art for the new part of the house, but nothing said “buy me!” until today, when my husband sent me a link to this Tree of Life poster. I LOVE it. Even better, we already have a black Ikea frame that fits exactly. Almost like it was meant to be.
Poor Chloe is sick right now. She’s got it all – fever, horrible cough, puffy eyes, altered voice, runny nose, vomitting… It’s been pretty rough, especially at night. David took the first two nights sleeping in her room and then I took last night. She wakes up a lot, usually due to coughing fits that seem to work her in a frenzy of frantic crying and more coughing, which just makes everything worse. We’re pretty much taking it easy right now.
On a happier note, while at home this weekend I decided to finally re-fresh the art in our set of living room picture frames. For almost a year they’ve held abstract finger-paintings done in one of Chloe’s baby art classes. They were nice for a while, but I was feeling ready for something new.
Since getting pregnant this time around I haven’t felt at all creative, so I started looking on Etsy for possibilities. However, I didn’t want to spend very much or wait very long to get them. Then I remembered the web site Feed Your Soul: The Free Art Project. Basically, every month an artist provides a free, downloadable print. Isn’t that nice? I chose four (actually five, since I couldn’t decide between two), re-sized them to fit 8 x 10″ and then sent them off via internet to get printed at my local Target by one-hour photo processing. If I had a decent printer it would have been instant gratification, but I wasn’t even willing to wait for shipping (even though I prefer matte paper – Target only does one-hour processing in glossy). Each print was a bargain $2.89. Gotta love free art!
I’ve been feeling a little bad about the last post. Some days are just harder than others, and I realize that there are a lot of people that would happily exchange their problems for mine. So today I’m just concentrating on happiness and I’m finding a lot to be happy for.
Happiness today is…
Paperseed
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