Fun Weather Crafts for Kids

During our Weather Week of MOMS Camp we made several fun crafts!


Part of our week was all about clouds - learning the different types and reading books about them. My personal favorite is Little Cloud by Eric Carle, in which a single cloud changes into several different shapes, like a rabbit, a shark, and a clown! After reading this book we used white paint and cotton balls to paint our own cloud shapes. Naturally my daughter made hers into a lamb! We also added lots of white paint to the middle of a sheet of construction paper, then folded it in half to make a new blob shape for a cloud.  We used my favorite paint, Crayola Washable Kids Paint.

My daughter loved painting with cotton balls so much, she came up with her own project! It started when she wanted to use her favorite color (brown) to paint with... and it turned into a tornado! Later, when the paint was dry, she added lots of stickers to portray animals and bugs that might be swept up in the tornado! This project was so much fun to do!

 

 Another fun project was finger painting with sun block! I squirted a little bit of sun block onto a plastic lid and we used our fingers to paint with it on black construction paper. You can use any dark color of paper. Be sure the sun block is kind of thick as you're painting. Then you leave it out in the sun for a couple hours and watch how the sun fades the paper's color all around your design! The sun block will evaporate and your design will be left on the paper in the original dark color! This is a fun way to teach your kids how sun block really does protect your skin!

At the beginning of the week, we made a homemade rain gauge! This was in idea from Pinterest. You'll need an empty plastic bottle, all washed out with the label taken off.  Cut off the top part and turn it upside down, then place it inside to keep water from evaporating out later.  I used an old steak knife to cut our bottle, and covered the rough edges with duct tape. Use a ruler to mark your measurements on one side, then you can decorate your bottle with permanent markers! We left our rain gauge outside all week, with a chance of rain every day... but it barely rained at all! My daughter (age 7) still had fun going out to check it each day though. Here's a picture of the one we saw online:

Here's ours as we made it:

Decorate a Witch's Shelf for Halloween!

Another new decoration I've added this year is my "witch's shelf!" I put away my normal decorations from a shelf in my house and replaced them with some creepy Halloween decorations! Some of the display is store bought, but the rest is homemade. Below you can see the start of my own Witch's Shelf, including a couple wonderful pieces by Jim Shore which I just LOVE. For the rest, I gathered several empty bottles from around the house and some really cool looking old ones from antique stores to use as potions!

I used paper to create new labels for the bottles, such as a skull and cross bones and a cauldron of boiling potion! I used my Cricut electronic cutting machine to make some of the shapes, but you can use stickers or just cut out your own. The cartridge I used was Mini Monsters. A couple bottles in this collection were made last year, and you can read about those labels in a previous blog post here.

I also decorated one of the old bottles with fake spider webs and plastic spiders! I dropped several fake spiders inside and pushed some fake spider web inside with a pencil. Then I wrapped the outside of the bottle with more spider webs (can't get enough!!) and a few spiders on the outside.

A final idea for a witch's shelf is to fill fancy glasses or jars or bottles with colored water... and maybe some fake fingers or eye balls!! You know I'll be doing that too. ;O) Happy decorating!

Watermelon Bottle Cap Pin

I wanted to make an easy watermelon project with my daughter, Molly (5), to go along with a book she read in kindergarten called The Enormous Watermelon by Brenda Parkes. I came up with a super cute and easy pin made from a recycled bottle cap! Molly had fun making them with just a little help from me when it came to the hot glue gun. Now she has one on her backpack and made one as a gift for her teacher!

Here's what you'll need:

clean bottle cap
paint and brush
hot glue gun
pin backs
Dimensional Magic by Mod Podge
Construction paper, scissors, markers and glue

Start by painting your bottle cap green. We used washable paint by Crayola.

While that is drying, it's time to make the middle. Trace a bottle cap (preferably NOT the one you just painted! haha!) on a piece of red construction paper to get the right size. Have your child carefully cut out the circle. I made sure Molly practiced making little snips; keeping her elbow by her side; and making only one piece of trash like she learned in class. Use a marker to make several black dots on the circle to be the watermelon seeds.

Once  the green paint is dry, you can use a dab of glue to attach your paper circle to the inside of the bottle cap. Then fill the bottle cap up with Mod Podge Dimensional Magic. Be sure to cover all of the paper and don't worry if it's cloudy - it will dry clear. I LOVE Mod Podge products! Lay it flat to dry and when it's ready, use a hot glue gun to attach a pin back to it.

Recycled School Bus Craft

In the days leading up to the first day of school, we made a really cute school bus craft! School buses was a perfect theme for that week - great for back to school and my two-year old transportation-junky loves them!

The specific craft we made was purchased from Oriental Trading but they appear to be all sold out. As we put ours together though, I realized how easily we could have done it ourselves with just construction paper! On a side note, I thought I was buying just two kits, but instead received TWO SETS OF 12 KITS! Turns out it was on clearance sale.... so if you'd like a set (or four) just email me and I can send you some extras!

This craft was so appealing to me in the first place because it recycles old egg cartons! I save all my egg cartons, toilet paper rolls, paper towel rolls, plastic sour cream containers, etc just waiting for a craft idea to come along. Happily I could empty out a few cartons from my catch-all cabinet for this one.

The first day (or just early in the day if you want to complete it all in one day) we painted each of our egg cartons yellow. This was a brave and fun activity for my toddler (brave of me, fun for him!) but he did pretty well! My daughter, Molly (5), did a really nice job covering her carton. I even got to do one of my own since we had so many kits!

Once your paint is dry, we had foam stickers to apply to create our buses. If you are making one without the kit, simply cut out shapes from construction paper or foam to glue on. You'll need a rectangle for the doors; a rectangle for the "School Bus" sign; a red octagon for the stop sign; a couple circles or half circles for the lights and of course circles for the wheels. 

Another step you can add, once you know some of the kids in your child's class, is a photo or drawing of them which you can place on the sides like they're looking out the windows! Molly had a good time making this craft, and Ben actually played with his! He liked being able to actually open it up and put "people" inside... also he put in rice, blocks, and toy cars. What a fun way to recycle!

Denim Roads for Toy Cars

I found this idea a while ago on Pinterest and was so excited to have an excuse to make it this week: Roads for little toy cars made out of old pair of recycled jeans!! These were fun to make, they're fun to play with, and they can travel easily for playtime when you're not at home. Plus they are perfect to create a little town or neighborhood with your Paper Bag Village from my previous post!  Here's how to make this easy new toy:

First find an old (or cheap) pair of jeans you can cut up. The bigger the better so you can make more roads! I stole a pair of my husband's beat-up jeans from the bottom of his closet with big holes in the knees. He probably didn't even notice... unless he reads my blog! hehe. Cut out large sections of denim, cutting along the seams so you get nice flat pieces to work with.  Draw your roads on the back side so you know where to cut. Mine are about 4 inches wide, or enough for two Matchbox-size cars to drive side-by-side. Regular ballpoint pen worked fine for this.Cut them out.

 I was able to make a total of 24 pieces out of that one pair of jeans! This included: (2) 4-way intersections,  (1) 3-way intersection, (6) curves, (7) long stretches, (6) short stretches, and (2) parking lots with three spaces each.

Now you can draw or paint lines down your roads. I used puffy paint pens. (fun!) I made dashed lines, wrote "Stop" at all my intersections and "Parking" with spaces on my little parking lots. While I did this part, Molly (5) got to use the puffy paint pens to decorate the pocket! Later, you can use the pocket to store all your streets in, or store cars...or any little thing that your child chooses like Molly did. (Hmm... maybe we'll make a purse out of it... to be continued!!)

 

It is easy to set up these roads and they don't have to match up perfectly. If you want them to stay in place better on your carpet, you can add the rough side of Velcro to the bottoms. You can also add Fray Check to the edges or make a zig zag stitch along the edges to keep them from fraying. So far I haven't done any of those extras because they're working great for us just plain and simple! I always love the easy way. :O)

Cardboard Tube Flowers

I love finding new crafts to make with toilet paper tubes! I found a really unique one in the March 2012 issue of Family Fun Magazine that we had to try because it was flowers and matched our theme! The original craft in the magazine was called "Cosmic Cosmos" and you're actually supposed to paint your toilet paper tubes first, but we skipped that step.  Instead we jumped right in with the scissors (actually there was no jumping involved - that would be very dangerous...)

First, cut strips all around both edges of the toilet paper tube, leaving about an inch long strip in the middle.  To help us measure and to give Molly (5) a line to guide off of, I drew two lines around the middle so we knew how far to cut.  I was worried the cardboard tube would be too hard for Molly to cut through, but she did just fine with her little scissors!

After all the slits are cut, fold them all up at 90 degree angles and color them with markers to make your petals.  To make leaves, squish a second toilet paper tube so it creates two creases, then cut it into six or so pieces.  Color these green... or paint them green ahead of time.

Fill the center hole with wadded up tissue paper in a fun color of your choice. Wadding up the tissue paper was a particularly fun step for Molly! Poke a small hole in one side of your flower (in the middle section, between slits) to insert a wooden dowel for the stem. You might want to dab a little glue (or even hot glue like I did) on the top inch or so of the dowel so it doesn't slide around. Finally, glue the leaves on your "stem". I used hot glue to make the job faster and easier.

These make a great decoration to display in a flower pot filled with glass stones or colored sand. I am using them to decorate our holiday tree by just sticking them in the branches and also in a basket filled with a plastic leaf garland. I had so many more ideas of flower crafts to make but now that summer is upon us, I'll be moving on to different weekly themes in my 2nd annual MOMS Camp!! Can't wait!

Water Bottle Snowman

We still haven't gotten a chance to play in the snow and build a real snowman this winter, but we did make one at our kitchen table today! I found this great project in the December/January 2012 issue of Family Fun magazine and as always their ideas are perfect! Here's what you'll need:

water bottle
white tissue paper
glue or decoupage
black construction paper
whatever you want to make your snowman's face!

I grabbed an empty water bottle and washed it and dried it out - yea for recycling! Using my handy old steak knife (previously mentioned in another blog for cutting cardboard), I cut out the very bottom of the water bottle. Now it is ready for your child to work with!

Molly (4) covered the whole bottle, minus the lid, with decoupage glue using a paint brush. If you are using regular glue, you might want to mix it with some water for a thinner consistency. Tear up some white tissue paper into small pieces and cover the entire bottle with them... again minus the lid. This was another recycled part of the project because we used tissue paper that had been used to wrap a gift at Christmas!

When the bottle is covered, paint another layer of glue or decoupage on top and allow it all to dry for a bit. Use black construction paper to cover the lid by gluing a circle on top and a strip of paper around the sides. This will be your snowman's hat! Then add a face and buttons using whatever you have on hand. You could use sequins, buttons or craft pom poms to name a few. We used foam stickers that we cut into smaller shapes and glued on. Finally, add a scarf by tying on a small strip of fabric or ribbon!


Now that your snowman is complete, put a battery-operated tea light inside and watch him glow! I found 3-packs of the tea lights for a dollar at the Dollar Tree - score!

Recycled Christmas Card Ornaments

I hate to throw away any Christmas card I get, but only a few special ones really need to be saved. I love to find uses for rest of them! Here are two more ornament ideas to reuse your old Christmas cards:

Dig through your pile and find some cards with cute or pretty designs on the front and cut out that design. It's best to use a regular shape like a circle, oval, square, or rectangle around the design. This was a great exercise in shapes and cutting for my daughter, Molly (4). Now you have the option of gluing a second design on the back in the same shape, or a piece of colorful scrapbook paper or construction paper instead. If you use paper as opposed to another card, you can add your own message or your child's name and the year.

Draw a line of glue all the way around your shape, preferably along the very edge. Sprinkle on some glitter and shake off. Let this dry and then attach a string to the top! Try using old-fashioned looking Christmas cards and some course silver glitter for an antique look! We also started using glitter to decorate the designs themselves, like adding decorations on a Christmas tree.

While we were working on these, Molly came up with a wonderful idea: to use the old cards as frames!! She cut out a frame from a metallic card and used it to frame a picture of a kitten she cut out from another card! Right now her creation is taped up on my living room wall, but meanwhile I took her idea and applied it to real pictures! I found some old Christmas cards with frames on the front: the kind you can see through to the image on the inside of the card. I cut them out and taped my photos to the back. Then I added glitter like normal and included the year and my kids' names. I was so happy with them and couldn't believe it was all Molly's idea!

Thanksgiving Tray

Yesterday, Molly (4) and I looked through some old magazines and cut out pictures of things we were thankful for. We cut out some fun items and some meaningful ones, like a picture of a clock for time spent with family; a picture of a fan because I'm thankful for our new air conditioner and heater; and a picture of the beach because I'm thankful for our trip to Myrtle Beach this summer! I also was sure to cut out a few pictures for Ben (1) including a toy truck, toy train, and a picture of his toddler formula because I'm sure he's thankful for his "baba!" Molly mainly cut out pictures of animals that she liked, and I thought it was so smart that she cut out the captions too so we'd remember what they were - like a crowned lemur!

Molly decided that was enough work for one day, so we put it aside to finish later. Really it didn't take too long at all so you could easily finish it all in one day. Or take a break to play like we did and make it a two day project!

The next day, I cleaned up an old wooden tv tray whose legs had broken off and used it for our canvas. Molly liked painting it with decoupage glue and then helped me arrange our pictures into a collage on the tray. We used Aleene's Instant Decoupage, which is a water based glue, sealer, and finish - ours was a matte finish. After the collage was set, I painted over it again with the decoupage to seal it, which actually dried really super fast!

Even though our tray features a giant snake for no apparent reason, I love our special Thanksgiving Tray! I'm so proud to have something that Molly and I worked on together that we can now use every year at Thanksgiving - and we re-purposed something old instead of just throwing it away!!