Homemade Moon Dough!!

Okay, this is too great not to share! Kids these days are totally over play dough and into this moon dough stuff. I went to Walmart just to scope out the prices, and see if it was worth it to invest in some for the kids.To my surprise it was around $13 for the smallest container! I decided to put purchasing moon dough on hold for a later date, and am I ever glad I did!

That night I went on pintrest, just browsing the craft section. Nothing too interesting caught my eye, until I clicked on a link that said "Cloud Dough". I was totally thrilled when I seen 2 ingredients on the list. Ingredients which I had sitting in my cupboard!! I raced to the kitchen, grabbed a spoon and rubber maid bin and got to work. It literally took 5 minutes of my time and no money at all. So here it is... the moment you've been waiting for. The ingredient list.

All you need is:

-Corn starch

-A bottle of shaving cream

Mix those 2 ingredients together and you have instant moon dough! The only unpleasant experience I had was that I only had men's Gillette shaving cream in my closet so it was an overwhelming smell. I would suggest using unscented, or a flowery woman's shaving cream. Other than that I hope this helped you guys save some money, and enjoy with your kids!

Painting with Salt

I came across this neat idea that was really simple, and exciting for the kids to do. Basically it is painting with salt. The kids enjoyed watching the colours crawl across their papers and compared the little wiggling lines to fire works. It was lots of fun, not too messy, and a super easy craft to put together.

All you need is:

-Salt (table salt works best)
-glue
-water
-food colouring
-paper
-paint brushes

The first thing we did was take our blank sheets of paper and glue salt all over them.

 While we let our glue dry a little bit we mixed our food colouring in with our water. We used the small dixie cups, and filled them about 3/4 of the way. We used about 2-3 drops of food colouring for each colour.

The kids then started to dip their paint brushes into the different colours and drop the water onto the salt covered paper. The water started reaching across the paper and creating neat little wiggly lines.

In the end the kids started to paint the whole paper by blotting it with the paint brushes. The paintings begin to look like water colours, and the colours belended together to create beautiful designs.

 After we were finished clean up was as easy as dumping the water down the drain, rinsing off the paint brushes, and wiping the table of any excess salt. This is definitely a craft we will be doing again in the future.

Red and White day

I know I'm a little late with this post, but better late than never right??

The Friday before Canada Day the kids celebrated by wearing all red and white. They dolled themselves up and put on their best outfits! We celebrated with red and white foods like pizza, strawberries, vanilla cupcakes and some watermelon.We got totally in the Canada day spirit with some super awesome tottoos for the boys and nail designs for the girls! The kids had a blast and so did we. To finish off our fabulous Friday we headed outside just before the rain started and tried out our "frozen chalk". It's pretty much a mixture of cornstarch water and food colouring. I will go more into detail in another post, and I will be sure to do step by step pictures along with recipe. Hope you all enjoyed your Canada day!!

School's out for the Summer!!

As of last Friday school is out, and that means SUMMER VACATION!!!!! Well for the kids at least. Lately the daycare has been so hectic and chaotic I haven't had a moment to think. The kids have been out of control. I don't know if it is from the hot weather, super moon, their age, or what, but they have been crazy! Fortunately for me the last day of school means one of the last few days of chaos. Starting next week we will only have a few kids, which means quiet easy going days filled with fun and sun.

   For the summer I am trying to put together a binder filled with work sheets, games (indoor and outdoor), and crafts. This will make it easier on my boos and I instead of struggling to figure out what we should do for craft, or what we should do outside that day. However these kids seem to have either done everything, or just get bored with things super easily! So I'm putting the question out there to all parents, aunts, uncles, creative people, fellow ECE's or anyone with a great idea.... What the heck should we do this summer?? If you have an idea let me know in the comments below or send an email!!

Teacup Cupcakes for our Teddy Bear Picnic

Last week the kids had a theme day. We have a several of them every month. Last week's theme day was "Teddy bear Picnic". All of the kids brought in their teddy bears, and we ate lunch outside and called it a picnic. The kids had a blast, as did the adults!!

For this special occasion I decided to bake some special treats. I made teacup cupcakes. Basically I took ice cream cones and cut the bottom off, and then i used melted chocolate and "glued" them to a digestive cookie. I thin cut some sour peach rings in half and glued them to the side of the cones. I baked zebra cupcakes (chocolate and vanilla all in one cupcake) and the crumbled the bottom part of the cupcakes into the cone and used icing to stick the top of the cupcake to the top of the cone. I put them in the fridge over night and them brought them to work the next day to let the kids decorate.

We used pink strawberry frosting and lots of sprinkles. The finishing touch was lots and lots of gummy bears. Needless to say the kids snacked more on the candy, than use it to decorate. Regardless of the gummy bears being in their tummy or on the cupcake, the kids had a blast and I did too!!

Try out my "teacup cupcakes" and let me know how yours turned out! They are super simple and super fun. Happy baking!! :)

Painting With Condensed Milk

Coming up with new and exciting craft ideas is always a challenge. The kids have done everything several times over, and we don't want to bore them by doing the same thing over and over. So the other day I over heard someone saying that condensed milk dries, and when it dries it stays shiny! I thought this would be the perfect material to paint with, so I stopped in at Walmart and grabbed a can or two!

I started out by mixing a few drops of food colouring into the condensed milk.  I then set out papers and paint brushes, and let the kids create! they loved the face that it was sticky, gooey and oozing all over! When the kids were finished painting I hung the pictures up to dry, We started to notice that the paint was too runny and started to drip, so we took the papers and folded them in half, pressed down and reopened them. This created a mirror affect. Once the condensed milk was dry we hung the paintings on the wall. The kids were very proud of their art work on display, and they thought the glossy shine was pretty cool too!

a few side notes for this craft:

1. Condensed milk doesn't smell too nice. If you want to have a more pleasant smell try adding a drop or two of vanilla or mint extract to each cup.

2. We tried gluing the paintings onto a piece of coloured construction paper, for a "framed" sort of look. The glue ended up soaking through to the condensed milk, and the pictures became runny again.

3. The condensed milk is very sticky. Make sure you have some sort of wipes or wash cloth on hand to wipe the children's hands after.

4. Enjoy the sticky, ooey, gooey messy craft. The kids will love it!

Sandpaper T-shirt Transfers

Father's day is always the one day out of the year that I become completely stumped on what to make for a gift from the children at work. This year I searched through pinterest trying to find something unique and fun for the kids to create. After searching for quite a while I found one idea in particular that I thought would be really cool. The pin was "Sandpaper T-Shit Transfer".

We started off with plain white cotton t-shirts, some regular sandpaper and crayons... Lots and lots of crayons!! First I cut the sandpaper into smaller rectangles. Then the children drew their pictures on the sandpaper, and if they wanted I wrote something cute along side it like "World's best dad
 or "Daddy of the year". Writing the phrases was a bit of a trial and error situation. My boss had pointed out after several of the papers had been written on, that the letters should be written backwards. So some of the kids had to re-do their pictures and I rewrote the phrases. It turns out writing and spelling backwards it a little bit of a challenge.

After all of the pictures were complete I took a piece of cardboard, placed it inside the t-shirt, and positioned the sandpaper on the back of the shirt. I then took an iron and laid it on top of the sandpaper moving it back and forth for a few minutes.After a minute or two I took the iron off and let the sandpaper cool. Once cool I peeled the sandpaper back very slowly.

For the most part the t-shirts turned out pretty good, but there were a few that the kids didn't press hard enough with the crayons, and it turned out looking faded. In the end all of the dads loved their unique custom made t-shirts, which in turn made me one very happy E.C.E.

If I were to rate this pin I would give it a 4 out of 5, solely because the instructions didn't mention that putting more pressure when colouring would give better results. Here are a few pictures of the before and after!! Give it a try and let me know how your sandpaper transfers turned out. Let me know if you enjoyed creating :)