Ryan's Lego Cake

A Lego boat?

 Ryan wanted a Lego birthday party this year (well, that was his second choice - I said he couldn't have two Star Wars parties in a row), so I made a cake that was supposed to look like one of the Lego ships he likes to make.  I'm not really pleased with how it turned out, but he liked it!  I think the little single bricks turned out much better.

For games we played lego bingo, and then did a building game where the kids built things and then the parents guessed what they were.  We wrote down our answers and then the kids came back and told us what their creations really were.  Some were suprisingly good and we got close with our guesses; some were suprisingly bad, and no one came close; some were just suprising!

Kinda looks like it wants to fall over, but it never did!



I thought these turned out better than the big cake!



F is for Fluffy Flower

F is for Fluffy Flower!  This is made with coffee filters and washable markers, which I first remember doing in one of my science classes in high school (Biology, I think, with Coach DuBose).  We used three filters for each flower to make them nice and fluffy.  You color on the coffee filter with markers, then spray with water.  The color spreads out and mixes.  You definitely need to put paper towels or something underneath before spraying.  Then, let them dry.  After they're dry, fold in half, and punch a hole through both layers in the middle, near the fold.  Use a green pipe cleaner for the stem.  Put the pipe cleaner through one hole in each of the filters, then put a fairly large bead (pony beads work, or even something larger) on the pipe cleaner, fold it over, and send it through the other holes in each filter.  Twist the pipe cleaner together to keep the flower where it belongs, and maybe even shape one end of it into a leaf!  Then pull the filters gently through your fist to shape them into a flower. 

Just for fun, I rubbed a little oil from an air freshener on the inside filter near the bead to make the flower smell good!  Then it was a Fragrant, Fluffy Flower!  

At the end of the day, Miss M remembered that flower starts with F and even picked out an F from among the refrigerator magnet letters!  Elizabeth, when asked "What kind of word is 'fluffy,' if it tells us more about the flower?"  answered "An adjective!" with no prompting or help!  Yay!  It's soaking in! 

Candy Stars Quilt

I finished a new quilt yesterday! I feel like I don't get nearly as much done as I should since Archer's been here.  He isn't much of a sleeper!  But he's awfully sweet to make up for it! 

This quilt was made with scraps from another quilt (which isn't finished yet - I still have to quilt it).  I think it's just the right size for a baby.  It'll be on sale at the Square Fair next month.  The pattern is on sale now at Etsy, as a bonus with the pattern for the bigger quilt, Jewel Candy.  I don't think I'm very good at naming quilts!

E is for Enormous Ears!

E is for Enormous Ears.  Elizabeth picked elephant ears, and Miss M picked cat ears.  I drew the ears on poster board, they colored them with markers, and I cut them out.  Then I hot glued craft foam middles on, and hot glued them to plastic headbands I just had laying around.  The girls were so excited to show off their ears when the big kids got home from school!

Happy Birthday, Blake Bostick

D is for Dazzling Diamond



Elizabeth's Diamond

These are our dazzling diamonds!  I drew a diamond shape on poster board, outlined each section with with a black marker, and then painted one section at a time with Mod Podge (yes, we do use a lot of that at our house!).  After I'd painted the glue on one section, the girls chose one dazzling medium to fill that section with.  Besides what's shown, we also had a choice of silver star-shaped sequins, shiny green sequins, and other colors of glitter and glass pebbles.  Then I wrote Dazzling Diamond and made the Ds extra big so we could cover them with glitter to make them more memorable.  D is the first letter I'm sure Miss M remembered at the end of the day.  Another idea would be to fill the diamond with things that start with D!

Miss M's Diamond

C is for Calico Cat



C is for Calico Cat


C is for craft, too!  For this, I drew a cat shape on a piece of cardstock, then gave the girls (3 & 4) each a bowl of 1 1/2 inch squares of fabric from my scrap bag.  I painted Mod Podge on the BACK of the cat drawing (just a few inches at a time, or it dries too fast), and the girls arranged fabric squares all over the paper.  I painted over some of the squares again with the Mod Podge where they were overlapping or just not stuck down well.  Then we let them dry and I cut the cat shapes out.  For eyes, we used those flat bottomed, colored glass pebbles that you find in the silk flower section.  I don't know what those are really for, but they're pretty.  I drew the cat's eye pupil on the back, flat part with a Sharpie; from the front it looks pretty neat coming through the curve.  Then we glued on the eyes with craft glue, added a foam shape for a nose, and pipe cleaner whiskers.  We discussed how "calico" is an adjective, along with cat starts with C.