Halloween Flashback: Felt Pumpkin Faces & Template

Are you getting into the Halloween spirit yet? We're still very much in baby mode here (Baby M is already a week old!!) but little by little we are trying to introduce elements of the highly anticipated spooky holiday over here. Just last night Jon and the boys put together a Mr. Pumpkin Head of sorts with real pumpkins while the girls tried to get some beauty sleep. These pumpkin heads reminded me of the fun felt pumpkin faces the boys and I made a couple of years ago. And we of course want to share them with you! To make things easier on you, this year I've included a template for you to download and use as a pattern for your felt pieces.
 
There are so many options for fun and silly faces with this pattern.

And don't be afraid to add a few of your own elements to the mix. There really are so many spooky and wacky possibilities!

And the best part...these guys will keep your little ones occupied mixing and matching, giggling and laughing, for a good long while. I'm thinking I might even need to make a little felt book of sorts to tote these little pumpkins around in. I really think it would come in handy on-the-go.

And now to start our week where we try to get back into the swing of things. I'm a little weary of all the driving around I have to do, but such is life with three...and we're having to jump right into it. Wish me luck!

Back-to-Preschool

My Little O started preschool today. I can't believe he's old enough. I feel like A just went to his first day of preschool yesterday! A starts first grade tomorrow and we are equal parts thrilled and a touch melancholy that he's growing so fast. I love back-to-school though. it has long been one of my favorite times of year. It's a confirmation that yes fall is indeed on it's way. And nothing compares to the smell of new pencils, notebooks and erasers. And the promise of possibility and learning on the horizon...Don't you just love it?!


And I can't deny that I'm very much looking forward to a few hours to myself before this little girl gets here. It's already so peaceful. It's seriously amazing how much you can get done when kids are away, even if for a few hours at a time.

Oh and big thanks for all of you who went out to the GAP Kids Journal making event. From what I saw it was a huge success! And what a better companion to slip into your book bag before heading off to school than your very own personalized journal? And if you didn't see the flickr page of all the geo art photos, you're in for a treat. Take a look at it here. And I'm on pins and needles excited about the last GAP Kids craft we have in store. Your kids will be making animal button/badges that are just to die for. I think they are my favorite. I can't wait!

(cute monkey back pack from Old Navy last year)

Free Printable Domino Activity for Kids

Little O is going to preschool this year (he has an October birthday so he'll be one of the older ones) and we have been trying to get him geared up and ready. He's known his shapes for some time but I wanted to push him a bit further in this area. And these simple printable dominoes are just the thing!

To print out your own dominoes, head on over to Handmade Charlotte for the templates and game play instructions. It's so quick and simple, you'll be able to print them out just in time for your weekend camping trip!
 
(I also love that these can double up as great black and white baby flash cards for when little sister arrives! Maybe we'll make a mobile or something out of them...).

Gearing up for crafting at the Grove's GAP Kids in LA!!

I can't believe we will begin our Shine On crafting weekends in just two days! I seriously can't wait!! If you live in the LA area please do stop in at the Grove and say hello! I'd love love love to meet you and see so many of your little artists!

Our first activity will be geometric art! You're little ones will be able to create and bring home a fun and bright, colorful, striking work of art. It's easy and the pay off is so great!

We will be doing geometric art from:

10AM - 1PM

And if you are not in the LA area, please drop on in on any of the following GAP Kids locations:

New York: 54th & 5th

San Francisco: Corte Maderta

Chicago: Sheffield

Boston: Burlington Mall

Miami: Georgetown

Philadelphia: Newton Center

Dallas: Dallas Galleria

Toronto: Eaton Center

If you do attend at any of these events I'd LOVE to hear how it went and to see pictures!!! I'd love to do a round up of all your little Picasso's on my blog after each event, so bring your cameras and share! You can also stay in the loop with GAP's Facebook Shine On Saturdays event page.


Hope to see you there!


xo
Mer

Kiwi Crate

Hi friends! Have you ever heard of Kiwi Crate? If you not you are in for a real kids crafting treat. Kiwi Crate contacted me and asked if they could send over a box of fun craft kit items for the boys. Well, being obsessed with this sort of thing, we of course said yes!

One of my favorite things that Kiwi Crate does is address the package out to the kids themselves. They boys absolutely loved this part and insisted that they open it all by themselves.
And what treasures they found inside once they did open it! Our box came complete with two fun bug crafts. Absolutely everything they needed to complete the craft was in the box. Real winner there.
Of the two crafts, the boys picked the fun lightening bugs craft first. They were outfiitted with two plastic bottles, multiple colorful transparent stickers, glow sticks and more! Instructions were simple and the boys loved creating their little bugs.
I think this concept behind Kiwi Crate is genius. I of course love recycling found objects around the house in my crafts but there is a time when something like this really would come in handy. Summer fun and after school crafts sent to your door step once a month that you don't have time to think about or implement on your own = awesome. Great activities to do with the grand kids, put together at parties, and more! Oh and they are filled with educational goodies that help your kids learn while creating and playing.

We love it! I already have my eye on a number of other crate options for the future. Thank you Kiwi Crate! We are big fans!

Paint Chip Animal Friends

I trust all US readers had an excellent 4th of July. Ours was hot, hot, hot! We spent most of the day in my parents pool (here in Colorado - where the fires are finally starting to calm down and be contained. Hopefully no new ones will pop up!). We had a great time though.

And if you are looking for a new, fun and super easy (not to mention practically free!) craft for your little ones to do (perhaps indoors while avoiding the hot summer heat), look no further than our fun little paint chip animal friends. Head over the Handmade Charlotte for the full DIY.
I know your little ones will love these new little animal amigos just as much as mine did! I think we'll be sharing this fun craft with all of our cousins later today. Perhaps that will give us moms some time to sit, sew and chat together.
 Enjoy!

Summer Fun Jars

I have to give full credit to my cousin Crystal for this summer fun idea. For the Mudpuppy giveaway she commented:

"So this summer me and the kids made a summer fun jar so I don't have to be as creative everyday. Each week they pick out an outing, a food to make, and an activity to do at home and we make sure we do all three that week. "

Crystal I LOVE, love, love your idea! So of course we had to implement it here in our home as well.

 This approach to summer fun works really well for us. I often get super busy with work while it seems like our friends are gallivanting off to swim parks, camping trips and more. I've been feeling really bad for my little guys and have worried that their summer just isn't turning out as fun and exploratory as I'd hoped it would be. So when Crystal mentioned this idea, I thought, "Hey! I can do that!" This simple approach satisfies my little ones need for structure and planned events (especially my oldest who has been ansty non-stop ever since school let out) and also allows me the freedom to chose when the events/projects work best in my schedule. I don't have as much pressure to do something extravagant every day and the littles love looking at our calendar, looking forward to what is coming up next!

To make our summer fun jars we used old pickle jars (we are pickle fanatics here), covered the lids with decorative paper and affixed a label for each summer fun item, reading "LET'S GO, LET'S MAKE, and LET'S EAT." 

If you'd like to do the same, I've made some jar labels for you to download here.
Each Monday evening, during family night, we have our kids draw out one slip of paper from each jar. The kids then love looking at and discussing what types of things we have in store for us that week. In our "LET'S GO" jar I've put in outings to local hot spots as well as things we can do closer to home such as "have a BBQ with friends." In our "LET'S MAKE" (which could also be called "LET'S DO") I've placed a number of prompts for us to get creative such as "make a summer scrapbook" or "learn a new skill".Our "LET'S EAT" jar has been a huge hit (notice the explosive amount of papers in the jar). I decided that I'd finally do something with all the delicious food pins I've been collecting on Pinterest. So I printed out several pages of pins, cut them up and then placed them in our "LET'S EAT" jar. This is so popular we actually ended up pulling out two food items, one sweet and one savory each week (I ended up making another savory jar, not shown here).

*(You could also use this Pinterest approach for your "LET'S MAKE" jar. Just print out all the DIY's you've been saving up and start doing them! If you need motivation to get started, take a look at a few of the pins from Mer Mag).
The kids love looking at what we have in store to make and eat. Somehow it's so much more exciting than just reading it. For example, take these delicious Mint Brownies from Brooke of Inchmark. I've been dying to make these ever since she posted about them! And now they have been drawn and placed on the calendar. We will be making them today!
So when we draw a food item from the jar, we then go to back to Pinterest to get the recipe. All the ingredients to make that item then goes on our shopping list for that week. The kids loving doing this and I love that they are learning a bit about shopping and cooking (and if I'm really ambitious I can give a little lesson about money on our shopping trip).
And it may be a bit late in the season (unless you are in Cali where school just let out for the summer) but we finally made our summer calendar. My mother would do this for us each summer and we loved visually looking forward to trips, events and fun summer activities. It really made summer SO much fun. To make ours I simply took a piece of black poster board and divided up the space into squares with decorative washi tape. I then used white oil pastel to write in all the dates and days of the week. From there we simply taped it to the wall with more washi tape.

And when the boys draw something out of our summer fun jars, we choose a day of the week and then have them tape up the paper right to the calendar. They love it!
 
And now we need to prepare for our big summer fun activity... our annual trip to Colorado for the 4th of July! We are so excited! To see some of the great summer reunion fun we've had in the past, take a lookly lou here, here, here and here. This summer we are going with a traditional 1776 white wig, Betsy Ross type of gala. No fireworks though, due to all the fires in Colorado :( but I know we'll come up with something just as fun. Apparently my mother is making little white wigs for all the kiddos and I just can't wait!

DIY Gradient Blocks over at Handmade Charlotte today

Hi friends! My next craft installment for Handmade Charlotte is up today! Head on over and see how you can make your own set of colorful gradient blocks. You'll love playing with them as much as yours kids do!

And don't forget to enter the giveaway to win two of my items for Mudpuppy. Like mer mag on facebook and you'll be entered twice!

Happy Weekend!

Crafting for Handmade Charlotte this Summer!

Hello friends! I'm thrilled to announce that I will crafting over at Handmade Charlotte this summer! Yippee! Rachel Faucett, of Handmade Charlotte, has one of the best eyes for modern and vintage children's toys, crafts, games, clothes, you name it. If you are not following her deliciously inspiring pins, I suggest you start doing so now!

Today I am sharing a fun spin on the traditional paper doll. Hop on over the Handmade Charlotte to get the full DIY. It's the perfect thing to keep little hands from getting bored now that they are out of school!

Painting Beds Peach: Or Teaching Your Kids to Love Work (and Design?) at an Early Age

Our family spent the weekend working, working, working! We've been rearranging our little home to better suit our current and future needs as a family and the boys were right there with us the entire time (OK, we did have to send them out to the back yard a couple of times and did put in a show for them from time to time when things got super hectic, but for the most part, they were right there in on the action with us).

We started the day with painting the boys beds, and let me tell you, the boys were really into it. I love the excitement and fervor little ones have when the are included in on "adult" work.
Wanting to take advantage of their excitement, I decided to put them to work. So we suited them up in paint gear (a.k.a old seasonal pj's) gave them some brushes and rollers and let them go at it. Well, we did have some guidelines for them, so things didn't get too out of control, such as:

1. Stay on the plastic.
2. Only dip your brush/roller into the paint after applying several coats to the beds.
3. When dipping into paint only get a little bit of paint, letting excess paint drip off before applying brush/roller to bed.
Etc.

Throughout this process I also learned that as a parent I needed to follow a few guidelines myself, such as:

1. Don't overreact when they make mistakes (which is pretty much a guarantee with Littles), such as when they get globs of paint in spots on the bed. Simply point out what is going on and help them to smooth it out.
2. If you need to go back over things, be careful to let them know that they did a great job, and that your painter job is the "follow upper", or something with an even sillier name.
3. Be patient.
4. Put on some fun motivating music to keep all of your spirits up (we tuned it to Pandora's Vampire Weekend station and rocked out).
5. Try to run with their enthusiasm and not to squelch it when they want to do something above and beyond what you had in mind for them. Realize that pushing your limits (as well as theirs) is just as much a part of this process.
6. But even still, remember that it's OK to have boundaries, like when they want to paint the underside of the bed. Say, "Oh I'm so happy you LOVE painting so much, but we don't really need to do that and we are done, so let's put the paint and brushes away now".
7. Teach them how to clean up (and the importance of it), even though you really just want to do it yourself as it will be much faster and a whole lot less of a mess.
8. Sigh in relief when it's all through, and then pat yourself on the back for aiding in creating self-actualized human beings and relish in the family work time spent together.

(notice how I had many more guidelines than they did throughout this process?! Remember, teaching kids to work, and to love it, is actually more work for you in the short term, but a huge pay off for both you and them in the long run).

I can recall a number of fond memories working with my family as child. One such memory involved my dad and my older sister and I deep cleaning our entire kitchen one Saturday morning so that we could then go to a water park later on that afternoon. I'm sure I initially wasn't into it but as we all chipped in together and cranked up the Beach Boys we all had a really really fun time. (I still think of this memory when hearing certain Beach Boys songs to this day! I think my sister also introduced me to Tori Amos that morning and I've loved her ever since.) I can remember feeling closer to my dad and sister in this moment than in our typical day to day interactions. Isn't it crazy how work can do this?! I also remember that the first water park we wanted to go to was closed down so our dad drove us all the way to Loveland, Co (another town just outside of where we lived) to catch the very last few moments of that water park before it closed. I can't say as I remember much of that water park experience, but I do remember the fun I had cleaning the kitchen with my dad and sister very well!

OK, so In addition to painting beds, we moved the boys into our larger room and put our things into a much smaller room (which I actually LOVE a whole lot more as it has a much more cozy, clean and simple vibe to it now). I got a quick snapshot of the boys new "in progress" room just as the light was beginning to fade (which explains the dark, graininess of the photo).
We love it so far (although I really want to change the boys quilts out for a simple grey and white patterned comforter, such as these from West Elm. Don't you just love peach and grey together?! Although Jon fears it will veer too feminine. What do you think?). Well I was sure to point out to the boys what a difference all of their hard work made, and they are definitely over the moon about their new beds. We have sort of a manta in our house that goes something like "sometimes things are hard, but we do them anyway". We are then sure to point out the pay offs, and stuff like, "it will get easier the more you do it", etc. I'm big on not letting my kids miss out on experiences in life just because they were too afraid or because it was "too hard" (or let's be honest, because it was too hard for me to deal with at the time). Jon jokes that I sort of lean towards a "China Mom" parenting philosophy in this respect. I'm definitely not all China Mom but I strongly agree with the last statement from this article: "the Chinese believe that the best way to protect their children is by preparing them for the future, letting them see what they're capable of, and arming them with skills, work habits and inner confidence that no one can ever take away."   And hey, if I ever get too intense I think my mom's influence of laid back California parenting kicks in and helps to balance things out a bit - or at least I tell myself this to feel a bit better when I lean too far to one side or the other...

So what about you? Any tips you've come up with to help your kids learn to work and to love it? Do you increase the "at home work load" once school is out or do you just let them lazily dream in fields of green grass? Or both? How do you find the balance? I'd really LOVE to hear what your thoughts are on this!

xo
Mer

Counting with painter's tape

I love how random every day household items, such as painter's tape, can become the perfect teaching/learning/artistic tool for kids. After I put up A's "Happy 6th" sign with painter's tape, he was hooked. He started spelling out his own words and taping up numbers right and left.

A has of course been able to count for some time (he's in the 100's now) but he got so much fulfillment out of creating these numbers and words in tape form. And I love how in turn this helps Little O learn about counting and the joy of learning. (Oh and A told me he purposefully forgot the "5". I think that's code for "I turned the 5 into a 6 on accident and I don't want to take it all down and do it again just so that I can fit in the 5 that I forgot" :) ).
 I now want to purchase a set of colorful masking tape and let them have at the walls. Brings a much more temporary approach to "coloring on the walls".

And what's better than a little freestyle monster drawing after some constructive math time? According to the boys, not much I tell you. Not much.