Monday Funday :: Paper Mache Tea Cups

 

We used:

• Elmer's glue
• paint brushes
• scissors
• toilet paper rolls
• scraps of paper

What you do:

• Mix together 1/2 elmers glue and 1/2 water make your paste. 
• Paint your paste onto the cardboard or dip your strips of paper into the paste. Mae does not like getting her hands messy, so we painted ours...but part of the fun could be getting messy.
• Continue to cover the cardboard, layering your strips until the whole thing is covered.
• Cut around the edges and let it dry 2-3 hours.

 

To make the tea cups:

• Cut a small part of it off, to make the handle. I cut it and doubled it where it is glued to the mug, creasing it to make a "D".
• Then make 4 slits to fold inward and glue them with a glue gun—this will make the bottom.

To make the tea pot:

• I placed a plastic bag over a glass, that was the size I wanted for the tea pot.
• I began to layer the paper mache over the glass, using at least 3 layers. 
• The handle is from a part of a tiolet paper roll, the same way as the cups. 
• The spout was made by just rolling up the paper after it was dipped it in the paste. 
• I glued everything, once it was dry.

 

Monday Funday :: Shrinky Dinks

 

First I've got to say—this is just too cool and if you've never made your own shrinky dinks, START! (:  All you need is #6 plastic. So from now on,  before you toss them, start checking packages for this:

You will need:

• #6 plastic
• scissors and/or Xacto
• permanent markers
• tin foil
• optional : hole punch

Instructions:

Color your plastic on one side with a permanent marker. Cut it out with scissors and punch your hole. Then cover your cookie sheet with aluminum foil and place your pretty plastic masterpiece work on it. Set your oven to 350 degrees and put them in for 2-3 minutes... keeping a close eye on them. They will curl up before the shrink. You will know they are done when they flatten back out.

Since the plastic is clear, you can easily trace anything...I used Mae's coloring book to trace her favorite character "Hoho." (Hoho is a monkey on Ni Hao Kai Lin - a Chinese cartoon.)  I knew Mae would have more fun coloring in everything, so I made her a bunch of characters and she colored them different colors.

I placed a quarter on the before and after pictures, so you can see the size difference of everything. I started small and we got teeny tiny results.  Some ended up a little too small...but most were just right. The colors intensify when they shrink too.

Also, we made a ring by taking it out of the oven right away, while it was still hot, and wrapping the plastic around a marker .

I wanted to make these into a charm bracelet for her so she could wear her artwork.  So before I baked it, I punched holes so I could insert jump rings.

If you know this little girl, you know she is ecstatic about our little project today. She's so fun—I love this sweet, spunky child so much!!

Monday Funday :: Kool-Aide Play dough

 

Kool-Aid Play Dough

1 Cup Flour ¼ Cup Salt 1 Packet Kool-Aid

⅔ Cups of Boiling Water *You will be using between ½ and ⅔ cup 1 Tb. Oil

• Mix the flour, the salt, and the Kool-Aid together. 
• Boil the water. 
• Add the oil to the water. 
• Pour some of the water into the dry ingredients and mix with a spoon. 
• Keep adding water and work the dough until the color is uniform and feels like playdough. 

this recipe is awesome and super easy. 

Monday Funday turned into a Tuesday this week since we've been out of town.

Today we made a little homemade Kool-aid play dough. How fun is this??  It is colored with kool-aid and so it smells yummy!  (one of the recipes suggested using 2 packets of kool-aid to get darker colors) Making the dough was so simple and Mae loved helping me. Then she played and played for hours.  As you can see we had a lot of imaginative play with it.  I absolutely love to see what Mae thinks of —her little worms lined up for supper. So funny! What is she going to say or do next??  We have a funny little girl for sure.  (:

Monday Funday :: Snow Dough

 

This is so easy and was hours of fun for Mae.  All you do is mix shaving cream and cornstarch and the result is a fine powdery dough that can be shaped and molded.  It's the fun of snow without the cold! It really didn't stick to our hands but there was quite a lot of snow on the floor around Mae's seat at the end.

You would never guess that little girl has never seen real snow as much as she talks about it.  She is constantly having make-believe snow ball fights, making snow angels on the rug and building snowmen out of nothing. (Did I mention she's very good at imaginative play... and a little obsessed with snow.) So this is the closest she's been to snow, poor thing.

Monday Funday:: Cork Boats

 

 Mae and I made little sail boats out of a few wine corks, some origami paper I had, a glue gun, tooth picks and a penny. These are so simple to make and were a fun activity for us today... since Mae's little pool was filled up. Mae loved to see her miniature boats floating around in her pool.  We tied a string to them so she could pull them around.  A couple times she tugged a little too hard and they turned over... eventually the sails were all wet and that made them unbalanced, so they didn't stay upright anymore.  We just pulled them out to dry for later.  I would like to replace the sails with something that could get wet though... any ideas? I was thinking of a colorful plastic package, maybe some sort of snack bag? I will keep a look out.

Monday Funday :: Paint with Bubbles

 This little project was tons of fun!! 

All you need is:

1. Water
2. bowls (round work best with your round bubble)
3. paint (tempera paint or acrylic paint worked well too)
4. dish soap (we used dawn)
5. paper (preferably water color paper)
6. straws

Mix: WATER + DISH SOAP + PAINT

Just blow into your bowls to create loads of bubbles (this is fun all by itself) and then gently place your paper on top of the bubbles.  Your paper may pop the bubbles or you may lift it off and then pop them.  The result of the popped bubbles is this awesome pattern on your paper.  If you try it and your bubbles are too faint, just keep adding more paint until you get the color you want.

We found that the bigger bubbles didn't work as well as the medium to small bubbles.  I guess the smaller bubbles hold more paint.

 

Mae loves bubbles (what kid doesn't, right?) so she especially loved this project.  

This would make a beautiful card don't you think? 

Please let me know if you try it with your kids!

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