Cardboard Gingerbread House and Gingerbread Men

Another super simple Christmas craft here!

We made gingerbread people and a gingerbread house using cardboard cutouts and puffy paint.

I cut some shapes from a packaging box we had handy.

And Anna used lots of puffy paint to dress up her people.

I finished off our little house since she was running out of steam (and puffy paint).

They took about a day to dry...obviously!  But we had fun making them!!

Christmas Tree Name Craft

This little Christmas craft is similar to the rocket ship craft we did a while back.  It's pretty simple, but great for preschoolers who are learning to spell their name or love to write their name.

I started by cutting out triangles of similar size on green construction paper.

Then I had Anna write one letter of her name on each of the little triangles.

I handed her some glue and she got to work putting her name together and building her tree.

I  made one for my little guy too and he got to smear glue all over the place so he was happy.

We topped our trees with a little star and put them up in our window!

Christmas is getting closer!!  So excited!

Button Christmas Trees

We're totally in the holiday spirit at our house!  Our tree is up and decorated, our lights are up outside and even our little dollhouse is all Christmas-y!  No wrapped presents under the tree, though.  I don't trust Drew!  He will have those open in no time flat!

Anyway....Anna and I made these cute little button trees today using green felt trees and some buttons I had around the house.

Right now they are just sitting on the table.  I'm thinking of stuffing and sewing them up to make little ornaments!  You can never have too many homemade ornaments!!

Happy crafting everyone!!

Turkey Handprint Picture

Our "Sunday Funday" consisted of lots of arts and crafts!  This was one of the super cute things we made!  They are proudly being hung in our house (and even sometimes worn as necklaces!!).  Thanks again to Pinterest for the awesome idea!!  

The kids started by painting their picture boards (just cut down cardboard) all different Fall colors.  

Drew loves to paint!!

While we waited for the cardboard to dry (it doesn't take long if you do a thin coat), we made our hand print turkeys.  Lots of laughing from the tickling of the paint brush!!

And while everything was drying, Anna helped me finish up the little "Happy Thanksgiving" cards and  lace the pasta on our strings.

When all the paint was dry, I attached the pasta laced string to the cardboard and glued down our turkey hand print, added nose, eyes and legs and little label.  I love them so much!

Thanksgiving Turkey Magnet

This is such a simple little craft but my 3 1/2 year old really enjoying making it so I thought I would share!  

This little guy is hanging proudly on our refrigerator right now and keeps getting moved around by some little tiny hands!!  

Supplies needed:

Wooden discs of two sizes (or circles cut from cardboard)

Brown paint

Feathers of various colors

Googly eyes

Red and orange construction paper

Tape or glue

Start by painting your wooden discs or cut circles brown.

After your paint has dried, add the feathers to the back of the larger disc.  We are all out of liquid glue...akkkk..so we used washi tape.  It worked great!

Then add your smaller circle, googly eyes, triangle nose and waddle.

I attached a little adhesive magnet to the back of our turkey so he could hang on the side of our fridge.

Happy crafting everyone!!

Preschool Painting Fun

I'm sure it's no surprise that Anna loves to paint and do crafts.  She would do them all day long....picture after picture, craft after craft.  Sometimes, though, I don't run out of ideas (like after the 10th activity of the morning) or either I just don't feel like getting all the stuff needed together.

Thankfully, I found Learn.Create.Love.  It's an amazing site with awesome painting printables.  Anna actually asks to browse the site by name to see what she feels like painting.  Below are just a few of our recent creations.  You just have to check out the site!  It's a go-to when I need something quick, easy and relatively mess free for my preschooler!!

Marbled Leaves

More shaving cream fun here!!

This week we decided to make leaves.  Shaving cream is always fun!  Anna squealed when I got out the cans!  

Click here for more directions and see how we do shaving cream art!!

Rocket Ship Name Craft

Anna loves spelling and writing her name right now and Drew loooooves rocket ships, so when I saw this cute little name craft on Pinterest, I thought it would be lots of fun for my two.

I started by cutting up some squares of construction paper and two triangles for the top of a rocket ship.

Then Anna wrote her name on the little squares.  I wrote out Drew's name.

Next we put our names in the correct order and made our rocket ships.  For Drew, I tried to work on color recognition.

We finished them off with some "fire" and stars!

Halloween Cookie Cutter Paintings

The kids and I did some Halloween cookie cutter paintings one rainy afternoon.  It's an easy way to pass some of that lazy day time!!  

Potato Pumpkin Stamps

That's right....more pumpkins!  We're kinda obsessed over here!

This is another fun little pumpkin craft and all you need is a potato, paint and paper!

Start by slicing the potato in half and then carving a face on the potato halves.

Then invite your child over to paint the pumpkin face with your orange paint.

Then stamp away!  

You really had to have just a little bit of paint and push pretty hard to get a good pumpkin face, but it was fun anyway.  Painting with food is always fun, right???

Happy crafting!

Simple Pumpkin Craft

Well, it's officially October and pumpkins are popping up everywhere!  

This is a fun little pumpkin activity we've done a number of times already this year.  My wall in my kitchen is covered with cute little pumpkins.  This is a great activity for small kids and big kids alike!

Supplies needed:

paper

orange paint & paint brush

black construction paper

glue

Put a little bit of paint in a cup and then invite your child over to paint a "pumpkin" on a piece of paper. 

For my son (22 months...yikes), I painted a circle for him and then let him paint inside the pumpkin.

Then cut out your faces for your pumpkins.  (I just cut a variety of shapes for eyes, noses, months and stems.)

Then let your kids decorate their pumpkins anyway they like.

(This month soon became a pumpkin crown).