Kids' Crafternoon: Robot Stuffie

I had an opportunity to review these 2 great books, on Ohdeedoh today. Kids' Crafternoon: Felting and Beading edited by Kathreen Ricketson of whipup. Above is the fruit of Spud and my labours this weekend. I'll post another project here tomorrow.

Wee Science: Investigating Acids and Alkalis

For the past couple of weeks Spud's class has been involved in presenting science experiments. Each student has been given a unique experiment on which to practice: Spud's topic was on acids and alkalis.

We had a ton of fun preparing for the experiment leading up to the big day. First Hubs and Spud made an "indicator" out of chopped red cabbage. They boiled the cabbage in water and then ran it through a strainer. The colour turns out simply stunning and makes up for its rather smelly nature. Next, they froze the indicator in an ice cube tray.

So what makes this an "indicator"? Well, it changes colour when added to other liquids. The colour it changes to depends on the acidity of the liquid you put it in. So the next step is to prepare 3 liquids: one with lemon juice and water (acid), one with just water (neutral) and one with baking soda and water (alkali).

And look at the pretty colours! You know it's a neutral when you add the indicator cubes and the liquid remains purple. It turns pink when you add it to an acid. And it turns blue when you add it to an alkali.

I sat in on the presentation and saw a couple of the others too. As you can imagine, it was all seriously cute. At the end of each presentation Spud's teacher asks the class to offer up "2 stars and wish". In the creative world, this is called a "feedback sandwich" (shout out to Sparks!). It essentially means you find two good things to say about the presentation and one bit of constructive criticism. So can you guess what the one wish was? Consistently for each presenter? "I wish that your experiment had blown up". How awesome is that? Gotta love the 7 year old set.

Leading up to presenting day, Spud didn't seem nervous at all (which made me wonder if there was a baby switch at the hospital or something). But the day before his presentation, he started to complain of nervousness. I felt so bad for him. I can truly empathize. But I desperately didn't want to put my issues on him. The only thing I could think to do was give him some strategies for coping. Number 1 was "practice". "The better you know your stuff the easier it will be", I told him. Number 2: "get a big hug from a loved one". I told him that hugs actually physically squeeze out nervousness. Before dinner we had some time for cuddling on the couch, including some nervousness-squeezing. A couple of minutes later I saw he was writing a note, but I didn't think too much about it, until after dinner when I saw the note placed on his experiment gear waiting at the front door for tomorrow morning.

It said "Don't forget you had a hug".

"The Robot Dress"

Just got the sweetest note from the incredibly talented Naomi, of Teacup Dinosaur, who made this simply adorable dress for her simply adorable daughter using some of my Robot Gear Garden designs. I love the detail she's put into it. I love how not-girlie the fabric is and how girlie the dress is. I am SO gushing right now.

To learn more, pay Naomi a visit.

(Images: Teacup Dinosaur)

Top 10 in Tea Towel Contest

What does this mean? Spoonflower makes the top 10 winning designs available for sale! To see all 10 click here. I love the winning one a lot! But I'm also excited to get mine in the mail.

Floating City Art Project

Spud was home last week from school and we kept busy with all sorts of projects. Here's one we found on Art Projects for Kids. It was a quick and easy mixed media project that grabbed his attention. "I'll only do it if I can make it into a floating city!" "Go to town!" I say.

I love his stormy background. Here's mine ... not nearly as interesting ...

MATERIALS
· Watercolour paper
· Watercolour pencils, brushes, jar of water, rags, glue and scissors
· Patterned paper, cut in circles, for the balloons
· White pastel,  to use as a resist, for the clouds
· Sharpie (we blow dried the pieces dry before adding Sharpie marker)

Makes Me Happy: Giant Trees

We took some time to appreciate the towering trees at Cathedral Grove on Vancouver Island this past weekend. This one, the tallest of the bunch, would tower over the leaning tower of Pisa.

Granny Square Blanket Done!

I have to say I'm digging how the colour scheme turned out! And I've found it a good home ... baby Lukas who recently reached his 1 year milestone. With winter coming up he can layer with this blanket in his stroller or car seat. It's far from perfect but it WAS made with love. Hope he likes it!

Thanks to Spud for modeling it for me in between playtime stints at Madrona Beach this weekend.

3 Dozen Date Night Questions

I've done it. I've put together a list of 3 dozen date night questions inspired by a post I did on ohdeedoh. I included a bunch of links with thought starters for making one's own list. Which I've now done. And I know I'm being a geek about it but I'm looking forward to taking it on a test run.

Why you may wonder? We LOVE talking about our obsession, our son. And do and we will. And we talk about current events when either of us have been listening to our favourite CBC radio shows of late. But there's something that really appeals to me about taking some time to take stock — about our past, about what's happening right now in our lives, and about where we want to go. And have some fun with it. I hope this inspires someone who is similarly inclined ...

THE PAST

1. What is the grossest thing you’ve ever had to do? The craziest?
2. If you could bring a fictional character to life in order to save the world right now, who would it be?
3. If you could keep only one memory of your past what would it be?  
4. What historical event would you like to have been a part of?
5. How has the world changed the most since you were a kid? What do you wish hadn’t changed?
6. What is one of the most romantic times we’ve had together?
7. Complete the sentence: “I’m sure my mom and dad wished I would have…”
8. What is your favourite memory of the two of us together before babies? Second favourite?
9. What is the most disgusting food you’ve ever tasted?
10. Who are the friends that you wish you still had?
11. What do you think is my most embarrassing moment, since we’ve known each other?
12. Who do you want to forgive?

THE PRESENT

1. What would each letter in your first name stand for if you made an acrostic out of it?
2. In what ways do you like to be shown appreciation?
3. How would you describe an ideal day? Ideal weekend?   
4. What is your greatest fear? What other fears do you have?
5. Lately, what has preoccupied your thoughts?
6. What kinds of gifts do you like?
7. What is the best compliment I could give you?
8. If you were a geometric shape, what would it be?
9. What’s your favourite kind of meal? What’s your top 5? Top 5 desserts?
10. What’s your favourite restaurant? What are your top 5?
11. What things stress us the most? How can we change that?
12. What one thing on your bucket list could you do this week if you put your mind to it

THE FUTURE

1. Who do you think will go senile first, you or me?
2. What does romance mean to you?
3. If we had two days alone together, how would be your ideal way of spending them?
4. Would you ever consider wearing matching outfits?
5. What could I do to best help you in the next 30 days?
6. What would you do right now if you found out you had one day left to live? What about 6 months?
7. In what way would you like to grow in the next year?
8. In what way would you like to see me grow in the next 6 months?
9. What kind of old person do you want to be?
10. If you could change one room in our home what would you do with it?
11. What’s the first thing you would do if you won $10,000? What about $100,000?
12. What do you look forward to the most?

Spoonflower 2012 Calendar Tea Towel Contest

Here it is. My latest project I was talking about here. And it's entered in a Spoonflower contest this week. You should see all the amazing tea towel designs! If you want to vote (that would be awesome!) hop over here.

UPDATE: Contest is closed. This design came in the top 10!

Floss Wrapped Twigs

Having fun crafting with sticks and stones and hey, why not? And I'm sharing a little trick I learned below ...

So, where did all the ends go? Want to know the trick? 

Maybe this is obvious to everyone but I was surprised and tickled when Hubs taught me this clever end-hiding method. Here's the step-by-step.

Painted Stones

A few painted stones we keep in the bathroom. Acrylic paints give them a nice matte finish I think. I like the idea of painting the underside too.

A little Sharpie did wonders as well. Here are some in the pre-Sharpie phase ...

Spooky Lunch

Ghosts and mummies are on the menu today!

I'm pretty smitten with this mummy juice box wrapped in white party streamers. I got the idea here. He is looking a little shifty, isn't he?

These mummies are wieners wrapped in store-bought biscuit dough. They were a hit last year and they are so easy to make ... just 12 minutes in the oven.

· Grape tomatoes and some grapes

· Cucumber

· Mozzarella ghost

· Mummy juice box

· Mummy dogs

Happy Halloween Eve

We are getting pretty excited about tomorrow's festivities. We finally got to pumpkin carving today. This year's Jack o' Lantern is designed by Spud and brought to fruition by Hubs + Dremel tool. Kinda looks like those crazy pigs in Angry Birds, no?

One more sleep. Until we eat so much candy ... we can't sleep.

Envelope Templates for Writing Bin

Here's Spud's new Mailbox bin, similar to his Poetry Box but more about writing letters to family and friends. Once again I've been inspired by Playful Learning! 

Scroll down to see what's inside and to download the templates I made to make these envelopes, liners and note cards.

Here I am cutting and folding. For the envelope liners I used some decorative paper we had on hand but also some cool textures I found in an old magazine.

Letter writing is not Spud's favourite thing in the world to do, yet, but by filling the bin with little note cards for secret messages as well as stencils and stickers, well, sometimes he just can't resist.

The writing bin inside:

CONTENTS

· alphabet reference sheet

· stencils

· two sets of dollar store stationery packages
 (blue clouds and orange city themes)

· pens, pencils, scissors, glue, cute erasers that he will never use but loves anyway

· stamps and return address labels

Adding a set of pencil crayons to draw with and a few postcards is on my list of things to add.

For your downloadable envelope set template, click here.

This has been too much fun, I hope to make more templates for his writing bin in the future! In the meantime, hope you enjoy this. Please leave a note, I would love to hear from you.

Autumnal Bento

Today's lunch is brought to you by Fall colours and autumn leaves.

TOP:  wholewheat turkey roll ups and grapes
BOTTOM: leaf shaped, tri-coloured bell peppers and jelly beans!

Write-A-Spooky-Poem

Getting in the mood for halloween over here! So I took our recent Write-A-Poem printable and customized it with some terribly spooky words. Now it's Write-A-Spooky-Poem printable which you can find here.

Spud was more into drawing than "wording" on this day so we changed things up a bit — I quietly took notes on what he was saying while he was drawing and wrote them down, poem-like. 

HAPPY HALLOWEEN
Crooked house. Stinky and smelly. Green slime goo.
Angry skulls. A yard full of scary rib bones.
Floating witch's hat and a giant pumpkin with wings says "Boo".
Smokey cobwebs everywhere.
Happy Halloween.

DIY Stop Motion Movie

I just rediscovered this gem ... Spud went on a play date a few months back and came home with this sweet animation that he and his friend directed. He sure has fun friends (not to mention their parents!) It's called A Magic Way of Architecture. No need for popcorn, it's not that long.

A Magic Way of Architecture from mpau on Vimeo.


Completely inspired to do one, one of these days.

Playful Learning: Poetry Puzzle

This was a fun activity, found in Playful Learning, to add to our newly created Poetry Bin. Fun, and in my case, totally nostalgic.

Spud and I started reading through a Canadian classic kids poetry book from my childhood, by Dennis Lee, called Alligator Pie (circa 1970s). The title poem is one I remember repeating over and over as child.

Spud responded to a couple of them right away. I printed them out on letter sized paper and cut the sentences into strips then jumbled them all up. The first poem: Ookpik. I think I even used to own an Ookpik ... made out of seal skin or something. Anyway, I found an image of it that I knew Spud could not resist.

The moment he saw this activity, his eyes lit up and he proceeded to take the jumbled pile of sentences to an orderly comprehensive poem, using the book as a reference.

I simply observed. Once completed, he read it over and over, maybe 6 times, with such intent and concentration. It was fascinating to see how engaged he was. This morning he woke up and recited the poem from memory. Oh to have the memory of a child! Next step? Cut the sentences into words.

OTHER POSTS OF INTEREST:
Write a Poem Printable
Playful Learning: Poetry Box

Sweet Robot Gear Garden Dress

Having someone make something so super cute out of your own fabric design might just be one of the coolest things ever. Check out this darling dress! Pop over to Oh!Sew's flickr site and tell her you love her work.

(Image Usage: permission granted from Oh!Sew)

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving!

Here are our party favours for our guests for tonight's feast. How many legs did that turkey have, you ask! Ha. I first saw idea last year when I posted about it on ohdeedoh.

Ours are not nearly as cute but as you can imagine Spud was all over it anyway. I mean look what's inside!

Well, those drumsticks are for after dinner. Before dinner we will give thanks like this ...

May We Appreciate and Remember 

Today may we appreciate this food and remember those who are hungry.

May we appreciate our family and friends and remember those who are alone.

May we appreciate our health and remember those who are sick.

May we appreciate the freedoms we have and remember those who suffer injustice and tyranny.

Peace on earth.

I found this somewhere on the blogosphere years ago; it pretty much sums up how I feel about things.

Makes Me Happy: Like Father, Like Son

I'm the one that goes around the log.