School project = Art history lesson

Last week H exhibited a project during Open House at school.  It was an opportunity for the kids to to develop a project that reflects their special interests and abilities. Keeping in mind that she is only in Kindergarten, I chose something simple and enjoyable but incorporate a lesson as well. This gave me a chance to teach her about the artist Georges Seurat and Pointilism (a technique of painting in which small dots of color are applied to form an image).

WHAT YOU NEED
Paint
Canvas board or heavy weight paper
Q-tips or small paint brush

I chose one of my favorite photos of H&N from our beach trip last year.
I drew an outline sketch on the canvas so H had something to follow.
I explained to her how to create colors by painting on top of an existing color. She was fascinated by this technique and happily painted away.

This was pretty tedious process so she actually took a break and finished it up a little later.

Here is her masterpiece! I'm proud of my lil' Seurat. It was great seeing what other kids did in her class and all the other grades as well.

Do you have a favorite artist?
Have a wonderful weekend!

Eva

Happy Mother's Day!

Wishing our (mommy) readers & your mother(s) a special Mother's Day! Whether its breakfast in bed or just a day to do absolutely nothing but relax, may you feel loved and appreciated today!

A great big THANK YOU to our mothers for their love and support.
Happy Mother's Day Mom! We are so blessed to have you as our mom.

Love,
Eva & Zi

Summer 2014 Bucket List

Now that the weather is getting warmer, we are starting to compile our family's summer bucket list (see here for last year's list).

Since we just did a big trip at the end of last year/beginning of this year, we will not be doing any big trips this summer. Instead my husband and I decided that we would focus on experiences that the kids haven't had yet.

So here is our list of fun experiences we plan to have this summer:

1) Plant a veggie garden. This was on last year's list but I only really tried to plant 1 veggie and it wasn't a huge success so we are trying this again this year. And I am glad to report that we are already off to a good start. Here are some pictures of the kids and I starting our garden:

* Everyone got a chance to participate!

2) Go bowling. There is a place close to us that has $0.50 games from Sundays through Thursday from 10am to 1pm, so we want to take advantage. And also because the kids have never been bowling before. See here for the website in case you live close by.

3) Fruit picking. This is starting to become a summer tradition for our family and we hope to continue it this year.

4) Go to the movie theaters to enjoy summer movie deals. We had done this once with the 3 older kids 2 summer's ago, hope to do it again including E4 this time! Check them out here. There could be a movie theater near you that is participating and this year the list of movies are pretty good.

5) Go visit a factory (probably Herr's or Hershey).

6) Go to a free concert at a nearby park. Kids have never really experienced a real concert so this would be a good start without spending any money.

7) Go to Central Park in NYC. We go to visit John's parents in NYC but never really enjoyed Central Park with the kids before, so we want to do that this year.

8) Go to a Drive-In Movie. This would be a first not only for the kids but for us parents as well.

9) Go to see the Liberty Bell. Considering the fact that we live only 30 minutes from Philly, we think the kids should really see it at least once.

10) Go to the beach. Would love to do this at least 1 time this year.

11) Go to Cape May Zoo. This is a free zoo that we went to last year and we all really enjoyed it, would love to do it again. See the post here.

12) Go to a traditional ice-cream shop. What I have in mind is some place that is not a chain.

Does your family have a summer bucket list? Would love to hear what is on your list!

Zi

Spring projects: DIY door decor

Now that it's finally warmer I've been able to clean up the yard and pull out the dead plants. Last weekend we planted some flowers out front. Amazing how color can lift one's mood. I've been searching for a nice spring/summer wreath for our front door but had no luck finding one that didn't look so "fake". And the ones I've seen cost at least $40+, if I'm about to spend that much it's got to look it. One day while browsing the web I found an interesting idea using a large umbrella and flowers. LIGHTBULB! I had this umbrella that my sister had given to me years ago from her college fashion show. I've always wanted to do something with it and this was perfect!

Here's my version...

Add tulips, berry sprigs and tie a ribbon to finish it off. A fast and simple project!
The best thing about this was I used things I already had. This jump started my motivation to begin some spring projects like painting the kids' bathroom, living room, and organizing our garage. Let's see how fast I can get those done... Have a great weekend!

Do you have any spring projects planned?
Eva

N's Skylander party

Hope you all had a nice spring break and Easter! I'm finally getting around to sharing N's party with you. My 4 year old is crazy about Skylanders ever since the end of last year. (Remember how this was on our Favorite Things list.) So it was very fitting for him to want a Skylander party. Many people may not know too much about it or even knew these existed. Partly I think it's because its based off a video game. There are so many characters and parts to this that I would need to write a second post, anyways on to the party details.

DECORATIONS
We chose a blue and green color scheme. I cut out letters and the 8 elements (color circle with logo: air, life, undead, earth, fire, water, magic & tech) to make the birthday banner. Thank God for an x-acto knife. I found plates, balloons and these Skylander portal Easter eggs. I added some gold chocolate coins for the table. Made water bottle wrappers with a "water" element Skylander.

CAKE
This was a little more challenging to figure out. I bought some Megablok sets with Skylanders characters to use on the cake. I ended making a portal with a 6" cake pan and surrounded it with chocolate wafer rolls. Covered the top with silver sugar crystals. Piped the landscape and added the sheep and chompy figures. I made sheep cupcakes and placed them on green paper plates. I trimmed the edges to make it look more like grass.

FAVORS
I found these perfect Skylander bags and attached personalize tags. Filled it with snacks, skylander themed marker, stickers and puzzle.

GAMES
How many gold coins can Wrecking Ball collect?
Place a pile of gold coins and jewels on table.  Each person got three chances to collect as many coins with a sticky hand/grabber. If they caught a jewel they got an extra turn!

Help Trigger Happy defeat Kaos.
I attached an image of Kaos on plastic cups and found a ball gun at the dollar store. I loved how the kids went closer and closer with each shot to get better aim.

I had one excited boy that day. He gave me two thumbs up!

This is what it's all about,  a HAPPY birthday... check!
Don't you agree?
Eva 

Easter egg experiments

Easter weekend is here and a mini Spring break for H will begin today. (Thanks to all those snow days we had.) As I was shopping for the kids' Easter basket goodies I came across this cool product. Not sure if you've seen these....Plastic Decorating Eggs.

It's ready to use and 100% recyclable. This way I won't feel bad "wasting" the real eggs, plus they look pretty real to me. Which is the REAL egg?

 

This year we'll be doing some experimenting... Kool-Aid (like Zi did last year with her kids here) vs. color tablets and hard boiled eggs vs. plastic eggs.

Check out our results.
As you can see the difference in the color saturation with the same dye.
(Plastic eggs on top and real eggs on bottom)

Here are the results that I thought was best for...
SATURATED COLORS: Color tablets with vinegar
PASTELS: Color tablets in water or plastic eggs
BRIGHT COLORS: Kool-Aid Cherry & Orange (egg 1 & 2, bottom left)
SMELL/SCENT: Kool-Aid or color tablets with lemon juice
REAL EGG: You can get more saturated colored eggs.
PLASTIC EGG: Great for kids to use since they can dye eggs to their hearts content, no food wasted and no cracked eggs. Plus you can save these for decorating next year or just recycle them.

We'll be decorating some with stickers and markers to add more fun, but also to keep the kids busy hehe.

How do you dye or decorate Easter eggs? Do you have an Easter Tradition?
Have a Happy & Blessed Easter!
Eva

DIY Frozen craft

This little craft was a hit during H's birthday party.  I did some prep work like painting the eyes, gluing on the screwhole button for Anna's bun and precutting the ribbons, tape, fabrics etc.
Hope you enjoy this Frozen craft!

WHAT YOU NEED:

Paint
Paint brushes

Doll pins/wooden pegs
screwhole button
Craft sticks
Craft glue

Ribbon

Embroidery floss
White rainbow loom bands

Glitter tape

Fabric & tulle
Sven printout (optional)

ELSA

We painted her hair in White pearl metallic paint and dress in Ocean Breeze gloss acrylic paint.

I braided embroidery floss to make Elsa's hair. I used a white rainbow loom band to attach Elsa's braid. 

Cut tulle into a 5" circle for skirt. (remember to cut a small slit in the center)

Once the paint dries put on tulle skirt and wrap with the aqua glitter tape to create the bodice for dress. You may need some craft glue to help the tape stay on.

ANNA (Coronation outfit)

Glue screwhole button to create Anna's bun. We used green satin fabric for the dress. Cut the fabric into a 5" circle. I used pinking shears to prevent the fabric from fraying. Cut a small circle in center.

We painted her hair in Burnt Sienna gloss acrylic paint and lower half of peg in Apple Tart paint. 

Once the paint dries put on satin skirt and wrap with the black glitter tape to create the bodice for dress. Again you may need some craft glue to help the tape stay on. Tie the green ribbon on Anna's bun.

KRISTOFF

We used bright yellow gloss acrylic for his hair paint. Dark grey for his jacket and boots. And black for his pants. Once the paint dries tie a maroon ribbon as his sash.
I printed out an image of sven and attached it onto 2 craft sticks so Kristoff could ride on Sven.

Since we have some extra pegs we should work on some more characters... maybe on a rainy day. We've been enjoying some outdoor play now that's it's finally to begin to feel more like spring!

Have a great weekend!

Who's your favorite character? Are you enjoying nice weather in your area?

Eva