Angry Birds Easter Egg Game

 I was running errands this morning and in the store I came across a section of clearance Easter craft items.  For only $5, I was able to create the Angry Birds Easter Egg Game!  I am positive that my daughter will love this game as she LOVES Angry Birds and it will be the only time I willingly allow eggs to be tossed around our home.

 

 

SUPPLIES 

• Plastic Filler Eggs
• Angry Birds Eggcessory Stickers
• Small Pebbles (or something to weigh down the “birds”)
• Building Blocks or Lego
• Tape

INSTRUCTIONS 

1. Decorate the plastic filler eggs with the Angry Bird stickers to make yourself a batch of pigs and birds.
2. Fill you “birds” with something to weigh them down such as pebbles, or marbles and tape the seal shut.  You don’t want them to be rock solid, but heavy enough to take down the blocks.
3. Build a tower and place your pigs strategically.
4. Toss your Angry Birds and have fun!

 

*I purchased the filler eggs and stickers from Shopper’s Drugmart!

 

Seashell Craft

Now that Rainbow has arrived, I’ve been trying to keep the Princess amused as I cannot move as fast as I once did.  We had craft time over the weekend and I had some seashell’s laying around and I thought, why not make these into a craft.

 

 

SUPPLIES

• Assorted Seashells
• Paint
• Glue
• Assorted decorations such as buttons, sparkles and ribbon

DIRECTIONS

• Wash the shells and let dry
• Paint the desired colour and again, let dry
• Decorate!

March is National Craft Month

March is National Craft Month and here are just a few of the crafts that I have done and posted.

• Princess and The Beanstalk
• Bathroom Collage
• Back-To-School Wreath
• Refurbished Dressers
• Yarn Letters
• Christmas Tree Door Ornament
• Candle Holders
• Recycled Crayons

This is the Art Project I did for the Bathroom – Collage of Princess’ Baby Bath Photos

Recycled Heart Crayons

Pinterest has me hooked.  Just in time for Valentine’s Day, I have made some recycled heart-shaped crayons.  The Princess had a huge freezer bag of old crayons plus an entire box.  Upon doing a purge of old toys, I finally decided that it was time to get her craft box cleaned up.  I had seen a post on Pinterest about recycling crayons but had heard horror stories of over baking them and turning out badly.  Here is a method that I used to create perfect recycled crayons.

 

 

 

SUPPLIES

• Silicone cupcake pan
• Assorted crayons, peeled and broken into small pieces
• Aluminum cans
• Saucepan
• Water

DIRECTIONS

1. Collect all your old crayons and peel them and sort them by colour.  Note that the peeling took me over an hour, so patience is needed.  Please be aware that soy based crayons don’t melt well, so it’s best to use wax based crayons.  I used old crayola crayons.  Break the crayons into smaller pieces.
2. Take pop cans, wash them out and remove the tab.  Using a can opener, carefully cut the top off.  I tried using old beer cans, but they wouldn’t cut, so pop cans are the best.  Tin soup cans also work well.  Be careful of sharp edges.
3. On medium heat, heat a few inches of water in a saucepan and place pop cans with the bottom filled with crayon pieces.  You don’t need a lot of water, because if you have too much, the cans will float and may tip over, spilling the wax into the pan.  Just enough to heat the bottom of the cans.
4. Watch the cans and swirl them to ensure that all pieces are melted.
5. Using oven mitts, pour the melted wax into the silicone pan.
6. Once the pan is full, let set for 10 minutes.  Then if you put the pan in the freezer for 10 minutes, by the time you take them out, they will be completely hard and easy to remove.  I found if I didn’t let them set for those 10 minutes prior, the outsides were set but the insides were still hot and broke and crumbled upon removing them from the silicone pan.
7. Repeat until all wax is used up.
8. Enjoy!

*Side note, the silicone pan cannot be used for food after using them for these crayons.  I paid $10 for this pan from Bulk Barn*

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Christmas Candle Holders

I always save the candle holders that come with the candles already in them.  I stick them in the freezer and then chip the remaining wax out of them.  Hubby thinks I was crazy keeping them, but I finally found something to do with them.  I went to my favourite craft store, loaded up on the Christmas goodies and came home and crafted my heart out.  Using ribbon, hot glue, cut outs and buttons, I created an array of holiday candle holders.

Christmas Tree Door Ornament

With the holidays right around the corner, I took some time and crafted a door ornament.  I went to Michael’s with no craft idea in mind but it didn’t take long to see a few items that stood out and the ideas started flowing.

SUPPLIES

• Mod podge
• Brush
• Stock card paper
• Ribbon
• Sequins
• Coloured Bells
• Poinsettia Buttons
• Hot Glue Gun
• White Glue
• Pencil & scissors
• Wooden Christmas Ornament (I used a tree)

DIRECTIONS

1. Place card stock print side down and place the wooden Christmas ornament on top and trace.  Cut out the shape.
2. Using the brush, mod podge the card stock, print side up, onto the ornament.  Let dry.
3. While the mod podge is drying, start making the ribbon star.  Loop the ribbon and hot glue the centre.  Then creat more loops until you have a star, glueing the centre as you go around.  Glue a coloured bell to the centre as decoration.
4. Once the mod podge is dry, glue the ribbon star to the top.  Now using the white glue, create the sequins garland.
5. I found very cute Poinsettia buttons and simply cut off the back and glued them to the tree, acting as decorations.
6. Glue the coloured buttons to the bottom to act as the tree trunk.
7. Feel free to use different card stock, colours and ornaments, make this your own!  Enjoy.

Christmas Tree Door Ornament

Yarn Letters

I have been in the process of redecorating the Princess’ bedroom from the boring and simple baby room to a room for a school girl.  I had Hubby paint the room a nice shade of green, hang up her turtles and lizards that her Grandma and Grandpa had bought her on their many trips and even refurbished her dressers.  There is still a little bit left to do, but mainly fine little details here and there.

In her old room, the colour scheme was cream, forest green and a very soft pink.  Pretty cutesy for a baby, but it doesn’t match her personality now.  Her Grandma had painted wooden letters that spelled her name to match the colour scheme and they hung over her crib.  When we moved her into the bigger room and started painting a more vibrant colour palette, I wanted to keep the letters, but have them match her room now.  I wanted to add a bit of texture so that’s when it hit me, use yarn!

I had a ball of yarn that matches the colours in her room pretty well and I began to wrap the letters with it.  It didn’t take me long and the only hiccup was a small burn from the glue gun.  But all in all, they turned out nice and I think they look wonderful hung in her room.

Before and After – Refurbished Dressers for only $25!

Lately the Princess has been saying “that’s a great idea” all the time.  Doesn’t matter if it is making dinner or telling her it is time for a shower, everything is a “great idea”.  My “great idea” was to refurbish the dressers that once were my parent’s wedding present, then became my dressers when I was a poor struggling university student and have been makeshift dressers and storage for the Princess.  From the photo’s below you will see that 29 years can really take its toll on furniture.   I’m all about making old look like new and on a budget, so for only $25, we were able to take these dressers and make them look brand new.  All that was needed was a 945 mL latex glossy paint, knobs from Ikea, sandpaper and wood filler.  As Hubby is the handy type, he already had the paint brushes, sander and sandpaper and the wood filler, so all we needed were the knobs and paint.

On Monday, we emptied the Princess’ room and began sanding the dressers and removing the remainder of the knobs.  Wood filler did its job by filling in the dings and scrapes that were caused over time.  After they were washed, the first coat of paint went on.  As we had to paint in the Princess’ room she had to sleep in our bed, which meant that Hubby and I took turns sleeping on the couch as the Princess takes up an enormous amount of room for her short stature.  The fans were on and the windows open so thankfully none of the fumes travelled to the rest of our home.  Tuesday and Wednesday added another coat of paint and Thursday the knobs went on.  After 4 days, Hubby and I are pooped.   The Princess was not happy about being kept away from her room and tried to supervise as much as humanly possible and took her frustration out on us while we were sleeping.  Needless to say, the dressers look amazing and as Hubby says “Mommy only has great ideas…like redoing dressers and getting me to do them.” 🙂

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Back-To-School Wreath

I first saw this idea on Pinterest and decided to make my own to celebrate the Princess’ upcoming first day of Kindergarten.  It is fairly simple to make but it is time consuming, I did it in about 2 hours.

SUPPLIES

• 11 inch styrofoam ring
• 6 yards of  thick ribbon ribbon
• 7 feet of thin ribbon
• 2 boxes of crayons (64 in each)
• Hot glue gun and glue
• Desired embellishments ie. stickers, craft paper, bows, etc

DIRECTIONS

• Wrap the entire styrofoam ring in the thick ribbon.  Don’t worry if there are spaces, the thinner ribbon will cover it
• Cover the slits with the thinner ribbon
• Arrange the crayons around the ring securing them with the hot glue.  It’s best to put 4 crayons around the ring at North, South, East and West and fill in from there.
• Let the glue dry and add the desired embellishments

ABC Scavanger Hunt

With the new school year approaching, we are trying to ensure that Princess has a grasp on her ABC’s.  However, my Princess is stubborn.  Very stubborn.  From before she was born, she was trying to prove a point that she was going to do it on her own sweet time.

I went into early labour at 7 months.  The doctors were able to stop my labour, and Miss Princess was not happy they had hindered her arrival.  So as payback she was overdue and I had to be induced which then led to emergency c-section.  Then when it came to crawling, she took her dear sweet time.  She was 9 months before she crawled and that was not due to lack of trying on my part.  I gave her tummy time from the time she was 3 months and even the doctor said she had the strength, she was just being lazy.  She was a tumble weed in our home, rolling everywhere she needed to go.  Why would she need to crawl when she could easily manuever her way around by rolling around.  But then one day, she decided she was going to crawl and that was it.  The same can be said for walking.  The doctors swore she’d be crawling by 11 months as she could stand and her legs were strong.  But it was 14 months when she took her first steps and within days, she was running.  She wasn’t wobbly on her feet either, she was running as fast as she could and I had to be quick to react.  And then there was potty training.  I was convinced she was going to university in diapers but once she got into her head that she was going to do it, she did it.  We only had 2 accidents.  She’s always been one of those children that take forever to get something, but once they do, its instant.  It’s frustrating to no end and learning our ABC’s seems to be taking the same route.

 

I bought her books and flash cards to aid in her learning and while she really enjoys the flash cards, she gets easily discouraged with the books.

“Mommy I can’t do this,” she whines slamming the marker down.

“Princess, yes you can.  You are so smart.  I know it’s hard, but with practice, you’ll get it,” I reassure her.

“This is hard.”  She frowns and sticks out her bottom lip.

I tried giving the books a break to see if over time there would be a renewed interest, but we went through the same motions tonight.  I learned very young that it was folly to attack the same situation from the same angle.  So I decided that I would try a different route.  An ABC scavenger Hunt.  I cut out large colourful letters, just starting with A, B, & C to start as not to overwhelm her and I posted those said letters around our home near objects that those items start with and made a game out of it.  I’m hoping that maybe to see the letters next to the items will aid in her learning while making it fun at the same time.  Finger’s crossed that the Princess’ short attention span will find this much more fun than the work books.

C is for Clock

 

B is for Book