Politically Correct Eggs.

It's time for

again!

And it's another easy Halloween idea for you.  This is a great way to send them off to school on Halloween morning. 

You've heard of One-Eyed Joe's, yes?  No?  You might call them something different where you live.  Apparently it's also called Eggs in a Basket or Hobo Eggs?  That seems unPC... anyhoo... whatever you call them, they're delicious.  Basically, you butter some bread, cut out a circle from the middle, slap it in a hot pan and crack an egg into the middle.  The bread gets all buttery and toasty and the egg fries into the toast and it's just delicious.

Confession: we make these for dinner, not breakfast.  Because if you think I'm coherent enough at 6:00 in the morning to do anything but drag my bum outta bed and pour some cereal in a bowl, you don't know me at all.  I can maybe pull off instant oatmeal.  But one eyed joes?  That's a breakfast for dinner thing at our house.

A few years ago, we started calling these babies by our own title: Cyclops Toast.  It sounded cooler.  So last year, I got this brilliant idea to make them for Halloween but complete the faces of the monsters.  

Want to make some??  You need bread, eggs, butter, and various accent items to create an egg-sandwich face.  Ideas: black olives for eyes, cheese hair, tomato smiles, and sausage noses.  Also, a biscuit cutter or circle cookie cutter helps a lot.  Wax paper also helps.

Simply heat the pan, spread the wax paper, butter both sides of bread (this is where the wax paper comes in handy.  Butter all over the counter?  Ick.), cut the circle from the middle of the bread, lay it in the pan and immediately crack an egg in the hole, being careful not to break the yolk.  Wait for a minute or two, then flip, again very careful to avoid breaking the yolk - easier said than done!  
That's it!
Though, I like to sprinkle both sides with a bit of garlic salt - you know, if you want to get fancy.

After you've made the main part of the cyclops, you can create your faces any way you'd like!  Had I prepared a bit more ahead of time I'm sure I could have come up with more face ideas... bacon eyebrow, shredded cheese whiskers, ketchup veins in the eyeball, broccoli hair, pickle noses.  You get the idea!  Really the possibilities are endless.

The kids loved them!  And they're so easy to make and fun to create together, we'll definitely be reviving this idea on Friday night!

P.S.  I always fry up the little circles from the middle too, because, well, why WOULDN'T you?  These little circles are the kids' favorite part (don't know why) and they call them "cookie toast."

Now you've got a breakfast AND lunch idea!

*Be sure to check below for all the fun parties I link to!*

A blast back to my elementary school years...

Here's a variation on an idea I found long ago... you've probably seen it around pinterest.  Ezra was invited to a birthday party for a good friend and I thought this would be perfect for her creative little fingers!

I think I love this gift idea so much because I absolutely adored making friendship bracelets when I was in 5th grade.  All the time.  I constantly had these things pinned to my pants.

This guy is so easy to whip up, and there are so many different things you could do with it.  Here is what I used:

A few cute little clip on charms. (butterfly, flip flop, heart)
thick card stock cut into small rectangles
small scissors (I actually used manicure scissors)
safety pins
a large rubberband
embroidery floss of different colors
small clipboard
friendship bracelet booklet
plastic floss organizer

All you have to do is put it together!

1. Decorate the rectangle cards with washi tape.  Because you have to use washi tape for everything.

2. Wrap the floss around the cards.  (I was running late, unfortunately, and I didn't get to wrap all the floss, so I just separated it out into the sections and put the empty cards in one spot so she could do it herself.)

3. Put the pins in one section, the charms in another,

4. the scissors in the long section and the cards in another.

5. Separate the floss by color.

6. Gratuitous photo.  So pretty!

7. Make a label for the top.  Use your computer if you want, but I just made one by hand.  I used double sided tape to stick it to scrapbook paper.  I put packing tape over the whole thing so it would stay put and so it wouldn't smudge or tear or anything.

8. Place the clipboard on top.  I stuck a little bunch of floss all ready to be made into a bracelet in it.

9. Put the booklet on top.

10. Secure it all together with the rubber band.

Ta-da!

 And I couldn't help this second gratuitous shot.  I'm not sure why.  I just like the lighting.  Or something.  Maybe I'm weird.

If you're wondering, this makes an excellent gift for a creative little guy, too.  I gave one to my nephew.  I included key chain rings instead of charms so he can make keychains or bracelets.

*Be sure to check below for all the fun parties I link to!*

A simple craft for little hands.

The other day, mini came inside with a bunch of dandelions and asked me to make her a "hat".  Well, I totally took her hat, and raised her one full blown princess crown.  And by her reaction, I totally KILLED that request - you'd think I'd magically called some gold and jewels out of thin air or something - and I was pleasantly surprised at how a 5 minute "project" for me could result in something so fun, endlessly entertaining and cherished (we still can't throw it away) for her.

Once bug saw mini's awesome crown, he had to have one, too.  Hence our "nature crowns" were born.

I realized the potential to make this something super meaningful, though at the time it was just a simple, thrown together, very quick craft for us to do together.  I let both mini and bug "design" their crowns, collect the "ingredients" themselves, and help me pull it together.

 They couldn't stop collecting things, even after their nature crowns were complete!

The tutorial here is specifically for the Dandelion Princess Crown, but it's obviously very easily altered.

You need scissors, dandelions (buckets and buckets of dandelions), skinny elastic, ribbon and matching washi tape.

Also, and most importantly so I'm not sure how it managed to elude the list up there, you need a large piece of poster board.

Now, I can't, unfortunately, give you specific dimensions or anything, mostly since I didn't measure, but also because every kids head is going to be a little different.  So take these general instructions and run with them.

1. Start with your poster board laid out flat and begin your cut near one of the bottom corners.

2. Continue cutting up so that you have a half circle that's a little over 3/4 of the width of the poster board.

3. With the flat side facing you, a) bring the corners of the half circle towards the middle and b) then overlap the one corner and continue pulling it until the point of the crown is well-established and the bottom of the hat is fairly flat around.

4. Let go of the outer corner a bit, put on a lot of hot glue and

5. Curl it back up onto the cone and press down hard.

6. Pull the inner corner down away from the inside of the cone and

7. put on a bunch of hot glue, then

8. Push it back up against the cone and hold it for a few seconds.

9. Now your cone, or crown, is glued together.

10. It may be totally uneven or lopsided.  Just trim around the bottom to make it level.

11. Cut some elastic to fit snuggly but not too tight under your kids chin.

12. Dab some hot glue (which is really hard to see) on the inside of the crown at the side and

13. Press one end of your elastic onto it.

14. Then dab some more hot glue directly across from the first and press the other end of the elastic onto it.  Make sure your elastic isn't twisted before you glue.

Now, we decorate!

1. Wrap washi tape from top to bottom at an angle.

2. Continue wrapping pieces of washi tape bottom to top at angles and overlapping until you like the pattern.

3. Take the stem off of the dandelions.

4. Put hot glue on the back of the dandelion head.

5. Press the dandelions heads all around the bottom of the crown!

Now, I don't have pictures of this, but take your ribbon and cut it in three pieces.  Use your hot glue to glue one end of each piece into the inside of the point of the crown.  Hot glue another large dandelion over the point.

And now, you are The Dandelion Princess!  (make THAT into a movie, Disney...)

 I couldn't stop taking pictures of her smelling dandelions.  She was so funny!

When bug wanted in on the action, I charged him with the task of collecting items he might want on a prince crown.  He chose several long pieces of grass, some dandelion STEMS, some rocks, and a few leaves.  And I looked at the assortment and went, uh... (the dandelion one was pretty straight forward...)

 Ignoring the fact that he plucked leaves off of my hostas... It was kind of fun working with bug to come up with the perfect "plan" for his crown.  I made a cone like mini's and glued on the elastic.  Then I wrapped some green and white washi tape around it.
I started by gluing the 3 rocks in the front, like jewels.  Then I figured the leaves could nicely wrap around the bottom of the crown - and I like how the kind of curl together.  I glued some long grass and some dandelion stems into the inside of the point and then wrapped two dandelions stems around the point.  Voila!  A boy version!

He called it his "Crazy hat" - which I think is a compliment.

 And now, you are the Prince of Pebbles and Leaves!  Or something...

 What I think is great about this project, is how customizable it is.

1. Go for a "nature scavenger hunt" with specific items in mind.  Then use those items to create your Nature Crown!
2. Go on a walk around the park or neighborhood and see what items jump out at you.  There might be some really interesting things you never would have thought of that you find along the way!
3. Collect items when you are on a special trip - when you take a break to stretch your legs on a road trip, when you're picnicking somewhere special, when you take a day trip to a special place, when you go camping or bike riding or to the beach!  Use your natural "souvenirs" to make your crown!

Don't forget to stop and pick some dandelions along the way.

*Be sure to check below for all the fun parties I link to!*

Oh, hello bandwagon. Again.

Everyone's doing it.  

Oh, you know what I'm talking about.  The "summer bucket list".  And it seems the most popular method is popsicle sticks.  It's funny, I saw one or two posts like this last summer, so a few weeks ago I sat the kids down so we could make ours together.  And then suddenly, everyone and their monkey's uncle is posting popsicle stick bucket lists.  Great minds think alike.

If you haven't seen them, and you want to make them you'll need:

popsicle sticks

sharpies

washi tape

containers to hold them

Get your popsicle sticks.

Write down things you want to do or places you want to go with sharpies.  Write on one end of the stick.

Let your "big kid" help because he can write now.  And read.  Weird.

Take a little washi tape and wrap it around the opposite end of the stick.

Place them in your containers. 

So our popsicle sticks are a little different in that they're our daily "to-do's" and not a bucket list, per se.  I didn't want to give us so many activities and things to do that we didn't accomplish any of them, but I wanted to give us some motivation to do more than run through the sprinkler, which is the majority of our summer time outside.  I thought if I had it written down, in a way that was fun for the kids, we'd be more likely to actually DO some things.  So this is low key.  It's not a "things we must do before summer dies" and rather a "good ideas for things we should do sometime."  There are three categories: 

field trips

activities/crafts

extra chores

 Each category has it's own washi tape design - blue chevron for chores, bikes for field trips and funky triangles for crafts and such.  The idea is that if they want to pick out of field trips or crafts, they first have to pick something from chores.  If they do the extra chores without complaining, they earn allowance for each one. The chores are all extra things - things they aren't EXPECTED to do everyday.  They don't get paid for those.  I know, we're so mean.
They also have to pick a chore if they are mean or rude or disrespectful to other family members.  We'll see how that goes.

I used the Ombre Yarn-Wrapped Vases from yesterday for the containers.  Very cheery.

 And put them in plain site on our little kitchen command station thingy that isn't very commanding.  It's more like a kitchen request station.  Or a kitchen soft-spoken station.

Whatever.  We'll put that on the "Things I say I need to do but will likely never get to" list.

You've likely seen a bunch of round-ups of summer activities and things, so I will refrain from adding mine.  But if you want to see what's on our list and get more ideas, go check out my pinterest board: "kid"-ing around (crafts etc.)

*Be sure to check below for all the fun parties I link to!*

This one should have been first. Whoops.

Today's project, like yesterday's, is 2 years old.  Just getting that out there right away so there's no question.  Yep.  It's old.  And yes, we have stopped using this method.  BUT.  It DID work for some time.  So even though it's not sparkling new or even hanging on our wall anymore, I wanted to share:

It should also be noted that after sharing the velcro daily schedule yesterday, I realized this one should have come first because I took much better and more detailed photos for a more instructive tutorial.  I guess that's the price you pay for waiting 2 years to post something - you forget the flow of you were originally going for.

Anyway.  Let's get on with it.

And now, for the more photographic tutorial:

1. Print off the free printables at the end of the post.  Cut them to the size you'd like (to fit on your mini clipboards.)

2. Cut a piece of contact paper double the size and 

3. place your chart on it.

4. Fold the contact paper up and over the chart.  Smooth it down nicely.  Don't worry if the edges are rumpled since you'll trim it.

5. Trim it.  (see, told ya)

6. Voila!

7. Do this with all the chore charts and one extra blank (or in my case chevron patterned) card stock piece. 

8. Cut strips of the rough side of the velcro to fit vertically on the chart.  You'll need anywhere from two-four per chore chart.
9. Use hot glue to secure your velcro.  Make sure to spread the hot glue to the edges of the velcro pieces.
10. Hot glue another strip of velcro next to the first in the same column.
11. Then do the next column.  
12. I placed two pieces of velcro down each column to accommodate the amount of chore pieces he MAY need to stick on.  Depending on how many chores you have for your kids, you may only need one per column.
13. Clip the chart on the mini clipboard.

14. Cut your chore circle card stock into strips so you can use your punch more easily.
15. Using your circle punch, punch out each chore circle.
16. I had double because each kid gets the same chores.
17. Lay the circles on a piece of contact paper (facing up).
18. Place another sheet of contact paper on top, face down.
19. Cut the circles out with a scissors.
20. Cut small pieces of the fuzzy side of the velcro.
21. Hot glue them to the back of each circle.

22. On the extra piece of card stock (the one that's blank, without columns) glue several pieces of rough side of velcro horizontally.
23. This is where the chore circles are "stored" until they are in use on one of the charts.

Now you just place the chores that need to be done that day on the "to do" side of the chart.
Your child can move them over to the done side on their own!

Oh, yes, 24. Use the wall fastener of your choice to hang the mini clipboards on the wall.  Cat not necessary.

The reason I liked this system was that it was simple and cheap to make (seriously, it cost me $3 for the clipboards.  And like a buck something for the wall velcro stuff.  I already had the normal velcro and hot glue)  Also, it's easy for the kids to understand and for them to have accountability over.  Plus the "little pieces" are bright and "fun" to move around - it's like a game for the kids.  They want to do their chores because it means they get to "win" the "game".  How many times can I use "quotes" in this "tutorial"?

So, here's the chevron background I made in case you want to use it for your storage card.

And here's a chore chart minus the names, since I bet your kids aren't named Ezra and Zoe.  Unless they are.  In which case, how cool is that?

And here are the chore circles I used.  These are all chores that a 3-6 year old can easily do - some with a little help.  I used free clipart for the pictures in the backgrounds.

At our house, there are regular chores (the things you have to be in charge of just because you're part of the family and we work together) and there are extra chores (The things that aren't really your personal responsibility, so if you do them you get a little pocket change.)  I made chore circles for each kind and the ones below are the extra things the kids can do to earn an allowance.

If you aren't sure where to start when it comes to having your kids do chores, I recently did a post for tipsaholic.com that offers 10 fun suggestions for chores your small kids can do!  Start early and they may even ENJOY the work!  Of course, I'm all talk, but, you know...

*Be sure to check below for all the fun parties I link to!*

Yarn. It's not just for sweaters anymore.

Today's project is a kid's craft!  As such, it's easy and requires little to no planning - the best kind!

I really like this craft because it's one that actually didn't result in me getting all OCD on my kids preceding tears - from them and me.  You know it's a keeper if my anxiety doesn't take over...

Are you ready to make some fun yarn prints?

You probably don't really need a tutorial, but here is how you make a yarn print:

1. Squirt some paint in your desired colors on your cardboard.

2. Take a strand of scrap yarn and dip it in the paint, saturating it.

3. Lay your paint soaked yarn in a design.  Press gently along each yarn piece, being careful not to move it around.  I suggest holding an end with one finger while gently patting it all along.  Also, it's most fun if your yarn pieces overlap, then there will be cool negative space.

4. Lift your yarn pieces off the paper, one at a time, top ones first.

5. Discard your yarn pieces on a separate paper.

6. Continue lifting off yarn pieces until they're all gone.  Admire your artwork!

mini had a field day.  As you've probably guessed, this is a pretty messy craft and resulted in crazy painty hands.  She loved it - every squishy, colorful, sticky second.

We decided to make a "z" for her name and laid out our pattern first so she could remember and then duplicate where it overlapped.

Then she wanted to make a flower, which I assisted with fairly heavily.

bug made himself an "E" and then wanted to make an "A" for his baby brother.  Such a considerate guy!  We also laid down some yarn on the sides and bottom for a little design detail.

I think this is a great way to "print" with kids.  Why?

1. It requires no special materials.

2. It's messy - kids love messy!

3. They can be super creative - you can make all kinds of shapes with yarn!  No holds barred!

4. Think of the lessons you can teach... colors, shapes, letters, numbers just to name a few.   And tons of art concepts too - negative space, composition, layering techniques, how to layer the colors to get the look you want, etc.

This was actually part of a larger project we are working on which I'll share with you at a later date.  We used it for our "Y" week and this art project was called "Y is for Yarn."

And what was baby brother up to while we did this?  Napping sweetly in his crib as all good babies do?

Nooooo!  Of course not.  Pip doesn't sleep until his body takes over and passes out from sheer exhaustion.

He played with Zoe's "Bun-nun" and smiled and growled - because that's what he does.  He doesn't coo.  He growls.

I would have had him making his own initial, you know, never to young and all... but my OCD had all it could handle with the older two.

Have you linked your projects to the party yet??

*Be sure to check the right sidebar for all the fun parties I link to!