footprint fire trucks

Wee woo, wee woo. That's what fire engines sound like right? No? Well sounds effects were never really my strong point. Lucky for me this blog is about creating cute crafts to share with you and not teaching you about sound effects :)

This one was pretty fun to make. Claire has fun painting her foot and then playing with the paint and I have fun finishing it off. It's a win win situation. This extra details would be lovely painted on, but I just like paper. I had to draw the line at cutting the ladder out of paper though. I made Simon's engine #1 since he's just a year old, and Claire's #3, because she's 3. I used white paper to cut the door and window. I used red, yellow and orange to cut out shapes for the lights. Then I just added a few other decorative details to the engine.

If you make these with your little ones leave me a comment so I can check them out.

Linking up with: Skip to my Lou &Tip Junkie & Sun Scholars & Tatertots and Jello

footprint rocketship

 I loved Lisa Klein's footprint rocket design so much that I couldn't help but try it with my kids. I love her creativity. It certainly has me thinking outside the box when it comes handprint & footprint crafts. (Wait until you see my next one!) This one was pretty straightforward to make.

Claire and I (yes, both of us) painted her foot blue and then stamped it on a piece of light blue cardstock. I cut 3 triangles, one for the top of the rocket, and two for the wings. (I cut the triangles so that they didn't cover up any of Claire's footprint.) You could paint on all of these details, but you all know how I love to play with paper. I added some fire at the bottom of the rocket and put a few stars in the sky.

Be warned, I'm sort of on a handprint/footprint kick right now, so be prepared to see a few more before I move onto other projects :)

Linking up with: Skip to my Lou &Tip Junkie & Sun Scholars & Tatertots and Jello

lions, lions everywhere

I thought of this handprint lion face as I was going to bed one night (because that's when everyone thinks of new crafts to make. Right?) It didn't turn out quite how I had envisioned it, but I still think it's cute. Sure it looks more like a friendly kitty with a big mane than a fierce lion, it was still fun to make. I just helped Claire paint her hand orange and we stamped it on the paper. We did all the orange handprints first, and then did the yellow ones. We glued on some googly eyes, and a nose, and then just drew on the mouth and whiskers.

This next lion we actually made way back in March. I was reading one of my most favorite blogs ever, Meet the Dubiens, and I saw her post where they made a handprint sheep and lion. I think that I sat down with the kids and made ours on the same day I read the post. Click on the link above for the instructions on how to make them. (If aren't already a fan on Jill's blog check it out. She is so crafty, and seriously makes some of the cutest lunches for her kids that I've ever seen!)

 After we were done making the handprint lions, I was felt a creative urge to make the lion into a gift tag. I cut out a few scalloped circles on my cricut and Claire and I made some lion tags. Claire just stamped her thumb on the tags, and then when they were dry we added the face details. For the mane I just went through my scrap paper and found shades of yellow and orange to use. I ran them though my Xyron and the Claire stuck them on the face.

My favorite way to use these gift tags up, is to attach them to gifts when Claire has a birthday party to go to. And because we always make a few of the same handprint crafts (you never know which one will turn out the best) I have been known to make a few of the handprint crafts into birthday cards for Claire to decorate for her friends. I mean, how many handprint sheeps/lions do we really need to keep??

Linking up with: Skip to my Lou & Sun Scholars & Tatertots and Jello 

fudge popsicles

As soon as I saw this pin on pinterest, I knew that I had to make these fudge popsicles. Smitten Kitchen adapted these from a recipe that she found in Matt Armendairz's cookbook, On A Stick.

These were so delicious. I loved them. Claire loved them. They make a wonderful summer treat.

Fudge Popsicles

Adapted, just a bit, from On A Stick!
Makes 4 standard-sized popsicles

2 tablespoons semisweet chocolate chips
1/3 cup sugar
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1 1/2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/4 cups whole milk
Pinch of salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 tablespoon unsalted butter

Over low heat, melt the chocolate chips in a saucepan, stirring constantly. Stir in sugar, cornstarch, cocoa powder, milk and salt. Raise heat to medium. I used a whisk to mix all of this deliciousness together.Whisking frequently, cook until the mixture begins to thicken (you'll know when it happens!) It took 5 minutes for me, but the recipe in the book says that it could take up to 10 minutes. Once it has thickened, remove from the heat and stir in vanilla and butter. Let mixture cool for a bit before pouring into your molds. An hour or so after putting the molds in the freezer add in the popsicle sticks.

I used dark chocolate chips, and also a dark cocoa powder because that's what I had on had. I think that this made them extra delicious. Also, I used salted butter, because that's what we had.

Let me know if you try these out this summer. And if you have any other popsicle recipes leave me a note in the comments- we'd love to try to make some more new ones.

Linking up with: Tatertots and Jello &  Skip to my Lou

picnic food book

After using corrugated cardboard to make the trees on our red bird, blue bird cards I started thinking of what other household things you could use to make stamps with. Turns out there are quite a few things...

The cover of or picnic book was easy to make. I just cut a piece of checkered paper (like a picnic blanket) and Claire used her thumb to make some ants. Draw on some legs and antennas, add some googly eyes and you're well on your way to making your picnic book.

Cut a potoato in half and chop off one of the ends to make these prints. Claire painted the bottom of the potato pink and stamped the cards. Using the end of a lollipop stick she made the watermelon seeds. I added on the green line so that we didn't end up with a giant scribble of green paint all over the watermelons! (Inspired by the watermelon wrapping paper seen here.)

I think that the grapes were my favorite one. As you can see below I drew a triangle on the card so that Claire could stamp anywhere within the triangle, which she did, more or less :)

 This one was pretty straightforward, we just used an apple to stamp- the apple!

Claire and Simon each made a strawberry page. If I may say, please don't worry about perfection. (Normally I like things just so when I'm crafting, but I'm learning to go with the flow- at least when it come to crafting with Claire.) As you can see her hand wasn't painted well enough so there was a gap between her thumb and the rest of her hand. No big deal, we just made two berries out of it.

Corn on the cob. Claire just painted a piece of bubble wrap to make the corn. Then we popped outside and picked a few leaves off of some shrubs so that we could paint the husks for the corn.

The hotdogs and hamburgers were made the same way (just used different colors.) A piece of corrugated cardboard for the bun, and a mini carrot cut in half lengthwise for the hotdog/hamburger. Then you can just paint on any extra condiments that you'd like.

Claire and Simon both used their thumbprints to make the ice cream cones. We just used another small bit of cardboard to make the cones.

Claire really liked making this book- but it wasn't done in just a day (or two). I spread it out over a week and a bit because Claire has the attention span of a 3 year (which is fitting since she is 3!) I used my cricut to cut out the shapes, but really square or rectangle pages would have been easier. If you make one of these link it up, I'd love to see it. (Or, if you have ideas for new pages that we can add to ours let me know in the comments.)

Linking up with: Skip to my Lou &Tip Junkie & Sun Scholars & Tatertots and Jello

summer picnic book preview

Just wanted to give you guys a quick preview of the picnic food books that we've been working on. We made a book of picnic foods using things that we found around our house and stamped them on the pages. Tomorrow I'll share all our secrets and what we used to make each page!

summer fun printable

Update: I recently posted an updated version of this list. It's much more printer friendly, and doesn't have the year on it. Check it out here.

This project was totally inspired by all of the summer bucket lists that I've seen floating around on pinterest. Now, I need to take a minute to once again declare my love on pinterest. Are you on there yet? I l.o.v.e. it. (If you need an invite to join leave me a comment with your email address and I'll send you an invite.) You can see my pins here.

I love the idea of having a list of things to do with the kids this summer. Last summer I had wanted to do some of these things with the kids, but somehow the summer passed and we didn't get a chance to do half of them!
I've seen lots of these lists, but I think that a lot of them are geared for older kids. Mine is definitely geared towards toddlers, which is good since I have a 3 year old and a one year old! Some of the ideas I saw on pinterest- like the make your own car wash, tin foil river and giant bubbles. I made my own list and then rounded it out with some other ideas I've seen floating around. I especially liked this list form The Crafting Chicks.

I had my summer fun list printed at Costco, since I was ordering a few other enlargements anyway. It's an 8x10 and was just $1.89 (mine has a matte finish). Then I cut a piece of foam board to mount my picture on. I put some tape around the edges of the board so that it looked a little tidier. Foam boards not so easy to cut, so my edges were a wee bit jagged! You could use ribbon too.  Then I just covered the front of the foam board with a light coat of Mod Podge and stuck my list on top of it.

Looks like we're going to have a busy summer! If you'd like to download this list click here. (For personal use only please.) Let me know if you use it, I'd love to see how you display it.

 

 Linking up with:  Skip to my Lou & Sun Scholars & Tatertots and Jello