My Little Artist

The weather is dreary today, the baby is sick and fussy and our 3 year old is bored out of her mind. I decided she needed a project. I pulled a canvas out of my art supply closet along with some paint and brushes. I dug through my husbands tool chest for some tape and I made a big letter A on the canvas with the tape. I then set my daughter up with some paint on the back porch. She had a blast painting the canvas and mixing all the colors. When the paint is all dry we will remove the blue tape to reveal the letter A for her name Addison. It was a fun project and killed about an hour of our time today. Now I don't feel like such a failure of a mom today because in my little girls mind she just got to create a masterpiece!

Fall Leaves Craft for Decoration

This is a fun and easy craft that the kids can help with. It creates a cute fall decoration for your house as well. Give your child a bucket (I used a pumpkin Halloween bucket for my daughter) and take them on a scavenger hunt in your neighborhood for fall leaves. Let them pick up all the pretty leaves and talk about the different colors as they collect them. Once you get home go through the bucket and pick out the best leaves. Find an old book and place the leaves in between the pages. You can use wax paper if you are afraid the leaves will hurts the pages of the book. I used a large, heavy craft book but if you don't have a heavy book you can place a heavy object on top of the book to apply pressure. Once you have your leaves in the book set it aside for a few days (I did 6 days, only because I forgot about it). Then find an old picture frame or buy a new one (I used an 8x10 frame) and lay the leaves out on a white piece of paper. You can use a little tape rolled for the back of the leaves to stick them in place. Once you have the leaves the way you want insert the page into the frame and hang or set in your house. Let your child pick which leaves should be dried and they can also help arrange them on the paper for the frame. Your child will be excited when you hang up their leaf art.

How to Entertain a Toddler on a Rainy Day

Today was another rainy day and daddy was at work so little Addison and I were pretty bored. I decided to pull out some beads and work with her on stringing them. She was having a hard time stringing them and before I knew it she was sorting all the beads into little piles by colors. That is when I had a brilliant idea to give her an ice cube tray to sort her beads. It kept her very busy and it was fun to watch her little mind hard at work sorting and organizing the beads. Not only was this a time consuming project but also very educational.