For more ideas on projects and games to keep your kids busy, please check out my new book, The Happy Mommy Handbook: The Ultimate How-to Guide on Keeping Your Toddlers and Preschoolers Busy, Out of Trouble and Motivated to Learn.  It is packed full of information about keeping kids busy, but in productive ways, so that they still have the opportunity to learn while you are stuck doing the dishes!  Here is one of the reviews from Amazon:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is a "Must Have" book!!!, July 9, 2012

This is truly a fantastic book! I was shocked at how many activities the authors came up with - many of which didn't even require a trip to the store for supplies! The Mom who wrote this has great stories & the Teacher has valuable experiences...it's a perfect blend of unique insight. Fun (inexpensive) activities that keep my 2 kids away from the TV, what more can you ask for?!?!? This book is really helping me become a better Mom - Thank you!

For more ideas on projects and games to keep your kids busy, please check out my new book, The Happy Mommy Handbook: The Ultimate How-to Guide on Keeping Your Toddlers and Preschoolers Busy, Out of Trouble and Motivated to Learn.  It is packed full of information about keeping kids busy, but in productive ways, so that they still have the opportunity to learn while you are stuck doing the dishes!  Here is one of the reviews from Amazon:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is a "Must Have" book!!!, July 9, 2012

This is truly a fantastic book! I was shocked at how many activities the authors came up with - many of which didn't even require a trip to the store for supplies! The Mom who wrote this has great stories & the Teacher has valuable experiences...it's a perfect blend of unique insight. Fun (inexpensive) activities that keep my 2 kids away from the TV, what more can you ask for?!?!? This book is really helping me become a better Mom - Thank you!

I have a lot of talents.  I can speak French, I'm pretty organized, and I can definitely sell stuff.  Painting, and art in general, however, are not my special talents, so when I learned that I had to go to a baby shower and paint my own "canvas", I was nervous.   You might be saying, "But you have a blog about crafting!" Yes, that's true, but I'm not the one actually doing them, and we don't care how they look in the end.  This painting would be different, because the idea was to paint canvases for the new Mom and her plan was to decorate the nursery with all the assorted paintings. 

I showed up at the shower and ten blank canvases were set up for us, along with all the primary colors. The girls were chatting and several of them seemed really excited.  We settled into our seats and I selected to paint an owl.  I picked up my paintbrush and suddenly I literally felt a wave of almost panic.  I was so out of my element, I didn't even know where to begin.  

"Can I have the pink paint please?" I asked.

The nice woman smiled.  "You have to mix for pink.  Just add a little red and white together," she said kindly.

"Oh," was all I could think of to say.

I decided to just plunge in and get the whole thing over with.  I began with the outline first, then went on to my green background.  Suddenly I felt very relaxed.  There is something very exhilerating about painting a blank canvas with anything that I wanted.  If I didn't like the color, I just mixed up something new and painted over it.  I couldn't believe how much I enjoyed painting, and even more how much I enjoyed watching everyone around me create something.

Don't get me wrong.  Mine was by far the worst and I feel really badly that my friend will fee obligated to hang it in her baby's nursery.  I might just have to stage a robbery of it so she can have an excuse not to scare her poor child with my owl that looked like it had see-through wings.  But I learned a lot about myself that night.  I learned that it's good to force myself outside of my element every one in awhile.  I learned that I can still enjoy myself even if I'm not the best at everything.  And most of all, I learned that green and white don't make lime green, no matter how many times you re-mix it.

 Here is one of the girl's canvases.  She coped this painting, isn't it incredible?

And here is a "Daddy" Owl, with his arm around his "Little" Owl.  So creative...

I love trees, but I never can believe just how many leaves fall from those beautiful trees.  And I can't ever believe how long it takes to clean them all up.  I keep telling myself it's good exercise.

Anyway, during clean-up this year, the kids started collecting their favorites.  They like the ones that have a special shape or color so I went and got a bag to collect them.  Ever since then, we have kept our eyes out for leaves when we go on walks and we have spent several weeks collecting our most favorite leaves from around the neighborhood.  I really wanted them to be able to create a wreath for us, but it turns out that the idea of a leaf wreath is much easier said than done.  After much trial and error, here is how the kids created a wreath that they could do all by themselves:

1.  I bought a letter "O" from Hobby Lobby to use as the starting point.  There are many different options for wreaths and this isn't exactly what I originally envisioned, but I didn't want to have to use a hot glue gun.  I really wanted them to be able to create this all by themselves and this turned out to be the best surface for glueing those delicate but heavy leaves. 

2.  Next, I was able to give them Elmer's Glue.  They simply took the leaves and glued them to the wooden "O".  They were able to glue leaves on top of leaves over and over again.  They really loved this whole process.  They got to pick out their favorites it took them over 30 minutes to get all the leaves attached:

3.  After we let it dry for a few days, we simply took down a picture and hung it up!  Originally it was supposed to go on the front door, but the Elmer's Glue isn't the strongest bonding agent around, and I didn't think the wind would do nice things to this delicate kid-made masterpiece. This isn't the prettiest wreath around, and certainly doesn't look professionally made, but the kids are very proud of their wreath!

For more ideas on projects and games to keep your kids busy, please check out my new book, The Happy Mommy Handbook: The Ultimate How-to Guide on Keeping Your Toddlers and Preschoolers Busy, Out of Trouble and Motivated to Learn.  It is packed full of information about keeping kids busy, but in productive ways, so that they still have the opportunity to learn while you are stuck doing the dishes!  Here is one of the reviews from Amazon:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is a "Must Have" book!!!, July 9, 2012

This is truly a fantastic book! I was shocked at how many activities the authors came up with - many of which didn't even require a trip to the store for supplies! The Mom who wrote this has great stories & the Teacher has valuable experiences...it's a perfect blend of unique insight. Fun (inexpensive) activities that keep my 2 kids away from the TV, what more can you ask for?!?!? This book is really helping me become a better Mom - Thank you!