Circle Exploding Album - Kaisercraft 'Silly season' paper line

I will be teaching this album Sunday November 13th at the Beech Centre in Bowmanville! Please contact Cathy at the Crop Stop to register for this class! The Crop Stop - crop information & registration 


I love mini-albums! They are fun and you can squeeze a bunch of photos of a singular event/occurrence over time into one tiny 'bag book'.

This circular exploding mini album has so much more potential for adding ribbons and embelishments, plus hidden pockets too! The class I will be teaching will be the basic circular album and paper embellishments - everything you see in the following photos! You can add other embellies and ribbon as you wish, oh, and don't forget to add your photos! And what to with it once you complete it? This album is a perfect table centrepiece for Christmas Dinner or sitting on a coffee table.

What to bring to class?
 Scissors
Paper trimmer
Tape Runner
Glue Stick
Pencil
Bone Folder or metal spoon
Pop dots (Must have!!)
ColorBox stamp pad - colour CHIANTI - ColorBox cats eye CHIANTI or Colorbox full size stamp pad - CHIANTI

If you bring photos, photos will be cut to approximately 2"x3.5"
You can also bring ribbons and any other embellishments you may wish to add to your book!

What you will get in your class kit:
4 sheets of green cardstock
1 sheet of pink cardstock

The following  Kaisercraft "Silly Season" paper:
1 of each:
Jingle Bell
Fruit cake
Elf
Cracker
Candy cane
Fairy Lights
Gingerbread
Foil - Dasher
Foil - Presents

I hope to see you out on Sunday November 13th at the Beech Centre in Bowmanville! Please contact Cathy at the Crop Stop to register for this class! The Crop Stop - crop information & registration

Argh Matey!

The boys were invited to a cool pirate birthday party for their friend that was turning 7.  I know mom, and I knew that she had 'hired a pirate' to come and entertain the kids with games and crafts, followed by a pool party.  I decided to give the birthday boy money that he can spend on an upcoming vacation.  Knowing that it was a pirate party, sticking the money in an envelope just would NOT do! I found a small wooden 'treasure box' from the dollar store and decided to fill it with gold coin candy & small jewels, then I got to thinking, wouldn't it be cool if I could actually give him buried treasure?

(Everything purchased is from the dollare store, except the play sand which was from Home Depot.)  

 

My sons helped me put everything together and we had a fun family activity. The boys filled the treasure box with the 'real cash', chocolate coins & jewels and placed it in a small square planter. We then started adding sand and would throw in a few jewels & diamonds.  The halloween stuff was already out and I picked up a small bag of skeleton bones, we added a few of them as well. To the top we added a skull and of course a pirate flag!

To make the scroll card I printed out our greeting on a piece of beige resume paper using Microsoft word and inserted a photo of each of my boys when they were dressed like a pirate for their schools literacy day last spring.  I then tore the edges of the paper and pulled out my scrapbook supplies.

To ink the edges, I used an old color box Dark Brown, a new Dark Brown and an old Moss Green. As my color boxs' run out of ink I still keep them because they are great for aging techniques and adding subtle highlights.  For those asking 'What is a color box'? They are small stamp pads that are great for edging along with a variety of other scrapbook techniques.  Some dollar stores sell small stamps in various colours. (Color Box.)  I then used my worn out Dark Brown and Moss Green and gently went over the entire page, front and back and that includes going over the text.

I then flipped my text/pictures over and did the treasure map on the back side - my oldest son loved helping me do the stamping! Once the stamps were on I connected the images with short lines using a fine black marker. VOILA! A treasure map to go with the buried treasure gift!  (The cool pirate stamps are from Rusty Pickle. Unfortunately they have gone out of business, really too bad as they had a fantastic rustic, edgy scrapbook line.)

At the party all of the kids helped dig for the buried treasure and finding the jewels & skelton parts! Oh, and I made sure the gift was 'unwrapped' outside!

Flamingo Handprint Paintings & Making Crayons!

Flamingo Handprint Plaques

This cute handprint plaque of the kids was SO easy to make!

I bought the plaque at the dollar store for $2.00, I used white exterior paint for the base and used paint, roller & brush from an ongoing project.

After 2 base coats of the white dried I poured a small puddle of pink paint (Americana Petal Pink) that I had in my existing craft stash onto a paper plate and used a sponge brush that I had on hand. I applied the paint to each childs hand and I guided their hands onto the board.  It was difficult to do my 6 month olds hand, but we got it!

Once the pink dried I then used a permanent scrapbook marker (Toboy) to draw on the neck and a black sharpie to finish the beak, legs & wings.

Spray your finished work with a sealer (Krylon or similar).  Once the top coat dries, add plastic google eyes - I used Gorilla Glue to adhere them! VOILA! With materials on-hand, my only expense was $2 for the plaque.

You can get more ideas online for hand print animals:
http://www.dltk-kids.com/animals/handprint.htm
http://funhandprintart.blogspot.com/

I think we may do Monkeys next!

Making Crayons!

 I spent about $4 at the dollar store and picked up 3 ice cube strays that make shapes (Orange slices, mini apples & grapes).  If you make crayons using the trays, you will NOT be able to use them in the future for food as the crayon wax sticks to the trays.

Have your kids peel the wrappers from old crayons and cut the crayons into smaller pieces.  

Put the small pieces of crayons into the ice cube trays. 

Place the ice cube trays onto an old cookie sheet and place in the front window or your vehicle! I am sure you could melt them in the microwave too, but we took advantage of the hot sun with our experiment - the boys loved waiting to see what would happen! We went for a swim while we awaited the melting process. After a few hours the melting was complete and the crayons had blended together.

 

We popped the crayons out of the ice cube trays

  And spent the remainder of the afternoon colouring! (Haha! The boys are still in their swim shorts!)

After a quick turnaround from the weekend, we packed up today and headed to Darien Lake.  We have never been, but we had heard many good things about it.

Almost everyone that I chatted with about DL have stayed in their trailers.  When we said we were staying at the hotel we were looked at like we were crazy! Here was my reasoning:

• The kids get a ton of outdoor exposure at our trailer
• I need a break too, and if we were to stay here in a trailer there would be beds to make, food to cook and dishes to clean - where is that fun for me?
• With a 5 month old, there would not be much space for her pack n play
• When we did the calculations it was cheaper to stay in the hotel than it was to stay in the trailers
• All of the executive RVs were booked, so we would have to bring all of our gear - pots, pans, dishes, bedding - again, I wanted time to relax and to not lug all of the gear!

I have to say that I was not expecting much from the Lodge at Darien Lake, but it has surpassed what I expected. The lodge itself is pretty bare-bones, there is a small food service window that offers pizzas, salads & subs and there is a swimming pool - thats about it! Our room was very clean and appeared to have been fairly recently updated. Our room also had a refridgerator which was a nice surprise as I did not expect to see one.

We brought our plug in cooler so it was nice to have the extra space, we bought milk, yogurt, drinks, and a few odds n ends that needed to be kept cool.  We brought our own kettle for tea, but there is a small coffee maker in the room. We also brought a toaster for breakfast in the morning, along with cereal.  All in all, not a bad set-up.  The room itself has 2 queen beds and a pull out sofa.  There is a dresser with a television on it. The closed-in washroom holds the toilet and shower/tub, while the sink is outside the bathroom (Nice for getting ready in the morning.) 

Again, the decor was fairly recently updated and the carpets were clean. The main corridor hallways even had a nice smell as you walked along them, something not normally noticed.  My only complaint with the room is that it would have been nice if there was some sort of a table or desk and there were no chairs of any sort.  All in all, so far, so good!

After we checked in and took a break from the driving and shopping, we went for a walk and ended up at the park.  The kids had fun on some of the rides and my youngest son is going to be a daredevil like me! FINALLY, a coast riding buddy! Now if only he would just grow taller!

Tomorrow is water park day, looking forward to it!   

Happy Canada Day & 4th of July all rolled into one!

What a crazy busy weekend, and oh so fun! Thursday was the last day of school for my oldest son, yeah, he moves on to grade 2 in the fall! We picked him up after school and headed to our trailer for the night. We had a nice relaxing evening and a wonderful campfire complete with S'mores!


Friday morning started with some Canada Day family festivities. My boys love Canada Day so I try to make a big deal of it (as we should!). I love the dollar store for just that reason, each of them received a canvass Canada Day bag with tons of goodies inside, including tattoos. After getting tatted up we played around the camp and the boys rode thier bikes, swam and played at the park.

My oldest came back to the site and asked if I would take his training wheels off - Okay, I figured he would be whining to have them put back on shortly after, but no, he proved me wrong! My husband told him he would help him as my son hopped on the bike and took off yelling "It's okay dad, I don't need any help!" And just like that he was gone, on his own and riding all weekend! what a 180 from the whining he had been doing a few weeks ago about not wanting to ride his bike.  As it turns out, he wanted them off because one of the young girls in the park no longer needed them so he had to compete with her - hey, it worked!

We headed home late that afternoon to catch the evening fireworks in our home town, wonderful night! The fireworks were fantastic and it was great to see friends and family.

Saturday morning we headed back to the trailer, a fine grilled pot-luck dinner with good friends and more fireworks! Sunday my oldest lost another tooth, at the hands of the same girl he was showing off for without his training wheels. My son (stupidly) had a toy in his mouth, she decided she wanted it and pulled on the toy, out came the toy and the tooth.  We spent the afternoon at Cobourg Beach with friends and we walked around their waterfront festival.

Sunday night we sat around the campfire and played with some experiements!

1) Diet Coke & mentos - yup, it fizzed, but we only bought the small bottles so we did not get the guyser effect - guess we will have to try it again!

2) Bottle Rocket - pour vinegar in a pop bottle (I used the same on from experiment #1), pour baking soda into a balloon. Place the balloon over the top of the bottle & secure, be careful to not left the soda fall into the bottle. Once in place, lift the balloon up to let the baking soda mix with the vinegar.  The ballon fills up with air as a result of the chemical reaction.

3) The timeless volcano experiment - Take a small cup, put in some baking soda, a bit of dish soap, red food colouring & add vinegar.  I didn't have the red food colouring on hand, but we tried it anyway and this turned out to be big fun for the boys!

Monday morning we headed down the road and fed the horses carrots before we headed for home and my youngest sons soccer game that not - what a busy weekend!

(Photos to follow)

The Last Day of School !!!

Wanna have oodles of fun for $5?  

The boys LOVE these and we had a fantastic water fight last night in the back yard,

a perfect way to end the school year!

 I bought 4 packages of sponges and 1 pack of zip ties from Dollarama. There are 7 sponges per pack and I used 1 sponge per toy = 28 water toys for $5!

What I like about these is they were SUPER easy to make and quick to 'refill'. Just dip them in a bucket of water or in the pool and whip them! No trying to fill up tiny balloons with water using the hose and no messy pieces of broken balloons to pick up when you are done, and they are re-usable! I ended up buying a mesh bag from the dollar store to keep them in - perfect to let them drip dry!

Here is a link from where I found them & how to make them : wet-water-sponge-toys

Enjoy!

Yesterday was the last day of school for my oldest, while my middle son finished Tuesday.  

Yesterday while the baby napped my middle son and I cut up watermelon

and made Strawberry Jam! 

 

 

From Eh to Zee . . .

Here is the activity list, some the kids know about, some they have no idea what we are venturing on! Some of these are just ideas, I don't know if we will end up there, but they are options.

Address & Phone number - my middle son needs to learn these!(UPDATE: we're almost there!!)

Area Park - there is a park in the area with a splash pad, great trip on those hot summer days!

Air Zone - The kids love it there! I took advantage of the Wagjag $21 summer membership when it was on! http://www.airzoneoshawa.com/

African Lion Safari - I've never been there, maybe an August day trip? We will see. http://www.lionsafari.com/

Bird Seed - CRAFT - I want the boys to make bird seed rings for the trailer, great outdoor craft!

Boldt Castle - Another potential day trip? http://www.boldtcastle.com/visitorinfo/

BOWLING! - Have you checked out Kids Bowl Free ? FREE bowling, you have to pay for the shoe rental.

BEACH - no summer would be complete without a trip to the beach!

Chalk Paint - equal parts corn starch & water, add food colouring & sidewalk chalk paint! (sounds simple)

Cedar Park - Another place the kids love http://www.cedarparkresort.ca/

Centreville - Day trip! http://www.centreisland.ca/tickets.aspx

Crock-A-Doodle - Crock A Doodle , ceramics/pottery for kids - sounds FUN!

Darien Lake - again, never been before. http://www.godarienlake.com/

Dinosaurs - I want to take them to the ROM this summer http://www.rom.on.ca/visit/tickets.php

Eat something fresh from the garden

Flamingo Hand Prints

Frisbee

Flowers - CRAFT - using thumb prints

Finger Paint - make our own!
Fire Flies - We must catch fire flies!

Garden - I want to plant some stuff with the boys

Hunt - Have the boys do a Scavenger Hunt


Ice Cream - We will attempt to make ice cream


Journal - Journal and document our summer fun
Journey - new adventures and exploring!

Kid Zone - Visit the play centre in the area http://www.kidszonedurham.ca/


Lake - It's summer, we have to swim in the lake!
Lightning - My oldest fears lightning, I want to teach him more about it (UPDATE: we're getting there too, he has been talking to someone about his fears and seems to be doing better!)

Mud Pies - yum!
Mini-Golf
Mentos Experiment
Make Milk Shakes

Nature pictures
Newcastle wooden boat show - (July 23rd) - Missed it, did not make it out this year.

Ocean - Maybe, maybe not...No real plans to go coastal
Ottawa - We would love to visit our Nations Capital
Ontario Science Centre - http://www.ontariosciencecentre.ca/
Ontario Place - and it's FREE this year! http://www.ontarioplace.com/

Puddle Jumping - Back to my 7 year olds fear of lightning & rain storms
Playdoh - Let's make our own with lots of flavours & colours
Picnic in the park - a Summer must do!
Poker - My 7 year old wants to learn how to play poker!
Petroglyphs Park - http://www.ontarioparks.com/english/petr.html
Peterborough Zoo - http://www.peterboroughutilities.ca/Park_and_Zoo.htm
Pick Fresh Strawberries

BBQ (Not too creative with 'Q')!

Rocket Experiment
ROM - http://www.rom.on.ca/exhibitions/index.php


Sandcastles
Santas Village - Newhampshire  Bracebridge
Scrapbook
Sew - my oldest wants to learn how to sew!
Skating
Strawberry Jam (June 29)
Swimming

Tent
Thumb Painting
Tie Shoes
Treasure Hunt


Uxbridge Train Ride - http://www.ydhr.on.ca/

Volcano Experiment

Water Fight (June 29, with many more to come!)

Wonderland - http://www.canadaswonderland.com/
 
eXplore nature! (Again, not too creative with the 'X'

Painting Yoshi egss (From Super Mario, gotta love Yoshi!)

Zoo - http://www.torontozoo.com/  maybe even the http://www.buffalozoo.org/index.html  (We did the Bowmanville Zoo last week with my younger sons class, we won't be going back. http://www.bowmanvillezoo.com/home.html)

Summer is upon us . . .

In only a few short hours my youngest son will finish JK and be home with me for the summer, and tommorow is my oldest sons last day of Grade 1. I am on maternity leave this summer so I will have the summer with my 3 kids! I am looking forward to it, but I am NOT looking forward to the whining that is sure to come along with summer boredom. For that reason, I have devised a list of summer activities from A to Z. 

I don't plan on accomplishing all of the activities, but I have the list to refer to if needed! I have crafts and day trips planned, and maybe even a few surprises along the way! Join us as we begin our summer journey, and please, wish me luck!