Balloon Bowls

Yarn and Rock Balloon Bowls

Our craft for Camp this year was these fun bowls!! 

I don't have pictures of the completed bowls yet except the test bowl you see above

Recommendation: Go higher up the balloon if you want more of a bowl and not a plate!

So blow balloon up and let air out so that it is not "tight"

Use tacky glue to wrap yarn or buttons or rocks or whatever else you can think of...

Let it dry then Mod Podge over the top 

TADA a cute little bowl!!

Past Few Days in Pictures!

Here are the past few days at our house and out at Camp!

Kayaking with Uncle Danny!

Ice Cube Color Mixing

Colored Ice Color Mixing Lessons 

We have had frozen ice cubes in our freezer for awhile now and I just haven't come up with any great ideas for them! There are a ton of things out there but... it was so hot on this day (high 90s) in the morning, that we just took them out and played with them. 

Ice cubes + bowls of water

We had red heart shapes, blue squares, green squares, and purple stars!

It was a lot of fun

M2 even enjoyed it and had a lot of tasting of the ice cubes!

As the ice cubes melted we mixed colors in bowls to make more colors! Eventually it just looked black... Such a fun lesson on a hot day!

How to Make Flower Print Shirts with Natural Dye

So what to do when your kids get overzealous with the flowers and pick off a few of your beautiful blooms? Make flower prints

All you need

A t-shirt

flowers

rubber mallet

wax paper or saran wrap or paper towels

hard table or sidewalk etc.

1. Go for a walk and pick some beautiful flowers with vibrant colors. 

2. Lay down the t-shirt put the flower on the shirt cover with wax paper or paper towel or saran wrap and hit with rubber mallet until color bleeds through to dye the fabric. The flowers (AND LEAVES) will leach out all of there natural flower dyes... Creating beautiful flowers!

3. Let it dry, wash it, colors should hold in the fabric but don't bleach it our use strong detergents or stain removers!! Your finished project will be a beautiful naturally died t-shirt or bag or bandana or whatever else you come up with!!

I will try to take some pictures of the after, these flowers have not been washed off yet!

Ooblek and Ice Prints

We play with Ooblek on a regular basis! Thanks to Dr Seuss which is a favorite in our house!

Ooblek is just so easy and cheap All you need is a $1 box of cornstarch from the dollar store and you are ready to go

We have Made:

Green Ooblek

Ooblek CupCakes

Since it has been so hot we decided to make our Ooblek with ice this time! 

As the ice slowly melted the consistency of the Ooblek continued to change!! Very great learning activity!

To Make Ooblek Check out our other Post Here

PLAYING WITH MY NEW CAMERA!! I AM IN LOVE!! 

Our Ooblek play enticed Mommy and Emmi also! We got goopy with M2! Such fun!

When we had pretty much exhausted our senses M2 started sticking her toes in the Bowl! And we made Ooblek foot prints, hand prints, and just generally painted the deck with Ooblek!

Running to make footprints~

 Once your feet our in the bowl it is hard to get them out!! 

This was a lot of fun and a great way to cool off with some ice cubes! AND EASY EASY EASY clean up! That is one of my favorite things about ooblek add a little water and it disappears! Hosed off the deck and each other and we were clean in no time!

Check out our other recent posts:

Water Blob How To

Chore Chart

Water Blob How To

I originally saw this water blob on interest from the Clumsy Crafter

We really want to do it for a birthday party but we needed a trial first... So here is our first attempt!

Materials

large roll of plastic sheeting

duct tape

water!

So really it is pretty self explanatory! You lay it out duct tape the edges leave one small edge open to put the hose through slip it in and fill!

FYI: USE THE MOST LEVEL SURFACE POSSIBLE!!

I learned this from experience. Hubby and I had a very interesting afternoon trying to stop the blob from imploding on itself down into the corner of the yard.... After it was already full of water it was IMPOSSIBLE to move!! 

I bailed after it was filled because I could not stop it from rolling away! We got dinner and hubby fixed it! Isn't he great!! I still have no idea how he fixed it! But I love him!!!

M2 loved crawling around on the plastic sheeting before it was even filled!

 I LOVE THAT HAPPY FACE!!

Holding the hose inside!

We now have 2 very happy very tired little Monkeys!! Yea for bedtime!!

We are planning on doing this for M2's birthday party! I think we will make a few smaller ones and maybe add some soft toys and food coloring!!

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Chore Charts

So I honestly am not real thrilled about chore charts... most days it feels like it is more work for me than it is for the kids.... but I KNOW that they need to learn responsibility to everyday I summon up as much patience as I can get and we DO OUR CHORES! 

Usually this also involves a review of our virtues first ( From We Choose Virtues) 

I AM OBEDIENT, I AM PATIENT, I AM HELPFUL is a repeating mantra in my head...


Anyways here is our chore chart! 

I found some cute clothespins from Michaels in the Dollar Sections! So when our chore is finished we put the clothespin on the chart. 

Throughout the day you can also loose a clothespin (i.e. Not being nice to your sister...)

Then you have to earn it back! 

We don't finish them all everyday, but we try. They are not all done perfectly but we try. It really is a good lesson for M1 because she is a bit of a typical firstborn perfectionist! 

We don't do rewards for our chores in our house. It is something that is just expected. We expect everyone to chip in and help. To look for ways to be kind. And to learn to be responsible! 

Any other really great ideas for chores??