Printable Weather Board Game

What's the weather looking like where you are?  It's been raining pretty hard over here, so we've been stuck at indoors quite a bit.  (But we don't mind at all because we desperately need the rain!  Boo, drought.)  Inspired by our rainy weather, today I'm sharing this fun and easy printable weather-themed board game with y'all.  Just print it out, color it in, and play it with your kiddos!

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Paint Chip Color Wheel Inspired Fall Wreaths

Ready for another easy fall craft? Today we're combining my love for color, paint chip crafts, and fall leaves.  We're making Color Wheel Inspired Fall Wreaths!   

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I took an art class last semester and had a lot of fun learning about color theory using the color wheel.  Since we've been learning about fall and the changing leaves, my son and I made this fall wreath together. 

How to Make Colorful and fun paper plate dragons! (And our 10+ Favorite Dragon Books)

Have you seen our paper plate dragons?    My preschooler is currently on a dragon kick and we've been reading dragon books, watching dragon movies, and making dragon crafts... of course!

If you have a dragon lover at home, then you'll love this craft too.  I've even included a template so that you can easily make these paper plate dragons with your little ones too!  

Let's get making!

Make these Colorful and fun paper plate dragons!

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Hyper Colorful Painted Paper Plate Flowers!

Lately I've been enamored with paper plate crafts.  We always have a ton of cheap, white paper plates lying around and they're the perfect canvas.  A couple of days ago my son was sick and we stayed home all day.  Fortunately, we kept ourselves busy with Lego, lots of book reading, and two paper plate crafts.  We had such fun painting, I thought I'd share our crafts here.  Here's our first paper plate craft-

Hyper Colorful Painted Paper Plate Flowers

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So what do you think?  I'm in LOVE with how these flowers turned out.  Really, really, gorgeous.  And, (even better), they're really easy to make and paint too!  

Easy Kirigami Fish Craft

Howdy! For those of you living above the equator-- how's summer so far?  I'm slowly recovering from illness (hooray!)  Our days are packed with swim classes, trips to the library, play dates, and night time walks.  Is it just me, or is summer just as busy as the rest of the school year?

Lately, I honestly haven't had the time (or energy) to craft.  (Do you ever feel that way too?)  Well, in case you wanted a quick, summer craft to do with the kids, I'm sharing this easy kirigami fish craft today!  I've always enjoyed paper cutting and folding crafts, so I thought this was a really great way for young children to get creative with scissors and paper too!

Let's make some Kirigami Fish!

DIY Easy, Breezy Cardboard Rainbow Mobile (Template included)

Rainbows have been on my mind a lot lately. Maybe it has to do with landmark Supreme court ruling?  Or maybe it's just because I've been kinda sick and they make me feel happy.  Hrmm... probably a bit of both reasons, I suspect.  Here on the blog, I've shared a full spectrum of rainbow crafts.  They're colorful, fun, and always put a smile on people's faces.  Today I'm sharing this easy, breezy cardboard rainbow mobile that I whipped up a couple of nights ago.

I really love how it moves in the air.

Cardboard Rainbow Mobile    

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Easy, Giant DIY Scratchboard Art!

Have you ever tried making scratch art  (affiliate links)?   It's seriously addictive.  We recently bought a set of scratch art boards from our local toy store and had a BLAST doodling, tracing, and scratching.  So after we used up all our boards....I got thinking.  Why use tiny scratch boards...... when GIANT SCRATCH BOARDS could do?

(Muah Ha ha.  Insert crazy, crafter laughter here.)

Super Easy, Giant, Homemade Scratchboards!

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Slinky Rainbow Garland

Are you looking for an easy, fun, and colorful kids craft?  Well, then today's slinky rainbow garland is just up your alley.  I've been digging rainbow crafts lately.  They're just so fun and happy! And these rainbow garlands are totally rocking my world.  I was inspired by Minieco's folded rainbow paper garlands and decided to make some of my own!  Chuck loves playing them like an accordion and watching them wiggle around. (Ok, I kinda do too. They're mesmerizing!)

Slinky Rainbow Paper Garland

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Flower and Star Clay Ring Bowls

Have you ever worked with clay?  I'm a clay novice and I always get slightly nervous thinking that we need a kiln.  But I was totally wrong! There are lots of great, affordable air dry clay options out there.  Since my son loves play dough, working with clay has been a really great activity for us to do together.  With Mother's Day right around the corner, here are some super easy DIY flower and starry night clay ring bowls that you can whip up with your children!

DIY Flower and Starry Night Clay Ring Bowls

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Make a Colorful Paper Garland

For some reason Spring seems to bring in parties galore.  Birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, boy, oh boy, it seems like every week we're celebrating something new.  Is it that way for you too?  Spring is definitely a happy season for us.  So with that in mind, I came up with this super simple paper garland that you and the kids can easily whip up within minutes!  Tape them up and then poof, instant party!

We're currently digging rainbow crafts over here, so of course I had to make one of every color!

Colorful Paper Garland

Make Pasta Frames with Kids!

Ah, pasta.  It's cheap, always in your cupboards, yummy...and a GREAT crafting material!  Today I'm super excited because my fellow Rockin' Art Moms and I came up with 14 super fun, beautiful, and easy pasta art projects that you can make with your kids!

And... *drum roll please* we want to see YOUR pasta creations and we're also hosting a GIVEAWAY too.  Yippee! So definitely check out the bottom of the post to see the giveaway details and all the other ladies' awesome posts.

Chuck and I decided to use our pasta to decorate painted picture frames!

Make Pasta Frames With Kids!

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How to Make Colorful Kirigami Flowers

Spring is here! La la la! Although our current grey skies don't exactly scream "warm, sunny, bursting-with-new-life weather," today's kirigami flower craft certainly does!

How to Fold and Cut Kirigami Flowers

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Now, I had a lot of trouble naming this craft.  These flowers kinda felt like origami... and yet they weren't quite origami because I used scissors to make the designs too.  Luckily Mr. Google taught me the term kirigami.  It's a Japanese term that basically describes origami that also involves paper cutting too.  Bingo!  So cool right?

By the way, if you love these flowers, you'll also love these

• AWESOME paper stars  
• Lego Snowflakes! 

Mathy Mother's Day Jewelry

Mother's Day is coming up!  So of course, fun kid-made gifts have been on my mind!  Last week we made these darling egg carton flower pins.  I thought they would go great with some lovely kid-made jewelry.  But of course, there had to be a twist!  (A math twist that is!)

Let's Make Mathy Mother's Day Jewelry!  

Painted Tin Can Succulent Pots

Spring has sprung!  Are you enjoying all the lovely blooms popping up around your neighborhood? In honor of Spring, today's Creative Preschool theme is.... plants!  So I wanted to share how we painted and repotted these tin can succulents.

Because this is part of the Preschool Collaborators Series, there are links at the bottom of the post to 4 other bloggers' great ideas for teaching preschoolers about flowers and plants!  (So scroll down to the bottom of the post to check those out!)

How to Repot Succulents in Painted Tin Cans 

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Crayon Hugger Cards

This past week Chuck attended his friends' (twin boys) birthday party.   I was all set to have him cards for them.... but then we totally ran out of time.  (Does that ever happen to you?  It happens to me all. the. time.)  So the morning of the party, I came up with this really, really, REALLY easy set of birthday cards for the two boys.

Inspired by Lia Griffith's super cute Valentine's Candy Huggers (which by the way, you should totally check out because she includes free templates for them), I doodled up some crayon hugger cards.

Melted Crayon Hugger Cards

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Aren't they adorable?  Here's the super quick tutorial showing how we made them!

How to make Colorful Swing Streamers

Have you ever wanted to find the end of a rainbow?  As a child, I believed in fairies and magic and would always try to find the pot of gold.  While I know now that such a dream is impossible, I still wanted to bring some colorful St. Patrick's day magic to Chuck.  So I created these lovely colorful swing streamers for him to use at the park!

Colorful Swing Streamers

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This craft is perfect for using up any extra tissue paper you might have lying around.  (And if you like tissue paper crafts, check out these easy tissue paper art and cherry blossom tissue paper flower crafts!)

The Artful Year and Melted Crayon Friendship Rocks

Chuck doesn't always enjoy making things with me.  (What? Yup.)  A lot of days he would just rather that we read books or race airplanes together.   And I'm really trying harder to let go and follow his lead.  But I love crafting.  So I keep putting out those invitations in hopes that he'll join me.  And on those special occasions when he's interested and involved in a craft... boy oh boy... those days are really magic.

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We recently received a copy of Jean Van't Hul's The Artful Year to review.  Jean is an artist, mom of 2, and author of the amazing kids' art blog Artful Parent.  (She's also the author of another great kids' art book The Artful Parent. ) 

In her newest book, Jean shares a whopping 175 family-friendly crafts, and recipes!  The photos are dreamy and beautiful; the crafts span through all the seasons and holidays of the year; and the recipes look really, really yummy.  I love this book.  But those things aren't what I love the most about her book.

What I love the most about the book is her voice.  In the beginning she shares this beautiful quote-

"We need to be more intentional than ever as we carve out quality time together, celebrate in meaningful ways, build traditions and memories and create stronger families.  It's not about doing more.  It's about making choices, fostering creativity, and building family connection."  

Wow.  That just hit so close to home.  I don't want to just make things with Chuck.  Things eventually break down, get lost, or tossed away.  I want to foster creativity.  I want to build our relationship.  I want to make lasting memories.

Ok.  This was a super long intro, I know. But I just had to get that all out there.  Because it really is a beautiful, beautiful book.

Here's the craft that we chose to try out first from the book:

Melted Crayon Friendship Rocks

St. Patrick's Day Pot of Gold Craft

Looking for a fun St. Patrick's Day Craft?  How about making a rainbow and pot of gold with your little ones?

St. Patrick's Day Pot of Gold Craft

You can check out how I made this cute  St. Patrick's Day Pot of Gold Craft on MollyMoo!

Looking for other St. Patrick's Day crafts?

Then check out these links below!

• Clover sun catchers
• Lucky Charm Shirt
• Dig for Gold Activity
• CD Rainbows
• Grow Rainbow Flowers

Let's keep in Contact!

Like kids crafts and activities?  Then you'll definitely want to check out this awesome craft ebook!

   

And, you can always find  fun ideas on my Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter accounts!  (Or subscribe to my email mailing list by filling out the pink bar at the top of your screen.)

Happy making, friends!

Magic Fizzy "Sand!"

Once upon a time there was a mom who found herself with a very bored child.  He didn't want to play with any of his toys.  He didn't want to play outside.  And he certainly did not want to do any crafts.  Finding herself at her wits end, this mom pulled out 2 ingredients from cupboard and within minutes, whipped up several batches of wonderful smelling Magic Fizzy "Sand."  She then gave her child the sand and he played and played. After he grew tired of the activity, magic mom waved her magic wand and poof!  The sand began to bubble and fizz, delighting the child once more.  And they all lived happily ever after.

Ok.  Full admission time... I was that mom.  And yes, I found myself with a grumpy child.  And yes, this magic "sand" ended up entertaining him for over half an hour (which as we all know, is like years in little kid time.)

Let's Make Magic Fizzy "Sand!"

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If you find yourself with a super bored or grouchy child, then this activity is for you.  Magic "Sand" is easy to make, smells wonderful, and really does fizz and bubble with water.

Wanna know how I made it?  Keep reading!

DIY Astro Turf Rug

So... what are your thoughts on astro turf?  Hate it?  Love it?  I think it's really fun and provides a super affordable way to cover a lot of space for a small price.  You're probably asking why I have a sudden interest in the green stuff.  Well, after living in apartments for most of my adult life, hubby and I finally have a place that has a .... wait for it.... small outdoor patio.  Woo hoo!  Chuck was so excited to see our tiny "backyard" that he literally ran around the area for about half an hour when we first moved in.  The space is really a blessing and I love that we can just open the door and enjoy some private outdoor space whenever we want to.  And that brings me to today's craft post- our backyard DIY Astro Turf Rug.

DIY Astro Turf Rug

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We don't wear shoes inside the house, so it's a hassle for Chuck to have to put on and take off his shoes every time he wants to quickly pop outside.  So we made this super easy astro turf rug to act as a very large door mat.   We love it so much because it's a cute area where Chuck can play or go barefoot without tracking too much dirt into the house.