Gorgeous Accordion Fold Fall Paper Leaf Banner

Today we're continuing with the theme of easy fall crafts.  Couple of days ago I shared this really beautiful Sewn Leaf Art project that I made with my preschooler.  Today I just wanted to share this gorgeous folded paper leaf banner.

I came up with the idea after reading some fall-themed books with my son.   Seeing all the beautiful colored leaves in the books made me miss the fall leaves back on the East coast.  And then it hit me- why not make our own?  Bring a bit of fall to our forever-summer state.   And so, my son and I got to making and painting together.  The results came out so beautiful that he insisted we hang the banner up in his room to spruce it up.

Make Beautiful Leaf Sewing Art with Kids

Are you looking for an easy fall craft that doesn't require colorful leaves?  I know this may seem like a strange question to you.  But we just don't get those beautiful red, yellow, and orange leaves over here in California!  And I miss them so much.

So for those of you who'd like to do a leaf project with the kids... today's leaf sewing art is for you!

Make Beautiful Leaf Sewing Art With kids! 

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Easiest cardboard Rainmakers ever!

Recently my son and I have been talking a lot about the weather.  We're currently in the middle of a horrible drought in Southern California so we desperately need rain.  Since we always have a ton of cardboard rolls lying around (which we LUUURVE using for cardboard roll crafts), we recently made a rainmaker together.  Set-up was simple and it was a snap to put it together.

Here's how we did it!

Shake! Shake!  Make Your Own Rainmaker with Kids!

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Make Monster Sculptures with kids!

Looking for a fun Halloween activity for preschoolers?  

Why not set up a monster-making factory in your dining room?  Yup.  This fun art and craft activity is a great way for kids to be creative and gear up for the upcoming holidays.  (Hooray Halloween!  Woo-hoo!)

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Living in Southern California, I have a tough time appreciating seasons.  I mean, we’re still in the 70s-80s here.  The leaves are green…. I'm still wearing shorts and sandals.  It just doesn’t quite feel like fall.  So this monster-making activity really helped us get into the fall spirit.

Avengers Paper Plate Masks

One of the neatest things about being a mom is seeing my son bond with my husband.  Right now they both share a love for all things Lego and Super Hero.  While I enjoy Lego, I'm not a big super hero fan.  But I still tried to incorporate it into our crafting time as well.  Here are some Avengers Paper Plate Masks that we recently made together!

Let's Make Paper Plate Super Hero Masks!     

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Colorful Fairytale Cardboard Castles

The castle and dragon craze continues at our house!  Last week we made some lovely paper plate dragons.  Did you check them out?  Then, we painted some castles that were built from scraps of paper and cardboard.  This was a perfect play date craft because the castles were easy to assemble and both the kids (and moms) had fun painting them!

Cardboard Roll Castles

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DIY Halloween Treat Containers

The other day I was cleaning out our old sand toys... when the thought hit me.  Hey!  These buckets would make great Trick-or-treat containers!

(Funny when inspiration strikes, right?)

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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7 Tips for Taking Preschoolers to the Art Museum

Ever take your children to the art museum?  A couple weeks ago my friend and I brought our 3 preschool boys to our local art museum.  Can I admit something to you?  I was kinda  SUPER nervous about how it would go.  Three active boys walking around a building of beautiful, priceless, breakable artwork?  What could go wrong?  (Ha!)

Pre-mom years, I loved  visiting art museums with my husband.  But once I had Chuck... I put aside those visits because of my fears.  But oh, how I love looking at beautiful things.... and oh, how I love making art and crafts with my son.  Now that he's a bit older I figured it was time to give it a try.  So I asked for suggestions on FB... and we bravely visited the art museum with our 3 very active and curious kids.

Guess what?

It went pretty well!  We had fun and the art stayed unharmed!  Huzzah!  So here's a post detailing 7 things that we did to make our art museum experience more enjoyable (and educational) for the kiddos.

7 Tips for Taking Preschoolers to the Art Museum

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(Hey! Who's that boy in the photo?  Not Chuck. It's one of our friends!)

Two ways to Make Confetti (And Celebrate Fiesta!)

Have you ever made confetti before?  I've seen bags of it in the stores, but never made my own.  Recently my son and I walked with our church in our town's parade.  It was a really fun Children's parade celebrating our town's Mexican, Spanish, American Indian, and early history.

I really wanted Chuck to have something to throw in the parade.  (Because let's face it, allowing a preschooler to throw colorful things at people = SUPER kid fun.)  So the night before the parade, my husband and I made two HUMONGOUS BAGS of confetti for kids to throw.  And guess what?  We made it in less than half an hour.  That's right.  We became confetti-making machines!  Here's how we did it!

Let's Make Confetti!

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Let's Make Some Confetti Bookmarks!

Ready for the start of the school year?  Today I'm over at DIY Candy sharing how I made these super fun confetti bookmarks to help kids celebrate their love of reading and the new school year!

Gorgeous Fluttering Paper Plate Butterflies

Last week I shared these beautiful hyper colorful painted paper plate flowers. Since y'all seemed to enjoy them so much, today I'm continuing with the paper plate craft theme and sharing these lovely paper plate butterflies as well!

Gorgeous Fluttering Paper Plate Butterflies!

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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!  

Let's Make Easy Wire Wrapped Nature Pendants!

How has your summer been going so far?  We've been spending a ton of time outdoors, running around, playing in the water, and digging in the sand.  For what?  Treasures!  So far we've found lovely bits of blue and green sea glass, shells, and funny shaped rocks.  We've placed some of our treasures on display at home and turned others into these easy-to-make, wire wrapped nature pendants. 

Let's Make Wire Wrapped Nature Pendants!

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Aren't they lovely?  We love doing nature crafts, like making melted crayon friendship rocks, weaving with flowers, building birds nests, and constructing play dough and rock houses.  Today's wire wrapped pendants are a too difficult for the preschool crowd, but adults and older children can easily wrap pendants for younger ones!  

Make Tricycle Circle Artwork with Kids!

When I set up today's preschool art activity, my husband thought I was crazy.   Really.  He thought I finally inhaled too many craft paint fumes, fell off my rocker, and floated away to la-la land.

To be fair to him, it really WAS a giant art activity.  But I was still surprised by his reaction because he's already seen me do messy activities  (like making jello brains), slimey activities, and fairly large scale art activities (like this GIANT DIY scratch board).... so really, in the grand scheme of things, what's the big deal with making....

GIANT TRICYCLE ARTWORK!

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