putting the pieces of life back together

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A Craft a Day

A Craft a Day: L is for Lion

Haha the first time I posted this I forgot to change the intro. Oh well, that is how it goes sometimes. Zane loves lions, his lovey from when he was little was a lion named Judah. This week you can see my failed attempt at a bento gone bad, but also you can see my own craft I created to work with Zane with scissor skills.

If you are new to A Craft a Day

A Craft a Day gives you five activities that you can enjoy with your kids, one for each day of the week.  Most of these activities work well for preschoolers, but you may be able to adapt them for your toddler.

You can learn more about the basics of a Craft a Day Here.

I will post the crafts on Saturdays so you can use the weekend to get any supplies that you may need. We are making our way through the alphabet this year so if you missed a letter you can find it here.

The Crafts:

  • Lion Bento Lunch Box – I made this and it turned out okay I will share the photo just so you can see one of my project fails. LOL This must have been done with cold mac n cheese.

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  • Lion & Lamb Mask – This was great you got two L words in one! Plus this worked well for a bible theme also.
  • Macoroni Lion – We have actually never done a pasta project before and I thought this was a pretty cute one.
  • Crunchy Leaf Lion – Again a two L project here. I actually believe I have featured this project in the past. But what is great is you can find any image you want trace it with glue and add the crushed leaves. I wanted to use this lion picture and outline the main in glue. But we didn’t make it out to get leaves. Two outings outside, one Zarek fell off a wall and two Zane had an accident. I gave up.
  • Clothes Pin Lion – I created this craft after learning that clothes pins can help your preschooler with scissor skills. Zane and Zarek were both able to participate in this activity.

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Supplies:  cheese, carrot, celery, white cheese, macaroni, paper plate or card stock, elmer’s glue, black pen, google eyes, clothes pens, markers, collected leaves, glue, craft paper, paper plate, yarn, glue, craft paper

Are you Supermom?

Now I’m not supermom and I don’t expect you to be either. We don’t always get to each activity, sometimes life is just too busy. Hopefully you may try one or two of these activities with me and my kids! You don’t have to do every single one. You don’t have to be doing preschool with your child. I just hope to give you a resource for some great fun with your kids!

Be Featured

If you do any of these crafts and happen to take a picture or write a blog post about it please make sure and share your link in the comments. Also don’t forget to link the original crafter! I may feature you and your blog  on the following weeks post!

Crafts

Clothes Pin Lion

I read that having your children work with clothes pins helps with their scissor skills and since that is one thing that I have been working with Zane on I decide to create this craft. Creating these lions was so easy even Zarek, at 2 1/2, could help us! Supplies: plate or card stock Elmer’s …

Free Printables! Getting Healthy

How to get motivated with a 30 day challenge!

What keeps you motivated? How do you add a new habit to your life? Have you tried doing a 30 day challenge?

Hundreds of 30 day challenges exist, from fitness to photography. This says something about human beings doesn’t it? We love challenges! We love trying something new! We need repetition to build good habits!

My First 30 Day Challenge

My first 30 day challenge for myself was to do 30 straight days of exercise. I missed one day but allowed myself to have one day to make it up by doing two exercise sessions. I think that is part of making it through a challenge to not become discouraged when you miss a day. Just keep going.

By the end of the challenge I was finding myself wanting to get out and exercising. Which I have never had this urge in my life. Somehow my body had learned through the 30 days that exercise was good.

How did I do it?

I created a little sheet to mark off each day on my challenge. I made it fun and pretty. And I have it available for you to print off too. I wrote down what my challenge was (exercise) and  wrote down my reward: Bundle Monster Nail Art Stamping Plates (affiliate link).

Each day I crossed off a mark and watched as I got closer and closer to my goal. It was fun and exciting to see my progress!

What’s My Next Challenge

Drinking 8 glasses of water every day for 30 days.

I have found that behind exercise and food, water is one of the biggest things that makes a difference in my weight loss. So for my next challenge I’m going to try and drink the recommended 64 ounces of water every day for 30 days.

Challenge Ideas

  • Drink Water
  • Exercise
  • No chocolate
  • No candy
  • No snacks after 7pm
  • Take a walk every evening
  • Blog everyday
  • Comment on 5 blogs everyday
  • Write for 30 minutes everyday
  • Take a photo a day
  • Learn a new word everyday
  • Hug your child everyday
  • Read your bible daily
  • No TV
  • One good deed a day
  • Clean your house
  • Cook at home every night
  • and more…

Now it’s your Turn!

One of the best things you can do when you are doing a 30 day challenge is to find support! Find someone to keep you accountable!

I’m now asking you to join me in a 30 day challenge of your own. Your challenge doesn’t have to be water or even fitness related. You could pick any of the challenges above or just make one that is your own.

If you are interested in joining in on this challenge then comment and tell me about the challenge you are going to do. If I have a few people interested we can talk about how to keep each other accountable and how to keep in touch (twitter, email, facebook, etc).

And to help you with your challenge here is your FREE printable 30 Day Challenge chart!

A Craft a Day

A Craft a Day: K is for King

At first I was going to do K is for knight but then realized with Zane learning phonics this may confuse him. I decided to change it to K is for King. We are doing a lot of the same activities I’m just changing it all to be about a king instead of a knight.

If you are new to A Craft a Day

A Craft a Day gives you five activities that you can enjoy with your kids, one for each day of the week.  Most of these activities work well for preschoolers, but you may be able to adapt them for your toddler.

You can learn more about the basics of a Craft a Day Here.

I will post the crafts on Saturdays so you can use the weekend to get any supplies that you may need. We are making our way through the alphabet this year so if you missed a letter you can find it here.

The Crafts:

  • Mini Sword Snacks – I actually used sword toothpicks that I use for the boys bentos, but if you are concerned with your children with something sharp you can use pretzels instead.
  • King of Kings Crown – A fun, easy and inexpensive project. I love that everything in this project you can at the dollar store. Plus it let my boys have a freedom to draw, paint, color however they wanted.
  • Knight Collage – I know this is more knight than king, but I told Zane that this was a King Knight. This project took a little prep on my side as Zane is still learning scissor skills so I cut out all the pieces beforehand. But if your child is learning or good at scissor work this project is great!

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  • Paper Plate Crown – What I love about this project is that you can pull out any odds and ends you may have from other projects to decorate these crowns. You can use stickers, gems stones, marbles, pom poms, scraps of felt, and any other kinds of odds and ends.
  • Card Board Castle – Create a castle for your little King (& your Queen). I first saw this castle and loved it, but their isn’t very much that my boys would be able to do to create this. Then I found the colorful artistic castle created at Frugal Family Fun Blog. Perfect! You can let your children freedom of decorating their castle with markers, crayons, tissue paper, and more.
  • Shield Collage (Bonus Craft) – Cut out a shield from cardboard and use tissue paper to cover the cardboard. Then let your child use stickers to decorate their shield and create their own “coat of arms”. Supplies: Cardboard, Glue, Stickers, Tape

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Supplies: assorted fruit, pretzels or sword toothpicks, craft foam, Popsicle sticks, decorations for crown, hot glue, elmer’s glue, styrofoam balls or pool noodle, cardboard, misc decorations for the walls,, paint or markers, craft knife or good scissors, Construction paper, Tin foil, Yellow and black pipe cleaners, Feather, Black pen or marker, Knight Template, plate, stickers, scissors or exacto knife, random craft scraps

Are you Supermom?

Now I’m not supermom and I don’t expect you to be either. We don’t always get to each activity, sometimes life is just too busy. Hopefully you may try one or two of these activities with me and my kids! You don’t have to do every single one. You don’t have to be doing preschool with your child. I just hope to give you a resource for some great fun with your kids!

Be Featured

If you do any of these crafts and happen to take a picture or write a blog post about it please make sure and share your link in the comments. Also don’t forget to link the original crafter! I may feature you and your blog  on the following weeks post!

Crafts

A Craft A Day: Must Have Crafting Supplies

I was recently talking to a friend about her wanting to do more crafts with her daughter but she really didn’t want to buy lots of supplies. I can understand this as we are always on such a tight budget. This week we will be taking a break from our usual link of crafts and talk about supplies for you and your kids.

I thought this is perfect timing to talk about what you should have stocked up. As school children are about to rush through the doors to a new school year you are already purchasing school supplies. Or if you only have little children then this is still the best time to buy your supplies. Stores are trying to entice moms to do their school supply shopping at their location and are offering amazing prices on certain items.

Basic Preschool Craft Supplies:

  • white glue
  • markers
  • stickers
  • pipe cleaners
  • craft foam
  • craft felt
  • construction paper
  • pom poms
  • popsicle sticks
  • tape
  • googly eyes
  • scissors
  • crayons
  • paint & paint brushes
  • basket to organize everything

You know what’s the best thing about this list? You can find all these items at the dollar stores! That means with a $15 investment you have a great start to your crafting supplies.

Of course you may find you need more items than this, but this is a good start. Keep your eyes open when you see a clearance section at a store or use your imagination when you walk through the dollar store. Look through the ads right now as Back to School is in full force.

Or check out the clearance sections a week or two after Back to School to get even better deals. Right now I’ve found Crayola crayons and markers on sale for 99 cents and pencil boxes for 59 cents (great for organizing). Find your local store’s website and check out their ads online! It’s quick easy and you can find some great deals.

Next week we will be back to our regularly scheduled a Craft a Day post.

A Craft a Day

A Craft a Day: J is for Jelly Fish

Of course I had to be all about ice cream, especially with summer finally choosing to grace us with it’s presence in Oregon. But summer and playing outside is distracting us from our crafts, so we only did half of them this week. That’s okay we still had fun!

If you are new to A Craft a Day

A Craft a Day gives you five activities that you can enjoy with your kids, one for each day of the week.  Most of these activities work well for preschoolers, but you may be able to adapt them for your toddler.

You can learn more about the basics of a Craft a Day Here.

I will post the crafts on Saturdays so you can use the weekend to get any supplies that you may need. We are making our way through the alphabet this year so if you missed a letter you can find it here.

The Crafts:

  • J is for Jiggly Jellyfish – Jello, marshmallows, and carrot make up this adorable snack. I actually just used the premade cups, cut the jello in half to make them a little flatter and decorated. The boys loved these! Oh and if you use the premade jello clean the cups and save them for the Flying Jellyfish craft!

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  • Jellyfish Dogs – I know a second food related craft, but can you blame me these are so cool! You just stick the speghetti into the hot dogs and cook following the pasta directions! Easy peasy & tons of fun!

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  • Flying Jellyfish – Another craft that I totally failed at. I recommend putting the hole in the cup before having Zane decorate them. When I tried putting the hole in the glue didn’t hold to the plastic so kind of destroyed the craft. And I was so excited because cutting the yarn would have been a really good scissors practicing activity.
  • Jellyfish Invasion – We didn’t make it to this craft, for one rare week I didn’t have tons of produce bags this week. Oh well, I still think these turn out really neat!
  • Coffee Filter Jellyfish – Both boys had fun creating their jellyfish and this is such an easy laid back craft. This is also a great toddler craft!

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Supplies: jello cups, carrots, mini marshmallow, mini chocolate chips, hot dogs, spaghetti, Snack Cups, glitter paint, yarn, grocery bag, tissue paper, scissors, curling ribbon or yarn, tissue paper, coffee filters, pens, spray bottle with water, google eyes, glue dots or glue

Are you Supermom?

Now I’m not supermom and I don’t expect you to be either. We don’t always get to each activity, sometimes life is just too busy. Hopefully you may try one or two of these activities with me and my kids! You don’t have to do every single one. You don’t have to be doing preschool with your child. I just hope to give you a resource for some great fun with your kids!

Be Featured

If you do any of these crafts and happen to take a picture or write a blog post about it please make sure and share your link in the comments. Also don’t forget to link the original crafter! I may feature you and your blog  on the following weeks post!

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