Fun with Egg Cartons

Since we haven't done anything fun in a long time, I am digging back into old things I never managed to write about.

Which brings us to this guy.

Tater did this almost entirely on his own.  He found the idea in some book, I wish I could credit it properly, but it was months ago, so I have no idea where it came from.

He cut out a little cup from an egg carton.  Well, actually I did that part because he tried and it kept coming out the wrong shape and I was afraid he was going to start throwing things (like scissors) around the kitchen.  So I intervened.

I don't like it when people throw scissors.

Once we got the body to be the right shape, he used a permanent market to draw on the face and stripes.  We glued googly eyes on the face and cut another little piece of foam from the egg carton and glued it on for a tail. 

Voila - raccoon!

The book showed a cardboard-type egg carton, and that might work even better.  We had the foam kind and I wasn't going to buy some different kind of eggs just for the carton.  Stubborn, yes.

This could work for little cats, dogs, cows, pigs...really any animal if you embellish it properly.  Tater was really happy with the end result and proud of himself for doing it (almost) all by himself.

Tiny Treasure Cubbies

We are paper towel tube collectors. They are one of the best craft materials.

We have made castles out of them.
We have made marble ramps out of them.
We have made other marble ramps out of them.

Last week the drawer was full again and so we made these little display cubbies. I found the idea, as I often do, in Family Fun Magazine. Love them.

First we rummaged through closets until we found two shoe boxes.

Then we rummaged through our gift wrap collection to find something fun, but sort of occasion-neutral. Stars seemed to work.

Then we wrapped each box in the paper, leaving the top open.

Finally, we cut our enormous stash of paper towel tubes so that they filled up the boxes. We got about 2-3 box-height tubes out of each paper towel tube.

There was one minor injury, Sprout cut the tip of her finger. Minor cut, thank goodness. But I did feel slightly vindicated for the heart palpitations I have every time I watch the kids cut towards their fingers.

Is that wrong?

Anyway, once the boxes were filled up with the tubes, the tubes held themselves in place. Tater was a little worried about everything falling apart, so we put glue on the bottom of his box to make things more secure.

Then we were ready to fill the little cubbies with all of the little mementos the kids have filling up their rooms.

Sprout filled hers completely. Finding rubber bracelets, bouncy balls, bug key chains and everything else she could fit to occupy each little space.

Tater left most of his open for later acquisitions. Although he did think it was a handy place to put his collection of (2) clown noses.

The best thing about this project was that it was completely FREE. All of the materials were things we already had and most of them are recycled.

Time to start filling the drawer again. I wonder what we'll make next!

The Toad Abode

Things have been busy around here, what with so many episodes of iCarly to watch and so little time!

The kids actually did an art camp last week through Kidzart. They did a similar program last year at AC Moore - but this year the program was held by DARC. They actually had the same instructor (Mr. Steve) from last year - which they were happy about.

During the week, my mom took each kid for a special event. Sprout went to a concert at the Mann Music Center where she saw a 14-year-old violinist play. She apparently hummed along to Vivaldi's Four Seasons - probably something she remembers from Little Einsteins. See, TV can be good for you!!

Tater went to Tyler Arboretum to participate in one of their kids programs. The kids have been to lots of these programs and they always enjoy them. This time he got to make a "Toad Abode", which is a house for a toad (clearly) that we tucked into the garden. I have never seen any toads in our garden, so this may be vacant housing for quite some time, but he did a fabulous job and it looks very festive out there.

The Toad Abode is a flower pot that is decorated and flipped over, with the edge propped up on a rock to let the theoretical toad crawl under it. Apparently toads aren't fearful of houses teetering on the edge of a rock. Brave toads.

Tater's Toad Abode is beautifully decorated with mosaic stones, which are stuck on with what he called "mask". I wish I could tell you what that is - it looks like a groutish substance. But this could easily be done with hot glue, or just paints. Any decorating technique that is weather-resistant, since the toads are most likely going to be seeking their abode outdoors.

Unless you have indoor toads and then you probably have different housing arrangements for them anyway.

This seems like a good opportunity to give you a brief tour of the other decorations in our garden. Because I am sure you want to know. So here we go...

This is our turtle. He was our first piece of statuary. Just one little whimsical touch. Next to him is a big rock that Sprout stole from a jetty at the beach (shhhh...).

Over there on the right is a little puppy who was added to memorialize Mike's grandmother. She died when Sprout was about 4 and was the first person that Sprout knew who passed away. We didn't take her to the service, but she wanted to do something to remember Gram so we put this puppy in our garden and then stood and held hands and said a little something about Gram being in heaven and how much she loved dogs (which may or may not actually be true...but it made me sob at the time).

This is a bird. I just thought he was cute. No good story.

Just a bird.








This little bunny was to remember my Nana. Because since we did it for Gram, we now have a tradition of commemorating the passing of our loved ones with lawn statuary. I don't think we did any kind of ceremony for Nana's bunny. But the kids helped pick him out and I think of her whenever I see him. Hi, Nana - I miss you.

This one just makes me laugh. Because this is totally my gardening philosophy. I don't know what anything is. I am getting better, but not good.

There is also a little parrot out at the far edge of our lawn (I was too lazy to walk over there - bare feet + grass doesn't make me happy), and then another bird and the mushroom in Tater's sandbox garden.

I guess at some point we passed the tasteful whimsical touch.
But this is more fun.

You are SUCH a Mooch!

I have a problem. I am addicted to books. I have piles and piles (and maybe a few more piles) of books that I am reading, plan to read, think maybe I should read, or think someone else should read.

My children have inherited this sickness and each of their rooms is full of shelves of books and piles of books. And they want more books. Always more books.

Of course, this is a good sickness to have. But it can take a toll on the wallet. And yes, there is always the library. But I frequently can't find what I want at the library - and I also have some patience issues (I know, shocking) and so off I go to Barnes & Noble and drop more cash for more books...

And then I found that mooching can be such a good thing! Now I am also completely addicted to the Bookmooch website.

Basically, you list all the books you have (from all of those piles) that you would like to give away to a new home. People who want those books "mooch" them from you and you send them off to their new families. You pay postage (media mail - about $2.50 per book) to send the books away, and you get "points" in return.

Then you take your points - one point per book generally - and use them to mooch new books that you want. And they are sent to you FOR FREE!!

If the books you want are not immediately available, you can build a wishlist, and when one of them becomes available, you get an e-mail. It is such a beautiful system.

I have given away 40 books (!) and gotten 30 FREE ones in return (and I have enough points to get 14 more!)

You can find TONS of kids books on Bookmooch. We have gotten a bunch of "Magic Treehouse" books and a bunch of "The Littles" books. Also lots of bestsellers, current books, older books. The most current will take a little while to get to Bookmooch (people must buy, read and decide they no longer want them first) - but I got all of the Shopaholics for free (not proud that I read them...but I didn't pay for them!)

If you can control yourself (as I frequently can not) at the bookstore and just write down the books you'd like and then go check Bookmooch, you could save yourself a TON of money.

And it is earth-friendly! Recycling at it's finest! Great lessons to teach your kids - patience, cheapness, and reuse/recycle!

Tater's Sandbox Garden

Despite some evidence to the contrary my Tater is quite the aspiring gardener. He frequently requests trips to Lowe's to pick out flowers, and he begs and pleads for additions to the garden every time we see flowers outside of the grocery store.

He picked out a bunch of seeds earlier in the Spring and we planted them around outside and have our fingers crossed that they will survive beyond the sprout stage.

So, when I realized that we still had our ancient sand table under the deck, I thought perhaps it could be repurposed into Tater's own little garden. Like a windowbox, but bigger...with bridges!

Of course he LOVED this idea and pestered me relentlessly for several days about when would we go get the dirt and plants. When? When? WHEN???

So finally last weekend I gave in and took him to Lowe's where he picked out all of his own plants, and some decorations, for his garden.

I have been on a perennial kick for our outside beds - something about planting just once and not having to do it again next year is very appealing. Tater has latched onto that idea and was a little disappointed that the sandbox garden was probably more appropriate for annuals since the soil is not very deep and the chances of things surviving the winter in there are pretty slim.

There was a moment of drama when we took the lid off of the mud-encrusted table, which had been closed up for about 2 years. We weren't sure what was going to be living in there. I was prepared to scream and run away, but aside from a few substantial spider webs it wasn't so bad.

We used the hose to spray the table clean, and squirting the hose is always fun for a kid! Then we hauled the empty table up onto our deck and filled it with potting soil and all of Tater's plants. He did a nice job picking a mix of colors and textures - the finished result is quite fabulous and he is very proud of himself.

During the planting was where Sprout thought she might like to get involved, but she was shut out (poor Sprout) since Tater felt he had done all of the hard work and she couldn't just jump in for the fun. Which is true.

He picked out a rain gauge that looks like a ladybug to sit on the "umbrella hole" on the table, and a ceramic mushroom (the blue on the left). We also put the bridges from the sand table back in and an iron bird that had been sitting on the deck. Somehow a garden just doesn't seem done (to me anyway) unless there is some little hidden statue somewhere.

I don't know where I got that from - my parents are not big on the statuary. But I kind of love it - as long as it is subtle. Like little surprises you find amidst the flowers.

Anyway, the finished garden is a lovely addition to the deck. I am considering this to be a recycling project since the table was definitely headed for the trash before we found a new use for it. So, yay us!

Now I have to go get MORE potting soil because my little gardener also insisted on seeds for cucumbers...and might like to grow some carrots. And maybe a few more flowers out front...

Black Thumb = genetic?

Tater brought home his "Plant Log" today...a daily book of observations from planting seeds at school.

It made me laugh - so I will share it with you. I am generous that way.
All spelling is original - I think it lends to the story.

A Plant Begins: Daily Log of Observations - by Tater B.

Day 1: Today I planted a forget me not and a wildflower. I put soil in my cup. I put a stick in my cup with my name. I put in seeds and put it by the window sill and am leting it grow.

Day 2: nothing hapined

Day 3: nothing hapined

Day 4: Nothing hapined

Day 5: Nothing hapined

Day 6: Nothing hapined

Day 7: It grew

Day 8: nothing happined

Day 9: Nothing happined

Day 10: It Died.

Day 11: nothing happined

Poor Tater. But such an insightful glimpse into elementary school gardening, right?

And every single time I have planted a seed - this has pretty much been my experience. I am sort of relieved that the plant didn't make it. Otherwise, he would have brought it home to grow.

And it would have died.

UPDATE: On Friday, the cup of dirt came home from school with Tater's popsicle-stick name tag standing forlorn and alone in the center of the vast emptiness of the Dixie Cup. He thinks that maybe if we just water it some more, there is still hope...

UPDATE II: Holy cow!! THERE'S A SPROUT IN THERE!!!

Swish, Slosh - Recyled "Tornado"

I can tell that you are looking at the picture and thinking "What the heck is THAT?"

Why, that is a tornado in a bottle. Sitting on my kitchen table. Which I probably should have wiped off better - I see crumbs. Sorry.

So - we found this idea in a book. Actually Tater found it in one of the "Kid Concoctions" books that he got for Christmas. I think it was this one. I just can't bring myself to schlep into the kitchen to check. Sorry again...

The "recipe" called for two liter bottles. But since we don't actually buy those (because once I open a bottle of Diet Coke, I am drinking the whole thing right now...no matter how big it is), we had to settle for two 20-ounce water bottles that we dug out of the recycling bin.

The final effect would be better with bigger bottles, so if you can be trusted with them, you should use them.

One of the bottles was filled about 3/4 of the way with water. The other bottle was placed on top (so that the open ends were lined up) and then firmly duct-taped into place. You don't want leakage.

To make the "tornado" or whirlpool, do this:

1) Hold the bottles upright, so that all of the water is in the bottom bottle, with the empty bottle on top.

2) Quickly flip the whole thing over and swirl it around to get the water swishing around as it flows down. If you get it right, you should see the whirlpool in the top bottle (which was the bottom bottle, with the water in it).

Once you get the hang of the flip-swish action, it is pretty cool. The kids were flipping and swishing (and I was muttering under my breath hoping that the duct tape would hold) for much of the afternoon.

The book also suggests that you could mix in some glitter to highlight the whirlpool. I didn't have enough faith in the duct tape (although I should have, it is still leak-free) and didn't want to risk the water/glitter shower across my entire house. But if you like that sort of thing, go for it!

Playing House with Pikachu

Tater was all fired up for a project this weekend. Saturday morning, right after his crazy-early basketball game, he got out our big books-o-crafts and flipped through them looking for a good idea.

After a number of false starts that required materials we do not have (note to self, get some wooden beads, and be on the lookout for berries in those retro plastic baskets)...he came up with a dollhouse made of tissue boxes.

Of course, no tissue boxes. But we did a quick scavenge, found some empty shoe boxes, and were ready to roll!

Sprout and Tater consulted on the appropriate layout (including a raised deck, which required some more advanced "engineering" than I was counting on). Then we broke out the big roll of packing tape and some scissors.

After lining up the "rooms" according to their plan, we figured out where to put doors and cut though both boxes to make gaps. Then we (I) liberally applied packing tape to hold everything together.

For the "deck" we used the lid of one of the boxes and made some cardboard supports under the suspended edge. And lots more tape.

After the shell of the house was together, it was time to decorate. Rugs were subcontracted to me. I made them with construction paper cut to different shapes (advanced ones like ovals and rectangles) and then colored them with rug-like designs using markers. I even did a fringe on one!

Tater mulled over some ideas for furniture (some of which required empty spools of thread - does anyone actually have those??) and finally settled on Lego.

I think this is one of the few times that the kids have built anything out of Lego (besides a tall tower one block wide) without explicit instructions. I feared they were totally ruined for free-form Lego-ing by their collection of Star Wars sets, but they really rose to the occasion.

They spent quite some time building things - bunk beds, a big screen TV, a big box for all the money (!), sofas, chairs, an airplane and boat. They even did some steps over the walls to the deck, which I thought were quite brilliant. A helipad was added later to house all of the vehicles.

And then Pikachu and a small red bear moved in. It's hard to make them out, but they are down there hanging out in the bed together (right next to the big box-o-money).



I was pretty impressed that the kids basically came up with this on their own and worked on/played with it for hours on Saturday.

Maybe they are not completely TV/Wii addicted after all!

Sprout & Tater's New Pad

We finally made the box house today.

After convincing the children that ALL cutting of boxes needed to be done by a grown-up (accompanied by a story about how their uncle very nearly ended up one-eyed after a scissor mishap during a similar childhood project), we put the boxes together, covered them with construction paper (including curtains and a "tiled" floor).

There was a later phase involving chimneys made of paper towel tubes and "smoke" made of balloons...but this is the essential structure.

Then, of course we had to move on to making houses for our toys using shoeboxes, mailing boxes, juice boxes... Copious amounts of packing tape were sacrificed today on the alter of childhood creativity.

But look how happy these kids are...

3 R's

Reduce - I am reducing my use of brain cells for the day.

Re-use - You can read this post over here if you'd like.

Read - Two more Twilight books to go until my brain is mine again...

The Box Turtle

We went to Maryland this weekend to help my in-laws move. The kids were helpful, taking things out of boxes and not breaking anything.

But what they really loved were all of the boxes! There was much begging to bring boxes home so that they could build a playhouse. So we have two fairly huge boxes lurking in the laundry room waiting for that project to come to fruition.

But while we were still there, Tater asked me to put one of the smaller boxes over him to see if he would fit inside. And yes, he did. So he decided that he looked like a turtle. And begged to bring THAT box home, too. And could I please cut feet and a tail.

So, yesterday we got the smaller box out and turned it into a "real" box turtle. Tater cut out the circles to glue onto the box. I was thinking larger, octagonal pieces - but he thought circles were the way to go and I handed off creative control (yay for me!)

He was very happy with the final product and sat in it to watch TV last night. Says it hurts a little...but very cute.

Totally Tubular

So, we've been collecting paper towel tubes for a while. Like, a long long while. And we had a BIG pile of them.

Yesterday, when Tater looked at me and said "What are we going to DO today?", we decided that something with tubes was the way to go.

There are many options with tubes - an excellent recyclable craft supply. In the past, we have built castles from them, and pilgrims for Thanksgiving. Mike has also built a very impressive device (dubbed "the McGuyver Tool") which incorporates several tubes and a pasta fork, and is quite useful for fetching things that get stuck on the roof.

This time, we found a picture in a book of a marble ramp made with paper towel tubes. So we went for it.

Materials: Big pile of paper towel tubes, duct tape, scissors and stuff to prop the ramps up on. We used a shelf, a puppet theater, a picnic basket on a chair and a table. I think the more interesting things you can use, the more entertaining this whole project could be.

The tubes are taped together with the duct tape (duh). To make some angles and turns, we cut a bit off of the ends to sort of make mitered corners (but much less precise). At the end of the ramp, the balls and marbles fall into a toy kettle. We had it dumping directly in, but you could make it a little less direct and then there would be more challenge to the whole thing.

I know it is difficult to fully appreciate the full glory of the ramp in the midst of the playroom wreckage. But it is cool. And the kids played with it for quite a while yesterday.

And, since they were down in the basement and reminded that there are toys down there...the wreckage increased (yes, these pictures are before the true wreckage ensued)...

Good Green Fun with Crayons

I just received an e-mail from What's Hot for Tots asking me to joining their Crayon Crew.

Of course I did!

I actually was just reading in a magazine (can't remember which one, maybe Real Simple?) about how to recycle just about anything and crayons were on their list (with a different organization mentioned...but hey, the more the merrier!)

What's Hot for Tots will take old crayons and melt them into new ones which will be donated to schools, hospitals and care centers. How cool is that?

Now, if you are very motivated - you can do your own crayon recycling.
Tater's class did this last year at school.

First you need to carefully peel the wrappers off of the crayons. The kids had a great time doing this, although the little bits of paper ("schnibbles", as my Mom would say) were all over the place.

Then take the crayon bits and pieces and put them in the cups of a metal muffin tin. You can mix the colors in the different cups, or do one color in each - completely dependent on your personal preference.

Put the muffin tin in the oven at 200 degrees for about 10 minutes, until the wax melts. Keep a close eye on the crayons, no fires!

Let the wax cool completely before you pop the new, round crayons out of the tin.
How fun is that?

Here are some very ambitious ideas for recycled crayon activities.

I also found this when trying to find a recommendation for how to melt the crayons (they did it at school...I wasn't there!)

So - now that the kids are all off to school with new boxes of fresh, pointy crayons - clean out the cabinets and recycle the old ones!