toddlers are busy people & our little H is no exception. while it seems that most of our time is spent in motion, there are a few less active moments where we attempt to focus his attention on particular tasks. curling up with a book or three is always great, but we like to stimulate our boy's brain in lots of ways & as much as possible! here are a few things we've made from items found around the house to keep our babyeel's fingers busy while also working on a little fine motor, color & shape recognition, language & other such fun!
earlier this week i was inspired by a photo that i saw on pinterest of a shape memory game by dandee designs. check it out for yourselves here: http://www.dandee-designs.com/2011/05/shapes-colors-memory-game.html
i love the wooden discs they are made with, but had no luck finding any at our local, "we've got it all, but not really" mega store. unlike most, i don't have immediate access to a craft store in my area & my woodworking in-laws live an hour away, so i decided to find something else to make them with. i was determined to get them made asap & we weren't due for a trip into town for another day or two, so i started to dig & came across a stack of old album covers that i have been collecting. my friend & craft fair partner uses the actual records as canvases (records that are otherwise unlistenable, of course! we never destroy mint records, we listen to them.) & papaeel & i upcycle the covers for lots of things & so i figured why couldn't they be used in place of the wooden discs? yeah, they're a little thiner than wood, but that just means if they end up being thrown, it'll hurt less. i decided to go with a seals & crofts album cover & proceeded to look for some fun paper to use for the back of our matching/memory shape game (at H's age, this activity is more appropriate as a matching game, ie., "can you find the other black square?" as he gets older, we'll use them as a memory game).
i cut the album cover along the sealed edges so it opened up & used a spray adhesive to secure the paper to the front & back. it sat outside to dry for a little over an hour & when it was ready i brought it inside & quickly pulled out my 3" circle punch only to discover that the record/paper combo was too thick for my punch to successfully punch through! it was looking rather dreadful for a second, but then i decided i'd just have to do it the old fashioned way. i found a good sized circle (roll of masking tape) & quickly traced out 12 of them. i painstakingly hand cut each one with scissors, but what other choice did i have at this point?
not too shabby! i cut out 6 different shapes (2 of each) from felt & used aleene's quick dry tacky glue to adhere them to the circles. once the felt dried, we were ready to match some shapes!
*for the record (pun intended), i strongly suggest adult supervision should you decide to make your own set. do you really know where those old records lived before they came into your possession?? that fact & the glues used are why i make sure the pieces stay out of my boy's mouth.
what to do with some big wooden beads & a shoelace or two?? tie a big knot on one end of the shoelace & let your toddler work his/her fine motor skills. H will sit with such focus & determination when trying to string a bead. it's pretty great to witness!
another fun fine motor activity is the clothespin game. all you need is a narrow mouthed container & some clothespins & you're ready to go!
we left the part of the sticker that wouldn't peel off just where it was & let H create the container's artwork. oh, how he loves to draw!
your child is sure to love dropping the clothespins into the container, dumping them all out & doing it over & over again.
H is way into counting right now, so we make sure to count the clothespins as he drops them into the bottle. he's pretty great, this child of ours! i'm sure you feel the same about yours, so go on now & enjoy one of these activities with them.
we love us some sesame chicken! and while sometimes it's nice to order it in, that's rarely the healthiest option. not only is it going to be loaded with msg, but more than likely, the chicken used was not organic. having an 18 month old who we strive to keep as preservative/sugar/processed-free as possible, we are very aware of the foods we bring into our home. and knowing that there is no way for us to successfully sneak in a container of delicious take out sesame chicken & not expect H to want any, we decided we had no choice but to make our own. enter martha stewart....
over the years we've had a few roommates, so naturally we've acquired things that said roommates have left behind. one good score being a collection of 3 martha stewart everyday food mini mags. they're loaded with good recipes! we've made quite a few things out of them, and have eyeballed the sesame chicken recipe a few times. well the time had finally come! here is what martha's lighter sesame chicken looks like:
here is what our version looked like:
you can find her recipe here, http://www.marthastewart.com/313256/lighter-sesame-chicken
we swapped out the honey for agave & i didn't have any cornstarch on hand, so i doubled up the flour instead. it was oh, so very delicious & H loved it as much as papa & i did!
it has been pretty hot here the last few days! we survived our first market, but it was enough for us to agree we wouldn't attempt saturdays as hot as this past one again. i was so parched from over exposure, i thought i might be sick. luckily, there is a fountain/sprinkler just down from the market & when papa eel & H made it down, they were able to walk over & cool off as needed (next time, i'm gonna go too!) here are a few of my favorite, recent creations we had for sale this past weekend.
you can barely see the tag we sewed into the owl (bottom right), but i decided that i could no longer make & sell things locally or especially cross country without properly labeling them! we've played around on spoonflower.com & would love to get some material printed for tags, but as previously mentioned, my materials fund is a little low at the moment. since i knew i was going to be making more plush items, i thought long & hard about how i could come up with a simple, yet effective tag and most importantly, out of something we already had. i began digging through one of my craft closets and came across this:
hmmmmmm....i thought, surely there was a way to make this work to my advantage. we talked things over, then papa quickly made up a layout with our name/logo, mirrored the image before printing (very important step!) & printed it out.
not bad! it looked like it could work, but i didn't want to jump the gun & decided to only do a strip, so as not to waste the precious linen i was going to use to iron them onto.
they turned out pretty good & even though they aren't quite exactly what we wanted, they work! yay!
