Penguins in the Snow Sensory Tub

I had the pleasure of creating this sensory tub for a little friend of ours. She just recently turned two and likes penguins, so I wanted to come up with something that would interest her.

After a little research online, I came across the pattern for these super cute penguin finger puppets. They were fast and easy to make and turned out great. The two larger ones pictured are from the pattern. Once I made those, I figured they could be the daddy and mommy penguins. Since our friend is going to have a baby brother in a couple of months, I decided to freehand some smaller penguins to be her and her brother. I put the penguins on popsicle sticks so that they could stand in the "snow" but they are not glued in place, so they can still be finger puppets.

I filled the tub with cotton balls, stuffing, small squares of bubble wrap, pieces of two different snowflake ribbons, scraps of light blue paper, white foam circles, and pipe cleaner snowflakes. 

I also made some fun white and glittery snow dough to accompany this tub. I sure hope she enjoys it!

G Week- Guitar Lunch

 
One of the highlights of G week was definitely the guitar I made for lunch one day.

I started by using a glass to cut a circle out of a piece of bread. I then used a slightly smaller glass to cut out a crescent from the rest of the bread.

 

After cutting out a rectangle, I fit in half of a hot dog with the ends trimmed.

A piece of pepperoni made a nice "hole." 

A few raisins and noodles finished it off nicely.

Trip was quite excited about this lunch and was disappointed when there wasn't another guitar for him the next day. He briefly pretended to play the instrument,

then gobbled up the noodles and hot dog.

Paint Chip Christmas Tree Bunting

I have seen several things made out of paint samples, so when I had the chance to visit a home improvement store a few weeks ago, I chose some in different shades of greens.

I discovered that I could get three Christmas trees (a large, a medium, and a small) out of each sample without having any printing on them .

Once they were all cut out, I arranged them in a pattern and added a few embellishments such as brads, words made on my label maker, rhinestones, star tags, and paper snowflakes.

At first, I just taped them on some twine, but found that they became very uneven,

so I started measuring and placing them three inches apart.

The finished product fit perfectly on the table my sister and I had at our local holiday fair. It added a nice little pop of color.

Now, it hangs in our dining room.

Felt Christmas Tree

I had a board book about a Christmas tree to send to my nephew and wanted to include something else, so I decided to make him a felt Christmas tree to decorate.

I made a tree pattern on paper,

then traced it on the felt and cut it out.

Next came the decorations. I twisted red and white pipe cleaners together, cut them into short pieces, and shaped them into candy canes.

Felt ornaments and stars came next.

Finally, I stuck some Christmas stickers on cardstock, cut them out, and glued small pieces of felt to the back.

 

Voila! A Christmas tree to decorate and un-decorate to your heart's content. 

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D Week- Dinosaur Feet

I saw the idea for dinosaur feet made out of tissue boxes on Pinterest and loved it. Fortunately, we emptied two tissue boxes just before I was going to do this project so I was all set. I had hoped that Trip would help me glue tissue paper to the boxes, but he wasn't interested at all, so I did it myself.

To get started, I cut up two sheets of green tissue paper and watered down some white glue. I also taped around the opening in each box to provide a little more strength. It helps if you leave the plastic in the box, but if you take it out (like I did on one of them without thinking), you can always glue some more plastic in its place (I used a small piece of a trash bag but a food storage bag or grocery bag would work too). Having the plastic and it being reinforced with packing or duct tape helps your child keep his or her feet in the box. 

I started gluing on the tissue paper, using lots of glue and overlapping the pieces. After one layer, you could definitely still see the printing on the box. I wasn't too worried about it, but if you don't want to see what's on the box, you might consider covering it in paint or a thicker paper.

After another layer, the printing was mostly covered.

Once my boxes were dry, I cut up a large kitchen sponge to make the claws. I cut the sponge in half and then got three large and two small triangles out of each of the two pieces.

I used the larger triangles for the front claws and stuck two of the smaller ones together to make the back claw.

Trip's reaction to these dinosaur feet was interesting. They sat on the table almost the whole week and he would have nothing to do with them. Daddy and I each tried to get him to put them on and both times it ended in him falling to the floor and crying just at the suggestion. Then, during the weekend, he suddenly wanted to try them on. We put them on his feet and he tromped all over the house roaring and having a great time.

As Trip tried them out, we discovered that they are a little slick on our carpet, so I added a few lines of hot glue to the bottom of each box to provide some traction.

I was glad that this project didn't turn out to be a flop and that Trip realized how fun some new feet could be.




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C Week- Crocodile Clickers

I found the idea for these cute crocodile clickers on Pinterest and knew Trip would love them.

I cut out two strips of corrugated cardboard from a box and rounded the edges. I colored one side of each crocodile with a green Sharpie and the other side with a red one. I also added a face with silver and black markers.

Next came attaching the bottle caps. I considered several ways to do this, but ended up making a puddle of hot glue in each cap.

Once they were cool, I added another puddle on top of each one.

When the glue was built up a little, the caps could finally stick to the cardboard.

 Trip has had lots of fun playing with these cute clickers!