Filter Flowers

I have recently become addicted to my new french press (and am still in love with my espresso machine), which leaves me with an abundance of unused coffee filters taking up space in my kitchen cabinet. So I have been thinking of more fun ways to use them up. I used the same idea from my coffee filter butterflies, but this time I made flowers instead. Zel only recently started using markers so they are very exciting for him. We colored the coffee filters but there was no need to cut them for this project. Zel has been talking a lot about colors lately so I used this activity as an opportunity to expand upon his interest in colors. On each coffee filter I drew shapes of the same color and tried to have him point out the ones he knew. He also liked talking about the colors of the marker caps. We then sprayed them all with water and hung them to dry. Once dry, I bunched three together and wrapped a green pipe cleaner around them and left some length at the end for the stem. I tried to put all six with one pipe cleaner but three seemed to be the most it would hold without filters falling our or having to use glue or staples or something else. Now we have lovely flowers in a vase and I don't have to worry about the cat trying to eat them!

Making Old Books and Toys Fun Again

Do you find that your child seems bored with his toys or books? Sometimes, it seems like my son just looks through all of his toys and books trying to find one to play with but ends up just making a pile of toys and then whining to me out of boredom. He has so many toys and books, how could he be bored?!

I thought back to my preschool teacher days on how to solve this issue. One thing that I always did was rotate out the toys and books based on the weekly curriculum. We don't have very much storage in our current place so storing toys and books isn't really an option. In honor of Children's Book Week, I started by focusing on the books. Zel has a bookshelf in his room for board books and one shelf in our living room toy cabinet for larger paperback books. For our first weekly theme I chose animals. I found a metal bucket from a gift basket we received a few months ago. I went through Zel's books and selected the books about animals and put them in the book bucket. I also added books that we checked out from the library. I placed the bucket in an empty space and he immediately ran over and started reading. It was great to see him looking through books that he never reads and of course looking through old favorites as well. There is something that makes toys and books more exciting when they are rearranged or removed and replaced at a later date. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, right?

Homemade Photo Key Chains for Mother's Day

Since I have recently added a lot more craftiness into my life, I wanted to do something special and homemade for Zel's grandmothers this Mother's Day. I came across an idea that spiked my interest on My Crazy Life as a farmers wife. It was a bit of an undertaking but I committed to it.

Here's how I did it:

Materials:

• Old gift cards
• patterned card stock
• acrylic paint
• glitter
• wallet size photos
• stencils
• hole punch
• key rings
• spray adhesive
• mod podge gloss

Instead of ordering the hang tags, a friend suggested to use old gift cards as the base. I loved this idea and had tons of old cards lying around (Zel loves plastic cards, so I always give him the used ones). First I cut the gift cards in half and trimmed it so that the corners were rounded. I chose a color that matched the cardstock print and painted one side of the gift card. Make sure to do at least 2 coats. While the final coat is still wet sprinkle some glitter on it so that it will dry and stick onto the paint.

Once the paint is dry, place the card on the card stock and trace around it with a pencil. Then cut out the shape and use spray adhesive to glue it to the empty side of the card.

Once the glue dries, choose what you would like to write on the back of the card. I chose the letter "Z." When you place it, remember that you will be punching a hole in the top for the key ring to go through. After carefully placing the stencil, tape it down to avoid movement. I used silver metallic paint. Just make sure you don't use a lot or it will bleed.


While the paint is drying, cut your photo to the shape and size desired. Use spray adhesive to glue it to the glittery side of the key chain. Then punch a hole in the top center of the key chain.



Coat both sides with several layers of mod podge. Make sure you get the gloss kind so that it dries clear. Once it dries, slide your key ring through.

Whoever receives this will be sure to love it!

Hiding Vegetables in Your Family Meals

Kids don't always eat their veggies (and neither do husbands). That is why I love this recipe for Turkey Zucchini Burgers from skinnytaste. It is tasty, easy, and about 150 calories! You will enjoy it even more because your family will have no idea that their burger is full of nutritious zucchini.

I followed the recipe except I finely chopped the red onion rather than grating it. I don't know why, I just hate grating red onion. In order to keep it low calorie, I ate it with 100% Whole Wheat Thin Style Buns from Sara Lee. The recipe says that it yields 5 patties, but I ended up making 6 regular sized patties and one mini patty for Zel. I only cooked two plus the mini burger and froze the other four to enjoy later. The first night I added regular burger toppings like ketchup, cheese, and baby spinach.

The second time around I got the idea to make a tzaziki sauce to go with it. I have made greek burgers before and they were a hit at my house. But these will be even better with the secret veggies. 

Here is a recipe for my tzaziki sauce:

Ingredients

• 3/4 cucumber, chopped with seeds removed
• 1 to 1 1/2 cups non-fat greek yogurt (I prefer the Fage brand)
• lemon juice
• 2 cloves garlic, pressed
• about 1/4 cup dill
• about 1 tsp cumin
• salt to taste

First, cut the cucumber in half length-wise and use a small spoon to scrape out the seeds. Once the seeds are removed, chop the cucumber. Add the chopped cucumber, greek yogurt, lemon juice, garlic, dill, cumin, and salt to the food processor and blend until smooth. I don't usually measure the amount of lemon juice, I just add it until I like the taste. As a guideline, use about the same amount you would get from juicing one lemon. If you like your tzaziki thicker then add a little more yogurt. The sauce has the best flavor if you let it sit for a few hours or overnight.

Hope you enjoy this as much as I did. If you try it, let me know what you think!

Saturday Morning Sensory

Zel seemed a little bored with his toys this morning so I looked around for something I could put together quickly. Zel still talks about the dry rice and beans that we used to make egg shakers, so I grabbed them out of the cabinet. Scooping and pouring is a great learning activity for kids, so I thought I'd let him do just that. I used a baking sheet as a tray and found a few differently sized containers from Zel's play kitchen. Then I found a great container with lots of compartments that I used when he was an infant for freezing homemade baby food. I filled each container with a different material (I used rice, lentils, and bread crumbs). Then I gave him a coffee scoop and a small spoon and asked him to try to fill up the compartments. He did that for a while then focused his efforts on transferring the materials between the various containers. Then he got a little crazy and began flinging beans and rice across the room. So we got out the mini dust buster and I let him try to suck up all the pieces. It was a great searching game as well as practice using his fine motor skills.

Now that we had used all this dried food, I didn't want to just throw it away. I remembered that we just finished a roll of paper towels, so we decided to make a rain stick.



Here's what you'll need:

• paper towel roll
• dryer sheet
• 2 rubber bands
• aluminum foil
• dried beans or other dried food like rice

Cut the dryer sheet in half and cover one end of the cardboard tube. Wrap a rubber band around it to keep it in place. Rip up some pieces of aluminum foil and crumple into long pieces. Put the crumpled aluminum and dried beans (or whatever you are using) into the cardboard tube.



Close up the other side with the other half of the dryer sheet and the other rubber band. You could also have your child decorate the cardboard tube first for even more excitement.

Fun with Rocks

Zel finds rocks to be very exciting, so any activity involving rocks is a hit with him. On a sunny day, I sent Zel out with his Daddy and a bucket to collect some rocks from around our apartment building (I stayed home so I could exercise without a toddler climbing on top of me). We put our bucket of rocks away for a rainy day, when we could use them to paint on. 

Kids love painting, but there is something about painting on items other than paper that makes it extra exciting. For Zel, it was a fun sensory experience too. If you do this activity indoors, I would suggest putting down some plastic or a blanket to cover the floor, especially if you have a toddler. Zel loves to throw rocks, so having the plastic saved the carpet. We used tempera paint and I gave him old applesauce cups to mix the paint in. We selected a few rocks and began painting.

Eventually, Zel began to explore methods of getting paint on the rocks other than using a paintbrush. First, he finger painted on the rocks. Then, he discovered that he could put the rocks into the paint cups to cover them with paint. This proved to be even more fun. He then began pouring the rocks back and forth between the various paint cups. This was the most fun yet.

I added a layer of glitter glue to one of the rocks and used a paint pen to write his name on it. 

Bangarang Bath Paint

If you've ever seen the movie Hook then you'll remember the food fight scene. The food doesn't look quite like real food, mostly colorful blobs. While doing my bath paint activity (I got the idea from Having Fun at Home), my husband pointed the similarity out to me. So he named it "Bangarang Bath Paint." 

It was really quite simple. All you need is shaving cream, food coloring, and a muffin tin or some other container.

First, put some shaving cream into each spot in the muffin tin. Then put some food coloring onto each blob of shaving cream and mix each one. You can make a bunch of colors depending on how much food coloring you have. It's just that easy!

Once Zel was in the bath tub, I showed him what the paint was for and then handed him the brush (We just used a regular paint brush). He loved it! What could be more fun than bath time? Making a mess in the bath tub, of course! He would carefully dip the paint brush into the tin but then repeatedly bang the brush against the side of the tub as hard as he could. 

Clean up was very easy. Just use your shower head to rinse off your child and the tub. 

No children or bathtubs were stained in the making of this blog post.