T-Shirt Weather

Reminder: Sharing Saturday is still open!! So is the Teacher Gift Link Party! Please stop by both and share your amazing ideas!!

Hazel's Mermaid T-Shirt

My Mermaid T-Shirt

Summer has finally hit here in New England. So since it is t-shirt weather, we decided to paint our own. T-shirts were on sale this past week at Joann's (4 for $10) and AC Moore ($2.99). We bought a bunch in different colors for both of us and a few for gifts. I also used my 50% off coupon at Joann's to buy some metallic and glitter fabric paints. Needless to say we will be making some for the various holidays this year. I had seen a few places using freezer paper stencils and read somewhere that contact paper would also work. I also had seen a tutorial in Family Fun Magazine to make your own silk screens so they would be reusable, but I didn't want to invest the money and time into this. Since I had a piece of contact paper cut that wasn't used for its original intention, I went with that. It was so easy! I googled for free stencils and for certain pictures. We had decided we wanted mermaid t-shirts to enter in the Mermaid Project Competition.

So to start I traced the stencils onto the clear contact paper. Then using an Exacto type knife I cut out the portions for each color. (On some of the multi-colored ones if the colors were not too close I would cut them both out of one as to not waste Contact paper.) Then we chose the color for the first part and I put the stencil on the t-shirt with a magazine inbetween the layers of the fabric. We put some paint in a plastic egg carton and Hazel dabbed it on with sponge applicators I bought the last time we painted t-shirts for Valentine's Day.

Hard at work on her mermaid!

Close up on the mermaid painting

The mermaid was the only one we used twice. So we did these together each layer. First we did Hazel's and then I would remove the stencil and put it right on my t-shirt and dab the stencil with a paper towel since I wanted different colors.

Stencil Removed

Painted stencil

In between colors we had to wait four hours for the paint to dry completely. So we did all the first round and then waited. Did some second round before Hazel went to bed, but finished the second round in the morning as well as the third round from the ones we did the night before. Here are some of the ones we did. (There are more methods below!!)

We bought Hazel a new sun hat which she loves and she wanted a t-shirt to match it so I copied the fish and used the picture as a stencil. It came out pretty good. The unicorn I want to fix. I let Hazel choose the colors and the white she chose doesn't really show up well and neither does the pink mane and tail. Still thinking about what I will do with it though.

I bought some large farm animal stamps ages ago. Hazel wanted to use the duck one and I let her paint it whatever colors she wanted and as many times as she wanted. She wanted to make a mommy duck, a daddy duck and a baby duck so there are three. This was probably among the easiest method and the one she could basically do by herself!

Then for Father's Day, we made my father a t-shirt. Or at least I should say we started him a t-shirt. We did the front. We will bring it to him and give it to him but when my nephew comes for his visit this summer he will complete the back for him. I will leave him some of the paints to do it. We used Hazel's handprints to make a heart. I saw this idea at Craft Passion.

Hazel put paint on each of her hands and we made handprints. Then I used the paints directly from the bottle and drew the heart around her hands and wrote the words. Hazel calls my dad Pop. My nephew calls him by his first name so his will be different on the back.

We have some more ideas to try, so stay posted for another t-shirt post. Enjoy!

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Sunflowers, Seeds, and More

Sunflowers

Sharing Saturday is still open!! Please come visit and share your wonderful child-oriented crafts and activities with us and check out all the great ideas already shared. Tonight Happy Family Times will be open. You will be able to share your wonderful family time stories to help inspire all of us to have more of them.

Watermelons

After our mini-vacation we came home to see how much our plants have grown. We need to begin repotting some of them and planting some new seeds.

Pumpkins

We also got to finally see some growth in our fourth seed container (half milk container) of celery plants!

Celery

We also were able to finish, well almost finish some of our sunflower crafts. Hazel also posed with her flower mask.

Then we got working on our Mother's Day gifts and added some pictures and I printed out the You Are My Sunshine with the specific names. Now I need to buy some magnetic strip for the back and attach the songs to the flowers. I got these ideas from DLTK.

For Me

For Hazel's Godmother

For Daddy

Hazel wanted to make one for Daddy and Pop as well, so I guess they will also be Father's Day gifts. I am thinking of covering them in clear contact paper just to give them more strength before I put the magnetic strips on and attach the songs. Aren't they cute? Here is how I finished them:

Covered in clear contact paper and added two adhesive magnets

A finished product

We are all set for Mother's Day and Father's Day now!

We also had a visit from Mr. and Mrs. Mallard. While at the Cape I visited the Birdwatcher's General Store and asked for advice on what to feed the ducks. We bought some cracked corn and they seem to love it!

Hazel and I also played outside and she decided we were taking the train to the zoo. On the train she gave out diamonds. These are my two--a white one and a blue one. Love her imagination!!

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Adventures Outside Using our Senses and Imaginations

We spent much of the day outside on Saturday. Hazel has decided that the stuffed llama I got for my first Mother's Day (Heifer fundraiser--Buy a Llama for Your Mama) is a dog and it is Ducky's dog to be exact. Well she has me tie a string on to it as a leash and she drags it all over the place inside and out. Above she is running with Doggy. She would do this and then say Mommy needs to take a break now Doggy and come sit with me for a few minutes and then be off again.

As I have posted we are taking a class at Drumlin Farms on using our senses around the farm in the spring. This week we discussed sight. So today while outside we decided to pay attention to our senses. The first thing we always discuss is the sky--at least ever since we read Blue Sky by Audrey Wood. This book just shows different skies and labels them like blue sky, cloud sky, rainbow sky, etc. So now we always notice the sky and label it. Today was definitely a blue sky day.

Then we got to see a bird's nest--a sparrow's nest to be exact. We have a sparrow family that always nests on our house. So I pointed out the nest to Hazel today.

We also saw and heard lots of birds especially after we filled the birdfeeder.

Taking an idea from Living and Learning at Home (I featured this at Sharing Saturday this week), we drew pictures of what we saw, what we heard and what we felt today. I labeled all of our pictures so we would know what they were--especially Hazel's.

Hazel decided to go barefoot so she felt the grass on her feet as well as the woodchips. She didn't like the feeling of the woodchips.

She had fun filling the birdfeeder and carried the birdseed bag herself. She also liked walking on her stumps in her bare feet. I thought it would hurt, but apparently it didn't.

When we talked about what we see she mentioned the clothesline. I guess that is because we hung the clothes out when we first came outside.  Here are the pages from our journal.

 Then it was lunch time, so we had lunch outside.

Nothing like bringing in another sense to the day. Daddy wasn't home so he wasn't there to complain about having to eat outside. Hazel really wanted to so we went for it. After lunch she wanted to go for a walk. She decided she wanted to go in her stroller. I'll share in another post about our walk.  Then when we got back, Hazel was still a bit tired so we made her a place to rest.

After resting she wanted to play train. So we took the train to the zoo.

Hazel spots a red kangaroo out the train window...apparently we are visiting her pen pal in Australia.

She warned me it would be a long train ride and thought I should bring a book. I won a giveaway over at This Cosy Life which included a book, so I grabbed it.

I read the first chapter aloud with many interruptions to ask "Are we there yet?" per Hazel's request. Then she wanted to hear the first chapter again. Then I read the second chapter and at the end of it we were there and got off the train.

Then she played hide and seek with the sun. The sun went behind some clouds and she asked me where it was. I told her it was playing hide and seek so she went off to seek it. When it came back out she claimed to have found it. Then she went to hide from the sun.

I guess since she is in shade she is hiding from it.

Hazel's Talking Electric Toothbrush--or at least that is what she said it is

Next the chalk came out. She had fun drawing and then asked me to make 3 hopscotches for her. One for her, one for me and one for Daddy. She told me what to put in each box. She also drew two squares. It is the first time her squares actually looked squarish.

Then Mr. and Mrs. Mallard came for a visit. (Hazel had been asking me all day if they would.) We fed them some bread.

Hazel loves feeding them!

They were still out there when Daddy came home so we fed them some more. In fact they may be nesting out there. They seemed to not like us seeing them in one part of the brook.

After that we went out for ice cream--but I'll share that for Tuesday's Happy Family Times post. Hope you had a great weekend!!

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More Duck & Swan Crafts and a Gift

Well, we are at home with the fever that is going around. So we are doing some more crafts and resting. Today we finished up some duck and swan crafts we started yesterday and then Hazel did some painting. You may remember yesterday we discussed ducks and swans near us for spring. We talked about some of our favorite books about ducks and swans and shared a couple of crafts with paper plates. Today we did some pine cone swans and ducks. The idea came from Family Fun. I made a few changes. We used construction paper for the beaks since I didn't want to deal with breaking toothpicks.

Hazel's Ducks

Hazel got a bit bored with the details and didn't get her completely finished (no eyes or beaks) and she wouldn't let me help with the duckling so it didn't get done. We obviously changed the colors of the pipe cleaners and feathers to represent that they are ducks and not swans.

My Mallard Family

 Next we painted some egg cartons to make Easter egg holders into swans. The idea also came from Family Fun. They called them swans, but I think they look more like ducks. The white one I used a higher egg carton (it was higher in the middle bumps) so the swan neck would be longer. I threw in some plastic eggs we had sitting around from our decorating to show how they will look completed. Hazel helped paint them yesterday, but I finished them today with the eyes, beaks and feathers.

Yesterday, Hazel received a lovely package from Master D, her penpal in Australia. Master D is Kelly's son over at Happy Whimsical Hearts. Kelly makes the most beautiful wooden toys for her kids and we were lucky enough to receive a beautiful fairy door that she made (as well as some other goodies). Right away Hazel wanted to play with it. She first asked what it was. Then asked if the door could open so the fairy could get out of the house. Then I explained that it represented a fairy house and pulled out the flower fairies I made for her and we set up a house for them. She loved it.

We also took out the beautiful gnome that Master D sent Hazel for Christmas out to come to the fairy party. We decided we need a few more seats for the fairies though. And two took a nap.

Hazel absolutely loved it!! Thank you Master D and Kelly!! It gave us something to play with while Hazel is resting!!

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