Crafty Moms Share: garden

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Happy Easter!!

As I am celebrating the miracle of Easter with my family, I thought I would share a few things with you.

He is Risen!

We added some peg dolls to our Resurrection Garden to act out Easter morning.

We also of course decorated some Easter eggs. This is one of Hazel's favorite things to do.

Finally don't forget to enter my giveaway--you only have one more day!

Happy Easter!!

This year I wanted to try making a resurrection garden with Hazel. I had seen one last year and pinned--or thought I had then searched again for it and pinned one this year. The one I found is from Raising Little Disciples.

So to make this we used a relatively flat large circular pot (I had bought a terracotta saucer, but couldn't find it), soil, rocks (we used small ones), a small clay pot to be the tomb, a rock to cover the opening, some sticks and string to make crosses, seeds--grass and flowers.

To start we filled the flat pot with soil and placed the small tomb one. Then put the small rocks down as a path. I also tried to get some soil (and seeds) on top of the tomb. Unfortunately with watering it didn't stay well. Then we planted some grass seeds and flower seeds. Then we made three crosses from sticks we picked up in our yard and put them behind the tomb.

When we had our one nice spring day in between snowstorms, we found a rock on our nature walk. Our grass needs cutting and some of the flowers are getting their leaves at least. I cannot wait to see what it looks like on Easter morning. Hazel loved making and loves checking it to see the growth. It is such a wonderful way to prepare for Easter and remember the true meaning of the holiday.

Happy Family Times--In the Garden

Have you done something fun with your family this week? Kelly at Happy Whimsical Hearts and I would love to hear about it. Each week we collect great family activities to inspire us all to have more quality time with our families.

One bag of daffodil bulbs

This week we had a lot of Mommy and Hazel time while Daddy was working overtime for the power company. So when the weekend came and Daddy was finally home, we took advantage of some family time. One thing that has been on our to do list was to dig up the dahlia and gladiola bulbs and to plant some daffodil bulbs my father gave us. Since they are predicting a possible snow storm this week, we figured we better get moving on it. So Saturday afternoon we went outside and started digging. Steve removed most of the gladiola bulbs and I got the dahlia bulbs in the back.

Then Steve went to dig up the ones in the front while Hazel and I started to plant some daffodils. I had apparently forgotten that my father gave me some daffodil bulbs in the spring and accepted more from him in the fall so we had two bags to plant. Hazel went off and started planting in what was her sunflower garden.

Then we joined Daddy in the front and planted more daffodils. I cannot wait until the spring to see all of our pretty flowers!

After doing our yard work, we went for a bike ride/walk. Hazel rode her bike while Steve and I walked. Then of course part of the way Hazel decided to walk so Steve brought her bike home for her.

Now it is your turn to share how your family has spent some quality time lately.

~ please link up (family time oriented giveaways are ok, but please no Etsy shops)
~just crafts will be deleted since this is to share family times ~ use our button so others can join the fun

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~ we'd love for you to follow us Crafty Moms Share and Happy Whimsical Hearts
~ check out our Happy Family Times Pinterest board where we will be pinning some of our favorite ideas

Ok, now for our PARTY!! Please share your FUN Family Times!!

Summer Virtual Book Club for Kids--Kevin Henkes' My Garden

Oh, I am so excited!! Today has finally arrived!! This month for the Summer Virtual Book Club for Kids the author is one of our favorites: Kevin Henkes. Today we will be discussing his book, My Garden.

For those of you who have not read about the Summer Virtual Book Club for Kids I am participating with 20+ other blogs to run this blog hop. Each of us is showing some activity to go with a Kevin Henkes book (and not all the same ones), so please stop in and check out some of the exciting things others are up to. The blogs participating in hosting this blog hop are:

Toddler Approved, Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas, Rainy Day Mum, Reading Confetti, Inspiration Laboratories, Play Dr. Mom, Mommy and Me Book Club, Kitchen Counter Chronicles, Two Big Two Little, Creative Connections for Kids, The Golden Gleam, Juggling with Kids, Taming the Goblin, Crafty Moms Share, Ready Set Read 2 Me, Famiglia and Seoul, The Good Long Road, The Educator's Spin On It, Imagination Soup, 3 Dinosaurs, Royal Baloo, BeingAConsciousParent, No Twiddle Twaddle, Crayon Freckles, Pleasantest thing, Adventures in Reading with Kids, and Teach Preschool.

Please make sure you visit them and check out their posts. Also, several of us have exciting giveaways to run later this week thanks to Harper Collins, so make sure you check out later in the week each one as well!
"If I planted seashells, I'd grow seashells."--from My Garden by Kevin Henkes

Now onto some of our things with My Garden. My Garden was the second Kevin Henkes book we discovered. The first is Little White Rabbit. If you have not read either of theses, I highly recommend them. They are favorites in our house. Both inspire imagination as well. My Garden is told from a young girl's voice telling you about her mother's garden and how she helps then she tells you what she wants her garden to be like. This provides so many openings for educational ideas. You could easily plan a garden with a seed catalog. For younger kids just ask what they would like in their garden. For older kids you could have them look up the space needed for such plants and actually have them draw out plans for the garden.

We did not go that route. For awhile I considered having a My Garden Birthday Party for Hazel, so I have spent many hours thinking about the different things the young girl says she will have in her garden and how to represent them. As you see above, the seashell flowers that we used in her nursery rhyme party would also work here. But our major one is the jelly bean bush. I thought about this for awhile and even mentioned it to the children's librarian at our local library. I had decided to make Rice Krispie Treat Jelly Bean Bushes and she told me about Corn Flake Wreathes which would look more realistic for the leaves. So this is what we did. We found a recipe at Kelloggs. We followed the recipe but made mounds for bushes and topped them with our favorite jelly beans from a local candy store. I have to say this treats are not helping me lose weight since they are so delicious!! And for the first time, Hazel has actually said she likes jelly beans. She loved making these. By the way, we decided to make small bushes instead of a big one for ease of sharing and eating! 

A little note about melting the marshmallows and butter in the microwave. Do not cover or the marshmallows balloon up. (Please learn from my mistake!)

Another idea we had was to make glowing strawberry lanterns. However with my being sick last week, it did not happen. I was imagining making decoupage around water balloons with red tissue paper and then painting black dots on them (and of course popping the balloons) and sticking in a battery operated light or a string of lights and stringing them. My other idea was red tissue paper on baby food jars and cutting out green felt leaves and using battery operated tea lights. Sorry we didn't get to try this, but maybe we will share it later in the run of this blog hop since it goes on for three weeks!

Our final simple idea is the flowers that change colors. I got this idea from a Sharing Saturday from a few weeks ago. A Happy Song shared her Scrap Paper Dolls. I loved this idea and as I started thinking about the flowers that changed colors I thought this would be perfect. First I found a stencil of a flower I liked. I found a border of them at About.com. I printed it on cardstock and then cut out the petals, center and stems with an Exacto knife. Then I just gave Hazel scraps of scrapbook paper to put under them. So much fun!

Ok, now it is your turn. Feel free to link up your Kevin Henkes inspired activities below and feel free to grab a button so others can find our blog hop! This button takes you to our Facebook page! Oh, and for those of you who like to plan ahead--we are continuing this for the whole year and September's author is Lois Ehlert.

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The Garden Classroom--Book Review

One of the gladiolas blooming in my yard

As you probably have guessed I love gardening. Or maybe I should say I love the products of a garden (I am lucky enough to have a wonderful husband who likes to do much of the labor for me). I also love the planning. Well my love of nature comes from how my parents brought me up. Each of us girls had our own flower garden in our yard. We also helped choose and plant the vegetables in my father's big vegetable garden. I still remember the day my father dug out my little flower garden in the middle of the grass between the patio and the evergreens bordering our property. I cannot tell you how young I was, but I wanted my own garden space so he made me some. Each spring we would go to a local nursery and get to pick out flowers for our garden space. We would also go through the Burpee Seed Catalog to choose which vegetables we would try. I remember several years trying carrots, because I love carrots. Needless to say my upbringing taught me how important it is to love nature and to garden. Ever since I have always tried to grow something. Even when I lived in apartments without garden space I grew plants on balconies. Today I have the pleasure of sharing with you a wonderful e-book written by Cathy over at the Nuture Store.

Cathy just released the e-book, The Garden Classroom: 52 Kids Gardening Activities this week. I was lucky enough to get an advance copy to review for you!!

The Lower Garden in My Parents Yard

First let me start off with if you have not visited the Nuture Store you are really missing something. It is one of my favorite places to go and get ideas. Now this book takes so many of the wonderful gardening with kids ideas floating around out there and puts them in one place as well as introducing some new ones.

Hazel helping Pop water the flowers at the Cape

The book starts with the introduction as to why gardening with kids is important and goes into the basics of gardening from starting seeds to choosing the right plants for your area, etc. Yes, even if you haven't planted a seed before, you will be able to use this book!

Let's face it, children love playing with dirt, leaves and water. Thus they will love gardening. It combines all of it and you can also teach them while doing this. The Garden Classroom goes beyond just the garden and crafts for the garden, but also gives you math activities, science experiments, literacy activities and so much more. If you are homeschooling, this book is a perfect addition to any curriculum.

Hazel's Sunflower Garden (First Planted)

I, of course, love the crafts and art that goes along with it. There are the creative ideas for planters and watering cans to the flower related crafts that can be done in the colder weather. We will definitely be doing some of these and you may see us delve into some of the sunflower activities as Hazel's sunflower garden grows. I love all the different ideas introduced there.

So I recommend you go visit the Nuture Store and purchase a copy of this wonderful e-book. It will be a wonderful addition to your library for great activities to get your child outside and moving!

Gardening Blog Hop

Patio garden with vegetable garden in background

We spent a good part of last weekend outside in our gardens. One of the major issues we have in our yard is that we do not have great sun in the back yard. My vegetable garden was slowly being shaded by the trees, so Steve dug me some more space in the other direction so we could plant all of our seedlings and seeds (which Hazel chose). This garden has been taken over by raspberries and oregano. I pulled most of the raspberries out because they need too much space for the room we have and I always am pulling out the oregano, but it keeps coming back. In fact it even managed to spread over to the patio garden! Not sure how that happened.

Steve extending my vegetable garden

While Steve dug my extension, Hazel and I tackled the weeds in the patio garden. We had really let them go and since they had flowers we left them there, but they were taking over so it was time. Hazel was a great helper. She brought over her little wagon and helped pull a few, but since I kept filling the wagon she kept taking it to empty it for me.

After having lunch outside, Steve went on to dig Hazel's sunflower garden. This garden will hopefully be a sunflower house this year for Hazel. Next year we may pick a different theme like a pizza garden. These ideas came from Sharon Lovejoy's Roots Shoots Buckets & Boots: Activities To Do in the Garden. For some of the other books we have been using as a reference check out this post.

Sunflower Garden

For now we left the center of our sunflower garden grass so it will be more comfortable as a sunflower house.

While Steve started on the sunflower garden, Hazel and I started planting our seedlings. (See Post 1, Post 2, and Post 3 for previous mention of these seedlings.) Hazel wanted to start with the patio garden, but grew bored and went off to play while I planted some of our marigold seedlings and seeds.

Patio Garden

Fairy in Our Patio Garden

Simba's Memorial

She got interested in our garden again when it was time to plant the pumpkins, watermelon and zucchini in our vegetable patch. We also planted some marigolds around the edge to keep the pests out. We are trying one of those Topsy Turvy things for a tomato plant since our tomatos have not done well in our garden. We put it over near the sunflower garden since it gets the most sun in our back yard.

Then we ended our day planting the sunflower seedlings and seeds around the giant circle that Daddy dug. You can see the picture above. What are you growing this year?

Now it is your turn to share with us!

I have been invited to co-host a blog hop on gardening with

Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas

Kitchen Counter Chronicle

The Educators Spin On It

Duck Duck Octopus

Living Montessori Now

Please visit my co-hosts and check out their wonderful garden posts as well!!

This is a blog hop. Please join us as we know Crafty Moms Always Share!!

Fairy Garden 2012

Come to the side of our house, and you will be greeted by a lovely planter of flowers, but if you look closely you may see a little more.

You may see the fairy house and pond and if you are really lucky you may see our little fairy, Elizabeth, (Hazel is naming just about everyone Elizabeth these days) dipping her feet in the pond to cool off or tending to her garden.

Last Friday I posted about The Magic Onions Fairy Garden Contest. Over the weekend, Hazel and I planted and started working on her garden. I love this idea of bringing some of the fantasy world to live. It gets her planning and thinking even more than she already is with her imagination.

First, we went to the store to pick out some flowers for the garden. She wanted a red geranium, some orange marigolds and various pink and purple petunias. We also bought a large pot to plant them in and start our fairy garden.

We filled the pot with dirt. and then found some sticks to make a fairy house and we used a piece of bark for the roof. We also used an old cupcake liner container to be a pond by the house. then we planted the flowers where Hazel wanted. Then she added some rocks to be a path. We also added a small fairy that is meant to decorate a flower pot (she has a hook to hang from the edge on her back).

Hazel decided it needed some acorns and pine cones. We put the acorns around the pond. At this point Hazel got distracted and didn't really finish. She talked about pine cones and shells. So we waited a few days and finally added them.

We decorated with the shells and pine cones and we also used some shells as seats by the pond and in the flowers.

Now we will share at The Magic Onions to enter the contest. I hope you will join us in entering.

This is where I link up...

Happy Family Times #7

Kelly at Happy Whimsical Hearts and I run a link party to share your family times every Tuesday. Please link up below and visit Happy Whimsical Hearts to read about her quality family time!

This weekend we spent most of our family time outside. On Saturday we got the pleasure of feeding the ducks. They actually came up to the driveway next to our garage and we fed them there.

Hazel was of course very excited but we kept her pretty calm and quiet so we could watch them from only a few feet away.

My taking pictures is actually what scared them away. Off they flew to the brook, but we went to do other things away from the back yard and they came right back. I got another picture from around the corner of the garage.

Then after they left this time they hung out in the brook near our bird feeders. We do think they have a nest back in the corner where the brook turns.

After feeding the ducks, Daddy and Hazel rebuilt the fairy house since something had knocked it down a bit.

And I found them relaxing on the patio as well.

Sunday after church, we did some gardening. Hazel and I planted the impatiens while Daddy dug a new garden for me to plant some hollyhocks and gladiolas. We are hoping to grow a natural fence along the driveway a bit for more privacy with them.

A few of our impatiens

Our new garden

Then we played on the swingsets. Hazel was having a blast. We have been working on pumping on the swings, but it has not stuck yet. So we took turns pushing her. Then of course she wanted to play zoo train with me and made me ask her if we were there yet a hundred times.

Then we ended our outside time by watering everything we planted and cleaning up. Hazel of course wanted to help with the watering.

Now it is your turn to share how your family has spent some quality time lately.

~ please link up (family time oriented giveaways are ok, but please no Etsy shops)
~just crafts will be deleted since this is to share family times

~ use our button so others can join the fun