The Star Princess

Lately Hazel has been afraid to sleep alone and is afraid of the dark. At bed time she likes me to read her three books (well I chose three as the number) then I sing her a song and tell her one story--sometimes one I made up or sometimes a shortened version of a fairy tale with much of the scary stuff softened up for her. The other night when she seemed really afraid, I made up this story and sewed her a doll as the Star Princess.

The Star Princess

 by Carrie @ http://craftymomsshare.blogspot.com/

Once upon a time there was a little Rosebud Fairy who was a bit afraid of the dark. She knew when darkness fell the adult fairies did their magic, so she was home alone at night. What she really feared is being alone in the dark. The other young fairies made fun of her for her fear. They could not understand how any fairy could possibly be afraid of the dark when it is the magical time for fairies.

One day she told her mother about her fear.  The Rose Fairy, her mother, knew exactly how to help her daughter. She told her about the Star Princess. 

The Star Princess lives in the night sky. Her job is to shine light on the earth so little ones (girls, boys or fairies) are not afraid to be alone during the night. When her light is shining on earth the little ones are not alone. She watches over all of them while they sleep and are alone.  Every night she always shines her light on earth so little ones are never alone.

After hearing the story the Rosebud Fairy asked her mother if she could meet the Star Princess. Being a fairy, the Rose Fairy arranged for them to meet at a party the next week. It would be the first party the little Rosebud Fairy would attend. 

At the party the little Rosebud Fairy wore her best rose petals. She was so excited for the party and even more excited that she would meet the Star Princess. When she arrived at the party she knew right away who the Star Princess was. There was a beautiful creature with silver sparkling hair dressed in golden color--star shaped, of course, with one of the arms of the star being her hat. And the light from her lit the whole room. She just simply glowed for there is no better way to describe it.

Little Rosebud Fairy asked her mother to take her over to meet the Star Princess right away. Her mother obliged. The Star Princess was one of the nicest people the little Rosebud Fairy had ever met. After spending the evening with the princess, the Rosebud Fairy knew she would never need to fear the dark or being alone again. Any time she feels alone she remembers that the Star Princess is always watching over all the little ones who are alone in the night and feels so much better to know her friend is there.

Click here for a pdf version with nice background 

jpeg version--feel free to download

Of course I couldn't find Hazel's pink rosebud fairy to make the story scene complete. Every other fairy was around except the rosebud. Oh, well. Enjoy!!

Happy Family Times is still open this week for your family time ideas and come back tomorrow night for Sharing Saturday, but feel free to go visit some of last week's incredible ideas!!

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Birds for Our Nests

Yesterday I shared our many bird nests that we have been making. I showed you the start of our yarn nests, but they still had to dry before we could pop the balloons and see how they came out. We popped the balloons this morning and made some birds for them. We used Betsy from Tippytoe Crafts lovely Roly Poly Birdies tutorial.She shared these at Sharing Saturday a couple of weeks ago.

We didn't venture downstairs to get different paper colors, but we had the feathers upstairs so Hazel had fun making many with different colored feathers.

These are very easy birds to make. They are construction paper strips rolled and then glue on the feet and beak (also cut of construction paper) and googly eyes and then glue a feather or two on each side of the roll for the wings. Aren't they cute?

Last night we read another new library book, If I Never Forever Endeavor by Holly Meade. It is a great book about a bird deciding whether to take his first flight or to stay in his safe comfy nest. He weighs the pros and cons of both and then decides to give it a try and of course loves flying and meets a friend. Very cute book about taking major life steps.

Ok, I think we will move onto something besides birds and nests for a bit. Hope you are having a great day!!

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Building a Bird Nest

Sparrow Nest on Our House

Ever have a bunch of ideas in your head, but not enough time to get everything done. That is how I have been feeling. So today I will post about one of my ideas. With the start of spring we have been noticing birds and nests around, so I wanted to focus a bit on birds and nests.I have been pinning many bird nest and bird ideas.  Awhile ago, I posted this picture of a quick bird nest that I got the idea from Kara at Pam's Party Planning and Practical Tips (shared at a Sharing Saturday).

Hazel loved making it and asked to make another, so we bought some supplies. While at Michaels and looking at birds we found this little pre-made nest. We bought the birds in it at The Dollar Tree and put in some faux eggs to make it realistic.

Then we bought a bigger grapevine wreath and a basket at the Dollar Tree to make another one to go with our bigger birds. I used the wool felted eggs I won around Easter. I figured Hazel could play with this one a bit more.

Oh and we changed the birds to the original to a cardinal and other bird Hazel picked out.

The mixture

Next we made some bird nest cookies. I googled for a recipe and found an easy one on Six Sisters' Stuff. It is very easy. You melt a bag of chocolate chips and a bag of some other flavor of chips (I used mixed chocolate and peanut butter) in the microwave by setting it for a minute at 50% power level then stir and repeat until melted. Then stir in a bag chow mein noodles. Drop by the tablespoon on to pieces of waxed paper and shape how you want (we didn't really worry about shaping) and add three or so jelly beans or candy eggs of some sort (we used M&M's). The best part of making them now is all the Easter candy is on sale.

Then you let the cookies harden.

Hazel has already asked to make more of them though I don't think she tasted any of them. I have a different type of recipe to try so we might try them next week.

We also looked at some books on birds and nests. Here are a few of our favorites.

In the Nest by Anna Milbourne is a great book that simplifies the making of the nest and the life cycle of the eggs to baby birds to their first flight and leaving the nest.

Baby Bird's First Nest by Frank Asch is one of Hazel's favorites. It is a story about a baby bird who rolls over and tumbles out of his nest. His sleeping mother does not wake up to his cry for help, but a little frog who lives in the pond next to the tree comes to his rescue. Together they build their first nest and then a raccoon comes so they hide and then the frog helps the baby bird get back to its nest by hopping from branch to branch. It is a great story about helping another and making friends.




Bird Nests by Theresa Hopkins has pictures instead of some words so it is fun for the kids to read. It explains the use of the nest, etc.




Then we started some starched yarn nests. You will have to wait for the glue to dry to see the final product, but I also added raffia. I got the idea from La-La's Home Daycare. She has been doing a lot with birds and bird nests as well.

I also cut the supplies for Hazel to do two paper plate crafts mostly on her own. I painted one of the plates brown for her (more because she was doing something else). Then cut the strips of paper and the beak and wings and gave them to her with a plastic egg (well two tops of blue plastic eggs) and explained it to her. This idea came from Busy Bee Kids Crafts. Hers came out a lot messier,but isn't that how the art of a 3-year-old should be?

The even easier paper plate craft idea came from Arts and Crafts for Tots. I changed it a bit and started with a blue plate and cut the bird, beak and tree for her as well as gave her the yarn and raffia cut up. She did all the gluing herself though. We are happy with it.

So today, I had a bit of an epiphany. Hazel brought her brown paper plate craft to show me and the beaks and wings were glued to the plate and not the eggs. I went to fix them and Hazel apologized to me for doing it wrong. I tried to explain that she didn't do it wrong and realized that I really need to watch what I change and what my expectations are. I know I try not to change much on her things and do not look for perfection in either of our crafts, but I need to remember just how sensitive she is and that she is still trying to figure things out. Anyway, just thought I would share it with you.

The other bird nest in our tree--this one looks huge!

Keep an eye out for more bird crafts as well as gardening, senses, zoos, and multicultural/diversity. Those are all in my head. Now to get them done to share with you.

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Paper Flowers and Pumpkin Blueberry Pancakes

Monday morning Hazel and I made a few paper flowers to decorate our kitchen table. We made some of the handprint Easter lilies you see everywhere lately, but I first saw at Family Fun and some daffodils that I made up.

The lilies are very easy. You trace and cut out a handprint on white paper or cardstock. (We used construction paper.) Curl the fingers around a pencil. Then curve the hand around a green straw and tape it together. Fold half of a yellow pipe cleaner in half and bend the ends and stick into the straw. Then add a double leaf with a hole punched through it.

The daffodils are fairly easy as well. Design a three petal shape and cute two out of yellow paper (or white if you want white daffodils) and punch holes in the center of them. Then cut a strip about 2-3 inches wide and use scallop edged scissors if you have them or fringe it. If you want to add color to the strip you can. (We used Hazel dot markers just to give the edge a bit of color.) Put the sets of petals through a green pipe cleaner and bend the end so they stay on. Make sure they are open and not completely overlapping (you can use a little glue to keep them this way). Glue the strip into a ring and then glue in the center of the petals.

I then stuck them in a vase with a little bit of blue crumpled paper/Easter grass. They look beautiful with our Easter egg table cloth.

This morning we made pancakes. Hazel has been asking to make pancakes for a few days. We finally had the time this morning. She wanted to make pumpkin pancakes. I pulled out my old standby cookbook. It was a birthday present from a friend at my sixth birthday. Needless to say it is well used.

I of course modified the recipe.

Pumpkin Blueberry Pancakes  

2PointsPlus Value Per Pancake (Weight Watcher PointsPlus) 

Makes: 10-12 pancakes

Ingredients

	1 cup(s) whole wheat flour
	2 tsp baking powder
	1 tsp ground cinnamon
	1/8 tsp ground nutmeg
	1 cup(s) canned pumpkin
	1 cup(s) fat-free skim milk
	1 Tbsp olive oil
	1 large egg(s)
	1 cup(s) unsweetened frozen (or fresh) blueberries

Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl.
Mix pumpkin, milk, oil, and egg in a different bowl. Then add to dry ingredients and mix well. Then stir in blueberries.

Heat pan and spray with a cooking spray. When warm enough, spoon small amounts of the batter onto pan. When first side has had time to cook flip with spatula. Cook all the way through and remove and serve. Repeat until batter is gone.

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Spring and Easter Crafts

This week we have been busy making Easter egg crafts and some spring crafts. We got a few ideas from Family Fun. The first is a paper mache egg diorama made to look like the sugar ones. I bought some water bomb balloons so they would be more egg shaped than the round ones. We used their recipe for paste and did our best to get three layers one. Hazel had a few issues but it was not too bad. The hardest thing was finding things to go inside the eggs.

This is messy, so make sure you put the newspaper down! They also can drip while drying, so leave it there for the first bit. The nice part of the flour water paste is that it cleans up fairly easily. This is a simple paper mache of dipping the tissue paper into the homemade paste and smoothing it onto a balloon. Some are smoother than others, but when making with a three-year-old we are not looking for perfection.

After they have completely dried you pop the balloon and cut a hole. Then you fill it with some Easter grass and a figurine. You can also decorate the outside around the hole, but you have to make more paste for this. Then glue a bow on top and glue a jar lid to the bottom to get it to stand.

The next craft we also got from Family Fun. We got to use our water balloons and I made the homemade paste again instead of the glue mixture and we invaded my yarn supply.

Hazel had more difficulty with these. She did not quite get the idea of wrapping the yarn. She wanted to apply it in bunches which did not stick and she also got a lot of the paste on it so it showed (this is the one downfall of using the paste and not the glue mixture). She decided to make all red ones because Chrysanthemum (formerly Ducky) wanted them red. She also experimented with putting the balloon in the paste instead of the glue. It didn't work but she kept trying.

The general idea of these are to dip the yarn in the paste/glue and wrap around the balloons. You let them dry and then pop the balloons and have a beautiful yarn egg.

I decided to use the ones we made to decorate the dining room. I hung them from the chandelier (which is high enough so the cats can't play with them).

I also made Hazel some flower fairies. I found this package of flower bath petals or something like that in the clearance section at Michaels for 45 cents.

Having recently seen Marie's of Softearth World post on Thumbellina, I bought them with that in mind. So I pulled out some peg dolls and made them into fairies to match the blue flowers.

Hazel also painted some wooden butterflies that I bought at the Dollar Tree. I then glued one ribbons for her to hang them on her tree.

We have been a little behind on switching her tree to spring so these will help.

Ok, that catches you up on all of our crafting this week. What have you been up to? I hope you will come back and share at Sharing Saturday! And if you have any family time related posts please come share at Happy Family Times each Tuesday.

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Peep Inspired Crafts

We all know those marshmallow Peep candies--bunnies or chicks--right? I loved them as a child. I bought some bunnies for Hazel, but haven't given her any. Do they have these in other countries? Anyway, I've been seeing many Peep inspired crafts lately. Some were shared on Sharing Saturday and others I saw on Pinterest.

First I will feature two of the crafts from Sharing Saturday.

From Toys In The Dryer: Bunny Bunting Banner:

And from Tippytoe Crafts: Easter Chicks

 Ok, this one I actually saw before it was shared at this week's Sharing Saturday and used it as inspiration. It also reminded me of a book we have been reading lately. It may also be the name of Betsy's blog that made me think of this connection. Anyway, the book is Tippy-Toe Chick, Go! by George Shannon.

It is a very cute book about a hen and her three chicks. They go every day to the garden for treats until one day a dog is there blocking their way. The biggest chick decides to take care of the dog, but the dog scares him. The middle chick then tries and gets scared. They are all ready to give up when the little chick says he wants a chance. The hen gets upset since he is too small, but he calls back he can run. He runs the dog around a tree so the dog's rope is all caught up. Then they can get their treats. They run of course on their tippy-toes. So here is a great craft to go along with this book.

I used the pattern Betsy shared on Tippytoe Crafts. It comes from Easter Couloring. I cut several of these patterns from cardstock. I had Hazel use her dot markers to color them in. Then we cut out a beak and feet for them from orange construction paper and glued them on and glued on a googly eye. Hazel also glued on some feathers for the tail.

These chicks would also work for an Easter book we have been enjoying. The Easter Egg Farm by Mary Jane Auch. One of the hens on this farm is having trouble laying eggs. The other hens tease her and she turns her back and concentrates very hard. Low and behold she lays an egg, but it isn't an ordinary egg. The other hens tease her some more. Every egg she lays has weird designs. She moves outside and the owner sees the egg she lays before she can hide it. It looks like the sky. The owner figures out after two days that her eggs look like whatever she is looking at. She brings her into the house and takes her on road trips for inspiration. A lady comes by to buy some of the eggs for the egg hunt. She wants one for every child in town. Of course when she comes to pick them up some of the eggs (which have been sitting on the window sills) begin to hatch and out come very colorful chicks. They grow up to look like their egg designs and also lay extraordinary eggs. Needless to say these colorful chicks could definitely represent her chicks.

Then for the bunnies I used the pattern I found on Dandelions and Lace. Again I cut several from cardstock (oh, and I also cut the complete pattern from pink fleece and blue wool felt). I'll share that picture as well. I gave these to Hazel to use the dot markers on as well. We used pom poms and googly eyes to make front facing bunnies and cotton balls for tails for back facing bunnies.

Then I did some sewing and made these using the same pattern for the bunny. First I cut one out of some pink softie fleece. I sewed this one on the serger. I added the eyes and mouth after I stuffed it.

I also cut one out of 100% wool felt and used wool stuffing. This one I hand sewed with thread. I also did some French knots for the eyes and mouth. (I need to practice my French knots a bit.) I also added a tail with a small bit of the stuffing.

Don't they just make you want to go eat some Peeps! Hope you are having a great day!!

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