A Wonderful Winter Book--Red Sled

Today is just a quick post about a new book we have discovered, Red Sled by Lita Judge. It is a fairly new book, however the illustrations remind you of much older books. The only words in the book are sounds. We liked this book so much we gave it to Hazel's teacher and her former teacher for International Book Giving Day last week.

This book is about a little boy who puts his red sled leaning against the side of his house when he goes in at night. Then a bear comes by and sees the sled. He decides to borrow it. During the night many other animals join him on his sledding adventure. Then they return the sled. The little boy notices the foot prints and wonders what happened. That night he looks out his window and joins them for their sledding adventures.

It is such a sweet book about nature and play. I love it!

Let It Snow! Winter Wonderland Tea Party

Ducky and Princess Teddy got seats of honor

So Hazel had her well doctor visit and I wanted to make the whole day special so she would have a positive memory instead of just getting shots. We started today having a Winter Wonderland Tea Party. First we had to do some crafts to decorate and then we had to get all the dolls and animals. Then Hazel had to feed them all and get dressed herself (in costume). Then we had some tea and read lots of snow themed stories. Below are the ones I let her choose from and we have read at least 12 of them in the past two days.

I promised at yesterday's Sharing Saturday (which is still open!), that I would feature some snow-themed crafts today. I knew we did this, so I knew it would be a perfect fit here. Plus we used some of the ideas for our crafts. Here are those features:

1) From Life with Moore Babies: Colored Snowballs and More Ice and Snow Fun
2) From Making Boys Men: Frost Writing (For those without snow around but cold weather!)
3) From Gift of Curiosity: Snowman Craft for Preschoolers (see ours below)
4) From ArtClubBlog: Paper Snowflakes Tutorial (see ours below)
5) From Little Wonders' Days: Glittered Peppermint Winter Play Dough

And here are a few from past Sharing Saturdays:

1) From Gift of Curiosity: Winter Printable Pack
2) From Organic Aspirations: Sensory Play with Snow Indoors
3) From Like Mama ~ Like Daughter: Winter Themed Week in Preschool

Also check out the features from past Sharing Saturdays here and here. Some of these would have been great snacks for our tea party!

3-D Snowflake

So we decorated for our big winter wonderland.  I made a simple 3-d snowflake using some foam snowflakes I bought. I was inspired by Paper Source and just cut a slit in each and fit them together. Then punched a hole in one and put a string through it to hang.

Paper Snowflakes = Placemats

We made some paper snowflakes using the tutorial from ArtClubBlog (see feature above). We decided to use them as placemats. I also tried to make some out of felt using the same tutorial but my scissors were not quite sharp enough to make it beautiful. I am going to make them into pillows.

Felt Snowflake

We made several snow angel chains. Hazel had a go at cutting some but cut their heads off, so she used her smiley face stickers for heads and then added smiley faces to all of them. For hers we used the template at First Palette. For the ones I did I drew my own template to make them look more like snow angels. Here is my template.

I folded one of her large pieces of construction paper in half the long way and then folded into eighths in accordion style and cut this out. This is how they came out pre-smiley face.

Source

I wish we had the book The Snow Angel by Glenn Beck, but the library did not have it in, so we will have to read it another time. We loved it last year.

Hazel also made a cotton ball snowman similar to the one shared by Gift of Curiosity (see feature above). We used a pipe cleaner for a carrot nose and stick arms.

Then we laid out some fake snow that I had bought last year for my friend's Winter Onderland party but it wasn't used. And I had bought a package of snowballs post Christmas for this and we pulled out the wool ones I needle felted for her last year.

Then she gathered all of her dolls and animals. After getting them all around, she needed to feed them all. Ducky and Princess Teddy got seats of honor on the table. (See top picture) And of course Hazel needed to dress-up. She wanted to do the tea party before she took her bath and got dressed, so we are still in our pajamas, but she added on her tutu, ballerina top, wings, and crown and was carrying her wand part of the time.

Finally we were ready for our party. We sat on the snow covered floor and read books while we drank tea and Hazel finished her raisin bread toast from breakfast. Then we had a snowball fight.

Gathering all the snowballs and making a snowball pyramid

Then she wanted to play with her white balloon, but since we only had one white balloon, she gave it to me and used a red one. 

Now it was time to take her bath and for us to get dressed so we could have a special lunch out before her appointment. We had such a fun day. We still have our winter wonderland set up, but will have to pick it up tonight or tomorrow since the cleaning people come Monday morning.

Sewing Lesson--A Snowman Head

Sharing Saturday is still open! Please stop by to share your child-oriented crafts and activities and be inspired by the amazing ideas already shared!

So before Christmas Amy at One Artsy Mama shared some adorable felt tree ornaments her Little Crafter made by sewing. I had really wanted to do these with Hazel. I have the supplies sitting on my bookshelf, but we never got around to them this year. Then I saw these cute ornaments on Amazon. I thought that is what we could try to make with a sewing lesson. 

Today we had our sewing lesson. Now it was not her first, but it was the first time she stuck with it long enough and was successful. We sewed two white felt circles together.

With some help she made it most of the way around. We put a little stuffing and some lavender into them and closed them up. By this time she was sick of sewing so we decided to glue on the faces. I then sewed strings on them so she could hang them on her seasonal tree.

Not bad for a first successful lesson. We had a very busy morning crafting, so I will share some more of our crafts later in the week.

This Weekend--Winter Onederland Party

So on Friday, I was given a gift from my mother-in-law of almost an entire day off from parenting duties. My plans run the few quick errands that I had planned to do with Hazel and then come home and finish my quilt. However, I came home from running my errands and called a friend to check in with her. Her son's first birthday party is today, and I knew they were having an awful week of doctor's appointments due to his food allergies. (He is allergic to just about everything but now needs to avoid touching all wheat and dairy.)When I spoke with her my day changed to helping her with the party. The only things she had for it so far were the decorations I made for her, the napkins I bought for her and the cake her mother-in-law was making (which her son cannot touch or eat). You may remember I showed you the invitation and pieces of the banner I designed for her when I reviewed My Memories Software. Well, using that same software I made her a few more posters to hang around for decorations.

Quick Craft

Today we headed to my doctor's for routine blood work and to see someone about my feeling yucky since Saturday afternoon. Then we came home and did some crafts. Well, started some crafts. We painted some objects for crafts for tomorrow and we did one complete craft.

I was trying to figure out what crafts to do for January. Christmas is over, Valentine's Day seems so far away, what is a crafty mom to do...then it hit me...snow. Since we haven't really had snow except that storm in October, I'm not sick of it yet and Hazel keeps wanting to make a snowman, snow fort, etc. So today we made a snow picture. I got the idea from Pinterest with the original idea coming from Playing House. There are some great snow crafts there. Luckily Hazel didn't figure out she could eat the marshmallows so we used them on the craft. She did figure out she could mush them though as you can see in the lower left corner.  Oh, well glitter glue and marshmallows, what more could she want.

Hope you are having a great day!

Getting ready for winter solistice

Today, Hazel seems to be on the mend. Her fever is gone! Her nose is not as runny and we haven't given her any medicine today. Unfortunately, she doesn't seem to want to nap, but we are having quiet time right now. We'll see if it works. I don't think it will.