this valentine is for the birds!

February 09, 2012 by cristine roy in winter, make something, entertaining a toddler

We really did enjoy watching the birds eat everything off of our ballerina birdfeeder. I wanted to incorporate that idea into a type of valentine. This is what I came up with!

We live far away from all of Clementine's grandparents and I thought this would be a fun surprise for them. (If you're reading this now, surprise, this will be arriving in your mailbox soon!) I thought we could go with the ol' " a little birdie told me..." phrase, which led me to this:

They are very easy to assemble, and even though it looks like a lot of steps, they go together super quick.

Here's what we used:

Red heart doilies (we used 6 inch)

cardboard (think shipping box, shoe box, cereal box, etc. really, just grab something from your recycling)

brown paper grocery bag (or any sort of kraft paper or construction paper will do)

glue stick (preferably a stronger bonding type)

twine

bird seed (we used straight oiled sunflower seeds. I liked how it looked all black, but any seed variety will work)

peanut butter and/or vegetable shortening (you can use either on its own or combine)

brown waxed sandwich bags or natural parchment

scissors and a hole punch

Start with one doily.

Using a pencil trace the heart shape onto a piece of cardboard.

Cut out the heart shape. If you are making more than one bird feeder valentine, use this heart to trace others. Once those are done, set aside and get your brown bag or paper.

Trace your cardboard heart on the bag and cut out. Now it's time to assemble.

Cover the cardboard heart with glue. Place the doily on top.

Press down to secure. Flip over. The glue stick will remain a little tacky, so it would be best to work on a sheet of wax paper or parchment. Or you could let it dry completely before moving on. Repeat for the other side.

Glue the paper heart on top of the doily. If you used a box that has print on one side, choose that side to cover. This step is totally optional. I really just added it because even though the glue stick is non-toxic, I wasn't sure if the birds should be pecking at it and eating it.

Punch out a hole in the center top of heart.

Tie a piece of twine through the hole and knot it.

Spread the peanut butter or shortening over the paper heart as neatly as possible avoiding the doily.

Put the bird seed into a shallow bowl or pan.

This is where the little miss liked to help out. Press the peanut butter side down into the seeds. Turn over and use your hands to cover any spots that need it. Really press the seeds into the peanut butter.

Give it a shake so that the extra seeds that didn't attach fall off. Done! When it is hung from a tree it will be birdseed on one side and a red heart on the other.

Place in the freezer to set while you clean up and get the packaging together. This is not a necessary step, of course, you could skip ahead to packaging. Since we have to mail these I thought it would make packaging them up a bit of a neater process.

Place bird feeder valentine in a brown, waxed paper sandwich bag. I, unfortunately, was all out and wanted to make use of what I had on hand, so I made envelopes out of natural parchment. Wrapping them up like present in waxed or parchment paper will work as well.

Maybe you can think up your own fun saying, we used "Let the little birdies come tell you how much I love you!" That seemed appropriate for a toddler to say to her grandmas, but after I had some time to think about it (that would be post-Clementine bed time) I came up with this:

"The birdies will come from miles away to tell you you're loved and missed this Valentine's Day!" I always like a rhyme.

OR, say you were making these to give to a child you could say:

Hang me up and you will see the little birdies come to me.

Listen as they say, "Tweet, Tweet. Be my valentine, you're so sweet!"

I know Clementine LOVED watching the birds! (I'm not saying she wouldn't prefer something of the sweeter, say edible, variety but she would definitely enjoy this in addition.)

There are so many ways to package it up. You could just use twine and go with a simple natural look, or think like a two year old who said, "pink, mama, pink!"

Anyway you wrap it up, it's still a different approach on a classic doily valentine and the birds will love you for it too!

home made {ballerina} bird feeder

January 06, 2012 by cristine roy in winter, make something, entertaining a toddler

We spent our holidays visiting family on the east coast; there were festivities, friends, merriment, and germs. The little miss picked up a virus which made for a very sad new year's celebration. It's amazing to think that something so cute can be so germy and contagious. The cold has spread to everyone and we are a bit house bound at the moment. I'm going a little stir crazy.

It's been difficult mustering up the energy to play house with Clementine, which is what she always wants to do. "Be the mama!" she insists. "Okay," I respond picking up the mama doll, "Mama is very tired and she's going to lie down in bed."

"No! Be the mama!" she demands again.

I needed to find an alternative that didn't involve lying on the floor which made me want to sleep.

What to do, what to do?

A bird feeder!

The old fashioned kind with a pine cone and peanut butter (ah, enter a nostalgic sigh!) would be a fun activity and then we could watch for birds after; bird watching is one of my favorite things to do upstate.

I googled and found all sorts of home made bird feeder ideas. Stringing cheerios on a pipe cleaner was the easiest option, but then I found the recycled toilet paper roll. Hmmm, maybe we could combine all three.

So we did.

It didn't start out with the intention of being a ballerina. I had grabbed a roll of pink crepe paper and once we strung our cheerios on the pipe cleaner, an activity that was VERY fun for the little miss and she thought it was really cool that birds would enjoy eating the same cereal as she did, and kind of assembled all of the things together I realized that it looked a lot like a ballerina; a very tall, long waisted, dangly, skinny legged ballerina. Blame it on the cold medicine, but it's pretty darn funny.

The heart was a last minute addition, maybe it would make a good home made valentine gift!

Click on the pictures below to see the step by step. It's really simple. You could adjust it to fit the needs of whatever supplies you happen to have on hand. If you have peanut allergies you can use crisco or some other vegetable shortening. I used both just to see, and they both worked great.

We used:

empty toilet paper roll

pine cone that we found in the yard

4 pipe cleaners

hole puncher

crepe paper

scissors

hot glue (for the crepe paper skirt and to hold the pine cone in place inside the tube)

peanut butter/ crisco

bird seed

construction paper heart

The birds seem to like it and Clementine squealed with delight to see them eating the seeds off our creation!

making a snow globe with a toddler

December 22, 2011 by cristine roy in winter, make something, entertaining a toddler

The little miss has been fascinated with snow globes this holiday season. I thought it would be a great thing to make at the craft party. (Yes, it was just the two girls, but I still like to refer to it as a party.) There are many how-to's out there and they all seemed to vary from using aquarium glue to screw on the lid and go. As much as I love the sparkling falling snow floating slowly upon the trees there was one thing that was holding me back: water! These are two year olds, any element that could lead to disaster that I can omit, well, I'm all for it. That's why I was delighted to come across tidy mom blog and her instruction on waterLESS snow globes. How perfect! Here's what we did:

We started with a large baby food jar. Cut out a circle of felt and hot glued it to the lid.

Next, we had the girls choose a character from the selection of little christmas ornaments I found at Michael's. Clementine chose the snowman named Frosty, to her EVERY snowman is Frosty, and Addie chose Santa. Each picked out a tree that I found already sparkly and decorated with beads. While they played with the extra ornaments, making them dance and "ice skate" on the table, I attended to the hot glue gun.

First the tree was glued down. I took a sparkly pipe cleaner and rolled it into a little ball and glued it to the lid next to the tree. This would help to prop up the characters so they didn't sit so low, I glued the snowman right to the pipe cleaner and a little glue on its back to hold it to the tree.

We had the girls pick out some other things to include in their snowglobe like a pom pom for a big snowball and a sparkly snowflake. These were both glued in place. Now the fun part:

I really did let two two year olds pick up a hand full of fake snow and then shake their own glitter into the jar. I was nervous, I can't lie. At one point the lid on the glitter opened more than I wanted it to and glitter went EVERYWHERE! Thank goodness I covered our work space with paper to help with the clean up. I'm sure our house will be sparkling in places well into summertime. It was worth it!

We put our lid on and turned the jars over. Almost done!

I glued a soft sparkly trim to cover the lid and deter tiny hands from unscrewing. Shake it up and watch it snow!

Clementine has showed everyone who's come over to visit. The perfect snow globe for toddlers!

donut hole snowman

December 16, 2011 by cristine roy in winter, make it bake it, things that make me smile, entertaining a toddler, clementine approved

Hello, little snowman! I was inspired by Martha Stewart's ice cream and coconut snowman. What a cute idea, but just not the right party treat for our toddler craft party. Hmm, what else is round and little?

Donut holes!

At first, I imagined plain donut holes that I would frost, stick together, and top off with a toasted marshmallow hat like Martha. Funny thing is, I couldn't find plain donut holes. After I thought about it some more, I realized that frosting on top of donuts was not really necessary (especially for two year olds!) so why not just powdered sugar covered ones? That just made the whole project SO much simpler!

What you need:

3 powdered sugar covered donut holes

toothpick

frosting

2 eyes (nonpareils, or 2 pieces cut from black licorice string, or anything else you can think of that will work, even two tiny dollops of black frosting)

carrot nose (I used a piece of candy corn, cut the orange middle and molded it into a carrot. You could also use marzipan and dye it orange.)

mouth (In this case, red decorating gel you can buy in the little tube in the baking section did the job!)

One skinny pretzel stick cut in half for arms.

whipped cream for snow (optional)

Here's the step-by-step:

Put a dollop of frosting on your plate. Place one donut hole in the frosting. Insert toothpick into the center of the donut, pointy side up. Do not push all the way down.

Add the second donut hole.

Add the third donut hole.

Use another toothpick to make indentations for your eyes, nose, and arms. Put a tiny amount of frosting in the holes to help hold everything in.

Insert eyes, nose, and arms.

Add a mouth.

Some whipped cream snow and a few sprinkles make a little more fun!

These little snowmen go together in minutes! Sure, you could add a hat and a scarf if you wanted, but I like them simple and sweet. I can't help but smile when I see them. The girls LOVED them!

handprint rudolph

December 15, 2011 by cristine roy in winter, make something, entertaining a toddler

Once again I searched for some holiday craft ideas; this is one that I found. It's a pretty simple concept and it helps that the little miss is just slightly obsessed with Rudolph. So all in all, a perfect idea for the younger set.

I find that it helps to have all the components of the project together in a sort of craft pack. In this case, a plate worked just fine. It keeps everything at hand and it's fun for the little ones to see all of the different parts that will make up their final project. You can talk about them, "hmmm, what do you think this red pom pom will be? An eye? No! That would be funny."

This is what we used. I have a thing for google eyes, definitely not necessary, nor is the bell, but I thought it would be fun. You could just use red glitter and some glue to make a shiny nose instead of a pom pom, or even put brown glitter on the 'antlers' or use a flocked paper. It could be as simple as you want it to be. There are so many ways to tweak it.

Trace each hand and cut out.

I like the hand print projects, when the kids get older they can look back and see how tiny their hands once were. Paste the 'antlers' on the head, either on the front or back. Add some eyes, a shiny nose and a mouth. The girls aren't using glue on their own yet, in fact Clementine put it on her lips like lip gloss, bad idea! So, we just asked them where everything went and attached it for them. Draw on a mouth...Addie wanted Rudolph's tongue to be sticking out. Why not?! A jingle bell tied on with a gold pipe cleaner was the final touch.

My favorite part is how proud the girls are of their work!

let the holiday craft party begin!

December 15, 2011 by cristine roy in winter, make something, party, entertaining a toddler

Whoo Hoo! Put on your tutu and lets have some fun!

The girls got together for their holiday crafting and merriment extravaganza.

On the agenda: donut hole snowmen, rudolph, snowglobes, and silliness.

It was quite a success.

Present wrapping, the busy post office, and cookie baking are calling me right now, but I will post details of each project later on tonight! What fun

one of the many things i love about being a mom

August 21, 2011 by cristine roy in entertaining a toddler, life & love

A warm sunny day by the kiddie pool seemed like the perfect place to drag out the good ol’ crayola washable paints. I love that smell! It really brings me back to the elementary school art room.

I purchased a roll of white kraft paper, taped a large piece to the fence in our little yard, and poured out dollops of paint on plates as the little miss eagerly watched.

In my mind this was going to be a wild washable paint extravaganza! I imagined her covered from head to toe, pressing herself against the paper and then running into the kiddie pool to wash off,

BUT NO, Clementine has to wipe her fingers off in between colors while finger painting! She hates getting her hands “dirty”, which is definitely not a trate inherited from me! Hopefully she will outgrow it. Until then, she’s really into the different brushes; it was her first time using them and she knew just what to do.

She was so happy as as she painted for a bit, splashed in the pool, took a ride down the slide and then back to her ‘masterpiece’ she went, smiling from ear to ear.

Finally, she dipped her hand in a color and pressed it on the paper. She was slightly hesitant, but once I showed her that Weezie could do it she was more at ease.

Then came the feet! She had absolutely no qualms about stepping on that plate of paint and kicking her little legs up. She thought that was great!

Next time, I think I’ll put the paper on the ground and let her have a colorful, one tiny person dance party.

Yes, this is what it’s all about!