Zoe’s Pipe Cleaner and Pom Pom Craft

Posted on April 20, 2013 by MudpiesandSunshine.com

What do you do when no one wants to do the craft things you think they would like to do?

Get the experts in to help.

So of course I turned to Zoe.

And this is the tray of fun she put together:

Zoe didn’t have a specific idea in mind for her craft. She just knew what materials she felt like creating with. And here are the results… I know the craft object is a little blurry but I included this photo because of the look of pure enjoyment in Zoe’s eyes.

Here are some clearer photos of what Miss Zoe created…

The shiny green pom pom creature on the left is a fish; the one with the orange pipe cleaner is a letter holder; the large one on the right is a nose phone and the small one Zoe is holding is a baby called “The Tot“. Yes I know what you’re thinking and you are right. There is no way I could have ever prepared a craft for Zoe that would turn out this varied. Or maybe you weren’t, maybe you were thinking “Thank God she told me what they were ‘cos I never would have worked that out in a million years”.
Anyone else a little wistful for their childhood imagination?

Hmm, me too

So, what’s up next? Well Mother’s Day is looming here in Australia so I will be featuring some crafts and cards for Mums over the next two weeks. Us Mums love kid-made craft and I am no exception. We also do crafts for the girl’s grandmothers so they will just have to refrain from opening my Mother’s Day posts. I’d hate to spoil the surprise!

Thanks for dropping by!

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Outdoor Balancing Course

Posted on April 12, 2013 by MudpiesandSunshine.com

Doesn’t this look like fun?

Mr Sunshine is building a chook house with unwanted wood from local building sites – meaning totally free The wood he had gathered was piled high under our patio until Zoe decided to drag some if it out onto the lawn and make her own obstacle course.

The girls have brainstormed lots of different games and created rules like you wouldn’t believe. Lots of negotiation…and then lots of fun. Their favourite way to play is to create a complete loop and set a target number of laps to complete…whilst setting a maximum number of times you can fall off/touch the ground before you have start all over again. Once they were out there in complete darkness until bedtime completing a gazillion laps for just one game.

Zoe is a big fan of “free-range” play on the obstacle course. And yes, they are in their pajamas! Outside first thing in the morning for some balancing course ACTION…

Zoe just loved being able to design her own course (which she did on another day – see…different pajamas!). Competence competence competence – something that girls (and boys) thrive on when they get the chance to feel it.

Won’t it be sad when Mr Sunshine finishes the chook house and the balancing fun is gone? We may have to head out to the building sites again and see what we will find (in our pajamas).

Thanks for dropping by!

Beach Ball Birthday Party Invitation

Posted on March 2, 2013 by MudpiesandSunshine.com

Someone in our house is about to turn 10!!!

And that someone is having their birthday party at the local swimming pool where you can hire a giant inflatable thingy, have exclusive rights over the water slide and have your very own life guard. Yes it’s Ebony’s birthday and she is incredibly excited. And rightly so – turning double-figures is no ho-hum affair.

I had seen a few beach ball invitation ideas on pinterest and decided this was the perfect way to invite Ebony’s friends along to the pool party.

We both had a go at the writing. I was too excited to let Ebony do everything

Ebony wanted to put the (deflated) beach balls into brown paper lunch bags which she decorated. The bags were the perfect size for our deflated balls.

We can’t wait for the party. From a grown ups perspective, the best thing about an indoor pool party is no agonising over the weather forecast. Just sit back and watch the girls having fun.

Happy Birthday if you happen to be reading this on your birthday

Thanks for dropping by!!

Valentine Egg Carton Lucky Dip Game

Posted on February 10, 2013 by MudpiesandSunshine.com

Here we are at the third installment of Mudpies and Sunshine’s world famous Valentine’s Egg Carton Craft Series. We painted the egg cartons in the first post; in the second we tested our brain power with the memory game and now we will be playing a game of chance (with many giggles) called the Lucky Dip Game.

Here’s how I set up the game:

12 different stickers x 2 (you could use laminated numbers in hearts, anything flat that can fit into one of the egg cavities)
12 envelopes and note paper to fit inside
12 felt balls (which happen to fit perfectly into the egg carton cavities)

Once I was all set up I invited the girls to sit on the rug and get started. There are no rules with how far away from the egg carton you need to be (however you may wish to shake things up a bit and have a throwing line).

HOW TO PLAY:

1. Sit down.

2. Choose a felt ball.

3. Throw the felt ball into any cavity in the egg carton.

4. Ascertain the sticker colour and style your felt ball landed on.

5. Find the matching sticker on one of the 12 envelopes.

6. Open the envelope, read the note and have fun. The notes are self-explanatory.

The one Zoe is reading says “Ring the Garden Bells“.

I wrote the activities for the envelopes and placed all the stickers on the envelopes and the egg carton in around 15 minutes. It is a simple game and it is SO FUN. The best part is you can tailor the activities/questions to suit the personality of your children.

The girls loved the game and we have played it multiple times already. When the game gets a bit ‘stale’ I will change the notes inside the envelopes. The beauty is the game can be adapted over and over again.

Now let me share some of the other notes inside the envelopes :

Time for a Tickle

Walk Around the Kitchen With Your Eyes Closed

Do a Crazy Dance for 60 Seconds

(Zoe added a crazy song as well, 2 for the price of 1)

Receive a Surprise Sweet Treat (both players benefit..and Mums)

I added a token educational question…

Do Ten Star Jumps

Stand on One Leg as Long as You Can

Give Everyone a Big Hug

I also had one called “Take Another Turn” which Zoe got and was thrilled with (go figure because, in hindsight, I am of the opinion that one is a bit boring!).

Ebony was lucky to get “Say the Peter Piper Tongue Twister 10 times as fast as You Can” and “Put a Toy Away” (she chose a book to place back on the shelf).

Does your family love playing games together? If you give this game a go I would love to hear about (or even see it if you are able to send a snapshot!).

For little ones I suggest using one word prompts for early readers or pictures of the activity the child needs to do for the pre-reader or toddler.

We’re not finished with the pink and red egg cartons yet! Oh no no no. There are more crafty ideas to come in this egg carton series and they will be coming to you soon! Just in time for you to play some lovely games and spend some quality time with your little cherubs this Valentine’s Day.

Have (lots of) fun!

Thanks so much for dropping by

Getting Kids to Help with School Lunch Box Ideas

Posted on February 6, 2013 by MudpiesandSunshine.com

This year approximately 420 school lunches will be prepared in my home. Thousands have already been made. Sometimes the girls have expressed *disappointment* with my lunch box fare but most of the time they are happy. Because I generally like to collaborate. I cringe at the thought of either of my girls throwing away food at school and then not telling me about it. They see kids throw food into the bin at their school every lunch time. What a waste.

My girls also see half of the chocolate, sweet, chip and biscuit aisles in other kid’s lunch boxes. They definitely don’t want to be the only kids with a 100% healthy lunch box. I agree. School lunches do not need to be a battle ground between parent and child nor however does the lunch need to be the equivalent of a local sweet shop.

So this year I asked the kids to help me with their school lunch ideas.

Before school went back I handed them this list and asked them to fill it out and add as many things to each list as they liked. You can tell it is still the school holidays in this picture as Ebony’s hair is, um, free flowing.

The list visually reminded them of how their lunch box is divided into categories of food. It gave them them an opportunity to feel heard (about real life decisions) and they felt their thoughts and ideas were worth hearing.

Most importantly I have followed through with this idea and everything in the girl’s lunch boxes IS from the list. I haven’t lessened their ideas by promoting my own. Of course if they included crazy things we would have had to edit the list somewhat… but kids will surprise you. Alot of time and thought went into their list which makes my life a whole lot easier. I am not expecting any negative feedback on their lunches!

By asking them to write their ideas down, it also gave the activity a sense of gravitas. I wanted them to feel that “Yes an adult, a grown-up is taking us seriously. We must be competent and clearly we are needed.” I am on a mission to let my girls do everything they possibly can do for themselves.

An unintended benefit is the help with menu planning. It makes my shopping list so much more planned and ‘targeted’ when I know exactly what they want. One week the treat food is chop chip pikelets, another week it’s Anzac biccies etc etc.

This week the lunch time food (as opposed to the recess break food) was ham and salad wraps. They LOVE wraps. Ebony grates the cheese and carrot the night before so that it will be easier and quicker to put together in the morning.

So the list is paying off. They are loving their lunch box food because the contents have essentially come from them. And they know that every day there is a treat

Thanks so much for dropping by! I am happy to type up the list and make it a free printable. I can make it look prettier, I swear. Just ask me

DIY Sparkly Christmas Wrapping Paper

Posted on December 8, 2012 by MudpiesandSunshine.com

Welcome to another DIY wrapping paper post in our series. This is the 6th one!

For this post, we needed more wrapping paper for our little salt dough ornaments we made recently to give to teachers and family. Preparing for this craft is quick and easy, just how I like it We needed a lot of wrapping paper so I had both girls set up at the table. Ebony with red paint and a star cookie cutter and Zoe with green paint and a Christmas tree cutter.

Ebony enjoyed the look of the bright red star against the soft brown paper. Zoe unfortunately discovered her christmas tree cutter was slightly bent and wouldn’t make a good impression when stamped. We swapped it for an angel and then she used the star as well. It’s good to know I am teaching her about adapting to change (and disappointment!).

We raided our glitter box in order to add some christmas sparkle to the paper. Paste on some glue…

And shake it, shake it, shake it…

Zoe used the multi-coloured glitter on quite a few of her shapes. I love how big the glitter pieces are.

Here is the paper before the excess glitter has been shaken off.

And here they are after:-

And here are our salt dough ornaments all wrapped up ready to be gifted with our handmade cork stamped christmas cards and our pom pom cards.

Are the 25 days in December really enough to get all the crafting done you want to do? Of course not! But we must try

If you are interested in more Christmas themed wrapping paper (understandable with only 15 days to go, or so I was told at 6.30am this morning) you might like our DIY reindeer wrapping paper. Zoe had lots of fun stamping the reindeer antlers.

Thanks so much for dropping by!

Friday Afternoon Fun – Taking Christmas Outside

Posted on December 7, 2012 by MudpiesandSunshine.com

What a lot of fun we have had during this series of Friday Afternoon Fun activities. It is all about banishing the friday afternoon grumpy gremlins and putting the sparkle back in.

We have:

and my favourite – hidden notes. Don’t tell the girls but I might do this again on the last day of school this year.

This time, as the title suggests – we took christmas outside. And we gave it a good talking to Bad jokes aside, what I actually did was meet the girls half way. They have been begging us to put up some Christmas lights outside. It hasn’t happened to date so instead I bought some tinsel and baubles (marked down, yay) and hid these lovelies in a basket until the girls came home from school.

Big reveal time!

The girls just had to play dress-ups with the tinsel before it was going to see the light of day. I forgot how tactile and imaginative children are for a minute

When we did get outside at last – the girls approached the job fairly – ‘this half of the shrub is mine, that’s yours’ – ‘how do you want to split up the baubles?’. Once the agreements had been made, they got on with it and had an absolute ball.

There was clapping involved.

And lots of concentrating with placement and colour.

Happy girls on a Friday Afternoon!

I hope you’ve been enjoying the series and thanks so much for dropping by!

Christmas Card Craft – Pipe Cleaners and Pom Poms

Posted on November 30, 2012 by MudpiesandSunshine.com

Before I planned this craft I thought “these cards are going to be so cute”. Let me be modest – I was right! In our last Christmas card post we used corks to stamp our baubles and the kids really enjoyed them. It was the same story this time too.

We used green pipe cleaners, red and yellow card and every coloured pom pom we could find.

With this craft I found deciding how to stick the pipe cleaners to the card a bit tricky. I would have liked to use my hot glue gun but unfortunately it has seen better days and Santa needs to gift me with a new one.

In the end I didn’t decide and used two different methods, one for each card. Method one was using double sided sticky tape (I used normal and twirled it into shape). Method two was to puncture little holes in the card and loop the ends of the pipe cleaner through.

I found a baking skewer perfect for the job of puncturing the holes.

I cut the pipe cleaners to size so they would tier into a tree shape. Here they are ready to go – I placed the ‘stars’ at the top when I was trying to get the tiering right. That sort of helped

Next – invite small girls to craft and watch their faces when they see the POM POMS.

Once the girls saw the cards laid out with the tray of pom poms they could NOT wait to get started. The colours are just so inviting.

Zoe got started on the card with the pipe cleaners stuck down with sticky tape. She was pretty happy

We used strong glue and a small paint brush for the pom poms. Watching the girls choose which pom pom would go where was very interesting.

Zoe glued as she went along. She made decisions quickly and was happy with every single one of them.

Lots of love for this craft.

Cute! I kept some black pom poms aside and suggested they would be good as the trunk of the tree.

Ebony’s approach to this craft was completely different. Planning, planning, planning. Extra points for wearing your dressing gown.

Ebony tried various combinations of pom poms before the paint brush and glue were even glanced at. Once she was satisfied and started gluing, she was just so careful with everything. She said later that she wished we didn’t have to send the cards to other people “why can’t we keep them Mum?”.

Just in awe of the view.

Can you imagine receiving these babies in the mail? Two lucky family members will be very soon I am thinking bubble wrap as we need to post them.

Thanks for dropping by and joining us. I will be posting another Christmas card craft very soon – please say hello in the comments and let me know how much you love pom poms.

DIY Wrapping Paper #3 – Lego Fun

Posted on November 22, 2012 by MudpiesandSunshine.com

Why buy wrapping paper when the kids can have fun making it? It means so much to the recipient, especially when the wrapping paper has been decorated to their style

So far in this series we have been stamping with duplo blocks and string; and creating hearts with toilet paper rolls. It’s been frugal and it’s been fun.

For this wrapping paper we were inspired by a little boys’ love for Lego. Zoe was invited to a classmate’s 7th birthday party. A classmate who loved Lego.

No prizes for guessing how we decided to decorate his wrapping paper. Here is our preparation photo nonetheless:

I opted for a few different types of Lego to make it a more interesting stamping activity.

Zoe was happy to get started – she had a ton of ‘impatient birthday waiting’ energy at her disposal.

Zoe was so delighted that she would be painting with wheels, lego wheels. She HAD to start with them first.

“Look Mum – look at the wheel prints.”

Zoe was really fascinated by all the different patterns the lego was creating.

After the little wheels and lego block stamping, Zoe found true love with the big wheel. A few stamps lying on it’s side then:

..roll that baby!

Weeeeeee!

Still loving that wheel.

Back to the little wheels:

Zoe kept this up for ages. Much more fun than going shopping for wrapping paper.

I think she would have kept going until her arm fell off. Luckily the paint source ran out as the last gaps on the paper were being filled with Zoe’s enthusiastic stamping.

And the final product. Wrapped around a nice little Lego toy on the inside. Apparently the Lego wrapping was well received. Zoe’s voice was full of pride when she told me how the birthday boy’s Dad had expressed delight in her homemade Lego wrapping paper. Nice one C’s Dad

Next time we talk wrapping paper, we will be posting about wrapping we made for a lovely young lady’s 10th birthday.

Thanks for dropping by!

Christmas Tree Card Craft – Cork Stamping

Posted on November 19, 2012 by MudpiesandSunshine.com

A perplexing moment for Zoe during this craft:-

Nothing makes me smile more than a good Christmas craft. Is that totally true? Probably not but I do love Christmas craft, just not more than a good meal where I am not the cook.

We are doing more than one type of Christmas card this year so the girls have more craft opportunities and so that family members reading won’t know which type of card they are getting:)

We started this craft with these bits & pieces:

different coloured paints
champagne corks
green paper
brown paper
red cardboard (not pictured but not unhappy about it)
yellow star post it notes

First up is cutting the paper into rectangular strips. Mine were about 2.5cm thick. Just remember they need to be wide enough to fit the cork ‘stamp’.

That’s all you need to do for preparation. Now it’s paint stamping time! We use meatball trays when we do cork stamping. Works a treat.

Zoe was only too happy to begin the stamping.

Even with such a simple craft, kids get to be creative. Zoe had fun deciding what colours should be put together and trying out different combinations.

She did get very busy.

After the strips were dry I had to cut a few to ensure there would be enough of each size to tier the tree shape correctly. Then later on it was time again for Zoe to get to work – this time with gluing.

A small piece of brown paper was stuck at the bottom as the base or trunk of the Christmas tree. Then each strip is tiered with a nice little gap towards the top of the tree where we placed the star post it note. We also cut the star smaller as we ran out of space at the top:)

Here are a few of the cards before being glued down:

Simple and fun – Zoe loved doing this craft. If you decide to try it – I hope your kids love it too:)

Thanks for dropping by! Go on and sign up to the blog if you would like to receive all my Christmas crafts posts right in your in-box this festive season.

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Mudpies & Sunshine

Tag Archives: kids activities

Zoe’s Pipe Cleaner and Pom Pom Craft

Outdoor Balancing Course

Beach Ball Birthday Party Invitation

Valentine Egg Carton Lucky Dip Game

HOW TO PLAY:

Getting Kids to Help with School Lunch Box Ideas

DIY Sparkly Christmas Wrapping Paper

Friday Afternoon Fun – Taking Christmas Outside

Christmas Card Craft – Pipe Cleaners and Pom Poms

DIY Wrapping Paper #3 – Lego Fun

Christmas Tree Card Craft – Cork Stamping

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