more summer camp crafts!

Nothing like working at an out-of-doors summer camp in the middle of June to really help a person appreciate air conditioning.  I have been slowly melting into a tryna-puddle.  As if 100+ temperatures are not enough, let's throw in 100% humidity just for fun!  Whew!
Anyways, my annoying adorable little campers created a few more lovely pieces of art work that I am pumped to share!

First up: masks!  What summer camp is complete without animal masks made from paper plates?  These have been embellished with felt and pipe cleaners.  Also, they abandoned the tradition string around the back of the head for a popsicle stick.

Next, we have chalk drawings on black construction paper.  These depict prey running for their lives from predators.

And now, finger puppets!  The kids had a lot of fun creating these.  They also enjoyed setting up battles between them and seeing whose puppet was the ultimate fighter.  Gotta love 2nd and 3rd graders.

Sculpting with clay was a huge success.  The kids loved getting their hands all dirty and gross.  Here are a few birds:

And my favorite craft?  Pinecone owls, of course!

Aren't they adorable!?!  Such creative geniuses I had last week!

summer camp fun!

As promised, here is a peek at what we have done so far this week at camp.  The theme was Wild About Art, and I had lovely little just-finished-second-and-third graders.

My favorite craft we have done thus far is a braided snake, complete with googly eyes.  I found instructions for this craft here.

Aren't they darling??

Another fave is the dried bean mosaics that I drew inspiration for from this site.  This one was a wee bit messy, so we headed to the great outdoors (in the 100 degree weather) for this craft.  I found that using a dixie cup with white glue and a popsicle stick for spreading said glue worked best.  Also, use a heavy weight paper.  A few in progress:

And some completed masterpieces:

We also made some super cute turtles that I found on this site.  These turned out to be rather complicated for this group's clumsy little fingers, but here are a few that still came out adorable:

We tried making pictures out of melted crayon wax.  The idea was to squeeze some crayon wax onto a paper from a plastic baggie in the shape of a bug or reptile and let it harden.  Then, you could pull the creature off the paper and have a cute wax friend.  But, the crayons hardened too fast, so we decided to imitate the great abstract painters using the melted wax and spoons.

We then poured the leftover wax into an ice cube tray and made new crayons!

We also attempted to make paper.  This was a time consuming activity that was not really worth it.  We put shredded paper and water in a blender and blendered it until it was good and mushy.  Then we pressed it into screens to dry (which took for. ev. ver.).  Most of them turned out horrid.  Here is our one good one:

And, of course, there must be painting at an art camp!  We took a stroll down the nature trail until we came across this lovely scene:

 
It is difficult to see in this picture, but there is a lovely view of a large group of cypress trees, complete with knees, in front of my hardworking little darlings.  Here is their interpretation of that scene:

Still to come this week: paper mache nests, animal track molds, finger puppets, and origami!

cooking with the baby!

The other day, Jonah helped me cook dinner!

Okay, really, he was a wee bit fussy and I was a lot bit hungry, so here we are!  Isn't he so cute?


We got our free bacon from Earth Fare, so we decided to make cheesy bacon chicken.  Yum!

bacon!

First we cooked up some bacon!  I do love the smell of cooking bacon.

These are my tongs.  I love them.

Next, we cooked the chicken breasts in the bacon juice.  Initially, this kinda grossed me out.  But it tastes so tasty...so...

We popped a bag of steamable mixed veggies in the microwave and viola!  We have dinner.  I put the bacon on the bottom and then the chicken and then some delish melty cheesy goodness.
It was pretty tasty.

And Jonah was an excellent assistant!  Until he got distracted by dangly things...

hall closet redo

This is a picture of my hall closet yesterday.  Frightening, isn't it?  Exceedingly cluttered and disorganized.  So...I decided to get some order in that sucka.  I knew I wanted to use fun baskets or boxes of some kind.  You see, I recently got sucked into the world of pinterest, which then led to Martha Stewart's website.  I do not necessarily like her personality...but I do love her homemaking skills.  So clever.  And most lovely and organized closets have boxes or baskets to help them out.

Here is all of the stuff out of the closet and on my counter:

So the family went to Target yesterday to troubleshoot this storage idea.  Can I just mention that I love Target.  I could spend hours every day there.  Anyways...cute storage items cost a ridiculous amount of money.  Literally my eyes might have bugged out of my head as I calculated the absurd cost of decluttering my tiny closet.  So we improvised.

These beauties were $15 for ten.  Not a bad price, although they are quite ugly.  I originally wanted to do eight storage containers, but when I tried these out in the closet, I could only fit one per shelf.

I had some green and yellow paint and sponge brushes left over from Jonah's room decorating, so I decided to paint these guys and steal a cute labeling idea I found online.  I took the boxes outside and got to work.  Now, I am not going to lie to you...I did not paint the back or the bottom.  But really, no one will see those unless they are being exceedingly nosy.  Here they are in progress:

Note the cute clothes pin to hold the label.  It makes it easy to switch out what goes in the box.

Now, marvel at my fabulous makeover!

Much nicer than the beginning, huh?  So proud!

I made it!

I am not a very crafty person.  I wish with every bone in my body that I was...but alas...I am not.

So you cannot imagine my excitement when I created something tonight!
Unfortunately, I was dumb and did not take pictures of the project.  But I will do my best to explain what I did.
I went to this site and looked at what they had created.  So cute!

So naturally, I ripped them off.
I started with one of Joshua's ill-fitting grey t-shirts.  I cut the hem off of the bottom and then cut horizontal strips from the bottom up to the armpits.  I think I got about ten strips or so.
Then I stretched them out so each curled in on itself.  I then looped it twice around my neck and took the hem to tie the pieces together.
I had a cute  pearl broach that I added and snipped the ends off the piece I tied it with.

I really like it.
Also, I made my son a bracelet from one of the sleeves.  Isn't he the cutest thing ever?