Bottle Top Snowmen Creativity

I have an idea in my head when I start a project. My boys have their own ideas! I love that. Yes, it does mean that my craft ideas don't always come to fruition, but I choose to see my ideas as "prompts" for their wonderful creativity. 

So when I glued these bottle tops together, I envisioned bottle top snowmen ornaments, like you see in the photo at the top. Yip, that's my attempt. (I used a glue gun to glue these tops together by the way.)

But, when my boys saw bottle top snowmen, they saw this...

 

 

and this... Little One's creation below. Little One often takes the lead from big brother. :)

This activity kept them busy for more than an hour. A great success in my book. I'm sure you love your kiddos' ideas too... have they ever "bettered" your idea? 

This will be my last post for the year. We will be returning to my home town for Christmas and the New Year. I do wish you a blessed and beautiful Christmas time with your families and friends. If you are traveling, be safe. Take care, till next time.

Georgia x

Ten Super Bottle Top Crafts

My passion for bottle tops has been a longstanding one (sounds a bit weird I know), but somehow on this blogging journey, I was introduced to the concept of these being a creative tool and I was changed. I could never throw them away again. In fact, when we relocated up country earlier this year, my husband had to convince me that I could not allocate precious moving boxes to my collection (my big collection) of recycling. Bottle tops, milk bottles, egg cartons - I keep these!  Hehe, okay, perhaps I am a bit strange. Please don't unsubscribe. :)

Today's post is a little trip down memory lane, sharing some of my favourite bottle top creations from the past few years with you and a new one! 

1. I think my very first inspiration for bottle top crafts came via the lovely Silly Eagle Books blog. Vanessa created some wonderful bottle top animals. Pop on over to this post (Bottle Top Animals) to also see a caterpillar, dog, cat, bird, bunny and spider.

2. A pretty "you are the apple of my eye" card. 

 

3. More wonderful inspiration came from the very creative Amanda from Crafts by Amanda. I loved and made her bottle top ladybirds and ladybird jar. (Bottle Top Ladybirds and Jar)

4. I enjoyed making these bats with Little One. They were a great fine motor activity too. They looked spooky and cool when put up on his cupboard door. (Bottle Top Bats)

5. Bottle tops and stickers make for great stamps. Add play dough and you have a fun activity for a little one. And a cute gift! You could also use these to do some printing of course. (Bottle Top Stamps)

6. Bottle tops, glue and sequence make for some fun easy art. 
(Bottle Top Art)

  7. Who doesn't like Dr. Seuss? This bottle top town was Seuss-inspired. (Seussville Bottle Top Town)

8. A fun Christmas Craft... 82 days and counting down... bottle top snowmen. (Bottle Top Snowmen)

9. Here's a great craft to do at a girl's birthday party. Make some designer miniature cakes using bottle tops,  play dough and pretty beads. (Designer Bottle Top Cakes)

  10. And last, but not least, a new bottle top craft for you, croaked up recently and not shared before. I give you... Bottle Top Frogs! Easy to make, by simply adding pom poms and googly eyes to bottle tops (the star of this show).  

My all time favourite bottle top picture must be the one at the top of this post.  Those were bottle top cards I made some time back for a children's home party. 

PS. And that's not all folks! If you click on the "Bottle Tops" tag in the sidebar of the blog, you will find even more cute bottle top crafts. (yes, more I tell you!)

Till next time. 

The Lego Movie Memory Game

 

So we have been having a super holiday and have spent a lot of time relaxing at home,  playing,  crafting, watching TV. 

We have also been to see The Lego Movie and my boys LOVED it. I managed to get through the movie without being thoroughly bored or agitated (been there!), so it's not too bad for grown-ups either. :)

We came home with the theme song "Everything is AWESOME" ringing in our heads and the boys were also super-psyched to play Lego. 

I had spoilt each of them to a minifigure after the movie and thought it would be fun to use the cute sheet of characters to make a Memory Game. Little One has just recently started playing Memory Match and really enjoys it, so my guess was that the game would be a winner.

Good call. The boys loved it.

To make this you will need two sheets of characters from inside The Lego Movie minifigure packets. Cut them out and paste them onto punched-out circles. If you don't have a circle punch, cut small squares of white cardboard. It will work just as well.

I knew that if they played with the cards as much I expected, the cards would get damaged quickly and they would also not be very easy to pick up from the table. To get around this, I stuck the circles onto bottle tops using Prestick (stick putty).

We all ended up playing the game - even the Dad. Easy Mommy-made Fun!

Have you checked out The Lego Movie website yet? Pretty cool. You can even create your own Lego movie character. Till next time, have fun!

PS. Have shared this at The Weekly Kids Co-Op Party.

Bottle Top Bats

Bats are mammals of the order Chiroptera whose forelimbs form webbed wings, making them the only mammals naturally capable of true and sustained flight. Wikipedia

I love that when we do a craft like this, we always learn something new and interesting. It's really one of the simplest and most effective ways to grab your child's attention about a new topic. Recently Little One and I made these bottle top bats, but at the same time we chatted about them. Of course this Mommy was prepared and I had done my homework before the time and could tell Little One about these creatures while we were crafting.

Big One inevitably overhears what we are getting up to and so also walks away with some new knowledge.

(On Little One's cupboard)

Here are some nice sites to visit to learn more about bats:

Animal Planet
Kidzone

This idea was inspired by a craft at The Mailbox Magazine. 

PS. Sharing this at Shine on Friday and The Sunday Showcase. 

Fun with Humpty Dumpty

There are a lot of eggs around at the moment - have you noticed ;) - which got me thinking, who's the coolest EGG around? 

Humpty Dumpty of course. 

With that in mind we have been having some Humpty Dumpty fun over here...

 A bottle top Humpty.

Build a wall by matching the number to the dots. 

Little One loved this activity.

Our favourite Book about the famous Egg. 

All the King's horses and all the King's men...

(Peg craft inspired by the amazingly creative lilla a)

Shortbread Soldiers.

(Plain biscuits from Woolworths)

Capital H activity from Making Learning Fun.

Finger Puppet Humptys.

I have plans for these - you will have to wait and see. :)

More Easter fun to come. Till next time.

Bottle Top Turkey

Happy (Belated) Thanksgiving!

...to all my friends and family in the US :)

O is for Ostrich

Little One has been introduced to the alphabet via the Letterland program at his school this year - a super program that I like very much. I, on the other hand, haven't focused much on alphabet activities at home, but recently decided that we should. Added to that, Big One gets homework every day and Little One also wants to have homework, just like big brother. So I thought I'd prepare some things for him to do in the afternoon while Big One is busy. 

The first letter I chose to focus on was "o" - it's so easy to identify and it's a great first sound. 

Just by the way, here in South Africa we teach lower case letters first and we teach the phonetic sounds (as in "a" is for apple, not ape). 

I chose ostrich as our first "o" activity and we started with identifying the letter using our fantastic magnetic alphabet. (Available from Little People's Products)

I added some ostrich handouts from Carisa's  Tot School Printables @ 1+1+1+1. (If you don't know this site - it's amazing!) 

We did some colour recognition and colouring in.

Little one then cut out each ostrich (Each ostrich is in a square, which makes this a nice cutting activity).  He helped me staple all the little squares together to make a small book - a nice reminder of the activity.  I also added in some maths language, by asking him which picture he wanted in the book first, second, third, etc, as I put the small pages together, before we stapled it. 

I also made a copy of the "shapes" page and asked him to "show me the ostrich in the oval, triangle etc." He used his dot markers for this one. These were very kindly sent to us awhile back by Donette from The Journey. They are a favourite during homework time. These ostriches can also be cut out to make a book... or flash cards.

There are lots more ostrich pages available from 1+1+1=1. 

And a  bottle top ostrich craft...

The boys and I visited the National Geographic website to get some extra information about the ostrich and we watched a You Tube video of an ostrich running - something they do rather well. (We actually ran around like ostriches - using our "wings" to steer and make sharp turns - this got some giggles). And we learned that an ostrich can cover up to 5 metres in a single stride - that got us measuring and estimating - it's about the length of our kitchen!

Little One calls it "fun homework". This must mean I'm doing something right ;). 

Till next time - happy learning :)  

PS. Little One is 4.2 years.
PPS. Sharing this at It's Playtime.

Play Dough Cookies (made with bottle tops)

You do know how I love bottle tops... :)

When we went away for a few days in the holidays, I knew it being Winter, that  we would possibly be spending a fair amount of time indoors. I packed the play dough (as I usually do), as I knew that this could entertain both kiddos if need be. I also packed an ocean themed bottle top memory match game I had made awhile back. 

Little One and I got stuck into the play dough one afternoon and I realized that we could stamp some sea creatures with our bottle tops. As we got stamping, the idea of cookies evolved. Make a small round ball (quite tricky for Little One to do and good for those hands) and then stamp it. Voila! A plate of sea creature cookies. They are pretty don't you think?

PS. Link to the bottle top memory match here and to the play dough recipe here.

Bottle Top Art, Pinterest Boards, and a Winner!

Getting tired of all these bottle top posts :)? I hope not, because I just can't help myself. When I see bottle tops...I see possibilities!

Here in South Africa we have many schools with very limited resources and every time I pick up a bottle top, I see all the potential that this little throw away plastic top has :). So to better collect and organise ideas, I have created Bottle Top Teaching and Bottle Top Fun Pinterest Boards. The first board will focus on using bottle tops to teach and the second board will be anything creative one can get up to with a bottle top. I hope you will drop me a line if you have been doing some bottle top activities. I will be right over to check it out :).

So this sweet bit of art (see above) was really easy to make.
All you need is :

bottle tops

two chubby little hands (yes, chubby ones required)

gloopy glue (you know...gloopy white runny glue)

pretty paper sprinkle/confetti

I wish I had a picture of those two chubby hands squee-eezing the glue into the bottle tops, but we did this fun activity at night and the photos came out rather yucky. I can assure you though, that Little One loved this. After all the squeezing, came the sprinkling of the paper confetti. When he was done, I arranged the tops nicely onto a page and stuck them down to make some super easy wall art. Easy and fun!

One last thing before I go...
I have a winner for the makedo giveaway. 

Congratulations Lizanne from Clay Jar People! 

I'll be in touch shortly to get your postal details.

Thanks also to all of you who took part and left such kind comments. I'll definitely be having some more giveaways, so stay tuned.

Till next time, be good...

Georgia :)

Seussville {Bottle Top and Pom Pom Town}

Big Brother went off to camp for a few days this morning, so I thought it would be nice to have a few distractions for little brother. Truthfully, Little One will probably be fine - it's Mommy (that would be me) that might not be.

Anyhow, this project started off a few days ago with me encouraging the boys to make some "buildings" from bottle tops. Big One wasn't in the mood, but Little One loved the idea of using the gloopy glue again and he made some nice creations. I, of course, got completely carried away and created a whole town of buildings :). Right at the end, I decided to added some pom poms for a kind of "Dr Seuss effect".

Little One's creations...

The little buildings needed a place to go, so I took a large piece of cardboard and glued some colourful cardboard roads on to it and added the street markings with a correction pen. "Seussville" awaited Little One when he got home today. He really liked it and played and played...makes a Mommy's heart glad...and not having Big One around, just a little bit easier.

Until next time, happy playing!

PS. Sharing this at
Too Cute Tuesday @ Funky Polkadot Giraffe

For the Kids Friday @ Sun Scholars 

Kids Co-op
Show and Tell @ ABC and 123 

Earth Day Craft

I am an honest gal! And honestly, I had never heard of Earth Day until I started blogging. This year when I noticed all the Earth Day crafts, I decided to put on one of my favourite caps...the research one...and find out a little more about it. So here's what I found out:

Earth Day is a day on which events are held worldwide to increase awareness and appreciation of the earth's natural environment. Many communities around the world celebrate Earth Week, an entire week of activities focused on environmental issues. Earth Day is now coordinated globally by the Earth Day Network, and is celebrated in more than 175 countries every year. The origin of this day is credited to Gaylord Nelson, a former U.S. Senator, who after witnessing the devastation of the 1969 oil spill in Santa Barbara, California, called for an environmental  teach-in  on 22 April 1970. In 2009, the United Nations designated April 22 International Mother Earth Day and it is planned for this date in all years through till 2015.(Reference: Wikipedia)

If you have been reading for awhile, you will know that I like, no make that love bottle tops, and have shared quite a few bottle top crafts here at Love and Lollipops. So to celebrate Earth Day and in the spirit of recycling and looking after our beautiful planet, here's another bottle top craft for you :).

Till next time...happy recycling!

PS. Sharing this at:

Show and Tell @ ABC and 123
^{Too Cute Tuesday @ Funky Polkadot Giraffe}

Mini Designer Bottle Top and Play Dough Cakes

Bottle tops + play dough = cakes...who would have thought?

These mini cakes were inspired by some very clever creations I saw at  Anne Farrell's blog. I thought of trying to make these with glue, but then realised that it would require some really fine precision gluing and both children wouldn't necessarily be in the mood for such sticky fingers. So play dough to the rescue :).

I have tried a few play dough recipes, but this is definitely one of my all time favourites. It is soooo easy to make and the best part - no stove required!

To create the soft icing colours, I added very little food colouring to the dough. The yellow was our "custard" filling and we used deep purple as our chocolate icing, because I (unfortunately) forgot to make some brown coloured dough. To make a soft chocolatey color, you can simply add a little bit of cocoa to the recipe.

The little beads make for pretty sprinkles to decorate the cakes - don't forget to also have some red ones to add as cherries or strawberries :). 

Wouldn't these make such a sweet addition to a small doll's tea party?

 

The play dough recipe, found via The Mother Lode. 

1 cup flour
2 Tbs cream of tarter
1 Tbs vegetable oil
1/2 cup of granulated salt
Add some essence for a nice aroma (orange, almond, peppermint)

Mix all the ingredients in a bowl and then add a cup of boiling water. Stir until combined and turn it out onto a floured board and knead until smooth. Colour can be added to the boiling water or at the kneading stage. I divide the batch in half and add the colouring at the kneading stage. When you divide it in half, there is enough for two nice hand-sized balls of dough. Just a tip - wear gloves when kneading - the food colouring does stain your skin and it isn't very easy to clean off. Store your dough in an airtight container. 

If you have never made play dough before, I really want to encourage you to give it a go. For many years I used store-bought dough and I have always disliked the artificial and overpowering smell. This dough is really wonderful :). 

Till next time...have fun!

Sharing at:
Show and Tell @ ABC and 123 
For the Kids Friday @ Sun Scholars 
Kid's Co-op 
Too Cute Tuesday @ Funky Polkadot Giraffe 

Play Dough Activities Link Up @ The Imagination Tree