Squeezy Art {A repost}

I have never done a repost of an old post on Love and Lollipops before, but after 2 and a half years of blogging, I know that there are some oldies, but goodies, in my archives. So for those of you who happen to remember this post - firstly, thank you for still reading (!) -  and secondly, I hope you won't mind the repeat. With a short spring break coming up here in South Africa, this struck me as a super way to spend a rainy afternoon - spring may be here, but it's still raining  :).

This art activity has been one of Big One's favourites for a long time.

To do this activity, you need some squeezy bottles filled with different paint colours. I found these bottles at my local plastic shop and filled them with acrylic paint, using a vaccine syringe. It is a bit time-consuming, but well worth the effort.

 

Once done, all that is required is some squeezing , folding and fun! First squeeze and then squeeze some more. Use as many colours as you please. Fold your page in half and then carefully open your page to reveal a colour surprise!  My son enjoys this process so much, that getting him to stop is usually the only problem.

We are always left with a great number of these interesting paint surprises, so I decided to use them to make some greeting cards. To create these, I cut them into small squares and arranged them onto pre-cut coloured cardstock. I really like the end result.

Have fun :)

PS. Shared at the Weekly Kid's Co-op.

A felt mat and an unexpected geography lesson

Who knew that making a felt play mat would lead me deeply into the world of the Artic, Antartica and the animals that live there? 

Let me share some facts.

The Artic is a sea, surrounded by pieces of land and it is in the Northern hemisphere. Antartica in contrast, is a piece of land, surrounded by sea in the Southern hemisphere. Animals found in the Artic include the polar bear, the Artic fox, seals, walrusses, the very interesting narwal whale, the snowy owl and reindeer (caribou). Penguins are found in Antartica... here in South Africa too :)... but they are not naturally found in the Northern hemisphere.  

So with this in mind, can you tell what's wrong with that top picture? Polar bears and penguins together are a no-no!

As for those orcas (killer whales), they are found in the southern and northern seas. What I actually had in mind, putting them so close to the shore line, were the orcas of Peninsula Valdes, on the coast of Argentina. These particular orcas almost beach themselves to catch seals on the shore line and it's the only place in the world where orcas hunt in this way. If you want to see more, some amazing footage is available on You Tube.

Anyway, back to my mat. As you can now tell, I have not only mixed up the 'Artics', I went and threw in some (non-icy) Argentinian coast line too. (I write this smiling sheepishly) Geography in high school? No, I did History. Having said that, this is a great example of how one learns by making mistakes. (Well, that's my positive spin on it anyway). I also shared all my mistakes with the kiddos, so hopefully they will remember some of these rather important details.

Now onto the how-tos: To make the mat, cut two biggish pieces of felt, white and blue, and either sew or glue them together. I used my good friend the glue gun - the glue dries instantly, which is the best part for me  - I'm impatient that way. 

I added a picture to show you how I cut and glued the caves. I first glued the sides of the cave and then folded and glued the back part of it. 

To make the igloo, I used a plastic ball (those that you find in ball ponds) and firstly cut the top third of the ball off with a cutting knife (be extra careful when doing this). I then cut out the door with a strong pair of scissors (a kitchen one). To finish off, paint it white and glue on some felt squares. Sweet hey? I must just add that I also painted the inside white, but only after this photograph was taken.

We have quite a nice collection of realistic looking plastic animals, but unfortunately didn't have any polar bears. I really wanted some to add to this mat, so I purchased some black bears (from a local plastic shop), painted them with white acrylic paint and then added the eyes and nose details with a permanent black marker. I thought they turned out quite nicely.

And lastly to add some extra interest to the mat, I covered some white polystyrene pieces with white felt too. These pieces were cut from a nice deep dish that some strawberries had come in. You really don't have to cover them; you could just use as is. By stacking them, it provides some extra places for the animals to walk under or over.

I do hope that you like my (not the Artic/not the Antartic) icy felt mat. Have you ever made a felt mat? Let me know, I'd love to come and see. Till next time, happy playing.

PS. This mat was inspired by the awesome mats at Shady Tree Diary.  

PPS. Shared at It's Playtime.

Pom Pom Snowmen

So easy to make, these sweet little snowmen would be cute in a Winter sensory box. 

 

To make:

two pom poms (different sizes)

a nice fluffy pipe cleaner for the scarf (bent to make the scarf shape)

two small black beads for the eyes

a piece of orange felt for the nose

a coloured stick/toothpick for the arms  (cut in half and pushed in the sides)

No explanation required I think. Glue these together...just like in the picture.  

Till next time :)

PS. For more snowman fun, see our sock snowmen, and our bottle top snowmen (actually people).

A mini ice rink

It's been a really cold Winter...brrrrr. One of the coldest in a few years here in South Africa. It has snowed in places that don't see snow very often. And, on our distant mountains there have been snow covered peaks almost everyday.

Having said that - we never actually got to play in any snow. Little One has yet to experience it up close and personal. Hopefully next year we will head off to those mountains and go and play.

So with all this really chilly weather, wintery activities have been on my mind. I do realize that Spring has officially sprung, but I'm going to (quickly) share some of our Winter fun in the next few posts, before the cold weather is gone for good :).

So first up is a mini ice rink, with little ice skaters as you can see. This was inspired by a similar rink at the amazing Play Create Explore blog. 

To make the rink, I used a cookie tray, added water and let it set overnight in the deep freeze. To make the ski poles, I added some masking tape to toothpicks, so that they would fit into the little men's hands. Popsicle sticks cut in half became the skis and I attached them to the men with Prestick. I must add though, that as soon as the popsicle sticks got wet, the Prestick came off. But it was fun while it lasted. 

Both boys really enjoyed this activity and Little One was fascinated by the ice and asked me to immediately go and make some more. It made me think that we definitely need to do more "ice play" - perhaps that can be on our agenda for the long hot summer that is probably on its way :). 

PS. Sharing this at It's Playtime and For the Kids Friday @ Sun Scholars. 

Wheat free/Egg free Crunchies

Do you have one of those recipe files? Those big thick stuffed ones...that can't even close? You go somewhere, eat something delicious and ask the hostess for the recipe. I mean, you have to have that recipe. Then you get home and you file it safely away in that nice big recipe file, for one day when you 're going to remake that awesome yummy thing...mmm, only one day never comes. Well, today I made one of those recipes :).

Recipe:

Place the following ingredients in a pot and heat and stir on the stove.

4 oz of marge (115 grams)
2 tbsp of syrup
1 tsp of bicarb

Add the bicarb when the margarine has melted.

Add one cup of sugar to the melted mixture, keeping it on the stove for a little while longer.

Remove from the stove and add the following:

1 cup of flour (I used Orgran Gluten Free Plain Flour)
2 cups of oats
1 cup of coconut (If you can, try to buy unsulphured coconut)
1 tsp of ginger

Spread it on a greased tray. This part is a little tricky.

Bake in the oven at 140°C for 10 minutes (approximately).

Yum Yum...enjoy! 

Body Parts and Stickers

heehee, no, this is not an episode of CSI. Body parts and stickers make for great fun and a great teaching opportunity. You can play this game with babies from about 9 months, but it's still fun when you're much older and need to know those more unusual parts, like ankles and heels and wrists and earlobes...

All age groups love it when you stick a sticker on your nose or anywhere and say, "I don't have a sticker on my nose? Do I?" Pulling off stickers from a silly Mommy will get great laughs. Or, put a sticker somewhere on toddler and say "Where did I put that sticker?" If they don't answer, say the wrong body part name (Is it on your _____?). That usually gets a giggle and if you're lucky, a correction. You can really have fun with this and follow your child's lead.

And for another sticker idea...lying on the table in front of Little One in the picture below is a piece of orange felt. He really enjoys sticking stickers onto felt - it has for some reason always held more appeal to him than sticking onto paper. I got this felt idea from The Imagination Tree, a wonderful blog filled with many baby and child activities. 

Little One is 2 years old in these pictures.  

Till next time, happy playing.

Orange and Blue Vintage Truck and Tractor Party

Little One recently turned four and as promised here are some pictures of his birthday celebration that we held at home.  We invited three little friends and truthfully, after years of "bigger" parties, I can now really vouch for keeping the numbers small. The children played, the Mommies chatted...it was a whole day affair.

I had so much fun making the celebration special with lots of personal touches.

The details:   

The theme evolved as I worked on the details of the party, but the colours were very much inspired by a wonderful orange and blue party I saw at On to Baby.

The cake, a red velvet cake, was kindly baked by a friend of mine (thank you Julia!) and I made the bunting. It was made from paper (a printable I found at a lovely blog called Allsorts), glued onto some white string and then attached to skewer sticks. The marshmallow treats were also very easy to make. I melted chocolate and dipped marshmallows into it and then into sprinkles. Big One loved helping me make these.

I was very lucky to find the blue Chevy truck a few weeks before the party. I had wanted to put it on the cake but decided on the simplicity of the bunting and candles. All the wooden blocks were part of our collection and I simply repainted them blue and orange. I also stamped the letters of little one's name onto them with dark blue paint. This idea was inspired by some blocks I saw at a party at The Dorsey Life.

I made a traditional pin the tail on the donkey game, which I downloaded (for free) and printed from Family Games Treasurehouse.  I was really thrilled to find this and all the children, the older ones too, enjoyed the game. 

The very cool tractor - we hired it from Kiddie Rides, who are based in Cape Town. Little One has already placed an order for a vintage motor bike for next year :).  

In the very last picture you may have spotted bigger bunting hanging on my cabinet. That was thanks to a really nice tutorial at Odessa May Society. I think smaller pegs would have looked nicer, but I used what I had.

I hope you enjoyed sharing these memories of a special day. Take care, till next time.

lego head cup cake toppers

Inspired by lots of lego party ideas on Pinterest, I decided to make lego head cupcake toppers for Little One's birthday ring at school. 

I kept this very simple, as I had to make sixteen of these. I used a square punch to cut the squares quickly and a special little punch that rounds the corners. I added a long toothpick (not the usual short type) with sticky tape to each one.

I love how a simple decoration takes an ordinary cupcake and turns it into something quite special :).

PS. Yes, we have had a birthday! I'll be sharing our at home celebration with you in the next post. 

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.

Nature Colour Match

We were very lucky to go away for a few days during these past winter school holidays and I prepared this activity before we left. I first saw this super idea for an outdoor colour match at the wonderful Inner Child Fun. I collected paint-chips in a variety of colours and then using a square punch I created the cards. One lovely sunny morning , I sent the children on a colour hunt. I think these photos tell the story nicely.

(mmm...just checking...orange or yellow...or a bit of both?)

 

Till next time...