paint cut paste

just wanted to share a quick little gift idea… on the last day of preschool last month, N wanted to give her classmates something. she was quite specific about what it was — she wanted to share her favorite music with them.

music has always been very important to N – and even more so since christmas when she got an ipod touch for her bedroom that we keep stocked with her favorites. (i got her this after trying to figure out what the 2010s equivalent would be to the record player i had in my bedroom when i was 4 years old.) ipod touch docked in a sideways station so kids can visually scroll through album covers. i got the dock on amazon and found the ipod touch on craigslist. score!

she chose all of the songs she wanted for the list… which i’ll share with you here, just because:

• The Muppet Show Theme – Muppets
• Rainbow connection – Muppets
• Black Horse and the Cherry Tree  - KT Tunstall
• Can you picture that?  - Muppets
• Girls Just Wanna Have Fun – Cyndi Lauper
• Bobby-O – Kimya Dawson
• Dog Days Are Over  - Florence And The Machine
• My Energy – Laurie Berkner
• Little Panda Bear – Kimya Dawson
• Googleheads – Laurie Berkner
• I hope that somethin’ better comes along – Muppets
• Fraggle Rock Theme  - Muppets
• The Three Bears – Gary Rosen
• Movin’ Right Along – Muppets
• Puff the Magic Dragon – Susie Tallman
• Never before, never again – Muppets
• Victor Vito  - Laurie Berkner
• Finale: the magic store  - Muppets
• Fire And Rain – James Taylor
• The Littlest Birds – The Be Good Tanyas
• I’m going to go back there someday  - Muppets
• Sunbeams and Some Beans – Kimya Dawson
• School’s Out for Summer – Alice Cooper

appropriately enough, that last song IS one of N’s favorites, as alice cooper is her very favorite “muppets special guest star” when he performed that song on the muppet show (yes, the one from the 70s/80s. we have the muppet show DVDs. you know she’s a muppets fanatic.) i burned the playlist to CDs. this felt so archaic… i know i should just be uploading the mp3s to a cloud somewhere and inviting the parents in the class to gain access to it, right? i’m not there yet. then we chose some of N’s preschool art works from the year to cut into CD covers. (one answer to the question of what to do with your childs’ stack of preschool artwork)

we used our lovely tag paper punch to make gift tags that N signed for each friend.

tied them with some pretty dyed yarn…

and voila! a thrifty, thoughtful, and tuneful (it’s a word) gift for her classmates finished in an hour, tops.

rock on kids!

it is easy being green! who couldn’t use another reusable canvas bag – for groceries, target runs, library books, the farmer’s market, playdates, dance class, etc.? we decided to customize some springy totes for N’s preschool teachers and dance teacher in honor of teacher appreciation week!

i bought a 3-pack of tote bags from michael’s for $9 (individual bags for $4.) they’re a nice 13″ size for carrying lots of things! i also got three colors of non-toxic fabric paint for about $1.40 each. (they sell assorted color sets for more money, but i thought i needed a larger amount of just three colors.)

then we got down to business… i used a sponge brush to paint the fabric paint onto N’s hand. then she pressed her handprints (reapplying paint in between) on the bags in a radial fashion.

these made pretty flower petals. then she used a sturdy paintbrush to paint a center on each flower (in a different color) and a stem with leaf on each one.

you could personalize further by writing or stamping a person’s name on each tote, but we liked them as is. just let them dry for 4 hours, and you’re good to bag up your stuff!

these made great gifts for N’s teachers, (along with these custom gift tags drawn & written by N.) the bags would also work nicely for mother’s day or a reusable gift bag to fill with goodies when celebrating a birthday, bridal/baby shower, or any spring/summer event!

and if you like N’s shirt, it could be yours… click here!

when i was a little girl, i used to love melting down my old crayons into new and improved crayon shapes, so i thought this would be fun to do with N this year. (for some reason, my childhood memories of melted wax involve styrofoam meat trays…??) we have a heart mini-muffin pan, which is fitting for the season. my ubercrafty friend over at pink and green mama did this with her daughter last year, as well, so i checked out her blog to learn about the oven settings.

all year, N and i have saved up broken crayons and crayons from restaurants.

N helped me to peel off the paper and break them into small chunks. (fyi: peeling cheap restaurant crayons is not the most fun task.)

we divvied the chunks up into the heart pan.

then we baked them at 250 degrees for about 15 minutes. i CAREFULLY had to carry the tray across the kitchen (minimal wax drippage onto new kitchen sisal rug. ick.) to the fridge where i set them to cool for about 15 minutes. to my surprise, they popped out of the tray very easily.

we put each one into a little valentine bag with a nametag on it and a note in it saying “i heART you” for all of N’s friends. (hey, puns are okay for toddlers.)

though some of the baby siblings of N’s friends, who are not yet in the crayon stage, got some felt hearts that i sewed for them instead.

put a little ART in your heART, valentine!

for one of our holiday gifts for family members this year, N and i created very personal stationery. (inspired by a friend – thanks, amy!) it’s such an easy projects and the results so pretty!

first, we had a ton of fun making large watercolor paintings on heavy watercolor paper.

then i cut the paintings into small squares (after photographing them for posterity, of course.) i glued them to some blank stationery cards that i found on clearance at michael’s (they’re always good for packs of blank cards)

we stamped the backs of them (with our cute paintcutpaste.com stamp) so our family would know that they were hand painted by N.

then i sorted them by color schemes for each household of N’s grandparents, great-grandmother, aunts, and uncles and tied them in packs of 8 with pretty ribbons and a gift tag.

i must say that our family members said they are only going to send them back and forth to each other so that they can keep them around… reluctant to send these pretty paintings away.

this would also make for a great birthday gift, wedding gift, baby shower gift, or valentines!

i’m not in love with plastics, but who can resist the magic of shrinky dinks? a couple of days ago, my mom, N, and i potted a little plant-window herb garden for our kitchen. then we decided that the herbs needed name tags.

hello my name is: basil

sure, there are so many wonderful materials and ways to create waterproof plant ID tags out there, but i immediately thought of how much fun N has been having with coloring and scribbling lately, so why not color on shrinky dink sheets to make tags? today we headed to michael’s to get shrinky dinks (we opted for the “frosted: ruff n’ ready” kind,) and N got busy decorating the pages with regular colored pencils. if you get the frosted ones, directions say to color on the rough side.

then i cut her drawings into simple oval shapes (any shape will do — it’d be fun to make tiny animals, flowers, etc.) i wrote the herb names on the shiny side of the plastic sheet with a sharpie. (how i adore sharpies.)

cut and labeled

we heated our toaster oven to 325 degrees and watched as they magically condensed into tiny, thick, hard plastic discs.

we attached craft picks (popsicle sticks, lollipop sticks, narrow dowel rods all work, too) to them using superglue (e6000 industrial glue is what the shrinky dink company recommends for the best adhesion.) if you wanna skip this step, cut shrinky dink paper tags into a long, rectangle with a point at the bottom or cut a post shape into the bottom of your desired shape and just push the one piece into the soil.

and now our little garden friends are ready to have a little meet & greet in our window sill while we make a beautiful herbed quiche.

nice to meetcha! wanna eatcha!

p.s. i punched holes into some of the extras (before baking) and made gift tags for future use.

for charmed gift packages