FLIPPITY FLOPS

My daughter and I have been making these flip flops this summer. They are super cute and something different to accessorize her outfits.  The only down side is they don't hold up well when she's running wild playing outside. But that's ok because they are so simple and cheap to make! And with all the different ribbons out there the designs are endless! 

You will need:

A pair of flip flops, 2 different ribbons (the 15' rolls work great)

scissors, ruler, lighter (optional)

 

Cut the ribbon in 6" lengths.

You can then heat treat the ends with the lighter if you'd like.

 

Tie and double knot the ribbon on the straps

of the flip flops, alternating ribbons.

 

How cute are these?!

 

Happy crafting!

Homemade Finger Paint

What's more fun than finger painting? Not much if you're 2. I mean how awesome to color with your hands and make a mess at the same time. And...... it's super easy to make your own and if your little one tries to eat this, it won't hurt them.  Not that I would encourage the eating of finger paint but if they try and taste it no need to freak! I found this in an old cookbook of mine.

Gather your supplies (you probably already have all of these in your kitchen)

3 Tablespoons Sugar

1/2 Teaspoon Salt

1/2 Cup of Cornstarch

2 Cups of Water

Food Coloring (not shown...oops)

Mix together in small saucepan over a low heat until thickened.

Stirring frequently. Mine took about 15 minutes.

Let the mixture cool and pour into desired containers.

I used old baby food jars.

Add food coloring to each jar.  I used the Neon ones because neon makes things much more fun right?  I actually screwed up 2 of the colors though. The purple and pink caps looked fairly similar to me and this is why I have 2 purples and the brown color was supposed to be apricot, but I figured they are going to need a brown to make trees.

Let your little ones go to town!

This finger paint I felt was a little bit thick, but it actually seemed to work better for a 2 year old then the traditional finger paint.  But I would imagine if you add a little more water you could thin it out if you wanted.

An alternative to the refridgerator door

My daughter loves to color pictures. She fills up our refrigerator door and then some. And when you have a 2 year old in the house the refrigerator door isn't always the best place to hang artwork.  He sees something colorful and he yanks it down, crumbles it up, kicks it around.  Enter 7 year old MELTDOWN.  Sometimes I think he does it cuz he knows he's making her mad, yea he's rowdy like that :)

I was trying to come up with another way we could display her masterpieces when I noticed a classroom at her school had a "clothesline" running across the room and all the students' artwork was hung on it to dry...... LIGHT BULB!!

I hung some fishing line on her wall and we painted clothespins to display her work.

Now all of we can hang many more pictures, it's outta her little brother's reach and it decorates her wall a little.  We're also able to hang more of the bigger pictures she makes that wouldn't necessarily fit on the fridge.

Getting Her to Clean Her Room

My daughter loves to clean but she hates cleaning her room. I can't say I blame her though I've never been a fan of room cleaning. Why is that I wonder?

Everytime we tell her she needs to clean her room she moans and complains (but yet she'll go organize the silverware or tupperware drawer without being told). So I started setting the kitchen timer to 5 minutes and have her pick up a specific item, like her crayons. If she has any time left after picking up said item I add that to the next 5 minutes for the next item to get picked up.  So if she had 3 minutes left to spare, she will now have 8 minutes to do the next task, maybe putting her clothes away.  I keep this up until her room is clean.  She thinks this is great fun.  How awesome is that for me? :)  I know this will get old for her one day but for now it's been working like a charm to get her to clean her room without complaints so that makes me one happy mama!

Back to School

Well Christmas Break is officially over.  The kids went back to school today, and while it's nice having them home, I do look forward to getting back into a daily routine, even if the daily routine means we are busy, busy, BUSY!!  The two older kids are in multiple after school activities, so our afternoons can become quite hectic and with all the paper work they bring home from school, dance, sports, etc it's easy to misplace something, and no one wants to be that mom, you know the one who forgets to send the permission slip back for the field trip, or doesn't bring the dance costume on dress rehearsal day. So, a few years back I went on a hunt for a system to keep all their important paperwork in one place. This is what I came up with:

I went over to the office supply store and found two magnetic wall files (one for each kid) and stuck them on the side of my fridge and VOILA!!! All their paperwork is easily found (and off my counter top).