Rainbow Leaves and Pom-pom Acorns

I love the felted rainbow colored acorns from

the Magic Onions and her Etsy Shop.

Sadly, I seem to be the only crafter in America

who can't figure out how to do

successful wet-felting.

I've tried and failed miserably.

I was in the back yard last week,

surrounded by millions of acorn caps

and wondered if you could add a pom-pom

to get the "fuzzy acorn effect".

So, yesterday I sat down in the studio

with a craft glue bottle in hand

and started gluing pom-poms into acorn caps.

(bet you could use a glue gun too -

but this was more kid friendly)

I even tried trimming a few with scissors to

get a more pointy "acorn effect"

I like the round ones.

(the little gray ones remind me of pussy willows)

Then I decided they

needed some colorful leaves

to keep them company

and started cutting leaf shapes

out of my felt scrap basket stash.

Ta-da...so happy!

I think these will find a home in our

fairy land after the thanksgiving holidays!

Fairy Pumpkin Houses

If you've been reading my blog for sometime,

you'll know that last Christmas my

sweet hubby and I built a fairy house for our girls.

My dad is also a crafty fellow and

helped us out by building some small

twig furniture and a

tiny well for their drinking water.

He decided the girls needed some

fall pumpkin houses for their fairy land.

Each of the girls got her own custom

mini-pumpkin house

(made from an artificial pumpkin)

and a battery operated tea light

to add a cozy glow.

They love them

and so does their grateful mama.

We are lucky girls.

More Paper Towel Art - Experimenting with Color.

My hubby came up with this little artsy experiment

(I think he did it as a kid back in the stone age.)

He showed the girls how you can

separate the mixed colors

from a colored marker.

First, collect some markers in secondary colors:

Orange, Green, Purple

(not permanent - we tried, they don't work)

Note: Color Mixing 101

Secondary Colors = Orange, Green, and Purple

They are made by combining 2 Primary Colors

= Red + Yellow, Blue + Yellow, Blue + Red

Draw a small circle (diameter of a penny)

on your paper towel,

then drop a bit of clean water in the center

Watch it "star burst"

the colors will separate as it spreads.

(Do you see the purple that leached out of the blue?)

Ask your kid why they think there would be a color added to a

"primary" colored marker?

Later we tried other colors too like

Brown, Black, Pink, Blue, etc...

The girls loved it.

Paper Towel Color Wheel

I saw this wonderful sensorial art lesson

at my favorite Montessori teacher, Anne's site,

Itty Bitty Love.

I couldn't wait to try it with my own girls.

As it turned out, the post halloween morning

was the perfect time to try it

with both of my girls and their sweet daddy.

First we mixed up

three cups of colored water

RED, BLUE, YELLOW

Then I marked a template

for each of them to follow

on the waxy side of a piece of waxed deli paper.

Then I armed them each with a pipette

from our science box...

you could also use an eye dropper.

Each girl followed her "recipe"

One dot of food coloring water

per dot on the chart.

(mom and dad had to ask Mini-Saurus

questions like, "Where are the yellow dots?

Now put your yellow on those dots....")

Then use your pipette or eye dropper

to MIX the COLORS!

(important: we forgot to do this the first time and it didn't work)

Put your paper towel down

to reveal the surprise!!!

Ta-da!!

Halloween Round-Up: Harry Potter, Flying Ballerinas, and Snails

Well, it rained last night...

but at least it was warm,

(the warmest halloween I can remember)

It was slightly drizzly

for the first half of

trick-or-treating

then...

it down-poured.

At least the girls were cute stinkin' adorable!

Mini-Saurus the

"Pink Flying Ballerina"

(her costume idea)

The Frog Princess as

Hermione Granger

she kept her candy in her spell book!

A pretty good match if you ask me!

My cute girls, healthy (at last)

and ready to get some candy

from our kind neighbors!

One of our pumpkins.

The rest of our pumpkin patch!

The snail pumpkin on the left was our only

successfully home-grown pumpkin this year

(he was our sole pumpkin survivor)

The pumpkin on the far right

is the Frog Princess' pumpkin,

he's Harry Potter and wearing pipe cleaner glasses.

The tiny pumpkin is Mini-Saurus' collaborative pumpkin

she picked him out, scooped him, and

told daddy what to carve and where.

We met up with some really great friends,

reconnected with neighbors,

enjoyed the decorations,

and enjoyed watching the girls

have fun.

It was the first year Mini-Saurus could

really enjoy and understand

trick-or-treating and she was a trooper

hauling her own bag all night.

We had a great time.

Halloween Past and Present

I've been tending to a sick kid all week.

She's SO MUCH better...but it has been a LONG 8 days.

Waiting at the doctor's office.

Making-up homework.

Refereeing sibling "disagreements"screaming matches.

Trying not to go insane.

Craving my art studio. Craving "me time."

Waiting for a return to the old routine.

Grateful it hasn't been worse

(and I know it could be/could have been so much worse)

Reflecting on Halloween(s) past and present.

Painting pumpkins with the Frog Princess

2006

The Frog Princess and our painted pumpkins

2006

Princess Fiona and Snow White

2007

Our Puking Pumpkin Debut

2007

Mini-Saurus at the Pumpkin Patch

2008

Trick-or-Treating

2008

Puking Pumpkin

2008

(note the plastic wrap, makes for easier clean - up/

transport to the compost!)

Mommy-Rella and her favorite little Care Bear

2008

The Frog Princess as Malificent

2008

Scooping Pumpkins

2008

Stained-glass fun

2009

Nature Walk

2009

Our Witch

2009

Family "Portrait" of the Girls at the Pumpkin Patch

2009

Our backyard

2009

Our Swine Flu Pumpkin

2009

Hoping to fit in some

more Halloween fun

and a bit less insanity

Friday and Saturday.

Woolly Bear Caterpillar Habitat

Our yard is full of woolly bear caterpillars right now.

The girls are having so much fun playing with them.

Why not turn it into a

fun science lesson?

We did some online research about our woolly friends

and found this great source of information.

They eat a variety of plants,

we're picking fresh grass and a few leaves (they like dandelions)

to put in there each day,

along with a light spritz of water

(like dew drops -- from our snail tank spritzer)

When they seem sluggish, we'll give them a layer of

dry leaves/debris to hibernate in.

We're planning to let them hibernate in our garage

over the winter then, they'll spin cocoons in the spring

and we'll watch them hatch into Tiger Moths!

We had an old fish tank in the garage

that we repurposed into

a woolly bear habitat.

The woolly bear tank in the Frog Princess' room...and

yes, her

beanie baby snail is wearing antennae warmers : )

So cute and fuzzy...

like little pipe cleaner friends.

I'm the lame mom who calls them

"the Woolly Berenstain Bears"

yeah...

my kids don't think it's funny either.