Give a kid some cardboard.

All summer my girls have been making cardboard houses. Miniature getaways for their dolls & tiny toys. The tiniest house (in the very last photo) is only 4 inches tall. 

One home came complete with a safety pin chain-link ladder. Another has yarn "ropes" to climb to the top, with encouraging words written along the wall: "If you climb to the top, you're awesome." & then: "You're almost there."

Oodles of  hot glue sticks were harmed in the making of these cardboard houses. Markers, paint, craft foam, magazine cutouts, colored paper, stickers, duct tape...the girls used anything they could get their hands on.

New splotches of permanent paint on the tabletop prove their creative efforts all season long. 

No instructions needed. In fact, no rules allowed.

Without hesitation they create. Invent. Build.

They made magic from scraps.  

Give a kid some cardboard...

♥

Date Night With Mom & Dad

Tater tots + sparkly gowns + gummy worms = the perfect date.

Just ask Pazely.

She recently had a daddy/mommy/Pazely date. The first stop was to the mall. Pazely's been talking on & on for the last 2 weeks about some mylar helium balloon animals she saw near the food court. We splurged $6 & bought her a dog. (Finally! A pet that daddy approves of!) She walked that fake pooch around as if it were real. Seriously, this was the highlight of her date. If the date had ended right there, that girl would not have been the least bit disappointed.

The REAL reason we went to the mall was to try on fancy dresses. Just for fun. And while Pazely & I hopped around the department stores, daddy mysteriously disappeared. Which was rather inconvenient when we got locked in the dressing room stall. I admit, I panicked. But Pazely looked around & calmly replied, "Well, at least we have water & clothes..." (She had brought along a water bottle.) "...and a chair," she added, as she turned to sit down on the dressing room bench. We eventually got the door unstuck & embraced our freedom by heading over to Bath & Body Works to try on lip glosses & hand sanitizers. (Hand sanitizers? I know, so weird. She wanted to. Whatevs.) 

We finally found daddy & he treated us all to dinner at Sonic. Van doors wide open, we sat in the shade, eating our tater tots & grilled chicken sammies.

Next stop? The recycling dumpsters! Woohoo! (Ok, we snuck a chore in there.)

The night ended with a visit to a yogurt shop, where Pazely piled more candy than yogurt into that little cup of hers.

Sure, taking your kids out for special one-on-one time is nothing new. The Mr. & I always have good intentions to make it a habit, but it ends up being a scattered outing here & there with, sadly, not a lot of priority involved. Life gets busy. Things get in the way.

BUT, to establish a monthly date night with our kids as a regular part of our routine, I found this awesome idea in Family Fun magazine. (I think that's where I read it.) 

Take your kids out, once a month, on the date of their birthday!!

Zoey's birthday is September 14th. So, on the 14th of every month, she can anticipate her very own date. 

Last month was our first go. The girls had so much fun!

The thing I love about dates with my kids is that I can customize the date according to the likes of my kids. Zoey wouldn't have particularly liked dressing up. So HER date was spent wandering the garden department of a local store. She picked out pots & flowers & then we had some late-night fun potting them in the backyard. That girl loves growing things & taking care of plants. The pots look splendid on the steps of the new rental we just moved into! 

We tried on silly hats, made silly faces, laughed at our silly selves.

We, too, had yogurt.

She felt on top of the world having mom & dad all to herself. 

And I find myself anticipating the time I get to spend with them too.

♥

DIY: Makeovers

Though I'm not doing the "Summer Diary" series this year, I am taking every advantage of breaks between packing & moving to come up with something fun to do with the girls. Today I let my girls go wild with my makeup. More specifically, we gave each other makeovers. The picture at the top is "Before" & "After" the 10 year old attacked my face. As she was applying the makeup, Zoey asked me, "Mom? Do you think zombies are pretty?" 

Then, to keep the fun going, I decided to draw faces on some plain white paper with a permanent black artist marker. A sharpie will work just as well too. As I sketched, the girls had many requests: 

"Give mine freckles!" 

"Can that one have a double chin?"

"Zig-zag hair, please."

The girls spent a couple hours playing the part of makeup artist.

And they made a fine fun mess!

♥

DIY: Talking Cans

One of my favorite things is to remember the fun from my childhood & then share that with my own kids. Do you remember making a telephone with cans? I sure do. It was actually Zoey's idea to make these & we had so much fun!

The how-to is so simple:

Hammer some holes in 2 cans. (Use large nails or a screwdriver to make the holes.)

Thread some string or yarn through the holes. (We used a large knitting sewing needle to help with that step.)

Tie a knot. (Or 3.)

Pull taut & talk.

Of course you could paint the cans or decorate them with stickers & such. 

But we kept it simple.

We experimented with different lengths & ended up with a string that reached about 28 feet long.

This simple toy has kept my girls entertained for hours.

And no roaming fees? Bonus.

♥

Ant Tracking

It is a gloomy, overcast day outside—perfect for ant tracking!

I can't remember where, but I read about ant tracking some time ago & thought it'd be a fun thing for the girls to do this summer. We grabbed several different colors of acrylic paint, some tweezers, tiny paint brushes, & a magnifying glass. 

We sprinkled bread crumbs near the anthills. Once we spied an ant trying to carry his meal away, we found it easiest to pick up the food with the tweezers & paint the ant this way. A magnifying glass will help to see better. If one person holds the tweezers while the second person paints + holds the magnifying glass, it works great. Zoey helped me film this 6-second Vine showing how we painted the ants. In fact, I ended up using a teeny tiny pine needle instead of a paint brush, which worked great!

On some ants we just painted the bums, on other ants we dotted the bum + the head. Once you've painted several ants, grab your magnifying glass & start observing! Just be careful not to burn the little guys---which is why a gloomy day works best.

The girls marked the anthills with sidewalk chalk. This is "my zone" & that is "your zone". 

I could hear Pazely squeal: "Hey Zoey! My ant just went to your ants house!"

And then I could hear Zoey say, "Well, it's still my ant. It's not your ant."

*oh brother*

This is actually a real true thing that researchers do. 

Watch THIS cool video to check it out. 

It's really quite neat!

♥

Sans Training Wheels

Learning to ride a bike is never easy...

 

...but then you get awesome, & it's TOTALLY easy!

♥

Bicycle

Learning to ride a bike is never easy...

...but then you get awesome, & it's TOTALLY easy!

♥

Felt Hoop Artwork Tutorial

I'm not sure why, but I have a bunch of these embroidery hoops that I've picked up at thrift stores through the years. I am always trying to think of what to do with them. And recently, I thought of this super fun--& easy--artwork that kid's can make in a jiffy!

All you need is felt, an embroidery hoop, scissors & some fabric glue OR a glue gun.

The fun thing about this artwork is that these hoops come in ALL different sizes. And you can find circular or oval-shaped hoops too.

Felt can be purchased in rectangle pieces or sold by the yard. You'll need a large piece of felt to use as the base for building your artwork on. Once the felt is tightly attached in the hoop, trim off the excess to about 1/2" all the way around.

You'll eventually want to fold the felt over & glue the edges to the backside of the hoop. You can do that now or wait until your design is created. It doesn't really matter.

Now the fun can begin! Pull out your felt & craft away!

For smaller artists, cutting felt in random shapes is easiest. You can even arrange them to look like a mosaic.

One of my daughters found pre-cut owl shapes in my felt stash, with sewing machine embroidered details.

For the cherry pie, I attached a cream colored crust with a wavy edge & cut out cherry circles in 3 colors/textures of red.

To attach the decorative pie crust top, I used pinking shears & glued the pieces to each other with a weaving/lattice effect before actually attaching it to the pie.

Make sure little ones DO NOT use a glue gun. Fabric glue also works.

I hung the food inspired artwork in the kitchen. I'm thinking I need another one up there...

For the pizza artwork, the girls had fun picking their own pre-cut toppings & building their own custom pizza.

♥ Nikki

Fridge Doodles

Actually, my girls aren't doodling. They're doing some practice homework on the fridge! I grabbed a dry-erase marker today & decided to mix things up a bit. Who likes homework? Not Zoey. Who likes writing on refrigerators? Zoey!

It would make a most excellent & handy message center too. Or, draw out a calendar & keep track of daily appointments.

OR, like Pazely, just use it for what it was made for---& grab some munchies!

♥

Super Paze!

For the girls' "WEAR" Christmas gift, I made them superhero capes. I got Pazely to model hers so you could get a closer look. I followed the tutorial HERE over at the Creative Kismet blog. I'm totally gonna make myself an adult-sized one. For reals. You just wait & see...

I used some lightweight yellow & white gingham, cut out two pieces &---before sewing them right sides together & then turning it all right-side out---I stitched the felt embellishments on the back.

I didn't have a serger, so I opted for "option 2" at the end of the tutorial. It was my first try at using bias tape too. And I'm sure I was using it totally wrong. Oh well. I don't think that will mess up her super powers or anything.

♥

{new shoes}

Yes, it's true that new shoes can make you...

...run faster.

...kick better.

...leap higher.

...& smile bigger!

♥

Window Writing

Last weekend the girls & I had some fun decorating the outside of our house windows. Just because. We used a window marker, which we got at Walmart in the party section. But on my last visit, I saw all sorts of colors in the crafty section.

This would be a fun way to spell out "Happy Birthday" if you're having a party. I'm even thinking of surprising the girls when they wake up on their first day of school with some fun messages to celebrate their BIG day!

Here is a cupcake I drew along with this phrase: "Happy As a Cupcake!"

The marker washes off very easily with a hose.

I even attacked our tiny bathroom window, which sits above the bathtub. To remind the bathers of their duties you know.

And then Zoey drew some guy riding a horse & farting. (I didn't even bother to ask. I blame her dad.)
♥

Whimsical Fairy Doors Tutorial

The girls & I just finished a 2-day project & we're so excited to share it with you! I recently found these Fairy Doors on Flickr & immediately fell in love. Ann Arbor, MI even has tours of secretly hidden fairy doors scattered around the city!

First, I cut some rounded door shapes, with a jigsaw, from a leftover piece of wainscoting/bead board. Any type of wood will work though as long as it's not too thick.

We spray painted the doors. House paint or exterior paint would work too.

Earlier in the summer we collected all sorts of fallen twigs, pine cones & acorns, etc to use for this project. We covered a table with newspaper & set out the twigs-n-stuff, along with acrylic paints, brushes, water bowls & paper towels.

You can leave your twigs natural, but we decided to add a bit of whimsy & paint them bright colors.

When your twigs are dry, you can adhere them to the door. First we played around with the design, getting the sticks to lay however we chose. Then, we applied floor & wall adhesive (the same stuff you use to lay tile floors) to our twigs & mushed it into place. I would've opted first to use my E6000 glue or even wood glue, but both those things are hard for my girls to use & I liked the spreadable texture of the floor adhesive. It is a bit stinky, so use ventilation or do this project outdoors. Wearing gloves is a good idea too.

I told the girls to really glop it on--so that it would stick. I really like the look of the adhesive oozing through the branches too. I suppose you could clean it up as you go along if that's not your style.

We constructed extra accessories for our fairy door with clay. (Fimo or Sculpey). I made some door hinges ...

...a mushroom doorknob & a "window". The window is just a small piece of round mirror I had. The girls used lids from the frosting of cinnamon roll tubes I saved. We just made snake-like shapes, wrapped it around the "window" & baked it in the oven just like that. I also added some leaves 'cause I thought mine looked a bit twiggish.

Zoey's door (my almost 7 year old):

Find a sweet little place to prop (or attach) your fairy door.

The fairies & pixies will know your kindness & hospitality when they see your magical & whimsical creations!

Here's my finished door:

Pazely's door (my 5 year old):
♥