flower suncatchers

Everywhere we look there are flowers blooming. Ethan and I picked some from our garden today, I have to admit most of them were from weeds that have sprung up everywhere, but I don’t discriminate, weeds are pretty too.

I saw this recently on the artful parent blog. We cut a window out of a paper plate and stuck clear contact to it, then stuck the flowers on.

The flowers look so pretty with the sunlight behind, it intensifies the colours and looks stunning. A very cheap and cheerful activity to do with kids.

another fishing game

fishing game at Hulbert Street Fiesta

When we were at the Hulbert Street Sustainability Fiesta I saw so many fun things to do with kids. One of the activities Ethan had a go at was play fishing. It was brilliant, he got such a thrill when he caught a fish and it was perfect for his skill level. I have made a felt fishing game before, and I love it but there was something particularly fun about these fish floating around in real water. I thought I could easily replicate something similar at home.

If you want to make your own similar fishing game here’s what you need;

To make the fishes;
A selection of plastic bottles, rinsed out, (take the labels off if they come off easily, if not leave them on).
Spray paint (works quickest, but any paint will do).
Metal hooks or eye hooks.

To make the fishing rod;
A stick or piece of dowel.
A piece of string.
A magnet with a hole. (I bought magnets with holes in but i’m sure you could drill a hole if it doesn’t have already. You need to make sure it is a really strong magnet and will easily attach to the hook and pull the fish out of the water, otherwise it is very frustrating for young fishermen when the fish keep falling off).

A large bucket / paddle pool filled with water for the pond.

plastic bottles, spray paint and metal hooks

To make the fish, I screwed a hook into one end of each bottle, then spray painted them all.

screw the hooks into the bottle lid

spray painting the 'fishes'

I just used colours I had already but it would be nice to have lots of different colours. I used spray paint because it was super quick to paint and dry. If I had more time I would have sat down with Ethan and made an activity out of painting and decorating each fish, but we were impatient to start fishing!

When the paint was dry I drew some faces on the fish and that was them done.

draw some eyes and fins

The fishing pole was really easy to make. Tie the magnet to the string and tie the string to the dowel. You may need to secure the string on the dowel with a bit of sticky tape to stop it sliding off. I also put a big ball of blu-tac on the pointy end of the stick because there were two boys fishing and the poles were flying about and no-one likes being jabbed with a pointy stick, accidentally or otherwise.

I had all this stuff at home and the whole process took about twenty minutes, so it was worth the effort.

Then we had lots of fun fishing, the kids loved it!

look I caught one!

caught a fish

down at the station

There are a couple of things that Ethan gets so excited about he can barely contain his enthusiasm. One of them is fire engines. We live on a street that is close to the main artery into town and we constantly hear emergency vehicles blaring their sirens. Every time we hear the distant nee-nar, nee-nah of an ambulance or a fire engine Ethan runs to the front door saying, ‘wanna look mummy, wanna look!’. Of course it’s usually gone past by the time we get to the street to see.

I was telling a friend about this cute obsession of his and she said her brother (or uncle or nephew, I can’t recall) is a fireman and they love to have kids come to the station to see the fire engines. I had never thought of that, what a wonderful idea. That afternoon I called the local fire station and asked if I could possibly bring a very excited two year old to see the fire engines. The fireman who answered the phone was so friendly and said we could come on any day that ends in ‘y’.

So today we trundled into town and knocked on the door at the station, the fireman on duty was more than happy to give us a private tour of the fire station and the fire truck. Ethan got to sit in the truck, turn on the flashing lights and try on the fireman helmet and boots. How wonderful! He was in awe of the enormous truck and has been talking about it all day. It was a great way to spend an afternoon and it didn’t cost a thing.

Following on from my last post, my Hubby had the day at home today and I was able to get a sleep in and felt more human today. What a difference a bit of sleep makes!

painting the bath

shaving cream painting

Like any family with small children the end of the day is nothing less than chaotic at our house. To borrow a term from a friend we call it ‘happy hours’. The time between 5pm and 8pm when we are trying to feed, bath, wind-down, read-to, and put to bed two little people, not to mention try and look after ourselves a little.

Bathtime features big in our evening ritual, our house is designed a little oddly that the kitchen is located between the bathroom and the toilet. Which is weird, but surprisingly useful that I can cook dinner and keep and eye on the bath at the same time. Anyway, I digress. Bathtime is great, it keeps Master Two occupied for at least half an hour, and the other day I gave him this and he loved it. A couple of squirts of shaving cream in tubs, a few drops of food colour and he could do painting in the bath. I loved it too, all the mess, (I mean art) was contained in the bath and at the end I could just wash it all down so quickly.

shaving cream painting

fingerprint trees

I am trying to keep myself and Ethan occupied today to avoid thinking about this afternoon. He is going for surgery to fix his recurring ear infections. Everyone tells me that it’s a simple surgery and he will be fine. Nonetheless it is still surgery and he is only two and I am feeling anxious and nervous. So to avoid thinking about it we made this fingerprint tree.

I downloaded the free tree drawing from here and printed it onto a piece of nice paper. Then as a special treat let Ethan use my stamp inks. Of course at the moment I opened up the colours baby D cried and I went to settle him, when I came back Ethan had squidged his blue painted fingers into my new yellow stamp pad, now it is a green stamp pad. That’ll teach me.

Making the trees was a good lesson in letting go of my preciousness. When we started I had an idea of how the tree would look and when Ethan started to put dots all over the page I was saying, no on the branches! Then realised what I was doing and thought I should relax and just let him be creative. So it’s an Autumn tree losing its leaves.

Pollock inspired wrapping paper

Ethan and I had some fun with paint yesterday. I love this because it looks really messy but all the paint stays in the box, well in theory anyway, (Ethan couldn’t resist getting his hands into it).

All you need is a cardboard box, some paper, a few dollops of paint and a couple of balls. Shake the box and the balls roll around and make pretty awesome abstract art. These big sheets of paper make the best wrapping paper. (I get my paper in rolls from Ikea).

Ethan had a great idea while we were playing with this, he ran and grabbed a few of his toy cars and pushed them through the paint. Such a boy! Painting with his cars.

painting with cars

education art supply shop

venetian style mask

Way more fun than it sounds, this store is an Aladdin’s cave of DIY arty crafty goodness. Located on Hampden Road in Nedlands, I popped in there today on may way to the city. They have so many things in there it’s too many to list. There are magnets and googlie eyes, stickers and paints, stencils and fabrics, felt shapes and coloured paddle pop sticks, foam stickers and pipecleaners. Some of things I am going to go back for in the future are the venetian masks ready to decorate, the blank jigsaw puzzle templates, the huge rolls of felt – you can buy it by the metre. They’ll be getting the Christmas stock in soon, things like foam ornaments to embellish for the Christmas tree.  Love, love, love the possibilities for rainy afternoon activities. (Apologies for the average photos, taken with the iPhone).

venetian masks

coloured papers

fabric paints

felt by the metre

aren’t birthday parties magic

My Little Man’s new favourite topic is birthdays. Every now and then he pipes up and starts to sing the happy birthday song, always ending with a little hooray and putting his hands in the air above his head. He was invited to a birthday party for one of his little friends on the weekend and he had a ball! He is still talking about it. Pictures say more than words so here are some snapshots. How incredibly gorgeous are the mini teacups and teddy cars?

zoo birthday cake

homemade lemonade

catching bubbles

teddy cars and teacups

swings!

Choo Choo My Boy is 2!

train cake

I just had to share my boy’s beautiful birthday cake with you. Before you start to think I am some amazing baking extraordinaire super mum (though that would be nice), I have to let you know that I didn’t make the cake. I had my fabulous parents visiting who helped me to prepare a wonderful little party for our Little Man, my Dad made the lovely train.

I can’t believe how excited the kids were over it. They all hovered around singing happy birthday, shouting hooray, and edging each other out of the way to get closer and help blow out the candles. It was very cute.

So thankyou Dad for the lovely cake and thankyou mum for keeping me sane. I will post later some wonderful things that my Little Man’s other grandparents did for him for his birthday.

For now I need to go get some sleep before the bubba needs more nourishment. Saturday nights, oh how you’ve changed!

Winter boredom busters

cornflakes box marble run

Keeping a toddler couped up inside all day is a recipe for madness, mine and his. I am trying to find cheap ways to entertain him while the weather is so inhospitable outside. I saw this on the fabulous blog made by joel and thought it was brilliant, it costs nothing and my Little Man played with it for ages. When he woke up the next morning the first thing he said was ‘play marbles mummy!’

sorting coloured pom poms

We discovered this game by accident. I have a couple of boxes of craft stuff (like pipe cleaners, felt, glue, beads etc…) the boxes were getting unruly so I got it all out to tidy them up. My Little Man found the pom poms on the table and started to say all the colours. I had the plastic silver tray from inside a chocolate box and I gave him a pair of tongs. He picked them up and sorted them into the holes in the tray, he loved it. I can’t believe something so simple kept him so occupied.