Potato-Print Star T-shirts

Who's ready for the Fourth?!

Not me.  Not yet anyway.  We have to celebrate an even more important birth tomorrow. (Pssst.  I'll give you a hint: her name starts with "S" and ends in a silent "H".)

But at least we won't go shirtless on the big day, because we've got stars.  

AND stripes.

It all started when I saw this at Old Navy and some old potatoes in my pantry.  I thought, "Hey, wouldn't it be fun/insane to let the kids make their own stamped t-shirts?!" 

So, I gathered my fabric paints, plain t-shirts, star paper punch, potatoes, paint brushes, and X-acto knife and went to work. 

The fist thing I did was turn on My Little Pony for the kids.  *This step is critical if you want to have any hope of getting things ready without slicing off a thumb. 

Next, I punched my star out of some scrap paper as my template.  You could draw it yourself, but mine kept turning out all wonky.  

I cut the potatoes in half and stuck the template on the cut part. Then, I made some cuts around the template, slicing all the way to the edge of the tater.  Once that was done, I made a shallow cut around the brown skin of the potato and popped the extra pieces of potato out, leaving a perfect little star.  

Ok, the hard part is done.  Now you just have to keep your little Monets from getting fabric paint all over the house.  

We took it outside, and here's our setup:

To avoid the color-mixing pitfalls inherent in painting, I designated a potato stamp and paint brush for each color.

Before we started painting, we inserted some freezer paper between the t-shirt layers so we wouldn't have any bleed-through in the final results and to make a smoother surface to write on or use the brushes, if they got tired of stamping.

And, AWAY they went!

Will went for a smattering of stars...

While Sarah reinterpreted VanGogh's masterpiece as wearable art:

I tried to recreate the Old Navy shirt.  

BTW, you know you're cheap when you're knocking off Old Navy.

Once the colored paint dried, we went back and added 

some glow-paint stars for a cool night-time effect.

And here's the finished product:

This project exceeded my very low expectations in several ways:

no fights broke out during the painting, 

we kept the colors decidedly un-sludgelike,

and nobody got paint anywhere besides the t-shirts.

I call that a rousing success.

Happy Friday!

P.S. If you're looking for a patriotic painting project, this one from last year was super-fun.

New Towels for the Lego-Obsessed

Is it just me, or does anyone else like cool beach towels?  I covet the pretty ones in Target and Old Navy and drool over the selection at Pottery Barn Kids, but I'm cheap.  And addicted to making stuff.  So, year after year, we use the same boring ones I got for free from work, and nobody really complains or cares.

This year, though, I wanted a change.  My kids love the hooded towels made to look like ducks or hippos or monsters.  The possibilities are endless as to the embellishment on those towels, but, since I'm lazy, I had to figure out a simple way to construct the hoods.  I came across this tutorial, and it was on. 

Sarah and Will's current obsession: Ninjago: Masters of Spinjitsu.  I kind of love it too, because you really can't go wrong with Legos.  Plus, it's so easy to turn anything solid-colored into a ninja, like the Easter eggs we made this year with Sharpies. 

 So, here we go.  Let's start with the list of materials, shall we?

• 1 regular bath towel in preferred color (or terry cloth off the bolt)
• 1 coordinating hand towel (or 20" of terry cloth)
• scrap yellow terry cloth or fleece
• scrap white terry, felt, or fleece
• scrap black terry, felt, or fleece
• notions

Step 1: Place the pattern Mask piece along the fold of the yellow terry cloth and cut.  
           Set aside.

Step 2: Cut your hand towel to about 14" in length.

Step 3: Make an arc on the top of the hand towel from about 6" deep to make the hood,   like so:

Step 4: Sew along the arc line and cut off the excess fabric to about 1/4" seam allowance:

Set hood aside.
 Step 5: Applique your eyes and eyebrows onto your yellow mask pieces.  I sewed around them in a zig-zag stitch to prevent fraying.

Here's what they look like without the pupils:

Step 6: Applique your ninja mask onto the hood, centering the mask on the fold line.  Again, I used a zig-zag stitch, but you could serge and then sew as well.

Step 7:  Sew/serge the hood onto the towel.  Simply find the middle of your towel and hood (by folding them in half), and pin from the middle outwards.  Sew along the pins.

Step 8: You're done!  Admire your creations upon your swim-exhausted progeny and contemplate numerous other ways to improve upon your handiwork.

Take a bow!

Here's the link to the template for the Ninja mask, eyes, eyebrows, and pupils that I drew up by hand:  Ninjago Mask Template.

All Systems Are GO!

Ever since the Mars ROVer thing last year, my peeps have been super-interested in outer space.  But, other than looking at some pictures and video of meteor showers and planets online, we really haven't done much in the way of exploring the final frontier. 

I finally got around to doing a bunch of loosely-related space stuff with my wee scientists this week.  Most of the ideas came from other blogs, but I came up with a couple on my own.  

The first thing we did was to read Berenstein Bears on the Moon.  Even though this isn't an informational text, it sparked discussion about gravity and how we get to space, 

and we practiced counting backwards.  

Next up was a space-themed busy-box.  

A pack of black and neon aquarium gravel and one of those astronaut-themed Toob sets were all that was needed to get my little guys talking and asking questions about satellites, moon-mobiles, rockets, and chimps in space.  

 Yes, you read that right.  A chimp in a space suit is included in this play set. 

In keeping with the kinesthetic theme of things,

 I also made them some space play doh (recipe found here).  

I really was going for a deep rich blue, but after emptying two bottles of blue food-coloring, I had to settle for more of a dark sky-blue.  Nobody really noticed or cared since I also dumped to containers of glitter in as well.  Sarah immediately pointed out that the glitter was like stars and started rolling her dough into "planets". 

We also have constellation lacing cards (fine motor), constellation connect-the-dots (numeric sequencing), and planet matching that we've been working on. 

Check out some other space-themed tangram activities we did. 
 I made my own tangrams by cutting out a pattern from several sheets of foam 
I got at Joann's, and they worked fine, but, man, do I miss the diecut machines at school! 

Here's more math-y goodness using star stickers and black construction paper.  This is not my original idea, but the point of it is for kids to recognize the number written on the paper and to stick that number of stars on the sheet.  Easy setup, big impact.  

I picked the one sheet where the stars don't match the number.  Doh!

For some fine-motor work, we strung some star-shaped beads.

My favorite part? Painting some watercolor planets!

We still have several other activities on tap, like going to the planetarium, making our own meteor shower (in the sand box), creating a meteor with dry ice, 

and stargazing during a backyard camp out. 

They got so into the space-stuff that they put on pool floats and pretended to "orbit". 

Her expression really reads "After picture of an alien abduction",

 but I promise, they really did have fun.

DIY Silhouettes

Is it just my mom, or are all moms hard to buy gifts for? 

Sure, I can use my offspring for various projects and sentimental gifts.  Shoot, I can even get them to make something, and no matter how sludge-colored and lumpy it is, my mom will dutifully ooh and ahhh over it, proudly displaying it in a place of honor on her mantle. 

But sometimes I want her to make a big deal over my ugly creations. 

That's why I set out to make her a silhouette of the kids holding hands.  Not because it's ugly, mind you.  Silhouettes are classic and graphically modern, and my kids are a-DOR-able, if I do say so myself.  Win-win. 

* I don't think my kids' creations are ugly, either.  They're priceless works of art.*

So, here's what I did.

First, I gathered my materials:

• Black cardstock
• Photo
• Xacto knife
• Self-healing cutting mat
• Tape 
• Pencil
• Watercolor paper
• Picture frame

1. To begin with, carefully cut your photo out.  Make sure you cut around any details in the photo: curls of hair, the corner of a dress, any of these types of things make a silhouette more unique.

 2.  Once I cut my picture out, I put some tape on the front and placed the photo face-down on the card stock. 

 3. I drew around the cut-out with pencil...

 4.  ...lay the paper on the cutting mat, and carefully cut along the pencil lines with my Xacto knife.

 5.  Pop it in a frame, and you're all done!

Here's the finished cut-out, right-side-up.  Even though it turned out well, Will looks like a chunky-monkey compared to Sarah because he's in the foreground of the photo.  Next time, I would probably use a picture in which they're standing the same distance from the camera.

 Here's the final result, looking pretty professional, I might add.  Ready for it's place of honor on the mantle.

Sorry it's late, Mom!

Nature Walk Placemat

My little folks and I took advantage of a break in the storms on Sunday and went for a little nature hunt.  Well, Sarah and I hunted.  

Will smacked Nature with a stick.

I got the idea from some clear plastic creation I saw involving paper flowers and glitter and stuff.  Since my sidekicks are always handing me rocks, sticks, flowers, weeds, garbage, and any other flotsam and jetsam they come across whenever we step outside, I thought they'd be naturals at collecting stuff for this little project.

Sarah's favorites were flowers and leaves, "wishing flowers" (dandelions) making the top of her list.  Will gathered gravel, sticks, and mushrooms.  

The honeysuckles are my favorite. 

Once we were done with our collecting, I cut four pieces of clear contact paper, roughly the size of a place mat.  I laid them out, sticky-side-up, and let the kids arrange their treasures on them and flatten them out. 

The next part was tricky, since I had to stick the other piece of contact paper on top of the first one, sandwiching the collected items in the middle. 

I smoothed it out as best I could, and then folded duct tape over all four edges.  

They turned out "rustic" (read: lumpy), but it was kind of cool motivation to get out and really take a look around us at all this SPRING happening right now.