Recycled city

Anyone looking for a rainy day activity? It's been stormy for nearly a week, so we've spent many hours indoors. One of my kids' favorite activities so far was building a city from recyclables.

Cardboard tubes, yogurt containers, parmesan shaker, coffee tin, egg carton... we just grabbed everything from our recycling bin and started creating buildings.

We covered the containers in construction paper. The children were the architects, stacking bottles and boxes and then I taped them all together.

"What kinds of buildings does a city need?" I asked my daughter. She decided we needed a library, a school and a grocery store.

She drew lines on the streets and designed where the street would go, taping it to the table. She reserved much of the road for a parking lot in front of the library.

A rubber duck from the bath tub gets relocated to our Duck Lake.

As soon as we added play cars to the cityscape, little brother became very interested.

Our egg carton converts into a car ramp.

A toilet paper tube and some green construction paper make a simple tree.

It took us longer to build it than actually play with it, but it was a fun morning nonetheless!

Princess tea party

Can a preschool-age girl avoid the princess obsession? I mean, twirly skirts and tiaras just seem to be a rite of passage these days!

Our daughter requested a princess birthday party, which then evolved into a princess tea party.

We welcomed our guests at the front door with a framed invitation mounted on white cardstock.




The kids got started on an activity while we waited for everyone to arrive. Coloring the castle, which the girls later dubbed the "Princess Club."



Now, the tables are ready. Simple white tablecloths. Folding chairs with tulle tied on back. Vases with lantana blossoms. Borrowed china cups and saucers.




Our guests sipped their "tea" (raspberry lemonade.) See the child wearing the crown above? That was another time-filler craft using faux gems and stickers.






While the kids enjoyed their tea, parents went inside to grab plates of food for themselves and to serve the princes and princesses. In the photo just above, we created "tea cups" using plastic Easter eggs and buttons (see the blog, Creativity in Progress, for instructions). Filled them up with pastel M&Ms.


Opening gifts was a hoot, especially when our son tried to steal the show with his adorable antics.



A few details on these decorations. I changed out the decorative items on these shelves in our dining room to fit the theme a bit--kinda minor, but I think it helped with cohesion. Strips of scrap fabric tied to twine made for a pretty bunting to drape from the window above the food table.




And the highlight of the party--THE CAKE! I baked a three-layer Baby Vanilla Bean Cake and my dear sister (who has taken a Wilton's decorating class) did this frosting technique. The topper for the cake was a tea cup and saucer that my daughter and I made in a pottery studio when she was 2 years old, so very sentimental. Much like this photo of us where she rested her head on my shoulder while we sang to her. *mommy's contented sigh*


Guests grabbed a favor bag on their way out the door. Basically, I cut a square of tulle, filled it with goodies like a ring, a flute, stickers, a crazy straw and some candy. Tied it with some yarn and handstamped the child's name on a piece of cardstock cut to mimic the shape of a tea bag.

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For my social butterfly of a daughter, a big birthday party is the best gift we could give her. It was a whirlwind afternoon, but oh-so-fun.

Please also see my Pinterest idea board for the party.

Chalk It Up to Love Valentine

Don't know about you, but isn't there enough chocolate and candy to go around on Valentine's Day? Do the other moms a favor and give the kids this alternative instead.

Supplies

• Zippered snack baggies (6.5 in x 3.25 in)
• Strips of scrapbook paper or wrapping paper in Valentines-y print (6.5 x 4 in, folded to 6.5 x 2 in)
• Stapler
• White paper to print messages on
• Glue stick
• Bucket of sidewalk chalk

Instructions

1. Take a plastic zippered snack baggie and place one sidewalk chalk inside and seal.
2. Fold over a strip of scrapbook paper to cover the zippered top and staple at the two ends.
3. Print off your message, sign it, trim to size and glue it to the strip.

Easy peasy! Here's the printable message page (8.5 x 11 in, lettersize) with room for your child to sign his or her own name.

Rainbow Art Collage

Looking for a rainy day activity with quick set-up and toddler/preschooler appeal?

I recently did an impromptu art project with my toddler using magazine clippings in all the colors of the rainbow. I drew the outline of the rainbow with the color names on the left and set out a pile of magazine clippings. My toddler sorted the clippings by color and used a glue stick to arrange them on the arc that matched the color.

Although she ran out of clippings to complete the rainbow, we hung it up anyway and have been working on it in stages as I have time to clip more magazines. By the way, the colors we used were: Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Purple (a simplified version of Roy G. Biv).