Rainbow Sprinkles from Highlights High Five

This little gem of a handmade gift idea comes from Highlights High Five magazine — rainbow sprinkles to use as a fun topping for yogurt or ice cream! As soon as Emily saw this craft featured in the December issue, she begged to make it! If you don’t already subscribe to Highlights High Five, I […]

No Mess Christmas Tree Craft for Tots

Clara and I made a fun Christmas tree using a few office supplies, and the best part..?  No clean up! (Yay for no-mess crafts!) They are quick and easy to make too! I cut two identical pine tree shapes out of colored card stock (I recycled a torn file folder), then invited Clara over to […]

Pine Forest Playscape

Clara and I made a fun pine forest playscape using coffee filters, and it’s been a big hit for imaginative play over here! We painted a bunch of coffee filters in hues of yellow and green. I love how happy Clara gets when she realizes that we will be painting — what fun!! She painted […]

Winter Window Display

Are you busy decorating the house for the holidays?? We sure are!! The girls helped me decorate the front door for Winter over the weekend. It was a real group effort! Since painting inexpensive coffee filters is such a popular activity in this household, we decided to use that approach. Again. Speaking of coffee filters, over […]

Turkey Place Cards

Around this time of year, Emily and I like to work on Thanksgiving place cards for our festive table. These turkeys are super-cute and easy to make! We started by cutting up some flower-shaped sticky notes in half to form the tail feathers of the turkey. We added a half-circle cut from a paper bag […]

Easy Leaf Wreath

Clara thought this colorful leaf wreath was so much fun to make! We used some of the tissue paper leaves from this post to make it. I cut a large circle from a brown paper bag (using a plate as a pattern), and invited Clara over to glue the leaves on top! She was really […]

Super-Easy Corn Craft

Clara and I did a bit of crafting this morning to make this corn arrangement, which is now hanging on the back of our front door! They are super-easy and lots of fun to make! To make your own, you will need yellow tissue paper, a brown grocery bag, and some plastic netting that comes […]

Pumpkin Gift Bags

Clara and I had a lot of fun with this little (frugal) project — we made up some gift bags to give to friends who come over for play dates! I think they would also be very nice to wrap hostess gifts for any sort of gathering this time of year. She was having a […]

Low-Mess Color Collage

When Emily came home from school this afternoon, I surprised her with this quick and easy color collage project. It was a great way to unwind from the school day! To make your own, you will need some colorful crepe paper. We used party streamers — they worked perfectly and are very inexpensive! Emily loved […]

Spider Web Place Cards

Have I mentioned how much I adore Halloween? Seriously, it is my most favorite holiday. I look forward to it more than the kids! While it’s not quite that time of year just yet, I am already eager to start decorating the house as if Halloween were right around the corner. That’s where this super-easy, […]

Autumn Window Display

We decided it was time to update our colorful window display, and given the popularity of this activity we just had to do it again! This time the girls and I painted inexpensive coffee filters… …waited for them to dry… … gathered three filters at a time, and folded them up to cut out super-colorful […]

Falling Leaves Wrapping Paper

September marks the beginning of the birthday season for many members of our family, so Clara and I made some fun autumn wrapping paper this afternoon! This is a super-simple project that even the little ones can do with great success. All you need to make your own are some toilet paper rolls, paint, and […]

Easy Village Mural

Emily and I felt inspired by the beautiful colors of these fun Post-It Notes to create a new mural for our sewing room. Oh, Post-It Notes…….. how I love thee! She cut some of the Post-Its in half to form triangles for the rooftops. For each square, only one triangle had adhesive, so we saved […]

Super Easy Monster Hand Puppet

Clara made her own monster hand puppet, just in time for Halloween — and she did it all by herself!! (With the help of a few self-adhesive googly eyes, that is….)  Have I mentioned that she has a tendency to get into the craft supplies if I’m not careful…?? I don’t know about you, but […]

Bang on the Drums All Day

I can’t even tell you how much FUN Clara had with our make-shift drum table this morning! I laid out a bunch of old pots and pans, lids, and some wooden spoons on her play table. Then it was time to Rock N Roll!!! She experimented using the spoons as drumsticks, and later hitting the […]

3-D Apple Tree

This morning Clara and I enjoyed some crafting fun with this quick and frugal project — it’s great practice for fine-motor skills too! We used crab-apples from our yard, but you could substitute with balls of red tissue paper instead. I gave Clara a small basket, and she took her time picking a bunch of […]

Smiley Sandwich Picks!

These smiley sandwich picks are a great way to add some FUN to plain ol’ PB&J sandwiches! They are so super-easy to make, that I’m almost ashamed to post about it. Gather some color coding labels, and draw SILLY faces on them! Sandwich a toothpick between two of the labels, and insert into your favorite […]

Toddler Art — Groovy Peace Signs

While Emily was away with some friends enjoying a dip at the community pool, Clara and I had fun with this super-easy art project! To make your own groovy peace signs, you will need paper plates, masking tape, and some paint (we used watercolors). I marked off a peace sign on the back of a […]