Embroideries and Salad Faces

A row house for a swap




2 versions of a free pattern from Andrea Zuill. The blue one is a gift for a friend, the pink one is for me and I am going to do some quilting around it to make it into a wall hanging.



I use a lot of cloth totebags, but I hate advertising on them, so I've been covering up the ads with pieces of fabric.





What I did with some of the bot camp fabric



For lunch this week we made salad faces with cream cheese on corn thins and assorted toppings. Inspired by Mollie Katzen's Salad People.



this one is a salad alien, by Blackbird Jr



A little surprise Jr and I made for Mr Blackbird

Strathcona Wilderness Centre

We went out to the Strathcona Wilderness Centre this week. I hadn't been there before and really enjoyed it. There are lots of different trails in easy, intermediate or difficult designations. We didn't see any wildlife (other than a mouse) but we found some animal tracks* and I really just enjoyed all the pretty scenery. The trails were well-marked and the kids especially enjoyed a little boardwalk into a black spruce bog. It was interesting how just a few feet off of the birch and aspen trail there was an entirely different kind of scenery and likely a very different ecosystem too. There were signs along the trails letting you know about different plants and animals. The kids were also very excited about the hands-on display in the lodge where they touched some animal bones and other things like old wasp nests. I definitely want to go back and try some other trails.








* K, I read a joke that reminded me of us trying to figure out what the tracks we saw were:

3 stupids are on a walk when they find some tracks on the ground. The first stupid says "I think these are coyote tracks!". The second stupid says "no, no, they are deer tracks." The third stupid says "they look like cow tracks to me".

Then they all got hit by the train.

Fairy Berry Festival

Blackbird Jr and I went to the Fairy Berry festival today. I'll admit that I went along rather reluctantly, feeling very cranky and tired this morning. However, we had a really good time. The overcast weather meant that it wasn't very busy and I had forgotten how good Prairie Gardens is about having lots and lots of activities to do. There was a bale maze, u-pick gardens, the haunted house (remnants of the pumpkin festival were about), a rubber ducky run where you pumped old-fashioned water pumps to make the ducks go down little trails, gem mining (digging for shiny beads in sand), old playground equipment and lots more stuff. They also have a very large corn maze, but we stuck with the kid corn maze this visit. Everything is pretty low budget but I don't mind. The assortment of activities made up for it and anyway, I'd rather have the down-home country style.

Blackbird Jr heading off into the corn maze. The picture makes the corn look shorter, it's actually about 6 ft tall. Older kids can go into the larger maze in the dark with flashlights- fun!



This goat was very determined to eat some tree leaves.



Baby goats are stinking cute.



So are little bunnies. They had a whole petting zoo there but I think I wanted to go see the baby animals more than Jr.



A costumed dragon. I thought it was pretty neat, but Blackbird Jr was a little scared. Probably because it pretended to bite the princess' head.



The odd but fun enchanted forest. There is a mattress buried under those wood chips and I yelped when I stepped on it, even though I knew it was there from last time.







Tractor rides to the big maze. We just went for the ride.



Picking berries.



Our haul. I could eat my weight in fresh raw peas, I think I will go to a u-pick again sometime this summer and get more. In the bottom left corner are the supplies for the "craft" Blackbird Jr chose to do- putting candy on a skewer stick.



We hadn't been to this festival before but I'd definitely go again next year. The fun activities for Blackbird Jr plus the u-pick yummies for me were well worth it. Plus, where else in Alberta can you see a singing skeleton band in August?

Jelly Racecars Cure Everything! If not, at least they are tasty.

Blackbird Jr has been fighting a fever that appeared last night and is still in action today. Good excuse to make jello racecars, no?

Applesauce Cinnamon Dough

We were out of white flour for playdough today so I tried a new recipe, which is simply one part cinnamon to one part applesauce. I kneaded them together in a baggie until solid.

This dough can be used to make shapes that are dried out and can be used as ornaments or gift tags. It doesn't really mold into complex shapes the way playdough or modeling clay would, but it was nice to try something different and my kitchen smells great.





I told Blackbird Jr that he could have a small taste of the dough if he wanted. He did, and thought it was pretty tasty. So tasty that he took a much larger bite. The look on his face as he chewed that one down made me laugh so hard I had tears in my eyes. At least that stopped him from eating it all.

Ok gotta go, someone is crying about his bowling pins not listening to him.

Little Houses Made of Ticky Tacky

It's cold. Like really cold. -54 C windchill cold. So we are hibernating.

Today we made some more papercrafts from this site:
Canon Papercrafts

The little crafts are better for older children so I cut and glued everything and Jr played with them. Then we made a house he could help with out of a milk carton. He likes that the little people can go inside the milk carton house too.





I just used regular printer paper and glued it to construction paper to make it sturdier before cutting.

I would really like to get some cardstock though and make some of the really pretty papercrafts on this site:

The Toymaker






I really wish the chocolate truck would come to my house today.

Bib, Shoes and Pjs- plus a cute hat and snowtable

Some crafty- a pair of baby shoes I embroidered and sewed, plus a matching bib. Blackbird Jr wants a pair of the shoes in his size.



A pair of pajamas I sewed for a friends' DD. The fabric inspired me to make pjs, it's a soft flannel with glittery fairies on it.



I didn't make this but bought it for the same birthday girl from Granny's Garden. It's an ice cream sundae hat! Insert pun about melting from the cuteness.



And we have been using our sand/water/trainsupplies table to have fun with snow. We mix in food colouring and after the snow has been inside for a while you can make snowmen and castles and all sorts of fun things. Jr especially likes burying his vehicles in big snow drifts to be rescued.

Lucky Kids

Custom built playhouses (click photos to see more on the site).

Cool Colouring Pages Website

A cool site with tonnes of cool character-based colouring book pages.

http://www.coloring-book.info/coloring/

I am printing off Wallace and Gromit, Cars and Bob the Builder for Blackbird Jr right now.

Dinosaur Thomas

Blackbird Jr had his heart set on Dinosaur Thomas (and a rocketship) for holidays this year, those were the only things he asked for. Unfortunately the set containing the fossil car has been retired and we weren't sure if it would get here in time if we ordered it online anyway. Polymer clay to the rescue!

Original fossil car:



My quick polymer clay version in a generic empty boxcar:



I almost burnt the holy hell out of it after not realizing my toaster oven was set 100 degrees too high (I haven't used it in ages) but the black darkness at the edges adds character.

Holiday Baking

These are probably the cutest thing I baked, but they tasted disgusting and the candy stayed all sticky. I'd like to try again with a different recipe and candy, the traffic lights would be a big hit with the Jr set.



I made the candy canes and Jr made the "houses"



Almond Raspberry Cheesecake Bars.. if these taste as good as they smell they will be gone in a hot minute.



This one is from a kit, Mr. Blackbird and Jr made it. It might be the highlight of Jr's holiday season when he gets to smash it and eat it.

Activity Ideas for Young Children

It's winter here and I've been hoarding fun activity ideas to keep us from getting cabin fever.

Under the Bed Storage Container



Cheap (13$ CDN) and easy water or indoor "sand" table. Substitutes for sand could be puffed wheat or oatmeal. Yes, you will have to sweep/vaccuum/wipe after this activity (and many of the others I'm about to post) but my personal theory is that if cleanup takes less time than how long the children are occupied for, it's worth it. My only caution is do not use the indoor sandbox if you have cats, they will think it's a litterbox. (Guess how I know).

I have friend who use their big narrow storage boxes for containing messes, for example having their children sit in it to play playdough in a carpeted room or to do a craft where you cover paper with glue then sprinkle glitter on. One friend said her son played for 2 hours straight in a similar box with rice and thomas trains- I'd vaccum for that! I will warn you that some children may try to dump out the box. Blackbird Jr never tried, but don't say I didn't warn you.

There are lots of fun things you can do with the water table, one of my favourite is to take an empty milk container and make an "iceberg" that Blackbird Jr can watch melt, have toys ride on, etc. You can freeze small toys in the iceberg as well to be rediscovered as it melts.

Flour Tray



I was trying to encourage Blackbird Jr to draw with his fingers but he was more interested in driving in the flour. Afterwards his cars all had a "washdown" (thomas-speak for carwash) in a big bowl of soapy water on a towel on the floor.

Other Activity Ideas:

- Use paint tape to make roads on the carpet for driving trucks on.

- Make coloured ice cubes and float them in a bowl of water or see what happens when two different colours melt together (e.g. red and blue will make purple water).

-Make a shoebox into a mailbox and give your child the junk mail to play with.

-Save empty food containers to play grocery store. We found a kids' play grocery cart at a garage sale for 50 cents and Blackbird Jr spent hours playing with it as a young toddler.

- toss balls into storage containers, the bathtub or a laundry basket.

-Make a paddle with a paintstick and a paper plate and hit balloons with it.

-Colour vanilla pudding with food colouring and then fingerpaint.

-Painting outside with a brush and a bucket of water. Painting with water on a chalkboard is fun too.

-Save your holiday cards that are made from sturdy paper. Punch holes around the edges and let children sew with shoelaces or other string.

A book I found really useful for activities when Blackbird Jr was younger was The Toddler's Busy Book by Trish Kuffner. We found lots of fun ideas in there to try and some have made it into regular play repetoire.

Some of my favourites

recently posted on the Craft Zine Blog.

Peppermint Fairy Stitchette


Pinecone Bird Feeder


Modern Paper Ornaments


Click each photo for the how-tos.

Breastfeeding on Sesame Street

Kid-Friendly Grocery List

A copy of a grocery list I doodled for Blackbird Jr. Click the image to print a copy for your own use. This list may be shared on the internet so long as credit is given to me via a link to this website.

Tickety Tock, Apple Hat and Dominos

an assortment of photos

Tickety Before:



Tickety After:



This is the real Tickety from Blue's Clues. I made that one with markers, black foam paper and pink clay for the bells.

Isn't this apple hat my mom made cute? Pattern here.



And this is what happens when you ask Mr Blackbird to make Blackbird Jr a domino set.. you can click that one to see it larger.