Play Tic-Tac-Toe Outside

Are you creating summer memories with Education.com's Summer Challenge?  A great and simple activity for many ages is Rock Out with Tic-Tac-Toe.  My kids had just as much fun painting the rocks as they did playing the game outside over and over!  Keep the rocks with a piece of chalk in a reuse container and take the game anywhere!

Love and Lollipops is More Than Sweet

At first it was the 'sweet' little blog name (and a nice comment) that intrigued me to visit Love and Lollipops.  After I took a little time to look around I knew it was more than sweet!  The blog author, Georgia, lives in South Africa...her header says,"growing children's hearts and minds to be of the lovely kind"...she's a "Mom, Psychologist, and Photographer"...she has happy, fun, and creative posts...she's new to blogging (but doing fantastic)!   I've had a few e-mail interactions with Georgia and she's a friendly (and genuine) blogger!!  I like what she said in a recent e-mail reply, "I'm all about "bright and happy" if I can achieve it.  That's what I love about the blog space...it feels like it's my own little magazine!"  She's a natural at 'happy' in my opinion.  I enjoy Georgia's blog a lot and hope you will too!

It's winter in Cape Town so Georgia and her boys are creating inside...

Shapes Pictures

3D City Skyline

Georgia is busy creating too...

Matchbox Fridge Magnets

Sweetie Art

Some more Love and Lollipop posts that I like...
•Love Connections-- "Do you ever stop and suddenly realize that you haven't connected with your child for a few days?"
•Memetales-- kids' digital books
•No-Sew Caterpillar and Butterfly-- craft that goes along with a Memetales book
•Fun with Felt-- I love that Georgia was inspired by a little puzzle that makes her happy. ☺


*All photos from Love and Lollipops (used with written permission).

Make Fun-Shaped Crayons

Right now 24 packs of Crayola Crayons are cheap at back to school sales.  Stock up if you want to make homemade crayons in lots of different shapes all times of the year!  Last February I followed Family Fun's Crayon Hearts instructions to make crayons for my daughter's Valentine/birthday goodie bags. *A couple tips: I slit the wrappers off carefully with a craft knife (some were still difficult to get off).  Do not use other (cheaper) crayon brands if you want them to melt good and color great!

There are a few different ways to make recycled crayons.  I have yet to try the tin can method (Momtastic, Chica and Jo & Squidoo) but I plan to soon.  The microwave method with a silicone tray went poorly for me (julie-k).  I think the oven method is the best (Make and Takes & Family Fun) and it was easier to get the crayons out from the mini muffin tin than silicone ice tray. 

The silicone heart ice cube tray pictured was found in January at Target in the front cheap section ($2.50/2 pack).  IKEA sells fun-shaped ice trays ('Only intended to be filled with water') and I found a flower-shaped one at Dollar Tree recently (haven't used it for crayon melting yet).  Michaels also has seasonal shaped baking pans.  Use caution when heating any of these trays in the oven or microwave.

Grow Borax Crystals

We're having fun with Education.com's Summer Activities Challenge!  On Monday we completed the activity Grow Sparkling Borax Crystals.  It's a mini science lesson that isn't difficult.  My kids shaped the pipe cleaners and poured the Borax into their jars.  When winter's here again we'll be doing some pretty snowflakes to hang in the windows! *Borax can be found in the laundry section of most stores including Walmart.

10 Black-and-White Printable Paper Dolls

These links to FREE black-and-white printable paper dolls will be enjoyed by moms who don't like to 'waste' color ink and kids that like to make use of their crayons! See 10 Cute Printable Paper Dolls for links to color paper dolls.  Non-commercial use only.

Cabbage Patch Kids has 3 print-and-play paper dolls: shopping, beach, back to school! (found via Doll Diaries)

This Mama Makes Stuff on Skip to My Lou's Craft Camp has printable scrap paper dolls that you clothe with fabric!

PBS Kids Sprout Online has a Chica paper doll with 5 fun costumes!

Shirley Temple Dolls has 2 Shirley dolls/clothes that you can choose to print in b&w or color.

Nick Jr. has Pinky Dinky Doo Paper Dolls: Pinky, Tyler, and Mr. Guinea Pig!

About.com: Latter-day Saints has dolls/clothes clipart that you can choose to print in b&w or color.

PBS Kids has Caillou and Rosie paper dolls each with 6 outfits! (found via Bukisa.com)

Jan Brett has Hedga/Hedgie with costumes plus lots of free activities, games, and coloring pages! (Thanks Marlene!)

BillyBear4Kids.com has Paper Dolls with lots of outfit choices and Halloween Paper Dolls too!

Kiddley has DIY paper doll templates printed in red and white.  Close enough! ☺

• This top ten black-and-white paper doll list is linked to Top Ten {Tuesday} on Oh Amanda.  The dolls listed are in no particular order!

July 4th Celebration Stick

My kids checked out Corduroy's 4th of July (board book) from the library.  At the end of the book Corduroy and his friends are in a parade and the doll is holding a fun stick.  My son thought this was a great idea and wanted one of his own!  So I came up with a simple July 4th Celebration Stick-- my kids call it a Parade Wand.






•dowels (ours are 7")
•regular ribbon(6"pieces)/curling ribbon(7" pieces)
•wide ribbon; 3" pieces
•silver chenille stem (optional); 2" or 3" pieces
•low-temp glue gun

••Hot glue ribbons (I used 4 regular/6 curling) and chenille stem piece at top of stick and then glue the wide ribbon piece around all of it to hold together!  Form a small noisy parade (like my kids immediately did) and wave like crazy!

☆ linked to Red White and Blue All Over! on Somewhat Simple  
☆ linked to Fourth of July Party on It's a Blog Party!

Make Classic Can Stilts

Classic tin can stilts have been around for a long time.  Make some with the kids on a summer afternoon! They're fun to decorate and even more fun to stomp around with outside!

A few tips:

• I wouldn't recommend using a small can like I did for my son's.  A 29.5 oz. can is perfect for smaller kids but a #10 can is even better, especially for bigger kids (like mom ☺) and for safety reasons.

• I opened the cans with a no sharp edges can opener.

• I had my husband drill holes and then I glued foam circles around them.(answering the comment)

• We decorated with paper, Mod Podge, and paint.  The paper had a slippery/messy time and patterned paper was easier to work with than card stock.

• For the handles I used vinyl rope from Dollar Tree and hot glued ends after knotting.

-Picture of my can stilt supplies on Flickr.

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 * Family Fun's Can-do Stilts are decorated patriotic! (pictured above)

* Education.com's safety advice on their Coffee Can Stilts activity: "...have your child don protective gear and practice walking before hitting the open road." 

* You can buy some fun Monster Clompers from ALEX Toys.

Homemade Bubbles and Wands

○ Steve Spangler Science shows on video the secret to making the perfect bubble solution.  Get the Bouncing Bubble Solution recipe and start having fun!

 ○ Design Dazzle gives the how-to for giant bubbles and a wand!

○ Lakeshore Learning has two wand ideas and a bubble solution recipe too.

Woo! Jr. is THE Place for Printables

Woo! Jr. is an awesome site for all things kid!!  Printables to make them happy, awesome coloring pages, and activities to keep them busy.  Looking for 4th of July and summer ideas?  You can find fun by topic-- holidays and seasons!  The Woo! Jr. family: Animal Jr., Cartoon Jr., Classroom Jr., Craft Jr., Fantasy Jr., and Space Jr.!

10 Cute Printable Paper Dolls

These cute paper dolls would be fun for lots of things: a SUMMER car trip, *fridge magnets, boredom activity for a rainy or snowy day, little girl birthday gift, party activity or favor, stocking stuffer (*in a little magnetic tin), etc..  All of the free printable paper dolls are for non-commercial use.  *One Pearl Button has a Magnetic Paper Doll tutorial.

Wee Wonderfuls has download freebies (mostly patterns)!

paper doll (1)

Patty Reed Designs has 6 printable dolls! (2)

 

Babalisme has many free printables (*memory game made with her reindeer tags).  If you place your cursor over a download link on her blog and the link shows in the bottom left of the computer screen as going to ziddu I would caution you to not go there.  Babalisme has changed her hosting site to Scribd (only a few links are still ziddu) and it's a much nicer site.  You will have to sign up and skip past a couple of 'offers' before the download will happen.  It's worth the trouble though!  Her paper dolls are really sweet!

fairy tale paper doll (3)

Halloweenie dress-up boy and girl (4)

Santas's little helpers and decorate a tree (5)

Kireei has free printable stickers and paper dolls.  The site is in spanish but all you need to do is click on 'english' under the image and then 'download'. (found via How About Orange)

Clementina (6)

Terri Pettit has a whole page of paper doll links that she's scanned; she created the Vector Strawberry Shortcake. (found via How About Orange)

Little Kiddles (7)

Vector Strawberry Shortcake (8)

The Graphics Fairy has many vintage paper dolls. (9)

Wee Life has paper dolls with clothes and Halloween costumes to color! (10)

This Mama Makes Stuff made a cute Fabric Scrap Paper Doll Kit.  (I had to include this, even though it's (11) and there's no printable for her sweet and simple doll, because it's such a fantastic idea.)  A little metal box would be perfect for storing regular and magnetic paper dolls.

• This top ten eleven paper doll list is linked to Top Ten {Tuesday} on Oh Amanda.  The dolls listed are in no particular order!  **part 2: black-and-white printable paper dolls

Mad Libs Travel Folder

This idea to make a Mad Libs Travel Folder for fun stories in the car came about because of a cool gift my daughter received for Christmas--  Cranium Silly Stories.

image of a Cranium Silly Story
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A Mad Libs Travel Folder is really simple to make!  Buy a cheap/slim 3 ring binder, dry erase markers, sheet protectors, and print out some free mad libs!!  The dry erase markers I bought (under $3 at Walmart) have an eraser top.  I used Scholastic and Garden of Praise to make a parts of speech cheat sheet for the inside front of the folder. For younger school-age kids, like my 7 year old, this is a fun way to sneak in learning this SUMMER while traveling!

**I like the free printable mad libs from Woo Jr. and Teachnology because the spaces for writing in the words are large. Mad Glibs is another free resource and great for older kids.

Fun with a Bottle Lid

I started saving bottle lids when Silly Eagle Books posted about her Bottle Cap Bunny and then her Bottle Cap Animals!  It's a good thing because bottle cap/plastic lid fun started popping up everywhere!  We were inspired and had to make some of our own pictures.  I had a fish idea for my son but I instead made it.  He had his own easy but creative idea for a lid that opened to be a clam and he had me draw some fish to keep it company.  My daughter came up with the caterpillar.

♦ Keep It Under Your Cap- Family Fun April 2010 issue

♦ Buggy Mod Podge Bottle Caps from Crafts Unleashed

♦ Plastic Lid Ladybugs from Crafts by Amanda

♦ What Can You Make From A Plastic Lid? round-up on The Crafty Crow

♦ Beneficial Bugs- Family Fun May 2010 issue

Three Little Pigs Guest Post on Silly Eagle Books

My friend Vanessa at Silly Eagle Books has allowed me to be her guest today (my first guest post)!  ☺ I'm sharing some Three Little Pigs books, a craft my daughter and I made long ago, and some fun three pigs links!  See my interview about Vanessa from January.  I enjoy everything about Silly Eagle Books including these great posts: ABCs with food, big list of birthday books, huge list of books to sing, knock-knock valentines, bottle cap animals. If you read with your kids Silly Eagle Books is a fantastic blog!