MYO: Playdough

If you've never made homemade playdough with your kids, you're missing out on a good time. You can use your friend Google to find one of a million recipes to do so. The no cook methods are the easiest. We've tried several recipes and this one is my absolute favorite. It's super easy, you can your kids can whip up a batch in a few minutes and it will provide hours of entertainment. It also smells divine and is the perfect dough consistency. 

Here's what you need: 

1 cup of flour
1/2 cup of salt
2 tablespoons cream of tartar
1 or 2 packets of Kool-Aid drink mic
1 tablespoon of vegetable oil 
1 cup boiling water

Here's what you do:

Combine all of your dry ingredients together in a large mixing bowl.  Next add the oil and boiling water and mix it with a spoon until it gets nice and firm. Once the dough cools down (it only takes a few minutes), you can dig in and mix it with your hands. If it comes out feeling a little too sticky, you can roll it out on wax paper and add a little more flour.

That's it! Super easy and so much fun!

Recycled Water Bottle Flowers

Mary, Mary, quite contrary...how does your garden grow?

With recycled water bottles, popsicle sticks and nail polish all in a row. 







Here's what you need to make this quick & cute craft project with your kids:

The bottoms of water bottles
Old nail polish
Popsicle sticks
Hot Glue Gun (or good tacky craft glue)
And of course, nail polish remover :) 

 




This is our friend Jamie, with the recycled water bottle flowers she made. 

All you need to do to make these cute flowers is choose two colors of nail polish, use one to paint the center of the bottom of the water bottle and one to paint the rest to make the petals of the flower. We painted popsicle sticks green for the stems and hot glued the flowers to the top when they dried. They look adorable stuck in the garden among the real flowers.

We glued magnets on the back of some of our flowers too.

 








( Be sure to do this project outside or in a well ventilated area. )

Beat Spring Break Boredom: Handprint Lamb Craft

This project is cute, quick and easy. Just how I like my crafts. This is perfect for preschoolers, but the big kids liked it too. 

 First lay newspaper down to protect your work surface. Next, have each child choose a color of construction paper. Using black acrylic craft paint and a big sponge brush, have your child paint the bottom of their entire hand. Older kids can do this themselves, smaller kids might need a little help. Then have them place their painted hand down on the construction paper, pressing to make sure they get a nice hand print. By the time the kids finish washing their hands, their hand prints should be just about dry. Turn the paper upside down to make your lamb. Your four fingers become the lamb's legs and your thumb becomes the lamb's head. Glue cotton balls all over the palm to create the lamb's fluffy body and a wiggly eye to the thumb and you have a cute Lamb! 

 

 Beat Spring Break Boredom with Easter Games

Cardboard Tube Bunny Craft

Spring Break Survival Strategies

Coffee Filter Butterfly Craft

More Easter Ideas

Beat Spring Break Boredom: Coffee Filter Butterflies

This is a fun and super easy project for a child of any age and a sure fire way to beat Spring Break Boredom! 

I give you...Coffee Filter Butterflies!

You probably have everything you need to make this project and if you don't, any of these items can be found at the dollar store.

You need:


Coffee Filters

Markers (Non-washable work best. Not permanent, non-washable. And yes, they will wash out, just not as easily as washable.)


Spray Bottle with Water


Clothes Pins


Optional - 

Black Pipe Cleaners (Or "chenille stems" as they're now called.)


Wiggly Eyes


Lay newspaper down to cover your work surface. Place a coffee filter on the newspaper and flatten it out.

Next, color the coffee filter with markers. You can make an intricate design or simply scribble all over it with a variety of colors.

After your coffee filter is colored. Spray it down with water and allow the markers to bleed and blend on.

After spraying the coffee filter, you can transfer to to a dry piece of newspaper or lay it on a cooking rack to dry. 

While you wait for your coffee filter to dry, you can color the front of a clothes pin with marker.

Once your coffee filter is dry, fold it back and fourth accordion style in about 1/2" pleats. 

Until it looks like this: 

Then fold the coffee filter in half, hold it in the middle by the fold and clip your clothes pin on to it. Your clothes pin becomes the butterflies body and the the coffee filter it's wings. Fan the folds out on each side.

If you have them, you can use small pieces of black pipe cleaners to form a "V" shape, curl each end by wrapping it around the end of a pencil and then clip it in the clothes pin to give the butterfly antennae. You can also glue tiny wiggly eyes to the front of the clothes pin.


Here's a few ideas...


For a more vibrant butterfly, color the entire with coffee filter, filling in all the white.


Instead of using every color marker in the box, color one coffee filter with all warm colors (red, orange, yellow) and one with all cool colors (purple, blue, green) for a nice effect.


Clip the butterflies to curtains in your home to add pizazz to any room.


Glue a magnet to the back of the clothes pin and hang your butterfly on the fridge.


Tie a piece of fishing line around the top of the clothes pin and hang your butterfly from a ceiling fan or from the ceiling to make it look like it's flying. 

Beat Spring Break Boredom: Cardboard Tube Bunny Craft

This project, making cute little bunnies from cardboard tubes, is one the whole family can have fun with. Big kids can do most of this project on their own, for little kids you might want to do some of the prep for them before hand. 

Here's what you need (most of which you probably have laying around your house right now):

Cardboard tubes (Paper towel and toilet paper rolls work well, you can cut them down to different sizes to make different sized bunnies. The purple bunny above was made from a duct tape roll.)

Acrylic Craft Paint - These are often on sale at Michael's 2/$1.00. They're super cheap, you can use them on anything and clean up is a breeze. I use them for all projects I do with my kids.

Paint brushes

Scissors

Glue

A paint marker or Sharpie marker

Pom-Poms for the bunnies nose (If you don't have Pom-Poms, you can paint or draw a little nose with marker.)

Wiggly Eyes (Again, a dab of paint or a marker will work just fine if you don't have these.)

Anything else you might want to embellish your bunny with!

Gather all of your supplies, lay some newspaper down and you're ready to roll!

(Pun intended.) 

The first step is to paint your cardboard tubes. In the interest of time, I didn't paint the inside of the tubes. If you're kids are making these to give as Easter gifts or you'll be using them as a centerpiece on a table, then you'll want to paint the inside of the tube too. 

The cardboard tubes are the body of your bunnies. The next step is to make your bunnies ears by cutting strips of cardboard tubes. 

 Fold the strips in half and run a line of glue between the two sides. Squeeze to flatten it. 

 For some reason I thought that super glue would do a super job of this and work much better and quicker than any other glue in my collection. Not so much. And this is why I should never use super glue...

I'll be chewing super glue off my fingers for the next three days.

Moving right along...

Next you are going to paint the ears in pairs to match the cardboard tubes you've already painted. 

Then paint a strip of pink paint down the center of each ear and snip off the sides on the top of each ear to make them look more like bunny ears. My ears could definitely look more like ears.

Now glue the ears to the top inside of each cardboard tube body.

 Starting to actually look like bunnies, right? All that's left to do is give your bunny a face. You can use a paint or sharpie marker to draw your bunnies faces or use wiggly eyes, pom-poms or buttons. 

 You're not allowed to see the white bunny's face. Something went very wrong with the white bunny's face. 

Some ideas as to what to do with your completed Cardboard Tube Bunnies:

Slip your fingers inside the tube and use your bunnies as puppets to act out an Easter skit.

Have your kids give them as Easter gifts to friends and loved ones or as a favor to take home from Easter dinner.

Make a family of bunnies and use them as the centerpiece on your table at Easter dinner.

Make one for each guest at Easter dinner, write their name on the front and use them as seating place markers.

I'd love to hear about your experience and/or see photos if you decide to make these Cardboard Tube Bunnies with your kids!