Pink and Sandy

Oh my goodness! It's time for snow to be gone. I am not even kidding.
The cold and the snow have kept us stuck inside the house for a couple weeks now, and we are starting to get sick of the house and sick of our toys and sick of each other. (Besides the fact that we were all sick for a while. sigh) 
So yesterday I was sitting there trying to get Sam interested in some trucks that he was like, SO over, and I al of a sudden thought about the bag of play sand I had sitting in my basement (left over from this project like... 4 years ago), and thought that might be just the thing to liven our afternoon and refresh our bored little pickle.
So I grabbed a shallow tub, the bag of sand, a large plastic table cloth, and a couple toys. We didn't have much in the way of sand toys, but you don't need much, do you?

We'd been playing with cotton balls in his dump truck (we play with cotton balls a lot. Good, cheap, easy to clean up sensory fun) so those, along with his trucks made it to the sand box.
This was the first time Sam had ever played in the sand and he was mesmerized just plunging his hands in and wigging his fingers around in it. He never got much into driving his trucks through the sand...

But I did get out the stacking measuring cups, and he LOVED digging with those.
I bet you are dying to know if my one year old could control his compulsion to put handfuls of this funny new substance in his mouth???

Nope. He couldn't. He sampled two handfuls before deciding it wasn't yummy. Which you are probably thinking I should be more upset about. But here's my thought. The kid is going to sample sand at some point in his life. I'd rather it be relatively 'clean' sand in a tub in my kitchen than at a park that stray cats are pooping in, am I right? So he came to his own conclusions (Sand is not tasty) and he survived (no noticeable physical repercussions to the small amount of ingested sand). So we got that childhood milestone out of the way. Yay eating sand.
When he got bored scooping up sand and cotton balls with the measuring cups, I got a water spray bottle and wet down the sand a little and we built sand castles...

(I grabbed a leftover paper straw from his birthday party to make it look legit... Sam liked poking that in the sand too.) I showed him how the sand sticks together when it's wet. He liked spraying it with the bottle too, because the water would bead on the surface, then soak in. We talked about how different it feels. I tried to come up with different adjectives to describe it for him. Think, Mama think!
Wet/dry, cool, grainy, firm, squooshy, sticky, pink, bright, colorful, sandy (duh), smooth, bumpy/hilly, pliable, gritty... Not Tasty. haha

When he was starting to get bored with the water and building things, I just picked him up and plopped him down in the tub of sand. It's funny how a different perspective (sitting IN and not BESIDE the sand) made the same object so much more interesting!

Look at those happy little toes kicking around in the sand! Love it.

When he was finally done playing (we got about 30 minutes of sand play before he was tired of it-- impressive attention span for my little pickle!) we stood him up on the plastic table cloth and brushed the sand from his clothes. Then I put him in his seat, and I was able to fold the table cloth so all the sand fell to the middle, then funneled it back into the tub, put the lid on, and put it all away for another afternoon of play.  Relatively easy clean up for what could have been a huge crazy mess.
Okay, yes, I still had to sweep up some pick sand from the kitchen floor, but it wasn't horrible. I really really think he had fun.
I think next time we play sand I might make it a discovery box for him... burying small toys in the sand for him to find. Or mixing in pasta shapes? (wheels, bowties, etc) There is no limit to the interesting things we can bury and play with in the sand. Anyway, we had a fun.
What are you doing to bust the indoor blues with your kiddos? Any other ideas to keep a wiggly toddler busy?

Sponge Bombs

Back when I was in high school and college I spent my summers nannying for a couple little girls. A couple 'little' girls who are now in high school-- yikes! One summer, we did the following project and it was loads of fun. But I had all but forgotten about it until just the other day a friend had pinned the same thing on pinterest (by the way--I was a pretty awesome nanny... we did all kinds of creative fun stuff. But nannies these days have resources. I would have kicked SERIOUS nannying bootie if I had pinterest at my disposal. Just sayin'.) and I got really excited! They would be perfect pool toys for the little man.

 So here we go... sponge bombs. Good clean fun.

 You need a package of sponges, a pair of scissors, and some string. (I bought my package of sponges for about $2)

 Cut your sponge into strips. (mine were thicker than I wanted, so I halved them again.) don't they look like carrot sticks? cute!

 make a little pile of 8 sponge sticks, then tie your string tightly around the middle.

 VIOLA! Sponge bombs.

Get them wet and have a good time. When I was a nanny we would dunk them in water and use them instead of water baloons for water fights in the back yard.
Which reminds me of when I was a kid. My sister and I had summer birthdays and always wanted to have water parties. we'd have water gun and water balloon fights in the backyard, and it would kinda be a mess. But think of how much fun it would be to give each kid a package of sponges and tell them to make their own ammunition. And then send them home with all the little party kiddos as favors too. Craft project, game, cleanup, and favor all in one. How sweet would that be?
Anyway, we didn't use these for a water fight...

 But they made awesome pool toys for the little man.

He played and played. Great fun for only a 2 dollar investment. Sounds good to me.

So what are you up to this summer? Playing any water games? Making any fun toys for/with your kiddos? Swimming and trying to stay cool? Whatever it is I hope you are having a good time!

Alpha-bean-bags

One of our favorite little guys turned 3 this week. Happy Birthday!
I wanted to make him something fun for his birthday, but I am all about educational toys. I knew I wanted to do something with the alphabet.... and I debated magnets? blocks? But then I thought about bean bags, and it seemed like the perfect idea.

So I made 26 bean bags in  4 different colors. Each one had the uppercase letter on one side and the lowercase on the opposite side. They were pretty simple and turned out really cute. Here's how it's done:

I started by cutting a sheet of fusible webbing to 8.5x11 size so I could run it through my printer. I printed a reverse image of all the letters on  the paper side and then ironed it to a piece of white felt.

I then cut out each of the letters (I thought this would be an excruciatingly long process. But it only took me about 20 mins to cut them all out.) I used a swiveling exacto knife and a cutting mat for the centers of letters.

 I purchased  quarter yard of each of four colors. I cut squares that were 4.5x4.5" using my rotary cutter and quilting ruler. I cut 52 blocks and had just a small amount left over of each color, so I feel like I bought the perfect amount of fabric! (I never measure or plan before I buy, so I am glad it worked out for me this time!)

Next I peeled off the paper backing still on the letters, then ironed them down. Each bag had the uppercase on one side and lower case on the other.

I did a quick iron on the front (letter) side, but flipped it over to the back and ironed that side very well. I purchased the ultra-hold iron-on fusible webbing stuff. I had considered stitching every letter down as well, like you would do for an applique, but decided that would be way more work than nap time would allow me. So I bought the ultra hold stuff and ironed it really well, and it seemed to hold firm.

Put the right sides (letter sides) together (make sure your letters are going the same direction up and down) then I serged three sides of each block.

While they were still wrong side out, I went ahead and ironed down 1/4 inch along the top to make that easier on myself. Then I trimmed strings and corners and turned each pouch right side out.

I actually filled my 'bean bags' with split peas. I liked the size and they were on sale. Use whatever you have available or whatever is cheapest-- beans, lentils, peas, rice, or even beads if you have an over abundance on hand. I put approximately 1/4 cup of peas in each bag.

Last step! Pin the top and sew accross. Make sure to back-stitch and lock those threads well so they don't come open and spill the beans. heh heh.
One other thing about the bean bags... I selected the colors randomly, except for the vowels. All the vowels (A, E, I, O, U and Y) are yellow. I thought that might be a helpful trick when playing with the bean bags and (hopefully) learning about the alphabet. But I had 4 colors and those 6 bags just so happened to be approx 1/4 of the alphabet so the colors still look balanced.

I bought a cheap red bucket at The Lob to put them in... and that was that! This whole project was completed about 10 minutes at a time over the course of two weeks. It might take you a couple hours if you sat down and did it all at once, but it was quite manageable divided up.

My husband of course usually thinks I'm crazy when I start a project (he rarely understands my 'vision') and this one was no exception-- you are making what? Why would you do that? But once the bean bags were all assembled he came down and picked one up. Cool! Bean bags! Kids love bean bags. Then he held it and tossed it in his hand a few minutes and smiled. Apparently, Zachs love bean bags too.
Little D seemed to enjoy his gift on his birthday-- although he was convinced the bean bags were bags of candy and kept trying to get them open. Oops. I hope he has fun playing with them!

Now... I have a 1st birthday to attend in a few weeks. Any suggestions on a good gift for a 1 yr old???