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Keeping Toddlers Occupied
I am not claiming to be the brilliant person who came up with the genius idea for using a cardboard box as a toy. Until recently, I had never seen or thought of the idea of giving my kid crayons for coloring inside of a box. Crayons and boxes are two of my son’s favorite things. So combining them together worked like magic. This is such a great way for keeping toddlers occupied.
Step one:
I let my toddler climb into a large, ordinary, cardboard box. (I am not sure why it looks like he doesn’t have feet in this picture, but he does. Two of them.)
Step two:
He was given a few crayons.
Step three:
I sat back, relaxed, and enjoyed my free time.As expected, he just had the best time playing in there.
To keep the fun alive, the sides were reinforcement with duct tape.
Crayons in a box is such a simple idea. I just wish I would have found this idea sooner.If you had a box large enough, do you think adults could have this much fun?
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We Are Grateful
Where has the year gone? I can’t believe that it is already November, the month of gratitude, but I’m excited for all of the family time we will be getting in the upcoming month. Emily and I are both thankful for all of our amazing readers who’ve welcomed us on this blogging journey. Your support keeps us going and we thank you for that!
I’ve seen friends on Facebook posting things that they are thankful for each day and know that there are gazillion crafts out there in the blog-o-sphere relating to gratitude, so I figured that I would share how our family is expressing our thankfulness this year for all of the wonderful things in our lives.
Let’s call it the Grateful Frame. It’s basically just a cheap, white Ikea frame with the glass removed. I put in a piece of Kraft paper and then added the letters, which I printed on cardstock and then cut out. Also, some decorative washi tape makes the edges of the frame pop a little.
The concept is really pretty simple. When one of us thinks of something we are grateful for, we can write it on the paper, creating a fun, interactive family art piece. There is no time limit on when we need to write something. It can be every ten minutes or every other day, whenever we feel like it. I like that there aren’t any restrictions (besides maybe not writing on the frame itself) and even our two year old can add his grateful little doodles.
(Our daughter writing “family” below.)
Right now it is pretty bare, but I plan on sharing it all filled up once the month is over on Instagram. (Follow me @erinejd.)
How are you showing your gratitude this month??
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Two Sisters. Bad Photos.
As Emily mentioned in her post last week, we got to see each other for the first time since we’ve started working on this blog back in June. (I believe it was actually on our family vacation to the Smoky Mountains in May, that we finalized our plans to give this dual blogging gig a go.) You may have noticed the photo of us over there on the side bar, and I must admit, it is a bit dated. Like several years ago. We live almost 400 miles apart, so grabbing a quick pic is not something we can do any ol’ afternoon. So, we made plans to take a better and updated version when we met up.
What we did not do, was plan on the days going so fast, my speed light breaking, or our children being needy. Because what child actually needs their parents? Certainly not mine. I usually like to just give them some matches and knives and let them have at it. Just kidding.
Anyway, by the time we were both free enough to pose for a pic, we were both slap happy, the lighting was horrible, the camera battery was dead and neither one of my children were sleeping. (Extra points to Em, whose children had passed out earlier.) So we had to resort to blurry selfies on the iPhone, which are totally not blog profile worthy. However, they are totally great for this post of “what not to do when you want a good photo for your blog.”
This pixel-y shot may possibly be the best and was taken by my daughter. We hate it. (That’s Emily on the left and me on the right, in case you didn’t know who was who already.)
We know that these photos are by no means professional or serious, but we figured they would help give a little bit of a view into our personalities and lives. And how we act when we’re way over tired. Plus, as an added bonus, they were totally DIYed. We wouldn’t want to stray from the norm too much. *Wink* Now back to our regularly scheduled programming.
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Octonauts Costumes and DIY Sailor’s Hat
The Disney Jr. show, Octonauts, is a favorite in our house. So it was no surprise to me that our little ones choose to be Kwazi the cat and the polar bear Captain Barnacles for Halloween. There are not commercial costumes for these characters, but lucky for my two, I love any DIY challenge.
An orange shirt and pants were the base of the Kwazi outfit. Felt triangles were attached to a headband for the ears. My little guy made sure I even cut a tiny chomp in one of the ears just like Kwazi’s.The eye patch was also felt. This worked great for a 3 year old because he was able to shift it slightly to see while still maintaining the pirate look. I used felt for the tummy and collar. The tail was a awesome find from the dollar store.
To make the hat, I drew the pattern for the main portion of it on the fold of a piece of paper. Next, I traced it on to felt and cut out four equal pieces. The rounded triangles are about 4 inches wide and 5 inches tall. Assume a 1/2 inch seam allowance.
Then, I pinned the pieces side by side together and sewed them to form this cone like shape.
To make the brim of the hat, I cut a strip of felt 15 inches long and 3 inches high. The dark blue piece was cut for the stripe around the hat. It measures 15 inches long and only 1/2 inch high.
With the cone still inside out, I attached the brim to the hat with pins.
Using a sewing machine, they were sewed together.
To hem the hat, I turned the whole thing right side out. I folded the edge up, pinned and sewed.
After that, I folded the brim up. That’s when it starting looking like a hat.
Finally, using my trusty hot glue gun, I attached the stripe and the Octonauts logo. (The Logo, I found here and printed it out on printable fabric.)
This hat could work for so many different costumes, without the Octonauts logo of course. With different fabric it could make a cute hat to accessorize a sailor’s costume.
A little blue sweat suite is what I snagged at Target for Captain Barnacles. His belt and collar I cut out of blue felt. His Octonauts hat was a much more complicated variation of the Kwazi hat. I’ll spare you the frustrating details of making that one. Using a white hat we already had, I attached two felt half circles with safety pins for the ears.
The boots for both costumes are their winter boots I covered with, you guessed it, more felt. I took two pieces of felt pinned them together along the outside and hot glued them. Once dry, I flipped them right side out and slid them back onto footwear.
Although it was a lot of work to get these costumes together for my boys, I am very pleased with how they turned out and more importantly, so are they.