Cinco De Mayo Crafts

I love to celebrate different holidays from around the world. It gives me the opportunity to teach the kids about other cultures and to make it exciting and fun for them. With May just a couple of days away we headed to the library for a few books on Cinco De Mayo. Marco's Cinco De Mayo was a great one for G to understand and Em to enjoy as well.
After we talked a bit about the holiday we made a few fun crafts.

 This is a paper bag sombrero. We made it by rolling a grocery paper bag down until it formed a nice hat shape. Next, we used paint and pom-poms to give it the vibrant colorful look of a real sombrero. Check out more details on my bonnet post.

 Em was more into our sombrero drawing art. She sketched a simple sombrero with a black marker and filled it in with oil pastels followed by paint. Once it was dry she added sequins to her creation.

We cut our colorful hat drawings out and used a glue stick to place them on a black back-drop. 

 This is one I would like to do with Em's class and I can not wait to see all of the different colors and patterns the kids come up with. Just lovely.

Finally, we definitely need a set of maracas for Cinco De Mayo. This is a pretty traditional way to craft maracas in the "art mom blogging world." Just a plastic egg (so happy to reuse those!) filled with rice and placed between two plastic spoons and secured with masking tape. The kids decorated them with permanent markers.

Happy Cinco De Mayo!

Kindness Banner

 Today is the first day of Random Acts of Kindness Week. Although, I don't believe that one week to point out kindness to my children is enough, I do believe that it is a great reminder and a fun way to spend extra attention talking about ways to be kind and how kindness acts really do spread. (as do not so kind acts.)

 To celebrate with Em's class we will make a kindness banner and kind cards. The last time we made a banner like this we called it a "wish banner" and drew and painted wishes we had. The kids and I were learning about prayer flags and this was a great activity to go along.
I thought this would be a great way to also celebrate Random Acts of Kindness Week.  I will have the kids draw pictures and write words that they feel will inspire and spread kindness.

Materials:

pillowcase (each one makes 8 flags)

scissors

hot glue

twine

permanent markers

watercolor paints

 To start this project I first put the banner together. I didn't plan on having them use the hot glue and I thought it would be nice for them to have the finished banner ready to hang after they were done with their artwork. I cut our pillowcase into 8 rectangle flags. You want to leave the top seems on the flag, but break the two that will have a side seam from the bottom of the pillowcase.

 Next, I opened each flag and laid a long piece of twine across them all. Once I had my flags spaced just right I used hot glue to attach the twine to each one and closed the flags.

 Be sure sure to close the flag while the glue is still hot. Press firmly to seal.

  Once our banner was all put together we used permanent markers to add drawings and words.

 Watercolors right on top of the drawings created a really beautiful effect.

 Isn't that beautiful!? I think this will be a great start to Random Acts of Kindness Week and a great opportunity to talk about what this week means. I found some more great ideas for this week over on Rak Week. Be sure to check it out.

Here some kindness ideas my children came up with:

1. Bring hot cocoa to the neighbors playing in the snow.
2. Feed the pond ducks.
3. Bring blankets to the animal shelter.
4. Buy dinner for a homeless person.
5. Bring a treat to their teachers.
6. Make a card for the mailman.
7. Make a new friend at school.
8. Take in the neighbors trash cans.
9. Make soup for our friends who just had a baby.
10. Make a bird feeder for "our" birds.

I think we are onto a great start!

I shared this idea over at Kiwi Crate. Check out all my full tutorials there.

German Lucky Pig New Year Tradition

 

Hello Friends! Can you believe how fast the holidays are flying by?! I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season. We spent two great weeks visiting all of our family and are now preparing for our kid-friendly New Year's Eve party with some great friends.

 I love adopting new traditions, so when I first read about the lucky New Year marzipan pig on Red Ted Art I knew I had to add this to our kids craft table this year. How could you resist this adorable pile of sugar?? In Germany it is a sign of good luck when someone gives you a marzipan pig. I thought it would be fun for the kids to make these tomorrow for their friends and family. I did have to go with fondant instead of marzipan (hope that won't effect our luck!) Check out the tutorial by Red Ted Art for all the details.

Sorry I didn't get any more photos of the actual process. It was a bit sticky to work with so I decided to keep my camera (which ironically is covered in paint and glue) out of this craft. It is pretty simple though, just like working with sticky clay. I bought white fondant and colored it by kneading in pink food color. I thought these mini muffin cups would be the perfect size to take these little piggies home.

Wishing you much love and luck this New Year!

Chinese New Year-The Year of the Snake

 It is very important for me as a mother to teach my children about different cultures, religions and the world around them. This is what makes our world a beautiful place and I hope my children will always see that with open eyes and heart.
I can't get too deep into these thoughts with my five and two year-old, but what I can do is teach them about the world and the things that we may not see everyday. Help them to see the beauty in days that may not be special here, but somewhere people are celebrating.
The Chinese New Year is upon us, February 10th to be exact. We have learned about several traditions and also that this year is the year of the snake. This prompted us to do some research and find out what animal sign we were born under. Turns out Emma should have personality traits of a pig, Grayson a tiger, Dennis an ox and me a darn goat! This got some silly laughs out of the kids and we moved on to celebrate the year of the snake.

We started with a simple play dough craft. We made some extra special dough which included glitter and used beads and googly eyes to create some fun snakes. Check out the details at The Studio.

 Next, we made a moveable beaded snake complete with rattle! We are from the desert so our snake had to have a rattle, of course! Check out my full tutorial at The Studio.

 And lastly, a straw puppet snake. I can't tell you how much my children enjoy any sort of puppet. This was no exception. The snake hisses and funny snake voice were a riot! These details are at, you guessed it, The Studio!
I hope this has inspired you to embrace each day, each celebration and each person. I know my children will!
Happy Chinese New Year!

Day of the Dead Packing Peanut Skull

 The Day of the Dead is a holiday where people remember and celebrate those who have passed. I like the idea of celebrating the people you knew that have passed. Being with loved ones and reminiscing. The gatherings, celebrations, family and food are also joined by these amazing decorated skulls everywhere and made from sugar, paint and all sorts of creative things. They are beautiful and very inspiring. With this day coming up in a few weeks I thought it was a good opportunity to teach the kids about other traditions and holidays, so we made skulls.

 Packing peanuts are a wonderful material to create with. Did you know they are biodegradable and will stick together with just water? Yes, they are wonderful.

 I used glue for this project just because I wanted to keep that bone structure look of the skull.

 We stacked and stacked until we got just the look we had in mind.

 Then we pulled out some beads and sequins and decorated our skulls. They came out pretty neat and we learned a few things too. A good afternoon for us!

From Wikipedia, if you want a few facts about Day of the Dead:
Day of the Dead (Spanish: Día de los Muertos) is a Mexican holiday celebrated throughout Mexico and around the world in other cultures. The holiday focuses on gatherings of family and friends to pray for and remember friends and family members who have died. It is particularly celebrated in Mexico, where it is a national holiday, and all banks are closed. The celebration takes place on November 1, in connection with the Catholic holidays of All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day (November 2). Traditions connected with the holiday include building private altars honoring the deceased using sugar skulls, marigolds, and the favorite foods and beverages of the departed and visiting graves with these as gifts. They also leave possessions of the deceased.