baby oil painting

The Invitation.

It is MLK day - Miss A and I both have the day off. I did most of the laundry the day before so I had more time freed up today to do a fun artsy activity! I skimmed through Mary Ann Kohl's Preschool Art book for a quick, simple activity and spotted this activity involving baby oil... Luckily for us, I had one bottle that we rarely use so I poured some into a bowl and grabbed a handful of q-tips and cotton balls then set out an invitation for Miss A to expore this fun activity... We had a great time talking about sizes, how the oil feels, and sunlight! Check it out!

Miss A preferred the q-tips. We talked about thick and thin lines.

The transparent lines!

Checking out the transparent design in the sunlight.

Of course, the crayons came out! We experimented with drawing over the baby oil.

Miss A then started making several A's with the crayons. How creative!

 

watercolor drawing

Miss A got a set of Crayola watercolor pencils for Christmas. I cut up the watercolor paper and brought out a bowl of water and paintbrushes. We set to experiment with the pencils. We found that it's more fun to wet the paper with a paintbrush first before drawing with the watercolor pencils. We also experimented drawing first, then painting over the drawing with water. There are loads of ways to have fun with those! Here's some of our work below:

So colorful and sharp!

Check out the new IKEA table Daddy built! More space to artwork!

Drawing with two pencils at the same time!

Brushing

Drawing

Love the orange stripes!

Ornaments

As a Christmas gift to family and friends, Miss A, DH, and I swirled paint and glitter in the clear ornament balls. It was a blast! Miss A chose each to give to her dear family members for Christmas. DH came up with an idea to add glow-in-the-dark paint in some of the ornament balls. We will make more next year - perhaps in a different style...

Sorry there are no pictures taken by the camera of us actually making the ornament balls, so the "finished" ones are shown below in a single photo!

An idea is to add stickers to the outside of the ornament ball - it did not really stick on, so perhaps some mod podge would work... Any other suggestions?

The purple glitter ball - obviously Miss A's work - it is Tangled inspired. Like it?

turtles in the pond

Miss A was busy playing with her new Christmas gifts and birthday gifts from last summer. Here's an example of how I see the benefit of creative and imaginative play with a playsilk - Miss A took the blue/purple side of the rainbow playsilk and stuffed it in the box and placed turtles inside. It's like the turtles are swimming in the pond!

Gingerbread House

Merry Christmas to you all! It has been a busy month between Thanksgiving and Christmas... We are loving every minute of it! My folks came to town for Grandparents Day at Miss A's preschool. They had fun building a gingerbread house on a tiny milk carton. I loved the sugar cube chimney! Can Santa fit in there, I believe so! :o)

While I am not too keen on store-bought gingerbread house kit, we were blessed to receive an awesome "pre-homemade" gingerbread house kit. My dad works at a local technical college, and some pastry students were having a fundraiser for their program by selling "pre-homemade" gingerbread house kits! My dad came in the house with a huge white box, and inside the box is a round cardboard to place the house, the four sides, two rooftops, and a door. There are two plastic containers - one full of white royal icing (yummy!) and one filled with candy to decoarte the house with.

Unfortunately, there were not enough time to build the gingerbread house with Miss A's Oma and Papa. We were too busy opening (and playing with) Christmas gifts from my side of the family (we are spending Christmas here with my DH's parents this year - we take turns). We also spent time with Santa and his elves at a gorgeous Christmas display at a department store in the city. So, we took a lot of pictures to share with you all the fun we had building this special gingerbread house!

The "pre-homemade" gingerbread house kit!

After daddy put together the house, time to start decorating the roof!

Loved the little marshmallow tree (snowman on the other side).

Two different versions of the roof! Unique!

Mommy used different sizes of icing tips - like the icicles?

Sprinkles are a great idea!

tsk-tsk! Miss A broke off the icicles! Elves are watching you!

We used the remaining icing on the board.

tsk-tsk! Daddy is teasing Miss A.

The finished work!

The gingerbread house from preschool.

Sugar cube chimney!

Santa's sack

Luckily for me, Santa let me have a peek in his present sack! I already know what he's bringing Miss A for Christmas!!! This is only a sneak peek...

I already decided to let Miss A explore with the oil pastels... Heh... I am quite terrible at keeping gifts secret until Christmas and birthdays!!! :o(

We plan to keep Miss A's Christmas gifts very simple and somewhat thrifty (blessed with several gift cards from a research study we participated in). As you see, I got watercolor colored pencils and I plan on cutting some of the watercolor paper that we already have into post-card sizes and tie a ribbon around the stack. Thanks to Pinterest, I found a really CUTE and FREE set of graham girls paper dolls (I think they're from 1982). I plan to spend some time over Thanksgiving break to cut out the dolls and laminate them. I am still not quite sure how to work this out... Maybe Miss A's Oma would have a suggestion. Hmm!

I LOVE products from this company called eeBoo. I think their products are artistically beautiful with high quality. I found this set of cards through amazon.com (with my gift card from the research study) and thought it would be so much fun to do together in our new reading nook!

My DH (ahem... Santa...) is set on getting Miss A a play kitchen from IKEA. We like the blond wood and it will go well with the art easel (also from IKEA) in the playroom. They have cute little kitchen utensils, pots/pans, and bakeware too! SO DARN CUTE!

Reading Nook

Greetings! I know it has been quite some time since I've blogged. I sincerely apologize and all of you are constantly on my mind! Don't worry, we've done some fun artsy and creative activities, but haven't caught up on blogging about them. In the meanwhile, I thought I'd let you know what we have been up to... In the spirit of giving, I thought about how to give her gifts that are not materialistic, but experiences that she (and we) can enjoy for a long time together. I recently participated in a research study about deaf families with kids who have cochlear implants, and received a gift card in return. It is quite a blessing! I ordered the Playful Learning book by Mariah Bruehl, and LOVE IT! I am so GRATEFUL it is now in my collection! I was inspired by her set-up for a quiet, peaceful place for kids. My twist is that it's a reading nook for my daughter in our living room/play room!

Over the weekend I moved the sofa, put some "bigger" toys downstairs in the vast family room, moved an end table into the master bedroom, brought up three sofa pillows from the family room, found the bright colored "language quilt" that a family friend sewed before Miss A was born, a stuffed teddy bear (it was mine when I was hospitalized at age five), two fleece blankets, and a basket filled with library books. What a PERFECT reading nook!

The next day, I asked DH to hang up the bed canopy that we found at IKEA. I have seen the "Keep Calm, Carry On" circulating in the blog world and decided to print one and put it in a frame that we already owned. Most of the items used to create the reading nook have been repurposed (except for the bed canopy). I am thankful for the ability to re-use the treasures around the house for something new and fun!

So far Miss A is enjoying the reading nook! We've played games there, we've read books, we've played with dolls there, we've chatted there. We are loving it so much as it's right by the window and we can feel the warmth from the sunshine during the day!