Flowers for Mom: A Super Simple Mother's Day Card Craft To Do With Your Toddler

I'm by no means a crafter. I don't scrapbook, I don't knit or sew. But I do love easy, accessible projects that I can do with Henry. We love doing little crafts together- painting, molding, drawing, building- and with him I like to keep it simple. I want him to do the bulk of it, so he can be proud of what he's done!

So this Mother's Day card is perfect. I made this exact card at Apple-A-Day nursery school way back in the day (80s baby here!) and after coming across it last year in a huge box of things my own Mom saved, I knew I wanted to do it with him too.

It's super easy and really fun, and the result is just way too cute. Plus, what's better than a handmade card? I also love this is doable for the littlest of kiddos with a little help from an adult.

Here's what you'll need-

construction paper
pipe cleaners
tissue paper of various colors
glue
crayon or writing utensil

Depending on your little one's age, you may need to prep a few things or everything; cut the tissue paper into squares, cut a vase out (or draw one), trim the pipe cleaners, and/or fold a piece of construction paper into a card.

First secure your vase and stems to the card. If you don't have pipe cleaners you can always just draw some on.

Then, let your kiddo squeeze glue onto each square of tissue paper after bunching it up, and press it onto the card.

We also wrote (Henry wrote while I guided him), his Grandma's name, "Gigi," on the top.

Easy, right? Be sure to let me know if you try this out with your little one too!

Happy Mother's Day!

xoxo


 

Color Sorted Easter Basket Tutorial/ Activity For Toddlers & Our Annual Library Egg Hunt

How's that for a long post title? There's just so much goodness to squish into this post that it had to be long. Just had to.

First of all, can I just say for the 100th time how much I love where we live? All of the activities for kids make Henry and me so happy, and the fact that so many of them are because of our amazing public library? Even better.

Every year the library hosts an Easter celebration that is only about eggs and bunnies and fun (which this non-religious family loves), and it's the best time. And this year, they did a fun activity we did when my sister and I were little, and it inspired me to share a little how-to here. It's seriously SO fun to do with toddlers and they love it too. It's a great alternative to a traditional egg hunt, and makes it a little less overwhelming whether you have one little one hunting, or a whole bunch of them.

You'll need:

dixie cups (6 per "basket")
construction paper
glue stick
stapler/staples
pipe cleaners
multicolored plastic eggs (with colors that correspond to the paper colors)
fun little toys or snacks to put inside the eggs

1. Match up six paper colors to six egg colors. Punch or cut circles in the paper big enough to cover most of the bottom of the cup.

2. Glue each circle to the inside bottom of each of the six cups.

3. Staple the cups together to form a basket, then attach the pipe cleaner to the top as a handle.

4. Fill up the eggs with fun surprises, hide them, and instruct your kiddos to match up the colored eggs with the colors in their basket. So fun!


My Mom did this with Lauren and I when we were little, and Henry absolutely loved doing it yesterday. It's a great sorting activity, and like I mentioned above, a great way to have a bit more purpose to the egg hunt so little ones don't get overwhelmed. And in the library's case, it was nice to have a cap on the amount of eggs the kids can get. If you're doing the egg hunt at home, and want to do more than 6, simply set out a regular Easter basket and have your little one empty out their cup holders into the basket, and try another round.

Happy Easter! Here our some photos from our egg hunt yesterday. Dying over Henry's serious egg-hunting face. And this first photo here is of our beloved children's librarian, Mr. Steve. He's the best.


 

DIY Gift Idea & Tutorial: Make a Magic Suitcase!

Henry's  very lucky to have a lot of special people in his life- three sets of grandparents, aunts and uncles, friends who are like family- but there isn't quite anyone like Erin. Erin and I have been friends forever. We went to the same junior high and high school, and although I knew her brother (he was in the sports medicine program and wrapped my ankle before every soccer game!) she and I never had the chance to really connect. After high school though, we finally got a chance to know one another and I fell in total friend love with the girl. Now she's been one of my closest friends for over a decade, a bridesmaid in our wedding, a dear friend of Hanks, and an auntie to Henry.

Erin is one of "those" women, the kind of woman that everyone always has questions for: where did you get that? How did you do that? And the most common- did you REALLY make that? The answer to the last question, when talking about Erin, is always, always yes. She's insanely talented at what she does, which is everything. She's a true Martha, a crafter extraordinaire, and although I've been bugging her for years to start a blog, all of her creations never see the light of the blog world. Instead, her friends and family get to quietly enjoy them as she often showers her loved ones with the most amazing presents. She's not just the most creative person I know, but one of the most giving too.

And today Erin is here to share a tutorial on what has to be the GREATEST child's gift I've ever seen. And lucky Henry, it's all his!

It's a magic case, filled with children's costumes, and Erin is here to give us the background on her wonderful creation.

For this project you'll need:

Vintage suitcase (use one that has flat, paintable surfaces)
Acrylic paint
Paint brushes
Paint markers
Chalk

Step 1: Form a plan for how you would like to paint the front of your suitcase

Step 2: Throw out half of step 1 and form a new simplified version for the sake of sleep. I printed the lettering out and using a lightbox, traced it onto the banner to make sure it would read nicely.

I used chalk to sketch out the design on the suitcase and printed the letters from the day before in scale with the new banner. After trying endlessly to redraw the hands I decided to scan my drawing, colorize them in photoshop and print them out.

Next, using paint pens and acrylic paint I painted the chalked image onto the suitcase. While the paint on the crystal ball was wet I sprinkled glitter on it.

Step 3: fill with costumes and fun hats! Anything that will get a child's imagination going. You do not have to spend money on this - think old dress shirt and ties, robes, dresses you don't wear...kids love it all!

Now if you will, please join me in BEGGING Erin to start a DIY/Craft blog. The world wide web could use some fresh ideas from Ms. Peters, wouldn't you agree?

Thank you EP for sharing. And to everyone else, happy DIY-ing and gifting! Please let us know if you decide to make a magic case of your own, and be sure to send photos so I can share them in a future post. And if you have any questions be sure to leave them in the comments, and I'll pass them along to Erin.

xoxo

It's a good week to be Henry Hampton.

Oh, to be Henry Hampton for a day. Hank and I often joke about it when I send him photos while he's at work, always laughing over how good he has it, with those park days and sandwiches with the crusts cut off, and never-ending cups of milk. It's the good life for sure. And this week is an especially good week to be Henry.

I'd say the highlight so far would have to be Sesame Street Live. A big group of us went with all the kiddos and it was so, so great. Hank and I might have been the only parents in the audience crying though- we are both so sappy and got overwhelmed watching Henry's joy and excitement over being so close to the characters. When I mouthed "I'm crying!" to Hank over Henry's head, and he responded with "ahh, me too!" it was definitely one of those funny moments I'll be filing away right along with Henry's adorable first reaction when Big Bird came out. It made my heart melt into a huge, huge puddle right there in the arena and I don't think I recovered it until the very end of the show. It was such a fun night and one of my favorite parenting moments yet. Who knew Big Bird and Elmo could ellicit such emotion?!

This week we've also kept busy doing arts and crafts. After watching this video over on Small Fry, Henry exclaimed "I paint too, Mommy!" So I got out the watercolors and we created some masterpieces. Henry was partial to the reds and blues and it was so fun to watch him figure out how it all worked. His art is now proudly hanging on display in his room and on the fridge, and this morning he stopped and said "I made that!" with a huge smile on his face. Before I become a parent I would think about moments like these, and it's pretty darn awesome to see them come to life.


This week has been full of some good outdoor time too. We've been trying to soak up every bit of the fall before our cold winter sets in and snow keeps us bundled up inside. We're lucky enough to have a couple of great parks close by so we can either walk or drive right down the road. Although whenever I really take a look around, I feel like parks are the biggest toddler hazard in the world. All of those places to fall from, hard bars to knock your mouth into, slides to go down haphazardly...it all gives me a bit of anxiety. I feel like "park time" also equals "cardio time" for parents. Am I right?! Either way though, my little daredevil loves it, and it's neat to see him be so fearless. More so scary, but still pretty neat.

xoxo