One of the odd, unwritten blog rules is “thou shalt not blog on weekends,” but I’m crazy like that I guess. Besides tomorrow is St. Patrick’s Day. And one of the unwritten rules of having school age children is “you must participate in every holiday no matter what.” Pi day? Talk like a pirate day? 100th day of school? Grandparents day? Crazy sock day? I have celebrated them all.

I have also prepared for all of them frantically the night before or the morning of said holiday. If you are nodding in agreement, this craft is for you. If you are throughly prepared with crocheted red beards and cardboard leprechaun hats or if you are genuinely Irish and have been corning your beef for weeks (or however it’s done) then you don’t need me and my slap dash craft.

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Super simple and super fun project. Cut out a square of a picture from a magazine or newspaper. Next, glue it to a piece of paper. Then finish the drawing. See what strange and hilarious things come out of it! Title of my children’s works appear below the pictures. (please excuse the crummy phone photos.)

Alligator Loves His New Pants

Two people sitting on a couch with their heads on fire and Monster 

Pretty Darn Cute Cat

Two Donuts

Have you done any good projects lately?

This, my friends, is what my kids did all weekend (and last weekend and the one before). What are they doing? Making magic potions, of course!

My creative, talented, and lovely friend Helen, and her son, made this amazing Magic Potion Kit.  My son was very lucky to receive it for his birthday. It couldn’t have been more perfect. Previously my son had been making odd mixtures from glue and dirt and soap and whatever else he could scrounge up. Now he had ingredients never before seen to man, replete with pipettes and giant caldron!

The magic potion kit has all the things a 6 year old could want:

• messy things
• exploding things
• yucky things
• magical things

The magic potion kit also has everything a mother could ever want:

• non-toxic things
• easily clean-up-able things
• cheap and easily replaceable things
• quiet children engaged in creative play

1. danger! live slime  2. unicorn tears  3. moth wings and bat claws  4. juicy eyeballs 5. magic potions  6. bat tongues  7. dragon skin  8. ground up vampire bones 9.a great big caldron full of magic!

I love how every bit of this gift is handmade, most of it is recycled, and all of it inspires creativity. What more could you want?

Making hula hoops is surprisingly simple and cheap to boot: some polyurethane pipe, a connector, and duct tape. Done.

I scanned some random directions quickly when I was in the hardware store, but there are many good tutorials for making hula hoops out there. This video by Elizabeth Mitchel–who is awesome by the way–tells you how it’s done.

toothpicks + grapes

=sculptures and snacks