How to make your own moby wrap:

You’ll want to get 5-6 yards of interlock fabric.  Each batch of fabric can create 2-3 wraps.   You will want to cut your fabric into long strips.  I folded the fabric like a hotdog.  The width of each strip needs to be a minimum of 16 inches wide (I have some as wide as 25 inches – but they are more bulky).  I laid my fabric out on our couch to help contain the yardage as I cut them.  Viola!  You now have 2-3 moby wraps!

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How to wrap your baby:

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We made borax snowflakes, it was really easy and fun. We made 4 of them and gave them to grandparents when they visited. Our biggest challenge was finding a jar with a wide enough mouth. I copied the directions from about.com

How to make Borax Snow Crystals:

1.Cut a pipe cleaner into three equal sections and twist the sections together at their centers to form a six-sided snowflake shape. Don’t worry if an end isn’t even, just trim to get the desired shape. The snowflake should fit inside the jar.
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2.Tie the string to the end of one of the snowflake arms. Tie the other end of the string to the pencil. You want the length to be such that the pencil hangs the snowflake into the jar.

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3.Fill the widemouth pint jar with boiling water and add borax one tablespoon at a time to the boiling water, stirring to dissolve after each addition. The amount used is 3 tablespoons borax per cup of water. It is okay if some undissolved borax settles to the bottom of the jar.  If you want tint, now is the time to add it.  We used food coloring

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4.Hang the pipe cleaner snowflake into the jar so that the pencil rests on top of the jar and the snowflake is completely covered with liquid and hangs freely (not touching the bottom of the jar).  Allow the jar to sit in an undisturbed location overnight.
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5.  Wake up to the sight of the pretty crystals!!! You can hang your snowflake as a decoration or in a window to catch the sunlight

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Thanks again Pam and Troop Petrie kiddos for sharing your science experiment with us!

This week we read Good Morning, Pond, by Alyssa Satin Capucilli. This book starts off with a frog leaping into the pond and waking up all the animals that live in and around the pond and ends with three children coming to see all the animals in the pond. Emily loved acting out the different sounds and motions of the various animals in this story, of course the frog was her very favorite. I liked that it was written in a semi cumulative story form. It made if a lot of fun to read and easy for Emily to follow along.

I picked this book out because Emily loves frogs at the moment and I thought that she would enjoy reading a book with a frog in it and then making a frog project to go with it. I love projects made out of paper plates so I thought it would be fun to make a frog out of one. To go along with this book.

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How to make your own paper plate frog

First, Emily painted the front and back of a paper plate green.  While the paper plate was drying Emily colored in black circles on the top of two green bottle tops. (We had these in our huge bottle top collection.)  I drew and cut out frog arms and legs on green construction paper. Emily received Do-a-Dot markers for Easter (She was so excited!!) so she wanted to color in the frogs arms and legs a little more with them.

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After all the pieces were dry, Emily folded the paper plate in half and I made a small slit in the middle of the fold to slide the tongue which I cut out of craft foam through. Then Emily glued on the arms, legs….

… and bottle cap eyes.  Isn’t the finished product so much fun!  Thanks again to Mommy’s Adventures for sharing their story+art or “stART” project with us! Do you have a project you’d love to share with the QM readers? Feel free to email it to me! admin@quirkymomma.com

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For my youngest, while she does color with crayons, today she was more interested in banging them so I helped her color in her page. She’d hand me a new color every few seconds and I’d tell her the name of the color, have her repeat it back to me and then scribble like mad till she picked out the next crayon. She loved it and thought I was “so silly.”  It is the highest compliment my toddler gives someone. After we colored them we got on our art shirts and mixed up our shaving cream paint. As I am trying to encourage my youngest to not finger paint, there is a time for finger painting but also a time for more orderly – aka clean – fun, we got some old makeup sponges out and used those to help spread our paint.

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I love how the paint makes the crayon jump out at you! The finished product of our painted crayon works of art are beautiful! 

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Grab 4 bottles of bubbles and food coloring. I was fortunate enough to satisfy my obsessive nature by matching my dye to the bottles. You don’t have to be so picky!

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Open the bubbles and squirt half a bottle of coloring into each bubble container. I didn’t take this task outside. It’s messy, so you should go outside before you squirt food coloring all over your dining room table!

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Speaking of messy: do you have an art easel taking up too much room inside? If you want to make your deck the coolest place on the block, move it outside for the Summer! It’s so much easier to clean up paints and chalk dust, and we end up doing tons more artwork if I know we aren’t going to make the house a disaster. We have these: No-Spill Paint Cups With Lids and I use half of them for paint, and the other half hold our chalk. The lid keeps out any moisture, and I don’t have to bring our supplies back and forth.

Back to the bubble paint: take out the wands and change the kiddies into old clothes. The goal is to blow bubbles aimed at the paper, and when the bubble pops it leaves a great design. My kids thought it would be better to take the Jackson Pollock route.

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Looks like they had a blast!  Thanks again, Lawrence Girls and Daddy Too for a fun craft idea!

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What were our edible paints? Random dips from our fridge (including French’s Honey Mustard, Ranch dressing and ketchup). I hoped that the dips would mix together, that ranch salad dressing and ketchup would make “pink”, or that ketchup and French’s Honey Mustard would make “orange”, but that was not the case. Although they did not blend well,  the kids still had a great time!  We cut up a mixture of veggies for our “paint brushes” and had fun stamping different textures and playing with our food.

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As the pictures show, my youngest was ecstatic to be included in her siblings “craft” time and I was thrilled she devoured her “trees”.  Not only was this a great toddler/early preschooler craft, it was also a great way to encourage her to eat her veggies. Want more edible painting fun with your toddler?  Check out our painting your pancakes post.

What you’ll need to create your own buckle clipping toy:

• Plastic Buckles (I found mine for a few bucks off ebay)
• Various ribbon scraps
• Two pieces of fabric – we used canvas as it was sturdy
• Other fun items (we added a pacifier, a bell, a key-chain, a zipper. I can also see this being a hit with various sizes and textures of Velcro).
• Sewing machine and thread.

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How to make this toddler learning toy:

First, I threaded the buckles through the ribbon and affixed them to the right side of the fabric, or the side I wanted to be visible.   Then, I pinned the other piece of canvas (pretty side in) and sewed along the edge, leaving one side open, like a pillowcase.  We clipped the corners and turned the “pillowcase” inside out.  Now the buckles, which had been pinned on the inside of the two pieces of canvas, are on the outside.  I reinforced the seams with another straight stitch along the outside, added a zipper and viola!  I love homemade toys.  Our toddler has had hours of fun clipping and unclipping these buckles!

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Want to see another version?  Miss M from Splendidly Imperfect created her own clipping toy.  She added a snap, and some blocks to hers!  It looks great!  Here’s the photo she sent our way.  Check out her blog for other crafty ideas.

For my daughter’s 4th birthday, we got her a kid’s digital camera.  She loved it from the second we opened the package, and started taking pictures of anything and everything she saw.  Holidays, a trip to the zoo, playdates with her friends… you name it, she photographed it!

I came across a 3 ring binder that had a window on the cover for you to slide in a photo.  I figured I would put a picture of her there to personalize it a little.  Next, I printed out her pictures on regular printer paper, using our color printer.  Then I grabbed a pair of our kiddie zigzag scissors, a few magazines and catalogs I had lying around, and some glue.  I thought the zigzag scissors cuts would add an element of fun to the pictures while also helping to disguise the less-than-perfect cuts she’d make.

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A few weeks back I spied some pine offcuts in exactly the same shapes.  I scooped them up and spirited them away to preschool.

Unfortunately the wood pieces ran out before their desire to paint did.  So they began to paint the wooden pallet.  And then the logs.

What you need to make your own Shaking Bottle Toddler Toy:

• Some fun bottles
• Gorilla Glue
• Collection of charms, beads, glitter, small plastic toys, buttons, etc.  We even cut up a straw for our blue bottle.

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I had used hot glue before and rubber cement, even super glue, for our “I Spy Rice Jars”.  The problem with hot glue and rubber cement is that it is malable.  The problem with super glue is its ability to crack.  My son was able to open the jars given enough time and boredom (both in abundance during road trips) using all those other glues.  Gorilla Glue is really tough!  So far we’ve used it to put back together magnets, plastic doll heads, toy cars, etc.  Its great stuff.   I think I’ve finally found a glue that works!
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How to make your Shaking Bottle:

• Add the charms, beads, etc.
• Top off your bottle with water (or you can use rice, silica balls, oil, etc.)
• Glue the lid back on

Hand your toy to your toddler to shake, bang and bite to their hearts content!  Even my older preschoolers enjoy these bottles!  We play can you find the “dime” or whatever, it is a great way to keep them active on a trip.  Hopefully, these will remain in one piece.

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I know these are pretty popular.  Have you made one?  Feel free to leave a link to your shaking bottle in the comments and I’ll include it in an updated version of this post!