Sunday, October 30, 2011

A Sickly October/Passing the Time with Crafts

Kenly has been sickly in October. Adam and I are both hoping that she's getting it all out of the way before the baby arrives. We've spent a bunch of time trapped in the house fighting colds and ear infections. Since I can only watch so many episode of Sid the Science Kid or Dora, we had to keep busy in some other way.

When we reached my 36th week of pregnancy, I wanted to give Kenly a tangible way to judge the time until the baby arrives. So, we made a paper chain to count the days. We decided to make the links pink and blue since Baby Whatzit's gender is a mystery. We've marked other exciting events on the chain with stars. Kenly rips off a link every day after she finished breakfast. Now the chain is only about as tall as Kenly.  Exciting and Scary.
During Kenly's cold, we made these adorable black cat hand print cards.  I found the idea on The Crafty Crow blog.  We used black acrylic paint for the hand print.  We also used orange acrylic paint for the thumbprint pumpkins.    The face was simply cut out of black construction paper.  Kenly used googlie eyes and craft foam for the nose.  I drew whiskers with a silver colored pencil. We later added a Happy Halloween banner and then sent them off to our friends and family to celebrate the upcoming holiday.  I plan on framing the one we kept to use as a Halloween decoration for years to come.
When she started to feel some better, we iced the cookies she baked with Mops.  There's nothing like orange icing and sprinkles to make your disposition better.  We also baked some yummy apple muffins, but I'm feeling far to lazy today to attach the recipe.

I started running out of ideas on our fourth day trapped in the house, so we broke out the finger paints.  We also spent a great deal of time using stickers and coloring Halloween themed pictures.
Then creative genius hit again when we were unpacking our Halloween decorations.  I rediscovered some candle holders I made at a MOPS meeting when Kenly was about a year old.  Kenly and I found two very expired jars of baby food in the pantry and then created these lovely Halloween candle holders.  I think we are going to make these for every holiday.  Kenly had the idea to make the candy corn.  She also wanted to make a monster. 
These are so easy to make.  We used Elmer's glue, construction paper, tissue paper, and a fan to help with the drying process.   First, we thinned the glue with a bit of water.   We painted the whole baby food jar and then placed strips of tissue paper on the glue.  We covered the tissue paper with another layer of glue and then applied another layer of tissue.  Keep repeating this step until you like the color.  Coat the final layer of tissue with more thinned glue.  Let it dry completely.  Then ask your toddler what type of face the "critters" should have.  Glue on the accents and then coat the whole thing with another thick layer of thinned glue.  Let it dry completely again.  Add a tea light candle and enjoy your handiwork.
Happy Halloween!

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