Archive for the ‘arts and crafts’ Category

{Superheroes, ahoy!} Seattle Area Lifestyle Photographer

February 23rd, 2012

Hey, guess what? I’m guest blogging a great crayon craft over at Parent Twin today. Thanks for the opportunity to share more kid friendly crafts, Darlena! —— My boys are obsessed with super heroes. We have capes. My youngest was Superman for halloween. My oldest is talking about a lego Batman superhero party. We. Love. [...]
 

Hey, guess what? I’m guest blogging a great crayon craft over at Parent Twin today. Thanks for the opportunity to share more kid friendly crafts, Darlena!

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My boys are obsessed with super heroes. We have capes. My youngest was Superman for halloween. My oldest is talking about a lego Batman superhero party. We. Love. Superheroes. :) So when I saw this superhero craft on the awesome Made by Joel website, I knew that the boys would love it.

We started off with toilet paper rolls, and drew Superman and Batman on them. I pushed down one end to make the pointy  Batman ears.

My older son made Robin and the Joker.

We did some coloring on them before we started painting.

 

Then we broke out the watercolors.

 

My three year old contemplating which colors to paint

 

And…finished superheroes! Pretty cute, eh?

 

We added some capes made of construction paper to them as well. 

Breakfast of superheroes!

 

Mom, don’t get between me and my superheroes.

 

And my youngest from halloween. SUPERMAN!

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{Leprechaun Trap!} Seattle Area Lifestyle Photographer

February 21st, 2012

Now that the Valentines Day madness is behind us, we look forward to the next holiday and holiday madness. Last year, my boys really got into St. Patrick’s Day, and in particular, if leprechauns were real or not. I found this cool tutorial for a leprechaun trap, and we went to town! What you need: [...]
 

Now that the Valentines Day madness is behind us, we look forward to the next holiday and holiday madness. Last year, my boys really got into St. Patrick’s Day, and in particular, if leprechauns were real or not. I found this cool tutorial for a leprechaun trap, and we went to town!

What you need:

  • Round container (I used a Quaker Oats container)
  • Green Paper, black paper, and yellow paper for decorations
  • Sticks (for the ladder)
  • Cotton Ball and Glitter (for the gold)
  • Pocket Knife

This was a pretty easy craft, I had the boys cut out shamrocks and do all the gluing and taping. I put the cotton ball inside a box, let them coat it in watered down glue (to soak into the cotton ball), then glitter the heck out of it. **NOTE** Do this outdoors or it’ll look like a glitter bomb went off in your house. Then we found sticks and hot glued them together to make the ladder.

 

Here is what our finished trap looked like! The sign was very important, as we read that leprechauns don’t like to be told what NOT to do.

Here was the hole we put on top, then we put the “gold nugget” to cover up the hole. The theory was, leprechaun would see the sign, climb up the ladder to take the gold, then fall in and be trapped! 

We put the trap outside the boys’ bedroom window. Here they are eagerly waiting for the leprechaun

And…here is what they discovered. Leprechauns can bust out of traps! You can tell by the outline of the leprechaun the next day. He did however leave some green footprints, and quarters for the boys.

 

Photobucket

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{Boy Room Decor, Part 2} Seattle Area Lifestyle Photographer

February 19th, 2012

Having two artistic and opinionated boys results in a lot of not-so-subtle parental guidance towards room decor. I have already talked about some of the decorating we’ve done in the boys’ shared room in my boy room decor, part 1 post. In this post, I’ll talk about the art gallery arrangement we have up on [...]
 

Having two artistic and opinionated boys results in a lot of not-so-subtle parental guidance towards room decor. I have already talked about some of the decorating we’ve done in the boys’ shared room in my boy room decor, part 1 post. In this post, I’ll talk about the art gallery arrangement we have up on the wall to display the copious amounts of artwork the boys seem to churn out. Younger brother also finally gave us his approval on what he wanted for his part of the bunk bed, so we have the finished rocketship bunk bed as well. Hooray!

Here is what our art wall gallery looks like. The IMAGINE letters were cut by my husband and painted by the boys. I strung picture wire on nails to make the two rows. The wooden turtle, train, sailboat and soccer ball were purchased at Michael’s and also painted by the boys. They are there to cover up the nail heads.

I used clothespins to pin the pictures to the picture wire. We cut out the stars from scrapbook paper, then glued them to the clothespin for a fancier look

My son shows off how pleased he was to finally have someplace he could display his work.

My husband dressed the boys in preparation for their help with painting the rocket ship.

Little brother was very intent on helping

Big brother was much better on spreading on a thin coat of primer, as opposed to the glupping on that little brother was doing. :)

And…ta dah! The finished rocket ship bed!

Can you spot the three year old? He loves his new, sleek rocket ship bed.

 

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{Year of the Dragon} Seattle Area Lifestyle Photographer

February 17th, 2012

While January 1st may  be celebrated as the New Year in western cultures, in most Asian countries new year is celebrated on the Lunar calendar. In Viet Nam, it’s called Tet and it started on January 23rd this year. 2012 is also the Year of the Dragon, which is special to me because it’s also [...]
 

While January 1st may  be celebrated as the New Year in western cultures, in most Asian countries new year is celebrated on the Lunar calendar. In Viet Nam, it’s called Tet and it started on January 23rd this year. 2012 is also the Year of the Dragon, which is special to me because it’s also the birth year for myself and my husband. The boys are Year of the Rooster (2005) and Year of the Rat (2008) respectively.  People born in the Year of the Dragon are said to be prosperous, attractive, arrogant, and charismatic. The Seattle area has a great Tet in Seattle celebration every year which features delicious Vietnamese cuisine, dragon dancing, and a fun kids’ show put on by local schools. We celebrated this year by eating great food, making dragon shadow puppets, and checking out the lion dances!


Dragon dancers are the bomb!

I found this Chinese dragon shadow puppet template and had the boys each make one. I glued the template to a cereal box to make it sturdier. here my littlest one shows off his awesome coloring job.

The six year old did this one, can you tell? All cut out and glued together. 

 

Raow rawo raow! I love the look of adoration on little brother’s face. I’m fairly certain there was a story being played out when i took this picture.

The boys in the traditional Vietnamese Ao Dai

 

Playing with their dragon puppets

 

If you ask my kids, the best part of New Year is always lixi, which means lucky money. It comes in little red envelops like this.

 

I think this smile sums up what he thought about the red envelop.

This was the first year my youngest really understood that getting lixi meant money. Here was what he thought of the whole thing.

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{Boy Room Decor, part 1} – Seattle Area Lifestyle Photographer

January 27th, 2012

We live in a three bedroom rambler, which means limited bedroom space. Neither my husband nor I were willing to give up the bedroom we had turned into a study so each boy could have his own bedroom. Since our home was built in the awesome 70s, the bedrooms are a decent enough size to [...]
 

We live in a three bedroom rambler, which means limited bedroom space. Neither my husband nor I were willing to give up the bedroom we had turned into a study so each boy could have his own bedroom. Since our home was built in the awesome 70s, the bedrooms are a decent enough size to have the boys share. To maximize floor/playspace, we have them in a bunk bed, and gave them some leeway in room decor. When they are teenagers, this free reign in room decorating may come back to bite me on the behind, but for now, both boys love their room, and are extremely happy to spend time in it both individually and as playmates. Parts of the works in progress include painting the room something else other than gender neutral teal, making a matching alien spaceship for the bottom bunk, and maybe even investing in real furniture. Baby steps though, right now! Baby boy decorating steps, that is. :)

 

The boys have a bunk bed, and we made this awesome rocket ship to enclose my oldest in the top bunk. (he is a big mover in his sleep, and already fell out before we put it up). Big kudos and credit go to my husband who designed the layout and painted the rocketship.

 

The door to their room needed to be either replaced or refinished or…something. It was peeling. There were scuff marks. So, we did a painting project. First, we painted little boy feet. For any of you out there, I would suggest if you do this with a three year old, make sure a parent HOLDS THEIR FEET APART, or you may get streak pink/green feet like we did.

Next, we let them walk with their painted feet on the door.

 

Then, we painted their hands.

 

And voila, we have an easily decorated and fun boy’ room door. I dated it for prosterity at the top.

I also put names by each set of hand and foot prints. I admit, I got a little sniffly seeing how close in size my boys’ hands and foot prints are these days. They are growing up so quickly, I thought it was a nice reminder of how little they are now.

 

And there you have it, what two boys, some paint, and a little creativity can do to decorate a room. In boy decor, part 2, I’ll showcase how we made an art wall to hang up the gazillion pieces of preschool and elementary school artwork that they come home with, that doesn’t involve the recycling center.

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