We like to paint in this house. Mostly Eve and I like to paint, but Lex gets involved sometimes too. Recently for a girls night out, some friends and I went to a pottery studio and painted. I made this birthday plate and a little pink bunny.

Yes, I know it looks like a child’s work, but really it was all me! I’ve always wanted a family birthday plate. :) Lucky for me MY birthday comes next!

When you finish painting you leave your piece there and they put the glaze on and then fire it in the kiln. A week later they call and you go pick it up. When I went to pick them up the kids were SO excited and talked me in to staying to let them paint too. Actually it is something I’ve always wanted to do with them. The timing wasn’t the best, but we stayed and had a pretty good time. Eve painted a unicorn, Lex picked a heart shaped box, and I did a cool tea mug! I’ll post pictures next week when we pick them up.

Hard at work, painting unicorns and heart shaped boxes.

The kids have already decided what they want to paint next, when we go back to pick up these pieces, but the place isn’t cheap so things may “happen” such that I pick up our finished pieces without them! School is starting soon, right? ;)

I think I have the messiest craftiest children ever!  This is a good thing, I know, because their brains are active, but so are the scissors, tape, and scraps!

They are currently working on a 3D paper railway, much like his paper race cars and paper airline. I can’t find a link so apparently I haven’t blogged about his paper airlines yet.  He has two separate paper airlines and an airport!

Lex is nice enough to help Eve draw these “blown out” trains as well. They draw the outline, color them in, cut them apart, and then tape the edges together, resulting in a 3D object.

Lex’s first train and coal car, on the tracks. Lex likes to be in the pictures these days. :)

Now they are working on trains.  He made a few trains over the weekend and some tracks connected with metal fasteners.  Today I found some empty Lipton tea boxes (I drink it by the GALLON!) and they both decided to use them for stations. 

Lex’s train station, complete with clock (on top) and ticket counter (inside). It’s actually cool the way he connected the tracks with fasteners so when it’s time to clean up they all fold together and tuck underneath the station.

Eve has a habit of cutting tiny pieces of paper and then taping them to things. While she could use a large piece and tape it once, she much prefers lots of cutting, lots of pieces, and lots of tape. Despite, or perhaps because of, my repeated requests to the contrary. For her it’s more about the ongoing story as she constructs and less about the finished product. In fact, she rarely ever finishes a project, they just continue until I make her stop!

When it was time to clean up she switched games and announced, “Let’s pretend I’m your maid!”  Um, ok!  Turns out she is a very good maid!  She cleaned up all the scraps (with marginal help from Lex), swept the entire kitchen/dining room floor, and helped Lex clean up his mess in the living room.  Then she wanted to vacuum!  I told her it was dinner time and invited her to join us “since my daughter is at a sleep over party tonight and won’t be joining us for dinner.”   The game continued through dinner and afterwards she jumped up and headed for the vacuum cleaner!  While Lex took a bath, Eve vacuumed the office and half of the living room!  She did a pretty decent job of it too.  The game ended when she wet her pants and I made her get in the bath. :)

She swept with the broom and then she Swiffered!

One benefit of their extended crafty periods is it gives me time to make yummy dinners! Tonight was spinach basil pasta with cheesy roasted tomatoes, salad, and cheesy garlic bread. Much of it fresh from today’s CSA pick-up! I like having the kids nearby while I’m in the kitchen. They make me happy. :)

Vacuuming after dinner. She really worked hard!

The freshly clean maid decided she should spend the night here, in my daughter’s princess bed, so she could finish vacuuming in the morning.  Sweet!  The best part is she doesn’t even ask for payment!  I do love my daughter but I sure hope this maid sticks around for awhile!  :)

There is nothing better than coming across an awesome project on a blog and doing it that day. Even better is when it’s a project that doesn’t require me turning my computer back on and following the directions. A one-two easy-peasy project that I can pull out at a moment’s notice. A project that I can even whip up more parts when a neighbor comes over to play unexpectedly. Good times. Thanks Becky @ Rub Some Dirt On It!

Read her site for directions and beautiful photos. Stay here for the usual pics of my kids. :)

Plastic cup, cut off the bottom. Balloon, tie one end, cut the other. Stretch balloon over cup, add tape (we add tape to everything, like salt). Pull on balloon “tail” to launch things. She recommends pom-poms, but we have a lack of those in our house so we tried cotton balls (too light), random pieces of plastic (too risky), and Legos (perfect).

We set up a series of targets. We had some pricing stickers lying around that I though we could use for points. Somehow we used them for actual money and I ended up paying Lex $1.75!

Setting the stage.

Things got a little tricky when our neighbor stopped by. I whipped up a Lego Launcher for him in less than a minute, but the game held his attention for only about that long anyway. The problem was he drew Eve away from the game, thereby ending the nice family time we were having. Sigh.

Nothing distracted this guy though! He kept asking the other two to come back and play, but they wouldn’t, so he kept on alone. He loved the game!

It’s cold and raining outside today, so this afternoon we kept busy inside instead. We baked peanut butter cookies (YUM!), and made crafts from left over paper bags from Eve’s birthday party, and started a top-secret craft project that I’ve been working on (if you count “thinking about” as working) for about a year now. What’s slower than molasses in January? Me with craft projects!

Eve made a "subway" for her new otter. I think that was the final idea. It went through many changes as she added to it.

Lex made a "periscope mask" by attaching an empty butter box to a paper bag.

He can see through the box, kind of.

I made some "sustaining food" to get us through these dark and crafty days.

The start of our top-secret project. Eve loves painting. She'd do it all day if I let her. :)

The mask gets some decorative details.

All done. Until tomorrow anyway.

Ok, off to get the kids in bed. Alan bathed them tonight so I could do some work. Blogging counts as work, right? :)

While research butterfly activities I cam across this beautiful project. I knew we couldn’t do exactly the same thing since I didn’t want to spend money on that awesome Martha Stewart butterfly punch or on canvas, and hot glue isn’t a standard part of our crafting activities yet, but I wanted to try something similar. Yesterday we painted paper. Easy peasy.

This afternoon we started cutting out butterflies. I thought this would be fun, but turns out the kids were pretty bored. I think we all would have had more fun with the butterfly punch :) I was thinking of a beautiful mobile or something with the butterflies, but since only one side was painted I decided that wouldn’t be as beautiful as I’d imagined. Then I was thinking of chaining them together… but we ended out getting out the glue instead. Give my kids a good glue stick and some paper (or not) and they are happy crafters!

Cutting butterflies. Not quite as fun as a punch, but I enjoyed it.

Butterfly cards

Watch your mailbox, some of these butterflies may be heading your way…