Birthday present

I painted a wooden picture frame and a small wooden box and glued EVA flowers on them. These were a birthday present for an 8-year-old girl.

Thoughts about a week without TV

We spent last week without watching TV and it was a really good experience. The kids did ask for a certain program a few times but were happy not swithing the TV on most of the time. The first days just flew by with especially Lucas getting really creative and just playing non-stop with any object he'd get his hands on. He also started to draw a lot (which is something he does on and off).
I had to work some afternoons but I tried to get creative with the kids and always leave them with something to do when hubby or their cousin was taking care of them. We finally thought of at least something to do with the cardboard that comes in apple boxes! These are drawn by Luana and myself (picture above).

All the creativity seemed to be contagious and my husband came out with this tractor for Lucas using a small carton and some cardboard. Lucas was so proud of the tractor and showed it to everyone. And I just loved my hubby's recycled piece of crafting! :)

Lucas is interested in insects and always wants to observe them with a magnifying lense. I'm so glad he's taken an interest in them instead of wanting to step on them or pull their wings or anything like that. He either observes them where they are of gets a piece of paper and tries carefully to get them on the paper so he can take them inside. I think he needs a magnifying glass of his own...

Here's Lucas' own shot of that insect.

All in all a very good week although we're back with the TV... I talked to the kids about it quite a bit and we agreed to reduce the time used for watching TV and be careful not to have it switched on when no one is actually watching anything.

Finger puppets at the orphanage

These are some of the finger puppets that the kids at the orphanage came up with last Friday. I had sewn the puppets and the decorated them as they wished. Some of the kids really got into it and would have made more. I was especially pleased as one kid with very little concentration planned and made his puppet from start to finish by himself.

EVA crafting

These cute little things will become bookmarks and travel to a very special family in the US. I hope they like them!

And this is a decoration for my sunday school classroom. There are still a few bits and pieces missing but I guess you'll get the idea.

Inspiration for all of these comes from this creative blog.

Crafting

We went to a birthday party tonight and I made a little something for the 7-year-old birthday girl. I used a washed can that I had kept and covered it with EVA. The little notebook has EVA cover and it was bound at a copy shop (or whatever they're called in English...). Below there's a close up on the can. The idea came from here.

We created small notebooks with the kids at the orphanage a week ago. The kids made the covers with EVA and I had the notebooks bound for them. I think they came out really cute. Next time I'll put a cardboard or a plastic behind the notebooks though as they'll be more resistant.

Cute pegs

I got the idea for these cute pegs from this creative blog. I prepared these four and we made lots more with the kids at the orphanage where I volunteer (I do crafting with the kids once a week). The material is EVA and I used a black permanent marker for drawing the eyes, mouths etc.

The kids at the orphanage loved these and asked for more. Next week we'll decorate pens and I'll come up with something else from the same material for them.

Underwater diorama

We've been working on this for quite some time now. First we did some glittery fish, then another day the starfish and finally (already some time ago) the crabs. Then we painted some A4s to fit the underwater world and glued them on the inside of a cardboard box. We put some stones inside and I hung the fish and voilá! The kids were happy with the result and they proudly show it to anyone visiting our house.

All inspiration from the Underwater issue of Kids Craft Weekly.

EVA magnets

I've got plenty of EVA at home as I use it for making flowers. The other day the kids wanted to craft "anything" so we made these small magnets. The butterfly and the turtle on the right are Luana's and she made them all by herself. I cut the car after Lucas' instructions (he picked the colours and the decoration). When we were done we glued a magnet on the other side and let the glue dry until the next day. Very easy and the kids would have made many more had we had time for that.

Ice cream

This idea is yet again from Kids Craft Weekly and I've been meaning to do this for a while already. The kids have been into playing in their little kitchen so I thought this one would fit in nicely.

Cutting all the ingredients.

Lucas making ice cream balls.

Luana cutting decorations.

And finally the ice cream parlour opened!

My cone with strawberry ice cream, cherries, strawberries and a waffle.

Cold porcelain jars

We made a cookie jar with our teacher last week. These cookies are made with forms but I made some at home by myself and they look quite real too.

These small jars are for my kids. I wanted to practice making little people without forms and I had as a reference two key chains that someone else had made out of cold porcelain. It took me ages (an hour and 40 minutes) to complete these two and there are still lots of things to do better next time... The kids loved them however :)

Cold porcelain with the kids

On Saturday I sat down with the kids and let them play with cold porcelain. We had a couple of colours and my intention was to make play food. Lucas came up with super cute popsickles all by himself. Luana made a fantasy cake as well as some smaller things and I "baked" some cakes for small dolls. It was so much fun that we'll definitely do this many more times together.

Learning new things

Luana learning to crochet with grandma. She's well on her way to become a craftster like me and my mum... :)

Memory game

I got this idea once more from Kids Craft Weekly. We don't usually have any plastic cups but these were used last week when we had people over for a BBQ. I wasn't actually even thinking about saving them and washing them as they're really thin and break easily but Luana wanted to keep them in order to use them for some crafting later on. I love it when she wants to recycle something before I even think about it! So we kept the cups and washed them and as I was browsing Kids Craft newsletters looking for something completely different I saw this memory game. We just used stickers inside the cups and the game was made very quickly. The kids really liked a different kind of memory game.

Pirate crafting

The kids have been really into playing pirates this week so it was a perfect day for making these fantastic pirate hats. The idea is from Kids craft weekly from the second pirate newsletter. We didn't have any sequins to decorate the hats so we emptied the hole punch container and used the little circles instead of sequins. Worked out fine but the kids got tired of putting them on as they're so small.

For little Ruan

One of the little cousins of the family Ruan is seriously ill with Werdning-Hoffman syndrome (I first posted about him here). His parents had initially thought about bringing him back home and treating him here with an intensive care unit built in their home. However they've now decided to stay in São Paulo in order to take care of him there. His grandma, one of his aunts and one cousin will travel over to see him and his parents after Christmas and I made this little thing to send over with them. It's hand-sown out of felt with a little filling and a ribbon to hang it from.

This is like a test version as I'm thinking about making more of these (and other things out of felt) and selling them here in the bushes...

In the countryside

We went to visit some relatives in the countryside this weekend. My sister-in-law is the teacher of a tiny village school and I had the opportunity to visit the school again (we were there in December last year for the first time, I posted about that in here). They don't have any crafting supplies so I took some with me and we did some stars for Christmas.

Luana and Lucas came with us to the school as did their little cousin. She's only 4 but she usually follows her mother to school and is quite used to being there. There are less than 10 students between grades 1 and 4. I love to visit them as I get the warmest welcome. Apart from the crafting my sister-in-law allowed me to teach the weekly religious education. It was just like teaching my regular Sunday School class and I enjoyed that a lot too.

I'll post some more about our trip soon regarding Green Hour challenge.

Painting

Blogger seems to think it knows better in which order my pictures should be and I'm too lazy to upload them again... Anyway we did some painting with the kids today. It's been absolutely too long since the last time and we all had such a good time (and a good shower afterwards!).

We had burglars while we were in Finland and although they didn't take that much with them (the laptop, the printer and some jewellery) they did make a mess. Apparently they had turned every single box upside down including my crafting supplies. My husband simply put things back in boxes and everything's still in a bit of a mess. But I did manage to find the finger paints and that's what we used today.

Church camp II

As I said the kids were well taken care of and they had their very own activities in a tent just outside the main building. There were several people working with them and taking care of them.

Together they produced this piece of art by painting a piece of white cotton.

They also made self-portraits.

Each child made one branch for this tree and in the end they put the tree together with all the branches.

P.S. There are pictures from Luana and Lucas' birthday party (held yesterday) in here and recent picture of the puppies (born on Aug 4th) in here.

Birthday invitations

Although today was somehow difficult with the kids (see previous post) we did manage these birthday party invitations.

It was too difficult for Lucas as the stars were tiny and too small for his little fingers. He was brave though and made a few cards with me.

Luana however got really in to it and we ended up making almost 30 of these! There'll be enough for the kids at Sunday School, too!

Sticky crafting

I got the idea for this crafting from Kids Craft Weekly that featured sticky crafts in the latest issue. I thought my kids would have loved making robots and I showed them how they could make them but instead they wanted to do something else. Lucas actually wasn't that keen on doing anything at all so I ended up working with him (and for him) but Luana liked it so much that she wanted to do another one.

We didn't have colourful stickers (except for just a few old ones) so I simply cut up some colourful paper in different shapes and we glued them on colourful paper. Maybe Lucas would have liked it better had we had the stickers instead of paper...

Here he is anyway concentrating on his work.

And this is the result. The black one is Lucas' (and mine...) and the other two are Luana's.

The rest of the day was really restless but up to this point they still had some concentration :)