Heart flowers

Clara produces a lot of art.  A lot.  I have a whole cabinet full of art that I have no idea what I am ever going to do with.  So, we used some today to make flowers.  With a heart theme, ’cause its almost Valentine’s Day.  I just pulled out a bunch of different paintings and cut them up into hearts.  Clara liked the ones that I cut out of her spin art from OMSI best, so our flowers look like they spent a lot of time in a centerfuge.  Here’s what we did.

1)  Gather your materials: hearts cut out of old art projects, buttons, green pipe cleaners, a hole punch

2) Punch holes in the pointy end of your hearts.

3) Thread a button onto the pipe cleaner about an inch down. Then thread four or five hearts onto the pipe cleaner. Next, add another button. Finally, fold the pipe cleaner down around the top button and snug everything up. Spread out your hearts to make them look more like a flower, then place in a vase.

There you have it~ a homemade Valentine’s centerpiece!

Seed sprouting and garden plan!

I love the part of the year where I get to dream about the garden with out really having to do much in the form of work. With just a little bit of inspiration and a short walk to the garden shed for seeds and potting soil, I can fulfill my gardening need. No weeding required…yet. I started my cool weather veggies last week (broccoli and lettuce) in some recycled materials. I’ll keep you updated on how this works, but so far, so good. I used toilet paper/paper towel rolls, and plastic containers that grape tomatoes came in.

Step 1) Cut your toilet paper rolls in half (or paper towel rolls into fourths).

Step 2) Fold in the bottom of your tube.

Step 3) Fold in the wings, making sure that you don’t end up with a hole in the bottom… otherwise your soil will fall out.

Step 4) Add soil and seeds. Place in plastic box. Water and place in a sunny, warm spot to sprout! When its time to take them out to the garden, you can plant the whole roll and everything and they will compost around the plant just fine.

Here’s my planting schedule for the garden.  First, though I have to turn all the soil in my raised beds before I get too pregnant… which may be next week, so I’m hoping for good weather this week.  I got one bed done today.  While I shoveled dirt, I found a ton of worms, which I gave to Clara to chase after the chickens with and feed to them if they weren’t too scared.  Everyone had a great time.

Seed indoors

Lettuce (February)
Broccoli (February)
Tomatoes (Mid-February)
Artichokes (Mid February)
Cucumber (April)
Summer squash (April)
Pumpkin (April)
Butternut squash (April)
Basil (April)

Seed outdoors

Peas (March)
Garlic (March)
Onions (March)
Carrots (end of March)
Lettuce (April)
Cilantro (April)
Spinach (May)
Beans (end of May)
Basil (end of May)

January Clara-isms

This  is kind of abbreviated… I’ll do better in February!

On an especially blustery day…
“I caught wind in my mouth!”

An excited exclamation…
“Oh my dear!!”

One of Clara’s newest “games” is when Daddy says, “I love you, Clara,” she looks at him and replies, “I love Momma,” then bursts into giggles as Daddy tickles her.  one evening as she was going to bed and they had been playing this game for about ten minutes she looked very seriously at Daddy and said, “I love you, Daddy.”  Then she gave him the biggest hug and kiss ever!

Tie-Dye Love

Sorry that I have been lagging behind on my blogging.  I meant to blog about our last preschool at our house.  We did a great alphabet truck project, but I didn’t take any pictures, so it just didn’t happen.  But, I have a few different valentine ideas that I’m going to post in the next couple of weeks to make up for it.

This is the first of the valentine’s crafts and its the easiest painting project that we have done… possibly ever.  All you need is a cheap tray of kid’s watercolor paints, some paper towels, and scissors.  That’s it.  I’m stealing this idea from this blog (which is awesome, by the way, and has tons of ideas for cool bento boxes for kids’ lunches and snacks).  She gives much better directions than I’m about to give, so if you don’t get it, go there.

First I cut four hearts out of a paper towel.  Then I folded them up into a strip of paper towel and added some water to each of the paint colors in the watercolor box.  Clara could hardly control herself at this point, as I used a straw to add the water and that was just too cool.  Then I had Clara dip the paper towel heart strips in the paint water until each one was completely colorful.  Then we unfolded and beheld the tie-dye magic.




They took a while to dry (overnight), but they look awesome in the sunshine on our new-ish windows. And yes, there is sunshine today! I have proof!

Clara loved making these so much and they were so easy that we may go buy some card stock and make tie-dye cards, too. Of course, I also just promised a bunch of other valentine craft blogs…

Collages…

are the new cool thing at our house.  Ever since we made stockings for Christmas, Clara has been in love with glue. So, I’ve been letting her do her own thing with it.  I get out a piece of paper, some glue, and the collage box.  The collage box is just a pencil box with different odds and ends in it.  Here’s what’s currently in ours:

• cut out magazine pictures from various projects (like this)
• colored pom poms
• google eyes
• material scraps
• cut up pipe cleaners
• foam shapes and letters
• feathers
• buttons
• ripped up wrapping paper

But, really, you could put any small items you want in there. Then I set her loose with the glue and box of stuff. She tends to get her hands very sticky and then gets upset when the feathers stick to them, but otherwise, she doesn’t need my help much at all. Of course, I do have to remind her to put the glue down and stick some stuff to the paper already! But I can drink a cup of tea and relax some while she works. And that’s good enough for me.