A Little Learning For Two

Thursday, February 2, 2012

The Heart Project

We are very excited to be involved in an amazing collaborative project this month put together by the inspiring Jamie at Hands On: As They Grow.
The Heart Project is a tribute to Jamie's (incredibly adorable) 4 year old niece Ellie who was born with a congenital heart defect. This little girl has already undergone multiple open heart surgeries and faces not only further surgeries but also a transplant in the future.
The Heart Project brings together heart-inspired ideas from over 70 bloggers around the world and presents them in a beautiful book.
The book is available as a download free with every $5 donation made to AHA or as a full colour print version for $20 with proceeds going to the American Heart Association.
This project not only inspires play but also raises awareness and funds for a very worthy cause!
With over 100 kid-related projects inside and beautiful photographs it's a wonderful way to get inspired as well as make a donation. All photographs are of projects either created for or by kids and most have links to tutorials and posts.

Sneak peek at what you can expect to find inside:

How do you get your hands on a copy of The Heart Project?
The eBook is available using the button below with a donation to AHA of only US$5.

There is also a printed version of the book available for US$20 (US$5 profit donated to AHA):

US $20.00

Order the Printed Version

Alternatively you can make a donation of any amount to AHA without purchasing the book:

The goal is to reach US$1000 or more by Valentines Day!

Craftprojectideas.com is contributing $1 for every ebook sold this month! That means in addition to your $5 donation by purchasing the The Heart eBook, Craftprojectideas.com will donate another $1 on your behalf (up to $500)!
Hop over the Craftprojectideas.com Facebook page and tell them a BIG THANK YOU for being so generous!

Giveaways are going to be happening every day from now until the 14th. There's more than one some days, so be sure to check them all out!
These giveaways are from The Heart Project Bloggers who are very generously donating their projects (from The Heart Book), or something related to their heart project.
There are also a couple special giveaways from Melissa & Doug, Fudoo Boards and CraftProjectIdeas.com.
Be sure to check back each day to enter that day's giveaways!

Fundraiser Auctions:

♥ All proceeds of each auction will go to the AHA ♥

Melissa & Doug - 4 Trunki with Teddy Bear Auctions!

Fudoo Boards - 3 Fudoo Board Kits for Auction!

Fudoo Board Kit, ends Feb 10
Fudoo Board Kit, ends Feb 10
Fudoo Board Kit, ends Feb 10

List of participating Bloggers:
Click over and discover some amazingly creative sites!

hands on : as we grow	♥	A Little Learning for Two	♥	Among Many Blessings
Angelique Felix	♥	At Home with Ali	♥	Broken Treasures
Busy at Home	♥	Busy Kids Happy Mom	♥	Carrie Saindon's Photo Journey
Child Central Station	♥	Classified: Mom	♥	Classroom Magic
Creative with Kids	♥	Creativity My Passion	♥	Critters and Crayons
De Tout et de Rien	♥	Dilly-Dali Art	♥	Dinosaurs & Octopuses
Excited 2 Learn	♥	Hand Over the Cookies	♥	Handprint & Footprint Art
Happy Hooligans	♥	Heart Journey	♥	Imagination Soup
Jamie's Jumble	♥	Kitchen Counter Chronicles	♥	Kreative Resources
Let Kids Create	♥	Little Illuminationss	♥	Living Montessori Now
Loudness of the Lambs	♥	Love and Lollipops	♥	Mama, hocemo nesto da pravimo
Mama Pea Pod	♥	Mama Smiles	♥	MemeTales
Messy Kids	♥	Mindful Meanderings	♥	Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas
Mommy Labs	♥	Mommy Perks	♥	Mum Paints Lives
Mummy Mummy Mum	♥	My Creative Family	♥	NurtureStore
One Artsy Mama	♥	Peace Love & Rainbows	♥	Play Dr Mom
Putti Prapancha	♥	Rainbows within Reach	♥	Reading Confetti
Ready. Set. Read!	♥	Red Ted Art	♥	Sense of Wonder
Share & Remember	♥	Stacy Molter	♥	Sun Hats & Wellie Boots
Teach Preschool	♥	The Artful Child	♥	The Chocolate Muffin Tree
The Craft Barn	♥	The Educators' Spin on It	♥	The Golden Gleam
The Imagination Tree	♥	The Iowa Farmer's Wife	♥	The Joy of My Life
The Kids Fun Review	♥	The Outlaw Mom Blog	♥	The Preschool Toolbox
The Seeds Network	♥	Toddler Approved

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Drawer Knob Cupcakes

I don't know if I've mentioned this before but I love refinishing furniture. I love sanding and painting and varnishing, and as a result the girls craft box contains some interesting items. A few months ago I bought a big bag of wooden drawer knobs when I was redoing a desk for Bubble's room and the girls have been using them everyday in all sorts of ways.
Mushrooms for their fairy dolls to sit on.
Stuck onto boxes with blutac to make pretend ovens.
Moon craters for their astronauts to jump across.
Spinning tops.
I've been amazed by the creative uses they have found for them!
Yesterday we combined some of them with a recycled mini muffin tray and made some up cycled painted cupcakes for the play kitchen.

WE USED:

* Wooden drawer knobs
(we bought ours very cheaply by the bag on Ebay)
* Paint
* Blutac/sticky tac

optional:

* Recycled mini muffin or cupcake packaging
* Plasticine
* Straws
* Scissors
* Buttons, beads and small embellishments

To make the drawer knobs easier to paint we stuck them onto some scrap cardboard using blutac.

The girls then painted them in cupcake 'flavours'. They made chocolate, vanilla and some with chocolate chips in them as well.
There was lots of imaginary play at this stage with the girls pretending they were adding things as though they were making real cakes.

The painted 'cupcakes' fit perfectly into a mini muffin tray we had in the recycling craft box. Mini patty pans part filled with play dough or plasticine would work well too.

The girls decided to make some icing for their cupcakes using plasticine.

And then decorated them using buttons and beads. They looked so cute!

Bubble wanted some candles for the cakes so we could have a pretend 'birthday tea party', so we made some by cutting drinking straws into short lengths and then making flames from yellow plasticine.

Best of all these can be used over and over again and be decorated in all sorts of ways.

Happy Imaginary Birthday to you!

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Rainbow Stacked Hearts

This Valentine's Day craft activity combines Bubble and Squeak's current interests. Bubble still loves rainbows and putting colours in 'order' and Squeak has a new found fascination with 'big and small'. Everywhere we go lately she will inform us about the size of everything; "a big tree!", "a small baby!", it's very sweet :)
This activity had a few stages that we did over a couple of days and the results look great hanging on the wall, very colourful!

WE USED:

* Thick cardboard (we cut up an old packing box)
* Blutac or sticky tack
* Paint (we used rainbow colours)
* Scissors
* Pencil/pen
* Glue

Optional:

* Ribbon
* Heart template
(we made ours by tracing heart shapes from the computer screen onto paper)
* Hole punch

First step was drawing heart shapes onto our cardboard and then cutting them out. We made six hearts, each one a bit smaller than the previous one.
I forgot to take a photo but we created a template by resizing heart shapes on PS on the computer and then tracing them onto paper from the screen (if you try this use a soft lead pencil and don't press too heavily or you could damage your screen). We then cut out the paper hearts and used them to trace onto the cardboard.

Using blutac we stuck each heart onto more cardboard so they wouldn't move around while we were painting them. You could also paint them before cutting them out but I wanted the girls to be able to feel the shapes and put them in size order themselves.

Bubble painted her hearts very precisely in rainbow colours while Squeak went all out and painted everywhere!

Once they were dry we used a hole punch to make a hole in the center top of the largest heart.

Then we began gluing and stacking our hearts. The girls sorted them into order from biggest to smallest and then stacked them together.

The end result is really colourful and has a great textured look because of all the layers.

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Cherry Juice 'Watercolour' Painting

A few years ago we experimented with making our own Food Paint, but it has taken me until now to experiment with juice pigments - better late than never right? :D
I've been meaning to give beetroot juice a go for ages but we ended up having a dabble with some cherry juice we had reserved after making a cake the other day. This activity was very easy and something we will be trying with different juices in the future.

WE USED:

* reserved juice with a strong colour, either fresh or drained from canned produce.
(we used cherry juice but things like beetroot would also work well).
* paint brushes
* jar or cup
* paper/cardboard

The results were actually a lot more vivid in real life, I think this activity would work better on a flat painting surface as well (the raised easel made the colours run a bit).