Christmas Crafts Introducing The Party Artisan

You may have not heard about The Party Artisan she is from the UK and all. I think she is amazing which is why I'm talking about her today. Her site http://thepartyartisan.co.uk/ has some fabulous party ideas. Go check it out NOW go on I'll wait. Fab Right?

Not only does she have fab party stuff to buy but she also has some free holiday printables on her blog. The printable reindeer herd is oh so cute and the paper angel amazing!!! So I went to her site just link you there but I see she's got some new posts up I'll be over there the rest of the day.

Please comment here & link me if you blogged about holiday crafting or know other sites for any holiday crafts you enjoy, we are a mixed religion family & all. Happy Holidays!!!

Pumpkin Patch Fun

It's that time of year again...the weather is changing, the leaves are falling, and the pumpkins are growing. Perfect Time for Fun at the Pumpkin Patch. In order not to break the bank, check out your local farms to see what they offer.  You will find that some pumpkin patches are more frugal than others. Our favorite one in town is Iron's Fruit Farm, they offer free hayrides, a free petting zoo area and a free tractor train ride, they also offer an amazing corn maze which theme changes every year. This year it's the Cincinnati Red's, this attraction is an additional charge only minimal though 4 and under are free, children 4-12 are $5.00 and 13 + is $7.00 not very much for hours of fun. They also have a small market and bakery that has amazing home cooked apple pies, apple fritters, apple cider and cider donuts..Yum!

Toddler Sensory Fun

Ava likes baking but we didn't have enough ingredients to make anything so I let her have free reign with the baking soda. She LOVED it. She played for hours initially. I use this sparingly so it doesn't lose its power. Really its like I found a super power.

Items Needed:

•  A baking tray for containment & easy cleanup
• Random Toys 
• Random Utensils or Cookie Cutters (Ava's favorite) 
• Baking Soda

Cost: About $2

Benefit: Unmeasurable I mean I was able to get a shower that should count for at least a thousand dollars right?

Ways expand the "lesson":

• Add vinegar to talk about acids & bases 
• Add food coloring 
• Talk about texture

Have Fun!

Library Reading Programs

FREE FREE FREE 

I'm all about free activities

Check if your library has reading programs, ours has summer reading programs for age 0-18.
This year was titled Catch the Wave. They provided fun prizes when number of books were read (50 pages counts as one book if reading a long one, for older kids, obviously no way am I reading Ava 50+ pages for one book. Can you say attention span? Me not her) Read 5 we got a pencil and notebook, 10 a beach ball, 15 a water bottle, 20 a cute t shirt.

We read the following books (all new to us)
Five Little Chicks by Nancy Tafuri
Teddy Bear Teddy Bear Turnaround (One of Ava's favorites, she made her teddy bear do the actions :)
Dora's Sleepover
Betsy B. Little by Anne McEvoy
Sleep Tight Little Mouse
The Sheep Made a Leap
Cold Little Duck Duck Duck
I love My Pirate Papa by Laura Leuck (Sweet Sweet Sweet this is my favorite)
Pat A Cake
The Alphabet Atlas
Good Night Harry
The Jazzy Alphabet
Who Likes Rain
Time To Get Out
Skippyjon Jones and The Big Bones
Noodled Lou
Dora & The Unicorn King
A Birthday for Cow
Where is Baby Jaguar?
A Dozen Ducklings Lost & Found

Now our summer program is over but we are lucky that our library also provides story-time and crafts.This is where Ava has gotten her love for Ring around the Roses.

Puppet fun

a new friend

Tissue Paper Flowers

 

I love making tissue paper flowers/poms...they not only look awesome in photos...but are super easy and very inexpensive...I generally buy my tissue paper at the dollar store but for these particular colors I found them at Target...For the table decoration I use 5 sheets of paper per flower...I have never made the hanging ones but imagine you would just add more sheets of tissue paper probably a minimum of ten sheets...My preference is the larger sized flowers...so I cut a fourth off of the tissue paper of the length...approximately 14 in length by 16.5 height.

 



Fan fold the tissue paper...

Pinch in the center...and wrap with any wire or twist tie (it won't be visible)...cut off the excess.

 



While the tissue paper is fan folded cut rounded ends (you can cut a triangular shape also for a different look)...gently fan the tissue paper back out...then gently separate each layer of the tissue paper...scrunch if needed... The smaller ones in the above photo were made with the excess tissue paper that was cut off originally (need another idea for the excess tissue paper... cut the layers in strips...fold the middle of the strip over a string...twist then glue with good old Elmer's white glue and you will have a beautiful tissue streamer garland)

Have you guessed yet??? Yes my next party will have the color scheme aqua and orange...Isn't it beautiful...Details coming soon.

 

Fun at the Local County Fair

Every year the local county fair comes to town and with it brings smiling faces of the kids when they realize that they are going to get to go...an afternoon of petting a thousand different animals...eating gyros, cotton candy,chili fries and funnel cake...red velvet funnel cake yum...riding rides and being creeped out by the carnies... what could be better?

To be frugal try some of our helpful hints:

• Check the fair schedule.  They generally will promote a day of discounted admission prices.
• Eat lunch before you go so that you can save your pocket change for that red velvet funnel cake.
• Buy the ride bracelet if your kids will be riding rides a lot.  If not pick out one to two rides buy the individual tickets and walk away.
• Bring your own drinks.

Look Whooooo's Two

We knew we wanted an owl themed party (let’s just say we are slightly obsessed with owls)and when we found $1.00 owl treat bags at target around Valentine’s Day it was undeniably perfect. Overall we would have to say it was very easy and very inexpensive. We spent under twenty dollars for everything extra that we didn’t have around the house and will be able to reuse the poms, frame,party picks(not all were used) and sack racing bags at our next party.To keep expenses at a minimum we sent out free evites to our friends and family, instead of buying a new tablecloth we used a sheet we already had from target, wrapping paper as a table runner, free owl birthday printables from the internet, a frame for the photo booth was thrifted from goodwill $3.99 and spiced up with dollar store flowers and some spray paint, party picks from Hobby Lobby that we got for 50% (generally every week they print coupons in the Sunday paper for 40% off of one regular priced item) embellished with printed flags that we made ourselves. (just print words out on cardstock, cut ends, ink the edges and wrap around the party pick using doublesided tape to adhere) and dollar store tissue paper was used to make paper poms and garland.(one pack made everything we needed)

Party games

Whoooo's in there?  Brown paper bags decorated with owls and filled with an assortment of gross, prickly squishy thingamajigs that the kids had great fun guessing. Most everything we used was found from around the house/yard.

Hunting for eggs.   Wrap a small baby pool with a brown or black plastic tablecloth , fill with water and throw in easter eggs filled with coins or a small toy that is ok to get wet.(Easter eggs have little holes and are not water tight) Ava loved the makeshift nest she ended up spending most of the party in the it.

Owl Hopping. do owls hop? lol not sure but what a perfect party game even for the adults.

Appetizers: pretzel bites and cucumber sandwiches (just put a slice of your favorite meat and a piece of cheese in between cucumber slices. yummy)

Main course: Pulled pork, baked beans, bbq chips and pasta salad

Sweet treats: chocolate covered marshmallows(we used the mint chocolate chips and just melted in the microwave and added sprinkles), various candies which were displayed in our dinner glasses wrapped with a free party printable and pinwheels from where else the dollar store, owl cereal eggs well that is what we called them for the kids (so easy to make they helped out) Last but not least owl cupcakes all you need is an iced cupcake, a pack of oreos and some m & m's.too cute.