Arts and Crafts: Salt Dough Ornaments

Our usual weekend crafts are simple and requires materials you might already have in your cupboard. This one is easy, but messy.

Nevertheless, it was an afternoon filled with flour, messy and one happy kid.

Our salt dough ornaments are still unpainted as I type this, more than a month after we made them. Once we perfect this, we'll have our own personalized tree ornaments for 2012.

So looking forward to that.

Prepare all the materials and ingredients: salt, flour, water, stamps and mixing tools

These big plastic letters in my craft box came in handy, as well as these love-themed stamps

Mix everthing together

Knead and knead. This is the part the little boy enjoyed the most. It was the most messy part!

Then, roll with a pin or a bottle and cut into circles

Stamp, mold to your heart's desire

Get a chopstiick and poke a hole. Make sure it goes all the way through.

Tadah! All ready to bake in the oven!

 

Arts & Crafts: Soap Making

Friday nights = cramming for last minute arts and crafts inspiration on the net. About three weeks ago, it was all about hand made soaps. We're doing a lot of improvements in the house and needed to cut on costs, I have all the ingredients on hand, and I never liked the commercially available soaps anyway so here's a perfect Saturday morning project.

How to make your own liquid handwash.


1. Fill your tummy and then lay down the ingredients on the table.

- a bar of your favorite organic soap ( we used Giga spearmingt soap)

- a few drops of glycerin (available at Mercury Drugstore)

- a cheese grater, a pot of water and a wooden spoon


2. Grate the bar of soap

3. Pour the grated soap on the pan. Bring to a boil and make sure the last string of soap is melted. Ang kalat ng counter! Pardon the mess.

4.  All a few drops of glycerin to make it thicker. Let this mixture stand for 24 hours. It should get cloudy and thick after a few hours and should have the consistency of phlegm (hahaha)

Okay, ours never did. We probably used too much water. It smelled good though so we poured them on recycled but personalized pump bottles.

Next time, we'll use two bars of soap intead of one.

Toddler activities you can do at home

Exactly how does one keep a toddler preoccupied at home?

I have to give credit to mama, my son's grandma, for helping think of fun stuff to do at home.

Fish the worm. You just need shells, rubberbands and a stick. All items can be replaced by odds and ends from the house.

Gather all toys and let the child build (err, in this picture, make a mess)

Cultivate a love for reading. Have books lying around the house within easy reach.

Make faces. Here, Jared makes faces using clay for eyes and a pencil for the mouth.

Allot a time for praying.

Music Time. In their school, they have music (flute) time.

Make learning fun. Mama makes use of colored pens and cardboards to make letters. Jared knows all the letter sounds by 2 and a half and since late last year, can spell simple words.

Play ball. Who doesn't love this?

Play with popsicle sticks. He writes his name with it here.

Keep him busy. Let them participate in household activities. He helps pack away things in his Tati's room.

Let their imagination run wild. Here, he drags his grandma's bag all over the house. =)

Little Bluey: My First Pet

Bluey was a pet fish given by Aki on the first holiday party we attended in 2011. This was towards the end of November.

This little one was pampered, and loved by my son. He brought Bluey wiith him everywhere.

Sadly, he never saw the speactacular fireworks on New Year's Eve.

Asked what happened to his pet, he shrugged and said "he choked".

Too much bread crumbs is bad for your health.