The Boy is Crafty.

Oliver FINALLY showed some interest in crafting!  I am so happy!

It started with him sitting down on the living room floor with a coloring book and color pencils for longer than 10 seconds.  So I thought we'd give something more a try.

I had gotten these wreath kits from the mall halloween weekend.  They were being handed out for free!  I love free!  Really, they are very basic so I think we will be doing this again with materials we can pull together ourselves.

He had such a blast with this he didn't want to stop even after he had finished both wreath kits.  So I went into my scrapbooking supplies to find materials for him to make a collage.  I grabbed some thanksgiving stickers and paper and some leaf shapes I had cut out using my Cricut Expression. 

He was so proud of himself.  Just look at how he posed for his picture to be taken with his work of art.

(And by the way I can't get over his resemblance in this picture to pictures of his father at this age...crazy!)

The end results.  A wreaths for Nana and Mema's houses and a collage for mommy.

The past two or three days I have just been blown away by what a big boy he is becoming.  And this is just one more example of just how big he is getting.  Getting closer and closer to 2yrs there is just an explosion of awareness and development that has been so fun to see.  I am so excited to get creative with him and see what his imagination is capable of!  I have no doubt he will continue to amaze me.

Bathtub Picasso

I saw this (on Pinterest, duh) and thought it was a very clever idea to entertain Oliver before bed. 

Bathtime is a favorite of his, although sometimes he gets scared of the tub.  He HATES the empty tub or water running in it.  We learned early on- when he had a poop-explosion up his back and we'd hold him over the tub to rinse him off... oh, HE HATED THAT! 

But I figured he'd like this, I don't know why.  I think I'm really pushing art on him and he's not buying it.  We just put a little water in the tub and sat him in there with these tub paints I made.  Shaving cream mixed with food coloring = foamy bath tub fun.  He was not impressed.  I thought it was cool.  And I'm sure any other kid would too.  Oliver just wanted his hair washed.

See, I had fun with the paint.

"Dad! She's not listening! I want out!"

"Better."

Sensory Bottle Project- another attempt to keep this kid busy.

What's that Oliver...you're getting antsy?  Quick have a seat and lets find something to do!  (Other than go through every DVD we own! yeah that's a fun new game!)

Again- Pinterest.com comes to the rescue with this toddler craft.

Using soda bottles, water, food coloring, baby oil, corn syrup, glitter and sequence we made some "Sensory Bottles".  The glittery one (half water, half corn syrup, glitter and junk to float down) came out cool once it settled a bit.  The "lava lamp" bottle was a bust.  It turned out more like those kids cups with the dolphins that balance on top of the water no matter how you flip them.  I should have filled it completely so that the baby oil would be forced through the water?  Eh whatever, we'll prob try again.

He did MUCH better with this than I anticipated. 

My mad scientist got a KICK out watching the corn syrup drip through the funnel...wasn't expecting that.

He also appreciated the food coloring spreading through the water.  Yes, the ENTIRE bottle of coloring.

Apparently, my son is a monkey who needs to explore things with his feet.



Keeping Busy Day 2

Today we made toddler crayons.

Somewhere I have old Crayola crayons, but I'm not sure of where they ended up in the new house (garage with my scrapbooking supplies most likely...I should really look) so Nate picked up a pack of crayons at the drugstore for me last night.  As far as I'm concerned Crayola is THE ONLY crayon worth having, but whatever this worked.

While I worked on getting the crayons unwrapped and snapped, I set Oliver up with some scratch paper I picked up at the Lakeshore Store.  He liked it, but just like when he uses crayons and barely makes a mark on the page, he doesn't have enough force to actually make a rainbow scratch.

He did REALLY well putting the pieces of crayon into the cupcake tray.  I guess since we've only done edible things in the past and he was in his booster where he eats he was a little confused and brought the pieces to up to his lips and then caught himself a few times.

I melted the crayon pieces down for 15min at 275 degrees, which is warmer and longer than the Martha Stuart site says to but the blog I found this on says they took longer (and hotter) than Ms Martha said.  I'm actually not sure if mine melted too much.  They looked ok taking them out of the oven, a little too mixed into one color than I expected and I was pretty sure I F'd up when I saw how gross the had hardened up.  When I popped them out of the mold all the color had sunk and the reverse side looked all cool and marbly.

I was hoping Little Monkey would have more interest in these than regular crayons, and that the size and shape would make it easier or him.  We're getting there.  He enjoyed them a bit.  Next time we'll use my scrap Crayola brand crayons.  That ought to do the trick.