Fall Marble Painting

Marble Painting ~ Fall art project for kids.

Marble Painting in a container, is one of our favorite non-messy painting projects. All the mess is contained in the oatmeal container and it is so easy to set up. The best part is, even the littlest hands can shake or roll the container easily. We used this simple technique at one of the art station at our Art Party and it was a HUGE hit.

We love using old oatmeal containers since they are tall enough to fit a full sheet of paper. Any lidded container will work, you just may need to cut your paper to fit.

I Love how pretty the inside of the container looks. Sometimes it is the simplest things that make me happy!

Fall Leaf Marble Painting

We cut our paper into the shape of an oak leaf. I drew this one free hand, but you can also just do an image search for printable fall leaves. The process is so simple. Place the leaf shaped paper into the container, add a few paint covered marble, secure the lid and shake. In the past we have also used acorns that we gathered at the park, instead of marbles.

Marble painted Turkey Craft

We used the same process to marble paint this sweet little turkey. Although this time we trace the kids hands onto a sheet of paper that we had marble painted earlier. Each of the hand prints that you cut out represents the feathers. A simple Thanksgiving craft that only took a few moments to create. Happy Thanksgiving!

For more ideas check out the other Marble Painting projects we have done. I think that the marble painted Spider is my favorite.

Rotten Apple Baseball

Our family loves fall and all the fun traditions that it brings. One of our kids favorite traditions, is spending time wandering around apple orchards. There is something special about strolling through rows of apple trees and bringing home fresh apples that you picked. We often go again to the orchard in late fall just after most of the apples are picked and there are piles of rotten apples on the ground. Perfect for playing rotten apple baseball.

OK, so I cheated with this picture. It was taken at the pumpkin patch just down the road from one of our favorite orchards, but the kiddos looked so cute I could not resist 🙂

OK, back to the game my kids love…Rotten Apple Baseball. This game might not be for everyone, but it is one of my kids favorite activities in late fall. Set up is simple. All you need is a stick, a pile of rotting apples, an easy going pitcher that does not mind being splattered with flying apple pieces and empty back corner of the orchard away from unsuspecting guests.

I love how some of the simplest traditions are most often the kids favorites. Would your family play rotten apply baseball?

Check out this fun list of fall ideas!

Color Wheel Deconstruction

I have been an absent blogger for the past few months. Thanks for hanging in with me while I enjoyed some precious family time. There are so many fun things that I can’t wait to share with you, and deciding what to share first was a challenge. I decided to tie up a few loose ends of Annika’s Art Birthday Party. I know, I know the party was in March, but better late than never right! We built this fun color wheel deconstruction.

The beautiful color wheel ceiling graced our living room long after the party was over, some might say too long (ha!). My kids loved the bright colors, especially my daycare kiddos. When it was time to finally take it down the kids asked “What would happen if they turned on the fan?” Great question. I love the curious minds of kids so we started by saving all the sewn dot streamers and cutting the paper streamers off the wall. We started by slowly turning on the fan. I’m sure this is not recommended by the ceiling fan company, but it was fun! After we decided that the fan could handle spinning with the extra weight, we started spinning it a full speed. So fun!

We thought the streamers might fly out further but the they created a tight whirlwind. So pretty and fun to play with.

Kaleb loves standing on his head. He thought it was great to be under a “whirlwind”. I guess when you find a talent you go with it right! Almost every family outing or picture session there is at least one with Kaleb on his head. Love it!

The kids also wanted to stand in the center of the “whirlwind”, although I don’t recommend this one. At first it was great fun, but soon the streamers got tangled up in their hair. Whoops! No major damage, just large rat nests that took a while to get out. Still they thought it was worth it!

I love all the smiles as the kids played in the pile of discarded steamers.

Here is a link to a fun list of great experiments that my kids love.

Loving My Dehydrator!

Many of you know that I love my dehydrator. Our family loves snacking on healthy fruit chips, fruit leathers, and yogurt drops. I also love dehydrating meals to go back pack camping. But those recipes are for another day.

Today I am loving my dehydrator for a non food reason. I dropped my cell phone in water. BOO! Unfortunately this is not the first time that it has happened in our house, so I feel like I am becoming an expert on reviving wet phones. Our dehydrator has brought phones back from a night in a puddle, a swim in a front loading washing machine (which I watched swirling around and there was nothing I could do but watch till the cycle ended) and a dip in the toilet.

Here is what has worked for us. Remove the battery out as quickly as possible and towel dry. Quickly place all the parts in the dehydrator on low over night. Simple, but it seems to do the trick. It has worked with all the phones we tried it on, but I make no promises. I have also heard that submerging the wet phone in a tub of dry rice works as well. I would love to hear if you have any tips as well. Happy Dehydrating!

Doodle Drawing Game

This is one of my kiddos favorite drawing games. It is not a new game, but a good one just the same. It works well when you are in the car, at the doctor office, waiting at a resteraunt and most any where else since all you need is a paper pen and some imagination.

One person begins the drawing, and the 2nd person uses their own unique perspective to finish the drawing. You are welcome to turn the paper to whatever angle you desire. There is no “right side up.” Simply document what it is you see and finish the drawing using pencil, pen, crayons, inks, or whatever tool you’d like.

The black pen started this drawing and the blue pen finished. I love the unique perspective of each of the artists. There is no right or wrong way to interpret the drawing that is handed to you, just sketch what you see.

For this picture, the blue pen started and the black pen completed the drawing. I love the floating balloon girl. That is why this game is so great, you never know what the other person will see.

Once the drawing is complete, it is fun to have each of the players describe what they drew or thought they were drawing. There is always lots of fun giggles. The more elaborate the story the better.

If you are looking for more road trip ideas, follow the link to a fun list of things we like to do.