Giftwrap Art

This weekend was my husband's birthday. The kids picked out a couple of very thoughtful gifts (toys and candy) that they just knew Dad would love! Instead of buying yet another roll of gift wrap at Target, we decided to wrap these gifts with plain white paper and then draw our own designs to create original gift wrap art. It was such fun and I think this will become a new tradition in our house. I tried to talk the kids into using Kraft paper instead of white, but Elliott insisted the markers and crayons would look prettier on white. This challenge was inspired by @poeticfoodie - an amazingly talented artist/mom/designer/cook. Check out her blog at poeticfood.com

Simple supply list for this challenge: gifts for any occasion, paper, markers and crayons.

Lemonade Craft

Ah...summer! With a few 80 degree days in a row, this weekend finally felt like summer in Chicago. We tried to drink plenty of water, but we also mixed in a few glasses of our favorite summer refreshment - lemonade. For this week's challenge we created our own 'glasses' of this tasty beverage. This was a fun, easy challenge and the final products were so colorful and bright, we hung them up in our playroom for decoration.

Simple supply list: colored construction paper, scissors, white paint, a sponge (cut into small squares), glue and straws.

Pasta Necklaces

At our house pasta is on the menu almost every Sunday night. It has been a family tradition since I was a little girl. We make a big pot of sauce every couple of weeks and then freeze the extra to use for the next few Sundays. I am still trying to perfect my Grandma's secret recipe - it just never seems to taste as good as hers no matter how many batches I make. I have a feeling there's a few ingredients that have been left off the official 'recipe.'

This weekend we decided to get creative with the pasta before we cooked it. We painted the dry pasta (Elliott and Will chose mini rigatoni and mini wagon wheels) on day one and then strung our colorful necklaces on day two. We had a lot of fun with this and the kids were excited to wear their creations around the neighborhood.

Simple supply list for this challenge: dry pasta, Crayola Washable paints, paint brushes, and twine.