Peppermint Candy Craft

Here's a cute and fun way to make a peppermint candy! We made a marbled candy using shaving cream and paint, but you could decorate the candy part any way you'd like.
To get the marbled look, spread out shaving cream on one paper plate.

Add drops of paint (or food coloring) and gently swirl them around using a toothpick or craft stick.

Then put another paper plate on top of the first and gently push down.

Separate the plates,

and use a craft stick to scrape off the shaving cream from the plate that was on top. You are left with a beautiful design.

To avoid too much smearing and mixing of colors, wipe the craft stick off after each scrape. Or just use one color of paint. When it's dry, cut out the middle circle of the plate and glue it to construction paper. Add white hand prints to the sides to look like the wrapper.

Cut it out.

You could wrap it in plastic wrap or add some ribbons to the sides, but I think it's cute as is!

Pasta Footprint Turkey

Here's a fun, cute and quick turkey craft for you! Paint your child's foot brown and make a print. When it dries, have them glue tri-colored pasta on to make the turkey feathers. Add a beak, eye and snood. I helped out by putting the glue on the paper for the kids so they'd know where to put the noodles. (I was planning on having it be a front-facing turkey, but every child's foot had a high arch, so I thought it looked better to have the turkey facing sideways and just put the feathers on one side.)

We used construction paper for the beak, a wiggle eye, and red yarn for the snood.

They are adorable!

For the youngest one in my group (19 months), I traced her hand and she glued on the noodles (with a little help!).

Handprint Apple Craft

Here's a simple apple craft I made with the kids recently.

They painted a small paper plate by dipping a pom pom into red paint and dabbing their plate.

I painted their palm and fingers green (for a leaf) and their thumb brown (for a stem) and made a print.

I cut out the handprint when it was dry and glued it to the top of the plate.That's it!

Easy and cute!

Stained-Glass Birds

We've been having a little problem with birds hitting our front windows lately. It used to happen a couple times a year, but recently it's been happening a couple times a week. We have some feeders near the windows and we don't want to move them because they are fun to look at (and the cats really enjoy it as well!). I've noticed black bird decals on windows of some buildings and at the zoo, so I thought we'd try that at home. Of course, I wanted something more colorful. So I found a flying bird template (here), printed it out the size I needed, and traced it on black construction paper. Then I traced around it, about 1/4" away from my original tracing. I cut along the outside line first, then along the inside line so I had a nice thick outline of the bird. I put it on the inside of a laminating sheet and my daughter filled it in with colorful tissue paper squares.

We didn't use any glue. Everything just sat on top of the laminating sheet. You can also use contact paper, but I like how the laminator makes it extra glossy. She covered the entire inside of the bird.

We didn't worry about staying inside the black outline because it was getting trimmed after it was laminated.

Only one side will have the black outline, but you could always use a Sharpie to draw in an outline on the other side. I didn't mind. I just made sure the outline was facing in when I hung them in the windows. I also decided to hang up the black bird that was cut from the middle. The display looked beautiful this morning!

Yes, that is a squirrel down there eating all the leftovers! And no, I didn't wash my windows before putting them up. Don't judge me! We ended up making a couple more today for the bottom windows as well. Hopefully we won't have any more feathered friends flying into our windows!

Kool-Aid Fireworks

Here's a quick and fun craft for Independence Day. You'll need Kool-Aid, Q-tips, a spray bottle filled with water, and thick white paper. We used construction paper, but it curled when it got wet so card stock paper might be better.

I chose red and blue Kool-Aid for the holiday, but any colors would look great. First you take pinches of Kool-Aid powder and drop them on your paper in small mounds.

Then you use a Q-tip to spread the powder out into several small lines.

Just start in the center and pull it out. Add a slight curve to the line to make it resemble a firework bursting. Then spray your paper with water from about a foot or two away. The colors burst to life! (Pun intended.)

The more water you use, the more it will blend and dissolve so it's up to you how much you want to use. I don't like using a lot because the powder gives it some texture. I have a mixed age-group in my care so for the older ones (3 and 4 years), I told them to try to make the bursts. They did great!

This was after one spray:

This was after two:

I ended up doing about four sprays, making sure all the powder got wet.
For the younger child (2 years old), I just let him sprinkle the Kool-Aid on his paper and then I sprayed it with water. Still cool!

And it smells great! But it will stain the fingers, so keep that in mind. Because it's made with Kool-Aid and it's summer, this isn't a project you want to hold on to for long. It's sticky and ants will be sure to find it. So enjoy it for awhile and then toss.

Here are some other projects we made with Kool-Aid!
Kool-Aid Art
Kool-Aid Rainbows

Popsicle Craft -- Father's Day

The kids made Father's Day cards today and I wanted it to include a little craft. So first they used watercolors and painted the middle of a paper plate. (You don't have to use a plate, but I wanted something thicker than regular paper and the plates worked very well.)

I think if I was still in my classroom with older kids (4 and 5 years), I would've had them pick three colors and paint stripes. But for these young kiddos, I just let them paint it however they wanted. When it was dry, I cut a popsicle shape out of it and taped a craft stick to the back. Now, they are pretty cute all on their own,

but I glued them to the front of a card and wrote, "You are one cool Pop!"

On the inside I wrote "Happy Father's Day" and the kids decorated it.

My daughter made a second one for her grandpa. She calls him Pop Pop and his birthday is in a couple weeks, so we made it as a birthday card.

They turned out so cute and were very simple to make!

Two Cherry Blossom Crafts

I've been waiting to do this craft since the fall. I had bought a pack of foam tree cut-outs from Target and it came with some brown ones and some green ones. My daughter made a fall tree with buttons (read about that here).

But I thought the green tree would be perfect for cherry blossoms! First we glued the tree to a piece of blue paper. Then my daughter scrunched up pink tissue paper squares, dipped them in glue, and added them to the tree.

She put some on the foam tree and some on the paper around the tree.

I also had these self-adhesive butterfly jewels that I received from CraftProjectIdeas.com so I let her add some to her paper.

I love how the green and pink look together!
I also made cherry blossoms with the kids I care for. I painted their hands and arms brown to make a tree and they put scrunched up tissue paper on that.

They turned out very cute!