When the weather starts to become nice and things begin to sprout in our yards, take the opportunity to walk in your neighborhood or local park/trail. So many things including plants are beginning to come to life and experience the bounty of Spring and what it has to offer. Totally Tots is getting her kids ready for Spring by reading the book
, making Spring collages with animals and other things that are “spring” themed, and my favorite they collected sticks, leaves, and other nature’s items and put them in an old water bottle as a spring bottle to view and capture the outside and bring inside! Be creative and get you and your family outdoors to enjoy the beginning of Spring and what nature has to offer.

If you would like to check out the book God Made Spring click

*Below are the directions and supplies needed for the following projects:

- Spring Collage
-Spring Nature Bottle

SPRING COLLAGE:

Supplies Needed:

• Old flower catalogs, wildlife magazines like Big Backyard and Ranger Rick, garden magazines, bird in bloom, anything with pictures of Spring things!
• Glue
• Card stock or 11×14 Poster board

Directions:

• Ahead of time cut out tons of pictures that are spring like place them in your collage box
• After reading the book get out the spring collage box, card stock or poster board and glue
• Let LO squeeze glue onto paper and place a picture on top. This is a great motor skill activity! If you think your LO will use to much glue or is if they are real young then water down some glue and paint it onto the paper like paint with a paintbrush (just make sure to soak it overnight in real hot water to remove all glue!)

SPRING NATURE WALK:

Supplies Needed:

• Empty water bottle
• Things from nature

Put on your hiking , some sunscreen, grab some water and head out on a nature hike! We are lucky we have 2 nature trails in our little town and our neighborhood has woods too so it’s super easy for us! Even if you don’t have a Nature Trail near you, just head out on a neighborhood walk and look for all the blooming flowers and baby animals!

When you get home lay them out to dry if they are moist. After they are dry put them in an empty water bottle that has dried. Tighten the cap and tape shut! If you add some spring potpourri punch a few holes on the side so you can smell spring too!

This picture from Creative Memories really inspired me and took me to a whole new level and thinking of Easter baskets. If you can, sneak out a few extra boxes on your next dinner trip to your local Chinese take out and turn them into something fun for Easter or any occasion.

Birds are little blessings that chirp to brighten our days and keep us company. Robin Rane made a few birds to keep inside and showcase on her fridge by using a few extra scraps, colored pencils, and paperclips! Although these birds don’t chirp a peep, they are still a silent soul to brighten up a day!

Supplies:

• Colorful Paperclips
• Tape
• Glue
• Scissors
• Colored Pencils
• Decorative scrapbook paper
• Heavy card stock

Directions:

1. Enlarge the bird picture found HERE and trace onto a piece of paper off of your computer screen

2. Cut out the bird (this will be your template)

3. Trace the bird template onto desired decorative paper for as many birds you want

4. Cut out all birds

5. Trace bird template onto heavy card stock, this will be the back of the bird to make them more sturdy

6. Cut out all birds from card stock

7. Make little feet out of paper clips, tape them to the inside of card stock before you glue the decorative paper on

8. Glue decorative paper to heavy card stock

9. Outline the birdy body with coordinating colored pencil

10. Make eyes, add names or words, pictures etc.. if desired

11. Add magnet strip to back to showcase on the refrigerator!

This craft  takes a simple art project and turns it into something unique by adding your child’s photo in the center of a paper plate to be the face of a bunny!

By: SparkPlugging

Supplies:

• Digital camera
• Computer with printer
• Printer paper (I used regular paper, not photo paper.)
• Paper plate
• Black, pink and white construction paper
• Scissors
• Pink ribbon
• Glue
• Black marker

Directions:

1. Take your child’s picture with a digital camera, download it and print it out on 8.5 x 11 printer paper.

2. Cut their picture around the face in the shape of a circle and glue it in the center of a paper plate.

3. Cut out two large Easter Bunny ears from the white construction paper and two smaller Easter Bunny ears from the pink construction paper.

4. Glue one pink Easter Bunny ear in the center of one large white Easter Bunny ear, and then repeat this step with the other pink and white bunny ears.

5. Glue the Easter Bunny ears to the top of the paper plate.

6. Cut out a small pink triangle and glue it on your child’s nose in the picture.

7. Cut out six black strips about 1/4 inch wide and three inches long and glue three on each side of the pink triangle to look like the Easter Bunny’s whiskers.

8. Use the black marker to draw on the Easter Bunny’s mouth and buck teeth.

9. Tie a bow in the pink ribbon and glue it to the bottom edge of the paper plate.

I am so excited to have downloaded theses unique circle word art from Ba-Da Bina! I have never seen anything like them and think they are a great idea and addition to add to digital calendar which is exactly why Tina at Ba-Da Bina created them. The full size of each circle is approx 4.5 inches in diameter and the download includes 41 circles total – some are specific to the creators sorority, but the majority are things like birthday, holidays, etc. Not only is this site offering them to all for FREE, but she also included a calender template to download as well, just what I have been looking for

Click HERE to see the post where you can download your circle word art and calender templates

Women’s Day rounded up some fun Easter crafts for all ages and levels to get in the spirit for the celebration of Easter. Click on the title of the project below to be taken to a full tutorial and directions.

1. Easter Coloring Pages

2. Pink Easter Rabbit

3. Lace-Edged Napkins

4. Paper Butterflies

5. Pom-Pom Chicks

6. Stacked Easter Bunny

7. Painted Easter Sign

8. Flocked Easter Eggs

9. Decoupaged Easter Eggs

10. Punched Paper Easter Egg Craft

11. Easter Tree

12. Ribbon-Wrapped Easter Egg Craft

13. Easter Bonnets

14. Decorated Easter Eggs

15. Pink Bunny Knitting Project

Today I stumbled upon the site 5 Minutes for Mom who is hosting the 2009 Ultimate Blog Party! This “party” is an online connectivity of building new online friendships between other blogs online. The majority of blogs participating are the craft/ Mommy’s blogs that I often refer to in a lot of my posts. The blog party enables visitors to connect with others though Mr.Linky  the site linkster at the end of their post about the party. You can post your website, your Twitter account, and Facebook blog network so others can visit and see your site! I have already had a ton of new visitors today thanks to this blog party. It’s fun to look at other blogs and get the networking going between us crafters. This is completely FREE and is something fun to jump on the bandwagon and submit your site to connect with other onliners. The cool part is they are giving away prizes (including $50 Target cards <—– my first pick) at the end of the week to bloggers who connect to them and comment on at least 20 other sites.Click on the banner below to visit the Blog Party and join in on the fun!

With prices of produce and other purchased goods from the store I thought it was time to start finding cheaper substitutions to things I like to eat. That being said, yogurt is one of my favorite things to eat in the morning on my way out the door. It’s portable, just the right amount and always creamy. Blue Yonder has a yummy home made yogurt recipe that she thought up for her kiddos. She wanted something that was quick, but a healthy alternative to high fructose corn syrup. The great thing is not only is homemade yogurt cheaper, but it is made by YOU meaning you have the control of what goes into your product and will feel better about feeding it to families.

Ingredients:

• 2 to 4 tablespoon store-bought, plain yogurt with active yogurt cultures
• 1-2/3 cups instant nonfat dry milk
• 3-3/4 cup warm tap water

Directions:

In a large saucepan combine the tap water and dry milk powder. Stir it very well, and let it sit a few minutes. Then stir it again. All of the dry milk should be dissolved. Heat the milk over medium low heat until it reaches 180°. This kills off any competeing bacteria so that the yogurt will respond better to the acidophilus cultures. Remove from the stove and allow to cool to 115°. If the milk is any hotter than this then it will kill off the yogurt cultures. Add the store-bought plain yogurt to the warm milk. Stir well. Allow it sit for a few minutes and stir a final time. This should dissolve the store-bought yogurt completely.

Turn your oven off.

Carefully pour the mixture into a very clean canning jars and put screw on the tops. Put all the jars in a shallow pan, and place in the oven over night (or 6-8 hours). The next morning, pop them in the fridge until chilled, and then you can doctor them as you wish. We add a couple of teaspoons of sugar and a half teaspoon of vanilla to each jar.

Ours was a little soupy – the texture of “real” whole yogurt. In other words, not as thick as Yoplait or Dannon or store brands, more along the lines of Stonyfield Farm yogurt.

Ideas for storage:

Mason jars, Ice cube trays, Tupperware, Leftover plastic containers ( such as cottage cheese, butter, etc.)

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scrapbooking ideas

Jeff and I just returned from our weekend trip to the Oregon Coast! We started our trip in Lincoln City, Oregon famous for their art galleries, shopping outlets and beautiful ocean shores! We were really lucky because  the weather was clear and blue patches of blue skies not a drip of rain! On our drive home today there were some showers so instead of spending the rest of our last day at the coast on the beach we decided to stop off at Tillamook Cheese Factory in Tillamook, Oregon! Growing up we both had visited Tillamook factory many times and it’s always fun to visit now as adults and experience the fun memories we had as children. Tillamook Cheese Factory offers a self guided tour though their factory and cheese making process. My favorite part is peering though the  factory glass windows and seeing the employees culturing and mixing the cheese. At the end of the tour they welcome their guests in sampling some of their specialty cheeses and offer many other Tillamook products for sale in their store. The aroma of freshly made waffle cones tempt visitors filled with creamy Tillamook ice cream on your way out. Jeff and I stuffed ourselves with lots of cheese samples, an ice cream cone to split and a few treats for the road.

It’s back to work for me tomorrow but it was a nice quick trip to spend much needed time together and enjoy Oregon’s beauties! For information on Lincoln City, Oregon or Tillamook Cheese Factory visit the links below.

http://www.oregoncoast.org/

http://www.tillamookcheese.com/