DIY Ant Farm

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I’m so super excited to share this project with you. ANT FARMS are fun to make and fascinating to observe with your little ones! L and I have been staring at our jar all day, reading kids books on insects, watching some National Geographic clips on ants, and we’ve found some fun facts along the way. Within the first 24 hrs of placing your ants inside your DIY ANT FARM, they will dig tunnels and make chambers right before your eyes!

The ants you collect will most likely be “worker ants” and all worker ants are female…pretty amazing! Most ant colonies contain one queen ant who lays all the eggs, male ants whose only job is to make babies with the queen, and worker ants who gather food, dig tunnels, and protect the colony. When collecting ants you want to be sure to only collect ants from one colony, otherwise the ants will fight to their death inside your jar.

Materials needed:

  • large jar (pickle jar)
  • small jar (jam jar or spice jar)
  • loose, sandy soil (Cactus/Citrus Soil works great!)
  • spoon
  • small jar or cup
  • jam or sugar water

To make your ant farm, place the small jar upside down, inside the larger jar.

Next, carefully spoon the soil into the jar. L would place a spoonful on the top of the little jar and then brush the soil down along the sides. It does not have to be packed tightly, just filled to the top.

 

 

To collect ants, put about one tsp. of sugar water or jam into a separate jar or cup and place it outside on its side. This is your ant trap. You may want to set a few ant traps around your garden and be patient. It can take a few days for the ants to discover your bait, but once they do many will follow!

After your ant farm is made and the ants have been caught, quickly and carefully dump your ants inside your ant farm and screw on the cap. You’ll want about 10-20 ants. I think we have about 5 ants in our jar…it takes a couple minutes to find them, but works just fine! They are busy digging all those tunnels and chambers all by themselves!

 

Once a week, open the lid to your jar and place a few drops of sugar water and/or a couple pieces of bird seed. You don’t want to feed them too much, once a week is plenty! When you open your jar to feed the ants, plenty of fresh oxygen will enter the jar as well…no need for holes! Keep your ant farm indoors, not too hot and not too cold, away from direct sunlight.

For more info on ants, check out some books at your local library and click here to see some fascinating photos and videos from National Geographic! Enjoy!!!

 

 

DIY Flower Fairies

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I first made FLOWER FAIRIES with my youngest sister when we were kids. They are just so sweet, I couldn’t wait to make them again with my girls! L and I made these fairies this past week and we plan on making more tomorrow…I’m thinking garlands, magnets, and of course, just flower fairy dolls for playing pretend!

 

 

Materials needed:

  • florist wire
  • fabric flowers
  • wooden beads
  • other beads (wooden, plastic; colorful, plain)
  • acrylic paint
  • embroidery thread
  • scissors
  • hot glue gun and glue

First, paint simple, little faces on your wooden beads.

While your beads dry, take the artificial flowers apart. All you’ll need is the fabric petals. If you have any tiny flowers, set them aside to use for head decorations.

Cut a 14-inch piece of wire, and an 8-inch piece of wire. Fold the 14-inch piece in half.

With the smaller piece, bring both ends towards the center and twist the wire, leaving a little loop on each side for the fairy’s “hands.” Set aside.

 

 

Select the colors of embroidery thread you’d like to use for the fairy’s hair. Wrap the thread around all four of your fingers.

Place your looped, embroidery thread into the fold of the 14-inch piece of wire. Twist the wire, once to secure it in place.

Next, thread a “head” onto the wires (the large wire folded in half), followed by a couple small or medium-sized flowers.

 

Take the small wire piece (already folded and twisted into arms) and place it under the flowers, but in-between the two wires. If you like, you can fold each arm over once to secure the arms in place a little more.

Next, thread a bead onto the wire, followed by 2, 3, or more large flower petals.

At this point, separate the long wires into two legs. Fold each one in half and twist the wire, leaving a little loop on each end for the fairy’s “feet.”

 

Time to style some hair! You can twist the hair and glue it on top the fairy’s head. You can simply cut the thread loops and let it hang wild and free. Get creative with it!

 

To finish each flower fairy, glue a small flower on top of the hair. Too cute!!!

 

 

To host a tea party for your flower fairies, be sure to check out our “It’s Tea Time! Tea Party Ideas” page!

 

DIY String Bowls

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Before we packed up our Easter stuff, I decided to make some fun and funky STRING BOWLS with L…we used the bottoms of our Easter eggs for molds. How cute are these? And even better, all the materials needed we already had lying around the house…you probably do too! If you don’t have Easter egg bottoms to use, any small or medium-sized bowls will work for molds.

Materials needed:

  • small plastic bowls or Easter egg bottoms
  • yarn or string
  • white glue
  • water
  • plastic wrap
  • scissors
  • glitter (optional)
  • hair dryer (optional)

First, cover your molds with plastic wrap.

In a small bowl, mix a little bit of water into some white glue. If you like, mix some glitter into the glue as well.

Next, cut your string into small pieces and stir it into the glue. You can experiment with this step…we did one bowl using 1-inch pieces of yarn, another using 2-3 inch pieces, and one bowl using one long piece of string.

 

 

Remove each piece of string from the glue, one at a time, and lay them across your mold. If the glue is thick on the string, you can squeeze some of the excess glue off.

 

 

Once all your string is laid out across and around your molds, lay them aside to dry. It may take a couple days for the glue to dry completely, or you can speed up the process by using a hair dryer.

After the glue has dried, turn your bowls over. Remove the molds and the plastic wrap.

 

 

 

 

Using fine-tipped scissors, you can trim any string or glue that you may need to off the edges.

 

Beautiful and fun! Perfect for rings, hair clips, buttons and trinkets!

April Fools’ Jokes to Play on Your Kids, Spouse and Coworkers!!!

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APRIL FOOLS’ DAY is just around the corner! What a delightful day of the year — one of my favorites!!! Many of these harmless pranks are quick to throw together and result in silly fun and laughter had by all! Enjoy!

For Little Kids:

  1. Fill your little ones’ shoes with buttons, beads or poof balls.
  2. Stick googlie eyes and mustaches on pictures and objects around your house…cups, the front door, bathroom mirror, backpacks, shoes.
  3. Serve your kids food on teeny, tiny, doll dishes.
  4. Switch your kid’s socks with your spouse’s the night before April Fools’ Day.
  5. If the head of your sink faucets are removable, unscrew the head and place an Easter Egg dying tablet inside. Screw the head back on. When the kids turn on the sink, orange, blue or green water will come rushing out!

For Teenagers or Your Spouse:

  1. Take an empty water bottle and using a pin, poke 10 holes in the bottom. Fill the bottle with water and quickly screw the lid back on. Dry off the bottle. Ask somebody to help you open the bottle and watch as water falls out the bottom!
  2. Using safety pins, pin all their underwear together in one long line. Carefully replace the underwear back in their drawer, so when they go to remove the top pair the next comes out too, and the next, and the next, and the next…
  3. Short-sheet their beds — Remove all the sheets from the bed. Using one sheet, lay it out over the bed and tuck it in at the top. Fold the bottom of the sheet up to the top and tuck the sides in. Cover with their quilt or comforter. The bed looks normal from the outside, but when they get into bed their feet will only go in halfway!
  4. If their bed is messy, unmade or lumpy, put a bristly hair brush into their bed. When your kids feet touch the brush, it’ll feel like a prickly animal or giant bug!
  5. If your spouse is heading to the grocery store, add some “extras” to list: 2 lbs of banana peels, a dozen robin’s eggs, 1 loaf of bread crumbs.

For Coworkers:

  1. Write “April Fool!” on a sticky note. Stick it to the bottom of your coworker’s computer mouse. Not only will the mouse not work, when they flip it over, perplexed, your message will be delivered.
  2. If you’re wearing a blazer to work, take a spool of thread and thread a needle onto the end of the string. Poke the needle through near the shoulder of your jacket, from inside out. Remove the needle, leaving a couple inches of string showing on your jacket. Place the spool of thread in the inner-pocket. Just wait for your coworker to notice and remove the string for you…then wait for the horrified look on their face as the string pulls longer and longer and longer!

 

Rainbow-Shaving Cream Sensory Play

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This is such a fun activity for kids and even more fun if you surprise them with it! I prepared our RAINBOW-SHAVING CREAM SENSORY PLAY activity beforehand and when I called L to the kitchen to play, draw and discover she was delighted! She kept saying, “Hey, how’d the rainbow get in here!?!” Like many of our crafts and activities, this one is done with things we already had around the house…so no need to go to the store to buy supplies! For what it’s worth, a can of cheap shaving cream equals hours of fun for kids…we always have one on hand!

 

Materials needed:

  • large, oven-safe pan
  • aluminum foil
  • broken crayons
  • sharp knife & cutting board
  • oven
  • shaving cream

First, line your pan with aluminum foil. Spread it out as smooth and flat as possible.

Cut your crayons into shavings…we did the colors of the rainbow, but you can do any combination of colors.

Sprinkle the crayon shavings out on the foil-lined pan.

Bake in the oven at 200 degrees F for 5 minutes. Remove from the oven, careful not to tip or shake the pan, and let the pan and crayons cool completely.

Next, squirt shaving cream onto the pan and spread it out evenly…about 1/2 inch thick.

 

Here comes the fun part…time for your little ones to play!!!

 

 

They can practice drawing shapes, writing letters and numbers in the shaving cream.

We had fun taking turns, playing “pictionary” too! Enjoy!!!

 

 

Knuckle-Print Carrots

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How cute are these KNUCKLE-PRINT CARROTS we made for Easter? They’re not only fun to make with your little ones, but they make sweet gifts for parents and grandparents too!

Materials needed:

  • paper
  • orange and green paint
  • little knuckles

Just a little note: Whenever doing projects like this, I like to have a sheet of paper to practice on first. Our practice paper is the big white one here, giving us lots of room to experiment with before making little Easter cards for the grandparents.

First, paint your kid’s knuckles orange. Have them stamp the paper with their knuckles. We found that it worked best if L was standing or on her knees doing this part, making sure she was well above the paper.

 

 

Next, I marked each carrot lightly with a pencil, so we knew which side would be best to put the “leaves” on.

Using your child’s thumb or index finger, have them make little leaves atop each carrot. I had to help L with this part…as you can see in the picture below, when left to do it alone, she was happy putting green dots all over her carrots! Ha!

 

 

 

So sweet! Happy Spring!

Egg Carton Flower Wreath

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Can you believe this beautiful Spring wreath was made primarily out of egg cartons!?! I just love the outcome! I’ve wanted to make an EGG CARTON FLOWER WREATH for years! Last year we tried it, using tempera paints, but the colors weren’t nearly as vibrant. I highly suggest using acrylics for this project. Our EGG CARTON FLOWER WREATH hangs inside Our Beautifully Messy House, as we await the first blooms of spring flowers outside in our garden!

 

 

 

 

Materials needed:

  • 3 egg cartons
  • med-large cardboard piece
  • sharp scissors (fabric scissors)
  • acrylic paints
  • hot glue gun and glue

First, cut the egg cartons into flower shapes. Get creative! The pointy, divider sections can be used to make narrow flowers or daffodil trumpets and the lids of the egg cartons can be cut into leaves.

After all your flowers are cut, time to paint with your little ones! L and I painted side-by-side…when she was finished with a flower or bored with a color, I’d let her start on another one while I filled in any spots she may missed. After all the flowers were painted a solid color, I went back and painted on some details! Although the flowers look great in solid colors, the details really bring them to life…worth the extra 30 minutes of painting!

 

 

 

 

 

To make your wreath base, use some large mixing bowls to trace circles onto your cardboard and cut it out. I used two separate pieces of cardboard and just taped them together. Once your wreath base is cut out, give it a quick coat of green paint.

 

Next, using a hot glue gun, glue the leaves onto your wreath base randomly.

After the leaves are in place, glue the flowers on. Try to space the colors out, but don’t think too much about order. In nature, nothing is perfect and the imperfections themselves are beautiful!

 

 

 

 

Hang your wreath on a door, a wall or in your kitchen window! Enjoy!!!

 

20+ Non-Candy Easter Egg Surprises

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Last year we put a few chocolates into L’s Easter eggs, but for the most part the Easter bunny left her with NON-CANDY EASTER EGG SURPRISES and she LOVED it! Inside the eggs were buttons, a spool of thread (to string the buttons into a necklace), a lil plastic turtle, and strips of paper with fun activities for the whole family to do.

 

Some of the “ACTIVITIES” included:

  • Hop like a bunny.
  • Jump like a frog.
  • Who can laugh the silliest?
  • Give daddy a hug.
  • Give a bunny kiss to mommy.
  • Walk backwards.
  • Clap and count to 10.
  • Peep like a chick.
  • Play ring-around-the-rosie.
  • Roll like an egg.

 

Yes, it was silly and ridiculous, but we had so much fun!!!

Other NON-CANDY EASTER EGG IDEAS:

  • Army men
  • Marbles
  • Puzzle pieces
  • Stickers
  • Crayons
  • A Prism
  • Coins
  • Beads
  • Play-dough (Recipe here.)
  • Fairy folk (DIY here.)
  • Shoelaces
  • Plastic figurines
  • Wooden Stamps
  • Jacks
  • Story Stones (DIY here.)
  • Buttons (and thread to make a necklace)
  • Mardi-Gras Beads
  • Miniature Tea Set
  • Rocks (like Jade, Obsidian, Pyrite, Quartz, etc.)
  • Dice
  • Erasers

 

 

 

You also might like these CRAZY COLORED EASTER EGGS…

 

And this DIY SOCK BUNNY RABBIT! Enjoy!!!

Crazy Colored Easter Eggs

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Last year was the first time we colored our Easter eggs in this fashion and oh my gosh, was it easy!!! These CRAZY COLORED EASTER EGGS are much cleaner and quicker to make than the traditional dyed Easter eggs! And aren’t they just beautiful???

 

 

Materials needed:

  • white eggs
  • pot with water
  • broken crayons
  • tin foil
  • large dish or pan
  • fork
  • tongs
  • glitter (optional)
  • towel for drying
  • parchment paper

First, put your eggs in the pot of water and on your stovetop to boil. I’ve always heard that 13 minutes is the magic number for perfectly cooked, hard-boiled eggs.

While your eggs cook, line your pan with tin foil. Also, prepare a place on your kitchen counter for your finished eggs…just a piece of parchment paper will do!

Make some crayon shavings, using a sharp knife. The more wild and beautiful your colors, the more wild and beautiful the eggs!

Sprinkle the crayon shavings on top of the tin foil and add glitter if you like too! You don’t need a whole lot of crayon shavings…less is really better to avoid big color mixtures turning the eggs into yucky shades of brown.

Once the eggs are cooked, use tongs to carefully move one egg at a time onto the towel to dry, and then into the pan of crayon shavings. Have your little one roll the egg around the shavings, pushing gently with the underside of a fork. Since the eggs are still very hot, the crayon shavings will melt immediately, painting the eggs!

 

 

 

 

After each egg is dyed, remove it with the tongs and lay it on the parchment paper to cool completely.  Repeat with the remaining eggs!

 

I just love our CRAZY COLORED EASTER EGGS!!! Beautiful!!! Enjoy!

I Spy Bottle and Games

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How many of you grew up loving the “Where’s Waldo?” books by Martin Handford or the “I Spy” books by Jean Marzollo and Walter Wick? My brothers, sisters and I adored them and now, L enjoys reading them too! The I SPY BOTTLE is very similar in principal and so much fun! It’s a fully contained game…no pieces to lose or to pick up! We take our bottle with us to restaurants on occasion and always on long car trips. The I SPY BOTTLE would be great fun in a classroom too! Be sure to scroll down, after the “how to” I’ve shared a few ideas of games to play.

Materials needed:

  • clear bottle with a wide mouth
  • rice
  • electrical tape
  • lots of small objects

First, remove the label from your bottle and clean and dry it completely. Goo Gone always works great for removing any stickiness and label residue! Fill the bottle a little over halfway with white rice.

Next, drop your objects in. We used beads, a bouncy ball, a plastic ring, spoon, animal figures, a marble, dice, a stamp, buttons, a clothespin, a rubber band, a paperclip, a toy car, keys, a wine cork, and although pictured is a crayon, I switched it out with a paintbrush. I was afraid the crayon would melt if left in the car!

 

Once the rice and objects are inside the bottle, use electrical tape to seal the lid closed. You could always use super glue, but I was afraid a time would come that we’d want one of the objects locked inside!

Now, time to shake your bottle up and play!!!

 

 

 

Different ways to play:

  • Call out the color of an object…”I spy something green!”…and have the other person find it.
  • Call out the function of an object…”I spy something that makes art!”…”A paintbrush!”
  • Things that rhyme. “I spy something that rhymes with ‘moon.'”…”Spoon!”
  • If your children can read, you could make little cards that go along with the I SPY BOTTLE too. How perfect would that be for a long car ride? Easy entertainment! Enjoy!!!