Make your own 4th of July Shirts June 21, 2008

In my pursuit of getting into the whole summer thing with my kiddos, I figured what better than to make our own shirts for the 4th of July! They were soooo easy to make, the kids love em (they’ve worn them for 2 straight days now)…but they are messy! Which I think added to the fun factor for the kids!!!

 

Materials:

Fabric Paint

Squirt Bottles (I used condement bottles from the dollar store)

Shirts

Rubber bands

 

Step 1:

Mix fabric paint with water in the squirt bottles for a runny consistancy.

 

Step 2:

I used rubber  bands to mark where I wanted to put different colors. This is basically a guide. Younger kids may ignore the rubber bands and just squirt the paint where ever they want (including their baby brother…btw make sure it is non-toxic).

 

Step 3:

Allow the paint to dry a bit before removing the rubber bands. Remove rubber bands and hang to dry. As some of the paint will still be wet, use caution as your hands will get some paint on em!

 

Step 4:

Enjoy!

 

I was hoping that this would produce more of a tie-dye effect, but the paint was a bit too thick. The more you saturate the shirt with the paint, the more bold/dense of a pattern.

 

Have fun! If you make em, I would love to see em!

Kid sized greenhouse June 17, 2008

What says summer like a sunflower? Just the name alone implies the bright skies and beauty that fills the summer! To kick off our summer activities, we made our own little greenhouses (out of recycled materials) and planted sunflower seeds.

First we (I say this loosely, cause I actually did it) cut the top off of 3 plastic jugs. We used two mild jugs and one 2 liter bottle…just happened to be what I had handy.

 

Then we grabbed some dirt…Maddy decided to hit up the “bald” patch we have in our yard! Really made hubby realize that something needs to be done about that!

Now the seeds…I suggested that they space them out…but I think Benson stuck em one on top of the other!

Give it a good pat a bit of water…stick the top back on it and pop it in a window. For the mild jugs, I just covered the top with celophane.

Fingers crossed! These are mamoth sunflowers, or so the pack of seeds said…could grow up to 10 feet! With the left over seeds, I am going to glue them on the bottom of a sheet of paper and have the kids draw what they think will come out of their “magic” seed! I’ll post pics of that project later!

***Mom confession: When the kids went to bed, I drained the soil as it was WAY over watered.

Bye for now!