Halloween party

HalloweenParty_Fotor

As we’ve mentioned in our last post, we have celebrated Halloween for the first time this year and have invited some of our friend families with children with the same age of Gabriel to a Halloween party.

We have made some scary (funny) food inspired by a lot of things we have found on the internet like a vegetables skeleton, spider pizzas or ghost cupcakes. We have also made bat cookies with this recipe which we’ll probably use a lot in the future because it’s sooooo easy and also quite good. We have also cooked a Jack o’Lantern pumpkin pie with a recipe we’ll share in a future post (we have made its eyes, mouth and nose out of chocolat cookies, as we did for the mouth of the ghost cupcakes. The eyes of the ghost cupcakes were bought on Amazon).

To decorate the living room we have made several paper garlands with Halloween motives. Our inspiration came from the black napkins and paper glasses that we bought at Amazon and which had spiders in violet, orange and green. To fit this color scheme, we made pumpkins and bats and cut paper circles with a circle puncher. We made garlands with only pumpkins and circles, a second one with only bats and circles and a third one with both motives. To put the paper garland together we have positioned the motives and circles alternatively on a surface in order to realize the effect before actually sewing it with the machine. We have also bought ballon with the same colors which were all over the place!

We have also organized a few handcraft activities for the kids. We have asked Gabriel to make models so that the children could see what they were supposed to do, so he was quite proud to do it for them! We found inspiration for this mummy on No time for flash cards where we always find such amazing ideas: such a great site! All kids took their mummy home which we hope will be a souvenir of the good time they have spent with us.

 

 

Easy Halloween costumes: spider and bat

EasyHalloweenCostumes

2015 was the first year we celebrated Halloween with the children. To do so, we needed to find costumes which would be easy to make make and still please him (Gabriel) and be wearable (baby André). So we finally decided to make a spider costume for André and a bat costume for Gabriel.

Almost everything we used to make the spider costume was bought at H&M, online (we find it easier to buy online when we look for something very specific and going to the store almost always means finding nothing of what we’re looking for!): we used a black hoodie, 3 tights (they came in packs of black and grey-black stripes so we actually bought 2 packs) and a black baby bodysuit. We started by cutting 2 of the tights at the crotch level which we then filled with wadding so that they look like legs. To hide the place where we sewed them at the back of the hoodie we used an oval of felt with a grey cross on it, so that it looks like a cross spider. We positioned the legs so they have approximately the same distance between them and the arms (we though the baby’s arms and legs count as spider legs, so we needed 4 additional legs). To make the spider’s face we used white felt to make the eyes as well as two teeth. André was wearing black-grey striped tights so that the color of the legs alternated from black (the arms) to grey, black and again grey. We have chosen to do this so that the costume doesn’t look to dark and this is also the reason why we sewed a grey felt oval on his belly. The costume was very comfortable  (André wore it for 4 hours without complaining and he could moved as usual).

To make the bat costume we have also bought a black t-shirt and the pants online (it was amazingly difficult to find a simple black t-shirt with nothing printed on it!). We had adored this costume and we did almost the same for Gabriel. To make the mask we cut a stripe of black felt where we cut the eyes. For the ears we used black and grey felt which we have reinforced so that were stiffer. This however was not enough to hold the ears straight once they were sewed on the mask so we used a toothpick which we inserted between both felt layers and secured by sewing thoroughly with a zigzag stitch so that it doesn’t hurt when touching the skull (we also cut the toothpick ends so that they were not sharp). To make the wings we cut black felt with the wings shape and a smaller shape in grey. We sewed them together using black thread on the grey felt so that we could clearly see the seam (we though it made it look more real). Sewing the wings on the t-shirt was a bit tricky but at the end it worked out just fine! Gabriel was quite happy with his costume.

Our first Halloween celebration was quite successful and we guess it will become a tradition. Next costume sewing: Carnaval!

Rainbow frog cupcake

In the last day Gabriel spent in the daycare he took, as it is tradition, cupcakes to share with his teachers and friends. As we mentioned in the last post, we had chosen the theme “auf Wiedersehen Regenbogen, hallo Frosch!” (goodbye rainbow, hello frog!) for his goodbye and for this reason we decided to decorate the cupcakes with a frog and a rainbow. We used exactly the same motives we had used for the goodbye gifts. The vanilla muffins were spread with vanilla frosting and covered with a thin layer of blue fondant  on which we laid a frog (all frog parts were made of fondant, the black part of the eyes was painted with edible black ink). Because we wanted the rainbow to give a 3 dimensional effect, we made it out of paper: we taped the printed rainbow on a toothpick using white round stickers and stuck it on the cake. The cupcakes had quite a big success amongst the children and Gabriel was quite happy to have contributed to make them!

Rainbow frog crayons

RainbowFrogCrayons

We have decided to make “rainbow frog” crayons as a goodbye gift for our son Gabriel to give to his friends in his daycare center. The reason for this theme is is that he’s leaving the rainbow group in his current daycare and is going to the frog group in the kindergarten (he’s a big boy now!). To do so, we started by  taking the paper out of the crayons and then cut them in small pieces. We wanted to have a sort of rainbow effect so we cut them with the size of the silicon form where we later melt them and then filled the form with keeping the rainbow order of the colors. We let them melt in the oven at 120°C for around 15 minutes and then let them cool down. We made two of them for each kid which took a lot of time because the form only had two frogs shapes… We then put the crayons in a small plastic bag with a paper holding it where a message said “goodbye rainbow, hello frog”. On the back of the paper, a personalized message was written for every child. Gabriel was quite proud to give the crayons to each of his friends and of course, he also  got two for them. The crayon is very fun to use because of its different colors and the frog shape!

3 Easy watercolor techniques for kids

3EasyWatercolorTechniquesForKidsOur son Gabriel will soon leave the Krippe (daycare for babies) and go to the Kindergarten. This big event has been keeping us busy for a while now and we will soon share with you some of the thighs we’ve been doing. We have decided to help Gabriel make a personalized small present for him to offer to each of his teachers. Because we have appreciated so much doing this watercolor painting with him (we find it quite easy and love the result), we have looked for different negative watercolor techniques one could use to write  the teachers name (read at the bottom of the post how we made the letters out of masking tape).

Gabriel found the first watercolor painting technique quite funny because it used cotton buds (here’s where we got the inspiration). He has chosen 4 colors and started painting dots all over the surface by pressing the cotton bud vertically on the paper. We had to insist that he makes more dots on the letters so that we could read the name at the end.

In the second technique we used rubber bands to partially covered the surface on which we had already sticked the letters (here’s where we have got our inspiration). We have also asked Gabriel to choose the colors he wanted to use and then let him paint the surface by pressing a cylinder of foam (actually a small painting roll like these) on the paper. We let it dry between colors and took the rubber bands out only when it was completely dry.

The last technique didn’t quite work as planned although we also like the result at the end. It was probably Gabriel’s favorite technique because it implied using a straw to bubble a mixture of watercolor, water and dish soap on the paper or just bubbling it for the fun on the cup filled with the paint mixture (here’s where we got our inspiration). Unfortunately we didn’t take pictures of the different steps but we show here the pictures of another painting we did before the one with the name, to test the technique. We started like in the other techniques by sticking the motive on the paper. We taped 3 straws together that Gabriel used to immerse in the paint mixture and slowly blow on the paper. If no bubbles were formed, he would also try to slowly blow again on the surface of the paper which often made the mixture bubble. We let the paint dry between colors. We find that the colors effet looks great but unfortunately the paint flowed under the masking tape and the probable reason for this is the big amount of water we used every time. We like the stars painting even if the negative of the stars is hard to see but in the case of the letters it was quite difficult to read the name. For this reason, we have decided to cut the letters and put a sheet of paper in one of the colors of the painting behind it. A bit more work but it looks great!

We sincerely hope that Gabriel teachers appreciate these small pieces of art and keep them as a remembrance of the wonderful 3 years Gabriel spent in the Krippe with them! A big “Thank you” to them!!!!

This is how made the letters of their names in masking tape in order to protect the surface of the paper not to be painted. The technique we used to do it has evolved as made all three of them. Here’s are optimized method 🙂

  1. Print the letters/image you want to cut in an inverted manner (mirrored).
  2. Tape the sheet of paper on a window with the printed side against it and tape the backside of the letters.
  3. With a masking tape of a different color, tape the surface of the letters (this will help differentiate this first layer from the following one(s) which is important because the first one could be hard to stick out of the paper)
  4. Take the sheet out of the window, turn it and cut the letters (this will be easy because you’re now facing the printed side of the paper)
  5. Separate the letters in masking tape from the first layer of masking tape.
  6. Stick the letters on the paper and start painting!

Watercolor art

WatercolorArt

We have been looking for ideas for nice paintings for a future wall gallery and we were inspired by this painting made by children. We have chosen a circle size (actually a masking tape…) and prepared the paper for the painting  by dividing the surface so that the space between the circles is the same. We then drew the circles with watercolor pencils and let Gabriel do the rest! We love the result and look forward to hang in on the wall.

Colorful snapshots of our art moment..

Lego Duplo animals

Lego Duplo Animals

We’ve been thinking of buying Gabriel  “normal” Lego (here’s already 3,5 years old and he has tried to built Lego this sommer and was quite interested by it) but there’s actually a lot one can do with Lego Duplo! Here are some ideas of animals one can very easily built. We used round stickers for the eyes. There’s another advantage to keep building with Duplo: they are safe for babies, which means both brothers can play together!

Shell sorting game

Shell Sorting Game

This year we decided to have easy going holidays together with the family in Portugal and in France. We met the French side of the family in Bretagne and were lucky to enjoy for one week the beautiful landscape of the Morbihan Golf.

We have gathered a lot of shells of different sorts and decided to make a sorting game out of them. We have selected 5 different sizes of the same sort of shell or conchs. The goal of the game is to sort them concerning their type but also their size, from the biggest to the smallest one. Gabriel has enjoyed the game and will be able to play it as many times as he wants because we have brought it home as souvenir! We made an origami Japanese box and cut a shell shape that we glued on its top. You can find the instructions to make one here. Use an A4 sheet and start by cutting a square. To make the bottom part of the box cut around 0,7 cm of each side of the square, to make it a bit smaller than the top part.

We love the idea of a souvenir-game and we try to make something similar in our future destinations!

Emotion dice

EmotionsDice

Emotions have been a topic which interests Gabriel a lot lately: “Mum, are you still mad with daddy?”,  “I don’t want to talk you with, I’m sad”, “I will sit there to calm down…”, “Mum, are you sad? Just a little because you’re not crying”… We decided to make him two emotion dice to help him express his feelings. A first one represents the 6 primary emotions which are sadness, happiness, disgust, surprise, anger and fear. The second represents 6 animals: cat, dog, pig, monkey, elephant and rabbit. The goal of the game is to enact the drawn animal feeling the drawn emotion: “What does a sad monkey do?”, “What does a disgusted elephant sound like?”, “Can you make a surprised rabbit?… Two simple wooden dice and a marker have already gave us great laughing moments!