Organizing All of your newfound craft stuff

I am not really going to claim I am super organized, but I am going to show you what somewhat works for us, that you probably have, or can get fairly easily.


This is a small bookcase from IKEA.  On it I have most of the kid’s craft stuff.  As you can see organization is still in progress.
In the pencil boxes I have stickers, markers, crayons, scissors, more stickers, more crayons and markers, some glue, small animals for learning games, stamps, and whatever small items fit in there.
In the shoe boxes are wooden supplies: clothespins, popsicle sticks, matchsticks, clothespin doll stands, dowel rods.  In the other shoe boxes are yarn.
On the side you can also see a box that has our paints.  The top shelf has some workbooks, beads organized by shapes, a small box full of cards the kids can “write.”

This shelf is mostly my stuff, but it now houses googly eyes, sequins, beads, buttons, and ribbons.  By the way, I am always on the lookout for more baby food jars.


This is in the same closet as the bookshelf above.  I bought a bunch of the hanging rods from IKEA.  In the baskets are all the bottles of glue I bought at the Back to School sales that will last us through this year.  I kid you not, we probably go through at least 20 bottles in our house a year.  Come to think of it I could probably put the paint bottles in this as well….. 
The hooks you can barely see underneath hold pencil bags on them of small stuff that fits really well in there.  I’ve put together a craft kit on the go for each of the kids that has a glue stick and scissors in it.  They usually will use this to complete animal booklets or other things like that I’ve made for them.


This is where the supplies the kids have free access to are.  Here, I’ve got their coloring books some markers and crayons.  Occasionally there are scissors or glue sticks in there, but they’re not supposed to be.  Also in there are my dust pan and a plastic tea set for Princess.

Here’s my general rules for crafting:
1.  Make sure you have enough time to complete the craft.
2.  Figure out what works for you.  I’ve figured out multi-step crafts that have to take time between steps don’t really work here.  I usually forget to go back and complete them.
3.    Don’t forget to leave clean up time, I all too often forget to do this.
4.  Let your kids have fun, don’t worry about the product.  It’s about the process.  Enjoy it.

Way too Many Cool places to find crafts

I thought about saying just look at my blog roll, but that would be incomplete, because my blog roll is not up to date, and besides I want to categorize this somewhat.
Features all sorts of crafts (for parents and kids)
4 Crazy Kings
5 Orange Potatoes
Cheerios Underfoot
Casa Camacho
Katie’s Nesting Spot
Features Kids crafts
Catholic Icing- obviously these are religious themed crafts
Fun with Mama
Little Wonder’s Days
Also includes learning activities
A Mommy’s Adventures
Almost Unschoolers
Bubbles, Balloons, and Blessings
Brimful Curiosities
Along the Way
Buffaloes and Butterflies
Children Grow, Children Explore, Children Learn
Confessions of a Homeschooler
Always Something to Learn
Chasing the Goose
Delightful Learning
Excellence in Early Childhood Education
Frugal Family Fun
Homeschool Creations
Inspirations Surrounds Creativity Abounds
Joyful Learner
Tired, Need Sleep
The Activity Mom
Superheroes and Princesses
Sewing School
Pocketful of Posies
Mouse Grows, Mouse Learns
Mom Tried It
Mama Smiles
Mama to 3 Blessings
Mama Jenn
Living With Fairies
As you can see, most of the ones also feature learning activities.  It’s really hard to do too many crafts without it straying into learning things.  These are only the ones I’m following, and that’s not all of them.  I didn’t want it to go on forever and ever and ever.   It kind of already does.
Next part coming up, organization and such.

Great craft supplies to buy

So, I tried writing this post on my lap top while Princess was taking a bath, but I kept having to stop and feed the dolphins, and throw toys for the dolphin to catch, so……….

I’m posting this on Monday night so it should come out right about when I’m talking to our MOPS group from our church.  I’m telling them all about the wonderful crafts you can do with your kids and all sorts of other stuff.  I wanted an easy to find thing for them to be able to read:
SUPPLIES TO GET
Back to School sale:
24 pack Crayola crayons- they’re about $.25
10 pack of Crayola markers- about $.88
Elmer’s Glue- $.22
Elmer’s Gluesticks- $.22 for a 2 pack
Fiskars scissors- about a dollar (buy a lot of these I swear something eats our scissors)
Pencils
Pencil sharpeners
construction paper
spiral notebooks
notebook paper
pencil boxes (the cheap kind that you get at Wal-Mart for 3 for a dollar, you’re going to need a place to store the stuff)

I’d actually suggest getting several of the above items while they’re at a great price.  I usually make it a goal for that month or so to spend about $5-10 each time I go grocery shopping on school supplies.  That way I can get a lot, but not break my budget by buying it all at once.  Notice, this is most of the stuff your elementary age kid has on their supply list.  I’ve had the best luck with Crayola and Fiskars, so that’s why I put those particular names.  Rose Art has come up in quality a lot recently, so there’s probably not the problem there used to be.

You could get the Crayola or Rose Art watercolor paint, but I’ve noticed the colors tend to be muddy, so I haven’t found a good watercolor yet.
random picture, because I like to have pictures in my posts.

Things to buy at Michael’s or Hobby Lobby or whatever craft store you go to:
paint- I like Crayola best, but they’re only sold in sets of 3, and I always run out of one of the three colors, so I’ve tried the ones at Hobby Lobby and Michael’s but the red just isn’t as good, it seems more pink to me.
specialty craft scissors- they can often be found at Michaels in the dollar aisle
stamps and stamp pads- these are never ending, so just choose ones you think you’ll use, I buy them on clearance often.
popsicle sticks- or other small wooden things
fun foam
felt- you can get 4 sheets of these for a dollar, and there are so many things to do with this
pipe cleaners- I have to hide these or Batman will create this:

I try to buy these when they’re on sale.  I get the fliers from most of the craft stores in the area and just go to whichever one has the sale.

Trash to Treasure items:
containers of all sorts and sizes- butter, oatmeal, cereal boxes, milk cartons, you name it
plastic lids
lids from juice cans
if you’re feeling adventurous chip bags, or the like
egg cartons (NEVER throw these out, unless you go through a lot of eggs)
corks
shoe boxes (save every single one you can get a hold of, especially if you have an elementary ages kid, because there are so many school projects that use these)

Things from the grocery store:
kool-aid

Okay, that’s all I’m thinking of right now.  I’ll probably come back later on and add to this. 
And, here’s a couple of other posts I wrote before on this topic:
Crafts We Love
Great Art Supplies and What You Use Them For
I’m also slowly going through and categorizing my crafts by what materials I used in them, so here’s a few categories:
Bible Crafts
Collage
Crayons (that all impressive 1, I suppose all that coloring…..)
Fun Foam (there will be more than one as I finish going through)
kid crafts
painting
paper
printables
scissors and glue
recycling
ribbon

And the best way I’ve found to organize all the ideas you find online is Evernote.  The key to is to tag whatever you’re looking at as soon as you clip it to Evernote because then you’ll be able to find it.  There’s also an Iphone app that I use when I’m out and about and see an idea (usually when sitting in waiting rooms and I take a picture and store it away for later).

Crafts featured tonight to follow after this post, as well as a fairly extensive list of great places to find kid crafts.

Math Links: Games

 

Sorry for the backlit picture, but hey that’s what happens when you take a picture with your cell phone.

 

So, this is a super quick comment.  My boys found a copy of Toy Story Monopoly Junior at Half Price Books Saturday.  We have played it three times since then, and it’s so great for counting and adding.

 

When they have to pay for landing on someone else’s property I hand them the number of houses they need to pay that person and they have to put it on the money until they find the right combination.  So Batman up above has added 2 +2=4 to pay for landing on the space he’s on.  After a few tries at this they got GREAT at it.

And apparently Jeff and I have no luck with this game because Superman won both times.  And he’s rather smug about it.

Science Sunday: Volcanoes

I know I said I wanted to blow something up this week, but there was no way I was doing that inside and the one day the weather was good enough to be outside I wasn’t prepared for it, so you’ll have another week to wonder what I’ll do.  And no, it won’t be homemade fireworks.  Jeff convinced me to wait on that until the kids were a little older, but I do have a good project planned.  I just need to actually get a water bottle, we don’t use them, but for this I need one.

 

I Recommend

Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument (True Books-National…

Sharlene Nelson, …

$55.46

Privacy

 

Continuing on, we started learning about Washington this week.  I’ve come to the conclusion, that I just can’t do a state a week, I’d like to so I don’t spend two years on states, but it’s not going to happen, I need about two weeks to really do it right.

 

We read the book above, and I highly recommend it.  When I was checking it out I was a little leary of it, and didn’t get the other book on National parks in Washington they had because I wasn’t sure if they’d like it.  But, it did a really good job of talking through what happens in a volcanic reaction and how it affects the surrounding wildlife.  And it was right on the kids level.  We all enjoyed it.

 

And of course if you’re going to read about volcanoes, you have to make one.  Now, I’ve seen all of these blog posts where people go all out and build up volcanoes, and all of that, but that’s not me.  Mainly because I didn’t get it organized in time to do that, and they weren’t going to wait for us to build one and the time it would take to dry.  They’re more of a “Do it now Mommy!” type of kids.

 

I had a bunch more pictures to show you, but Princess was just wearing underwear, so I’ll stick with this one of Batman.  We kept repeating this over and over and over again.  They LOVED it.  But, then I know grown men and women who loves this, so it’s no surprise my preschoolers did.

 

And hint: our upcoming explosives will use similar materials…….

 

Afterwards we talked about how lava rocks are made, and we made rice krispie treats to look at how they’re formed.  This part would have made more sense if they were up for learning about the different types of rocks: igneous, metamorphic, and ___________(I am totally not remembering the third).  Lava rocks are a type of metamorphic if I’m remembering correctly.

 

And then, just because I was amused we made a second batch of rice krispie treats with non-chocolate, but with leftover marshmallow Easter candy.  Here’s what happened:

And right after I took that picture I dashed over 2 seconds too late to stop it from going all over my microwave.  See what I do for my blog?  Now I have this great big mess.  And I would highly recommend eating these after eating something.  Wow, was that ever a sugar buzz.  I then took 2 advil to get rid of the resulting sugar headache.  15 years of hypoglycemia and I still haven’t learned my lesson.

 

If I get in our explosives tomorrow (this is written on Friday), I’ll add them to this post, but I’m not holding my breath……..

 

I know that Almost Unschoolers does science with food all the time, anyone else have some they did?  As always link up any science related post you have, I love to read them, even if I’m slow to comment sometimes.