A Fun Family Craft - Family Flags!

This post is brought to you by my five year old son. He has an imagination and a sense of creativity that I like to think I have something to do with...although his Daddy is no dummy...so who knows where he actually gets it. Anyway - he asked me to take him to Michael's last weekend. He had a list of what he needed - below is the list. It turns out it was all just different colors of felt, but he had it very well planned out and even though he's just now in Kindergarten and learning to read - he wrote the first and last letter of each color so that he'd remember what he wanted. I thought that was pretty resourceful!
So, here it is part way through the project. There was a lot of planning, cutting and gluing going on. He worked for at least an hour (which, you know, in kids years is like 4 hours).


Have I mentioned I got him his own hot glue gun for his birthday last year. Sniff - my little boy makes me so proud. ;) Look at him wielding that dangerous tool. (BTW - Steelers jammies made by yours truly).

Here's the finished product! It is a Team T family flag. He planned it out with one T in the corner for each family member. The middle is a tiger - his current favorite animal. Not too shabby, huh? He plans to take it up and hang it at our summer get-away in Pennsylvania next year where the "T" side of our family gathers. I love it.

AND - this is one that my three year old and I made together. She - of course - had to pick out some felt too when her brother was doing his shopping. She's not quite as skilled with the hot glue and scissors as her brother (yet) - so she did the planning and I did the cutting for her. She did most of the placement and gluing though. Pretty cool, huh? I'm sure any of you who have young kids recognize this guy.

All in all a fun and successful family craft time that didn't end in tears or cost a lot of money... can't ask for much more than that. I can also see doing these with a theme for holidays, etc.

A Summer Craft for the kids

Isn't she lovely? The kids and I made our own butterflies this weekend. This was an easy craft that we thought up... my almost three year old enjoyed it and was able to do a lot of it herself, and my 5 1/2 year old also enjoyed it. So - there you have it. Something for all ages. Would you like to do your own? See below for some quick tips.


Supplies needed: Clothespins, Glue, pipe cleaners, construction paper, scissors, marker, googly eyes (or you can just draw the eyes), strings (if you want to hang it from somewhere)
My daughter chose to decorate hers with stickers - which was a fun way for her to have control over how it looked. I had to do the cutting and gluing, so adding something like stickers lets them get creative on their own.
My son was able to do it all himself - which was a challenge for him - in a good way. He was very proud to see his creation all finished.Hangin' from the chandelier!

Our "Love"ly Kid-Friendly Meal

This is a quick and VERY simple meal to make with your kids.

We start with plain tortillas.

For Valentine's Week we cut them into heart shapes, not wanting to waste anything we just cut the outer layers into small pieces and put them on top.

My kids (especially my son) like things PLAIN. So, they topped theirs with just mozzarella cheese this time. We also do pepperoni and sauce sometimes. I added feta cheese, spinach and some spices to mine (daddy working late this night - no pizza for him!)

Just bake at about 350 for 10 minutes. The finished product was scrumptious as always! With some fruit on the side and maybe some carrot sticks for the kids - you have a quick, well balanced and fun meal.