Watercolour WOW!

Love this tip on making an abstract water colour effect using water colour paper and spritzer from SU Artisan team member Tami Hewlett. 

 

 

 

Such a pretty end result! 

 

3 easy steps!

Step 1 spritzing a sheet of water colour paper with water. Spritz both front and back to prevent the paper from curling.

Step 2 Ink up a stamp ad stamp off on scratch paper twice to lighten the colour. then stamp on the wet water colour paper. Spritz again if the paper starts drying between colours.

Step 3 Dry the paper with a heat tool. Then stamp on the image full strength over the water colour for a fun artsy look!

I can think of a few of my favorite stamp sets to use with this trick! How about you? 

 

 

Happy crafting

Margaret

Live.Laugh.Love

Be Totallyawake4-life

 

 

Do you love Family Feud?

Are you a Family Feud enthusiast? 

 

 

 

 

Come join us over on Facebook for a fun weekend of a Halloween edition of Family Feud complete with prizes for the winners!

 

Plus we have lots of cool Halloween inspirations to get you excited for the 31st!!

 

 

 

Have a great day! 

 

Margaret

Live, Laugh, Love

Be Totallyawake4-life 

 

*post contains affiliate links

Spring fun 🤩

 Having a discussion today with fellow educators on how to expand children’s interest and exploration of emerging sings of spring colour and their shadows - creating cool “sun-catchers” that they can actually PLAY with so that they can move the colour and source of light and shadows of different effects is awesome! 

Photo credit Sabina Sawula 

#earlycbildhoodeducation #earlyyears #earlylearning #learningthroughplay #playbasedlearning #spring #colours #sciencenaturediscovery #stemeducation 

Elf on the Shelf Pancake Portraits

These are an awesome treat for either breakfast or lunch or a balanced snack leading up to the holiday or for Christmas morning ~ a gift left behind by your Elf before heading back to the North Pole ... we make them using our Grain Free pancakes ~ recipe can be found here. 

Elf Pancake Plate

What You Need

•  Pancakes
• Breakfast sausages or bacon would work too
• Raspberries or Strawberries
• Cucumber slices

What You Do

• Cook sausage until well cooked through and set on paper towel to drain excess grease
• Prepare your pancakes
• Slice cucumbers and cut in half
• Arrange food on the plate to resemble an elf and present to children!

Have an amazing day!

Margaret

Live Well, Laugh Often, Love Much

Be Totallyawake4-life

Handprint Christmas Tree ornaments

 

Ian the Elf brought the crew everything we need to make our annual hand print keepsake ornaments ~ this year we voted for a Tree theme! 

 

What You Need

• Large clear ornaments ~ we get ours at Michael's
• Acrylic paints ~ green and various colors for the 'lights'
• Plastic disposable cups - to hold ornaments while you work
• Metallic Marker
• Hairspray
• Glitter
• Funnel
• Soapy Warm Water and washcloth you do not care about 
• Rubbing Alcohol

What You Do

•  Wipe glass or plastic with rubbing alcohol to remove any oily residue
• Paint childs hand and place firmly on the ornament ~ you can orient it either fingers up and closed or down and spread open for the branches we opted for up so they would fit on the ornament.
• Place paint side up into a plastic cup to dry.
• Once dry you can revisit and decoarte your tree adding lights with toothpicks or fine paint brush dots and tinsel or stars and whatever the child wants. Let dry again.
• If using clear ornaments you can carefully remove the hanging top as they are fairly fragile and glitter them up by spraying the inside of ornament with hairspray make sure to direct spray to cover entire inside and than use the funnel to carefully pour in glitter.
• Cover top with your thumb or return the top and shake to distribute glitter. Repeat as required to get full coverage. 
• Add a ribbon to your hanger hook!
• Wrap and put under the tree for the big day!

Hand print ornaments are always a hit with loved ones ~ something extra special about capturing their little hands for prosperity! If you missed our other post on the 10 keepsake hand print and photo ornament ideas you can view it here

 

 

Have an amazing day!

 

Margaret

Live Well, Laugh Often, Love Much

Be Totallyawake4-life 

Elf on the Shelf - Community Candy Canes

This year the program is closed this week but thought I would share a couple of Ian the Elf ideas from years past ... this one is a particularly fun one for the crew cause they LOVE riding the city bus as a treat. Sometimes we do not even have to GO anywhere afterward they are happy to just ride the route and watch out the big windows at all there is to see in the community and come back home! 

So this challenge is particularly fun for them because we do just that sitting at the front of the bus and passing out a Candy Cane to the riders as they walk past us after getting on the bus and signing some Christmas Carols while we travel around the route. Sometimes we get off at the grocery store or the mall and do our choosing of either the Food Bank challenge or Angel tree during this particular multi tasking challenge and than we head back home! 

Have an amazing day!

Margaret

Live Well, Laugh Often, Love Much

Be Totallyawake4-life 

 

Elf on the Shelf ~ Random Acts continued

Everyone all busy shopping for the holidays is a perfect time for doing the pay it forward with the leave the correct change challenge! 

My daycare crew loves to do this one as well ~  they love the idea of being given money to be in charge of even if they are in charge of paying it forward to someone else! 

This is also an amazing act of kindness that is easy to do ALL YEAR LONG ... not to long ago I was struggling myself in a dark parking lot to get the correct change to get a ticket out of the machine getting a little stressed at running late to my appointment, being in a dark unknown to myself part of town alone in a parking lot and along came a guardian angel who put the proper change in the machine and went on alone there way! It totally MADE MY DAY a small act of kindness but a huge impact on my day.

Have an amazing day!

Margaret

Live Well, Laugh Often, Love Much

Be Totallyawake4-life

Rustic Christmas Tin Can Decor

Decorated Garland with Rustic Charm

I just love 'rustic' look ~ on my Vision board I have a big ole country ranch style farm house with wrap around porch and lots of garden areas and greenery that will be come to life at night with the twinkle of fairy lights! 

Inside it would be filled with Rustic charm of antiques and country decor all year long! Things like these gorgeous upcycled Tin Can Christmas garland that I made will adorn the big fireplace mantel and French doors.

These ones I made here are Christmas themed but you can totally create whatever you want for year round enjoyment both inside and out .... I think they would look lovely with Dragonflies and Butterflies around a country porch in the warmer months and one day when my country ranch farm home manifests and I have a wrap around porch to decorate I will so be making some more of these for outside! 

They are really easy to make! I made mine before I started the blog so did not think to take 'step by step' pictures so I apologize for not having my own work to share here HOWEVER cause I know many are visual learners I found this cool video that shows the basics although they draw directly on the can and than spray painted the cans to color them ~  I like the 'tin look' so I prefer to tape on a stencil because it leaves the 'clean look' with no marker left around the holes.

 Rustic Tin Can Home Decor

What You Need

• Tin Cans - if you have anal spatial issues like I do choose ones that are the same size.
• Hammer and long pointed end nails
• Stencils of the designs you want ~ hearts, stars, words ... even saw a sample of Star Wars inspired tin can decor on Pinterest recently
• Freezer space
• Work space you do not mind getting 'wet' while you work

What You Do

• Soak off labels and glue from cans so they are well cleaned.
• Fill them with water and place in freezer until solid
• Prepare your stencils ~ you want them to be on a piece of paper that is cut to the size of your tin can so that they can be wrapped tightly around and secured with removable tape so they do not 'move' while you are working.
• Take out one tin can at a time to work with.
•  Wrap your stencil around it ~ make sure you have the orientation correct! So if you are planning to have them 'sit' with a tea light than have your stencil top facing the top of the opening if you plan to hang them you want the stencil top to be facing the 'closed' end of the can.
• Using the Hammer and Nail carefully hammer in holes along the stencil pattern at regular intervals about a 1/4 inch apart. 
• If you are wanting to hang them from lights use the hammer and nail to punch a hole in the top centre of the can ~ you can make this opening 'larger' later once you remove the ice. 
• Once you have your design perfected and are happy run the tin can under warm water until ice slides out and let it sit to air dry.
• You can make your holes bigger now by gently pushing your nail through the tin can and wiggling it ~ you want to be gentle so you can do this without affecting its shape. 

Star Shaped Tin Can Decor

Snowflake Shaped Tin Can Decor

Words on a Tin Can Decor

Rustic Christmas Tin Can Decor

  
 What is YOUR favorite look for Christmas time? Rustic or modern colored or traditional red and green theme or the eclectic look of heirloom ornaments you have collected?


Have an amazing day!

Margaret
Live Well, Laugh Often, Love Much
Be Totallyawake4-life

Elf on the Shelf Marshmallow Fun

I think that Ian is so missing the SNOW while he is here with us in the balmy 10+ degree freaky weather we are experiencing in Ontario right now! 

I do not think he is alone ~ lots of winter sports fans on social media who are missing the fluffy white stuff but shamefully I admit I am one of those Canadians who could do without the white stuff this time of year ~ I love FALL but our cold snowy winters are so not my favorite especially getting 5 children bundled up in winter gear ~ a light jacket and shoes is so much EASIER! 

So since he is missing the snow and building snowman ~ he brought the crew an invitation  to make some Marshmallow Snowman and forts and so forth!

Elf on the Shelf ~ Marshmallow Fun

Ian's Marshmallow invitation poem

I do not know about you, but I love to play out in the snow

Elves make fortes and snowman as the winter wind does blow!

But sometimes in the North Pole it gets so for every cold

That we cannot play outside “stay in the workshop” we’re told!

So when this happens to avoid getting ourselves in trouble

To the marshmallows and toothpicks we head on the double

We build our fortes and snowman inside the workshop

Having fun of our own and playing until Santa says STOP

So today I brought you some good old fashion elf fun

You can build with some marshmallows till the real snow does come!

The crew love this invitation ~ it was a lot of fun and when they were done I let them 'eat' one marshmallow from their structures for a treat cause the weather is gorgeous and we can run off the bit of sugar high that a marshmallow treat! 

I did not get too many photos of this years fun cause this crew, love them as I do, they can sense when my attention is divided and were using that as an excuse to try to do more 'eating than exploring' with their marshmallows. They had some nice 'toothpick' free towers being built although no one in this group but Ian and myself were inclined to actually want to build a snowman ~ they were more about building structures and trains and things!

 

A marshmallow TRAIN!

Raising a Roof up in here!

Making  a marshmallow circle while counting the 10 marshmallows!

Have an amazing day!

Margaret

Live Well, Laugh Often, Love Much

Be Totallyawake4-life

Elf on the Sehfl ~ A Gift of Art

Being active out and about in the community is a large part of our program ~ it offers the children a chance to learn about new things in a meaningful manner that might not have come up if we remained in the home setting day in and day out. 

We are blessed here that we have access to all sorts of community run programs that help the children connect with the comunity. Our Ontario Early Years programs are spread out all over the London area, plus we have programs that connect kids with Seniors, we have the London Children's Museums and a short drive away the amazing Kitchener Children's Museum as well, when we want to get active we have Adventures on Wonderland and Kidscape and our local Library offers amazing options and than there are our local farms that offer seasonal fun ... we love the Great Lakes Farm and the Greenview Aviaries  and of course our Storybook Gardens is an awesome treat!

So Ian brought us an invitation this week to create a work of art to share with one of our favorite playgroups ~ so while we made our art we need to decide who to deliver it too once we are sure that we are all healthy!

We opted for an encore of a favorite ~ wine work prints with a 'masking' trick on a little canvas ... so I placed a paper heart with removable adhesive in the middle of the canvas and they painted as they desired as a group effort to help cover the whole thing and than when they were done I removed the heart ~ when we decide who we want to give it to than we can write in the heart the name of the organization for them. 

 

A Gift of Art from the Heart using the Masking Technique

A Gift of Art from the Heart!

Ian the Elf ~ Giving the Gift of Art poem

Santa heard you like to visit community centre's where people come for fun,

Where there are awesome group leaders

giving of them selves to everyone!

So his challenge today,

should you choose to accept,

Is to make them a lovely work of art

He knows you can do it, you are all very adept!

Than wrap it up in some Christmas paper

and tie it with a bow

and leave it at a community group

 As a wonderful gift of art for them to show!

As always you are more than welcome to leave me a comment and share what your Elf has been up to in your home or if you do not do the Elf what you've been up to enjoying this time of year! 

Have an amazing day!

Margaret

Live Well, Laugh Often, Love Much

Be Totallyawake4-life