Adik and Dol the cat

One of her first words is CAT, other than Mama and Abah.

 Wrestling Big hugging the cat! 

Such love!

Very Pinteresting indeed!

Have you heard?

Its the new rave!

Its the new way of sharing and organizing all the beautiful things in life! 

Food! Fashion styles! Home Deco! Wedding Ideas! Crafts! 

Almost all of them were DIYed and each photo is linked up to the owner's site with great tutorials, recipes and such!

Fabric Flowers..better than plastics huh

Will get to these someday...Oreo brownies!

DIY pom-poms...great learning tools for kids

Is there anything cuter than these?!

Its Pinterest! Check it out!

#7 JFF: Egg Carton Flower!

I have come to a point where I would think twice before throwing anything away, especially containers and cardboard materials. This actually resulted in a cramped box full of egg cartons, cereal boxes, plastic bottles, nutella jars and so on. I am not even sure what's in there now. Time to get organized soon!

So when I chanced upon an easy craft that makes use any of them, I jumped right in!

Found this idea from a lovely sister Amnah. She's a Muslim mom living in San Francisco, check out her site! Her pictures are awesome! Oh boy I really need my camera! Not that I take beautiful pictures, but at least it should be better than my pictures now - cloudy and blurry, even editing doesn't help.

Anyway I did mine as a bouquet in a plastic bottle while sis Amnah did hers as a wreath. And while hers are very pretty and colourful, mine looks like wilting flowers..but I am ok with that! At least Kakak put in her effort! Love you dear!

Materials used:

Egg Carton

Scissors / Penknife

Paint

Brush/Sponge

Bendable coloured straws - ours are from IKEA

For the vase:

Plastic bottle - cut out the top

Gel balls - usually put in an aquarium. We love this! Should be great for a sensory tub!

Water

Cut the egg cartons as shown in pictures. After cutting ours, I found that it will be much better if the slits are cut not till the middle part, leave like half an inch. That will help the 'petals' from opening too wide which is not very nice. You may then colour the flowers.  

To stick in the straws, poke a tiny hole in the middle of the flower. Slide in the straw, arrange them in your 'vase' and DONE!

#6 JFF: Syringe painting!

Syringe

Poster paints

Paper

Tray

Time

The greatest show of LOVE a parent can give to a child is TIME ~forgottheauthor'sname

Another spider craft! Eric Carle style

We already did a spider craft some time ago using cardboard egg carton. But there's never too many a time in doing crafts right, what's more if they are simply fun and the finished product invited such a beaming pride in your child's face.

We are still on and off in our thematic lesson progress (definitely not proud of that). Still on insects and spiders. I can list off several reasons for that, but honestly deep down I know and have to shamefully admit that procrastination is on top of it. There I've said it!

Ok enough of that and let's get back on track.  We've been reading and loving Eric Carle's works which include The very busy spider and The very hungry caterpillar relating to the current theme. And I've been bloghopping a number of awesome blogs on kids crafts and such, and happened to stumble upon book crafts. These people have such incredible yet simple ideas that always make me go "Why didn't I think of that!".

So I have decided to do a craft based on The Very Busy Spider. Specifically the spider itself. Have you read it to your child yet? Please do! It portrays different farm animals with their sounds asking the spider to play with them. It sure is fun making all sorts of animal sounds with Kakak, even Adik enjoyed it too!

What we used:
Blue crepe paper
Yellow crepe paper
Orange paint
Black paint
Brown paint
Green Paint
Scissors
Glue
Spider template (Go here to download it. I blow it bigger here, another great site!)

1. Paint your papers. Look closely to the picture on the book and choose you colours. We used blue paper painted with greens for the head, yellow paper painted with orange and black dots for the body and yellow paper painted with brown and black for the legs.

2. Let dry.

3. Cut the template and spread glue.

4. Shred the papers and paste accordingly.

DONE!

Little note: Our cat has been bringing in roaches the past few nights. Yes! Roaches! She dug them from somewhere outside and brought them back! EEWW! Abah and I are absolutely terrified not a big fan of roaches. Nothing is worse than a Flying cockroach!! Ok now that's not the point actually. All I had wanted to say is Kakak saw it, went to it up-close, and started shouting "Mama look! It has 2 antennas and 6 legs! Insect!"

#5 JFF: Wax on hot rocks! Lotsa fun and a lil scald

In Just For Fun (JFF), me and my daughters will be doing a random FUN activity! Most ideas are sourced from great mommies and teachers out there online and in books tho some came right form my not so creative mind. They are so fun insyaAllah you will definitely be tempted to try them out with your lil ones! Be sure to link up or leave a comment if you do coz I would love to hear your side of fun! :)

Don't they look colourful and pretty?! I saw this activity in several blogs. Luckily managed to find some smooth rocks last week. A word of caution though, because this involves handling of HOT items. Kakak had her taste of scald, kesian anak Mama! It was painful, she cried, but that certainly didn't stop her from finishing it. Proud of you!

You will need:
Smooth rocks
Crayons

1. 'Bake' the rocks for 10mins at about 175deg.
2. Take them out. Be extra careful as they are HOT!
3. Place them on a paper, cardboard or rug.
4. Take crayons and colour them! The crayons will melt upon touching the rocks, it was so fun to do it!
5. Leave it to cool.

Her first try! Just look at that happy face seeing the crayon melting!

Mama joined in too and did the ladybug! Others were done by Kakak despite the lil accident.

Accidentally elbowed a rock, don't worry dear it will  be well soon insyaAllah..

#4 JFF: Lets go Fishing!

In Just For Fun (JFF), me and my daughters will be doing a random FUN activity! Most ideas are sourced from great mommies and teachers out there online and in books tho some may come right form my not so creative mind. They are so fun insyaAllah you will definitely be tempted to try them out with your lil ones! Be sure to link up or leave a comment if you do coz I would love to hear your side of fun! :)

Last weekend Kakak found Abah's earphone and pretended it was a fishing rod. While pretend play and imagination are great, I did feel like giving her a more appropriate tool to play with. Since we do not own any fishing toys, this gave me an idea of doing our own DIY fishing game with whatever supply we have in hand!

For the rod:

A pair of disposable chopsticks

String (we used shoelace)

Tape

1. Put two sticks together, make it long and tape them. 

2. Tie one end to the stick and another end with a magnet. (We bought a long strip magnet at a hardware store).

For the ocean life:

Cardstocks (I used cardboard from cereal boxes)

Printed pictures of ocean life (just google them)

Magnet

Double sided tape

1. Paste pictures on card.

2. Cut the cards accordingly. 

3. Paste the magnet on one side of the pictures.  

Well, I was so eager to finish it that I did not even printed any pictures to save time. I just cut out shapes of fishes from the cardboard and asked Kakak to colour them! Well, another reason, which I think is more honest, is that Mama was being lazy!

After playing them on carpet, another idea came to mind. Took a small basin, shredded blue crepe paper and fill it. Put some rocks and marbles and throw in the fishes! Tadaa, its a pond!

Looking at her, I was sure she had fun playing it. Me and Abah gave a big round of applause every time she caught a fish, and this made her smile from ear to ear. It was worth the effort alhamdulillah!