Mason's Annual Handprint Canvas~Year 6!

Yes, we're still making a handprint canvas every year on the kids' birthdays..and yes, I'm Sooooo thankful we started this tradition when Mason turned one! We already have a nice little collage wall of handprints in his room (6 to be exact) and I just hope he lets me keep doing it until he's 18! :) Ok...I may have to stop before then, but a Mama can dream, right?

This year, I let Mason choose what colors he wanted the canvas & his handprint to be. He chose royal blue & orange. Bright--but it turned out nice, I think!

Hung in a random order...may have to rotate them before next year's handprint.

Here's the big 6 year old!

Here's a link to the past 5 years of handprint art!

Kids' Canvas Name Art

This is a fun art project that your child gets to help make! My son and I made this last Fall but I'm just now getting around to sharing it.

My son always wants to paint while I'm painting and I thought this would be a cute sign for him to make for his bedroom.

Step 1:

Paint canvas a solid color. This is the color your child's name will be. It also helps in case he/she doesn't get the canvas completely covered with paint and so white won't show through.

Step 2:

After the paint has dried, spell your child's name out in removable stickers.

You can use:

A. Painters tape (good if your child's name is short and doesn't have many curvy letters) or

B. Large letter stickers or

C. Cut out adhesive vinyl letters from a Cricut or other cutting system. (This is what I did.)

Step 3: Let your child go wild painting on the canvas--assuring that the letters get covered really well.

Step 4: Let it dry, then peel the letter stickers off to reveal your child's name!

I used a staple gun to attach a ribbon to the back of the canvas...

Then I attached 2 removable Command hooks to his bedroom door and hooked the painting on.

Here are my kids' bedroom doors! I made the ribbon wreath for my daughter's door and I have since added a large painted wooden letter in the center. I love having their names/initials on their bedroom doors!

If you'd like to see another kids canvas art idea, check out our Annual Handprint Art. 

Sand Art

This Summer, my son turned 5 and we threw him a Scooby Doo birthday party. It was the first party in which he invited some friends from preschool, so in addition to a game, I wanted to have an activity/craft for the kids to do and be able to take it home. I thought that making sand art would be both fun and fit the bright colored 70's theme of the party. It was a hit!


I set up the table in the backyard (didn't want sand in my house!), covered it with a plastic tablecloth and set up all the supplies. The kids did the rest!



The dog bone sign was for Scooby Doo~it looks kinda of out of place in these pictures without seeing the rest of the party LOL!

I made up an example sand art and had it on the table. I just put all the containers in a bowl in the middle so the kids could pick which shape they wanted.




Supplies Needed:

Colored Sand (I got 7 different colors)
Small funnels (1 for each child)
plastic (or glass) containers with lids (1-2 for each child)
spoons (to scoop sand into funnel)

All of the sand art supplies (sand, funnels, & plastic containers) are found together on a craft aisle at Hobby Lobby)

Madelyn's Annual Handprint~Year 1!

My son has a nice collection of 5 of these now (see previous post) and it's now my daughter's turn to start her handprint tradition, since she just turned One!

I went with light pink on pearlescent hot pink paint. I use a metallic silver marker to write her name, age, and the date (which is on the side.)


She moved (who knew) so her face is a little blurry

Checkin it out

I hung it over her dresser-I'll have to move it in the future when she gets more.

Rockets & Clothespins (2 quick projects)

Just wanted to share 2 quick projects with you...

My 5 year old and I made these 4th of July rockets a few days before the holiday. I'd seen many other blog posts about them & thought it'd be a good project for us. I won't go into a tutorial but there are many out there floating around the blogosphere if you search. Basic supplies are cardboard toilet paper tubes, scrapbook paper, ribbon & adhesive. I was pleased with how well my son did on these & found it hard to tell which ones were his & which ones were mine! (Can you tell?)

I never ended up getting them hung with clear fishing line, but they sure will look cute for next year! ;)




I use clothespins to clip & organize paperwork, etc. so while watching tv one night, I broke out the glitter pens & went to town glitterizing some for myself...

...and for my Mom. I think they look better in person. I heart glitter!

Gotta Love PB Kids

I'm just in love with these cute things from Pottery Barn Kids. Simple things like this just make me smile...