project idea
Check out the new bedroom!
Saturday, April 3rd, 2010 | Uncategorized | No Comments
You know how when you get a great idea, and that great idea grows with more great ideas and then you find yourself stumped on exactly how to make that great idea a reality? I’ve been stumped for a while now. My kids bedroom began with great ideas but after the first several steps, cool though they were, I was at a stand still. The things I envisioned for the rest of the room either didn’t exist or I needed more man-power and time than I had. This past weekend it finally all came together!
Picture 1 is the view from the door looking in, there are glow in the dark stars on the ceiling. I have a cloud/raindrop window treatment planned but its not made yet. To the left of that picture is the kids closet which has another castle curtain and to the right is the kids chest of drawers (small as most of their clothing is in the ikea baskets and shelving in the closet).
Picture 2 is from standing in the corner with my back to the chest of drawers. You can see a glimpse of the castle closet but from this view you can’t see how the top tabs of the curtain are made to make it look like the top of a castle wall. The tree here is from the pet dept at IKEA and is meant for cats to climb on. It has a series of small shelves which the kids are using to put all their stuffed birds, monkeys and other appropriate animals in.
Picture 3 is my oldest son’s lower bunk. He has his magnetic wall to the right and his flickering castle lights at the head of the bed. I still need to make him a kingly sign for over the head of his bed
Picture 4 is the top bunk where my daughter sleeps with her fairy land in the ‘clouds/forest canopy’
Picture 5 is down below my youngest’s loft bed which is the ‘forest floor’ where the guinea pigs reside and I plan to add some lights under here and change the bean bag chair/stuffed animal storage to allow for more room in their nook under here.
Picture 6 is a closer picture of my youngest son’s bed here just under the tree tops. He LOVES the color green and chose this perfect tree/leaf printed bedding from IKEA. I found this 5′ circular green netting canopy in the outdoor decor section at IKEA and I just used some green thread to tack it up and billow it to be the tree top.
The ‘Wall of Love’
Saturday, April 3rd, 2010 | Uncategorized | No Comments
Sometimes I get these ‘ideas’, sometimes they go as planned and often they don’t. The other day I was at the grocery store in the office supply aisle (its an addiction) and I saw one of those items that immediately causes me to think ‘I love this so much I need to think of a purpose for it!’- heart shaped post-it notes! Right up there with new colored pencils and the perfect journal is my affinity for notepads, and if they are colored, shaped, and patterned well then its LOVE. I brought them home with the plan of having them available to my budding writers to jot down things they love and add them to the sliding glass door (aka dry erase board/command central) whenever they felt the whim. I figured over the course of weeks we’d have this lovely wall of positivity. The positivity is there but it didn’t take weeks, my kids took the idea and ran with it….for about 4 hours in one sitting! Note after note, giggle after giggle and only occasional requests for spelling help (would have been a good idea if they had asked a time or two more) and now we have this lovely ‘wall of love’ right next to where we eat our meals and do our daily school work. I often find myself standing there letting my eye meander about from note to note and smiling at the sweet hand writing, phonetic spelling, and heartfelt thoughts. This is one of those projects that didn’t go as I planned- it went better!
(click the pictures if you want to see them bigger and read some of the notes)
Kid Powered Toys!
Monday, February 22nd, 2010 | Uncategorized | No Comments
Something I truly love is an afternoon listening to the kids play games from their own imagination, especially when their imagination is bursting with ideas from our recent field trips, books and learning together. Back in August of 2008 I was inspired by some ‘habitat boxes’ that were at an exhibit at our local zoo. I took detailed pictures and vowed to make this for our family- which ended up being 7 boxes so I could gift them to the other families in my home school group as well. That box combined with a good set of play silks are about the best kinds of toys available for children of all ages (habitat box has some items that would need to be held out until a child is past the age of eating the contents). Here are some of the highlights from the past few weeks of how my kids have used these ‘toys’ plus their own ideas!
- mini marshmallows with wood skewers and a tiny battery operated tealight provided many giggles and fun for 3 and 4 yr old friends ‘roasting marshmallows’ over their campfire (and the older kids wanted in on the fun too!)
- Yellow play silks worked as a sandy desert and blue silks were used to make the Mediterranean sea and the Nile River to go with their Egypt Playmobil. Some of the yellow play silks were on occassion waved over the whole scene to create sand storms as well as used to cover some artifacts for the archeologist playmobil men to find.
- The kids used the piano bench to be the pier in Seattle and their legos to build the Seattle Aquarium. Pieces of the habitat box were used in combination with play silks and some under the sea Playmobil to create the underwater scenes (under the pier). Kelp forest silks are hanging under the pier, yellow silks for sand bottom habitats and rocks form rocky bottom habitats…all kinds of fun!
An awesome blog full of great ideas!
Thursday, February 18th, 2010 | Uncategorized | No Comments
If you haven’t checked out this blog link yet let me humbly encourage you to do so. Val is so full of great ideas, amazing recipes and beautiful pictures and instructions for all- check it out!!!
Creativity blooms in a bed of boredom :)
Sunday, July 26th, 2009 | Uncategorized | 1 Comment
Its amazing what kids will come up with when you allow a little boredom. This Sunday while we napped the kids were up and allowed to ‘play quietly’. With a few props from around the house and some pipecleaners from their craft bin they made their own fishing game. I was quite impressed! Right after these pictures were taken Bayus ran in with a new batch of fish he’d just made.
Make your own habitat
Saturday, August 16th, 2008 | Uncategorized | 1 Comment
I love it when I come across an idea that is so very ingenious and yet so very simple that I must, just must, find some opportunity to re-create it! This summer while visiting the zoo the kids played with a set of seemingly random items put together by the zoo to be used to make ‘habitats’. Each storage box contained a cut out of green and blue indoor/outdoor carpeting to represent water and land and then an assortment of various other props. Add in a hefty dose of a child’s imagination and maybe a few small toys (I’m dreaming of little bendy fairies and needle felted animals) and you have endless possibilities!
