Homemade Birdseed Molds

I've been trying to get a number of items checked off the "to do" list especially ideas I've pinned. This was a project I planned to do a year ago and was shared by Stomping in the Mud blog. Finally, Dylan & I got out on a warm (50s) afternoon and made it a reality.

Supplies

• 3/4 cup of Flour
• 1/2 cup of Water
• Unflavored Gelatin
• 1 cup of Birdseed
• Muffin tin coated with nonstick spray 
• Straws (we used 2 cut into 3 pieces each)

Start by mixing the flour, water and gelatin.

Add the birdseed. We poured about 1 cup into our bowl. I don't have any pictures as we quickly realized it was much easier to mix with our hands versus a spoon. It really has a fun texture and cleans off easily.

After it's fully combined, press the mix into the muffin tin sections. Then insert a small straw into the middle.

Let the molds dry for several hours. Or, if you're like me and forget about them, overnight. Pull out the straws and flip the tin over on a sheet of waxed paper. The molds should slide out on their own and will still be damp underneath. Allow to sit until completely dry.

Add a string and hang for the birds to enjoy!

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Travel Entertainment for Kids

Over the weekend we took a family road trip to Williamsburg, VA. Whether all 3 of us or just Dylan & me, one thing I've long known - traveling with a young child requires entertainment. While he will actually look out the window at the scenery a good bit now, that's never enough. Here are a few of our tried & true ideas for making road trips a success:

Car Toy Bag
I originally kept a couple of toys in the diaper bag for use when out & about. Then I saw Allison's idea of using a fabric storage cube to contain an assortment of toys and books in her backseat. I copied the idea with a small bag, but quickly saw the need to upgrade. I ended up purchasing a medium sized tote from Land's End with a zipper closure. This bag is always in our car and filled with toys and books to entertain whether we're going across town or across the state. It has come in handy for road trips and long waits at a restaurant when crayons & paper aren't enough. Most of the items following are all stored in this bag.

Doodle Board
The smaller size travels well and provides a creative outlet that is clean. Just be aware of leaving it in the car in extreme weather. One of ours was warped beyond repair over the summer when left out in the heat. Perhaps best stored in the diaper bag versus the car bag.

Travel Roadway
I found the idea of creating a travel sized car roadway on Pinterest a while back. The original idea used the top of a shoe box. I didn't have one handy so I used a small cardboard box from canned cat food. I trimmed the edges down to approximately 1" high. Then used a permanent marker to sketch a road, trees, signs and houses. This roadway fits Dylan's lap perfectly and he's driven cars on it for almost a year now. Another plus - by leaving the design black & white (or brown?), he's also been able to color it adding extra fun. It's size has also worked well as a small "desk" space to support small books for coloring.

Fabric Marble Maze
I made half a dozen of these for Dylan and his friends for Christmas 2 years ago. It's small and easy to tote anywhere - purse, diaper bag, etc. Details here.

Coloring
Since he loves to color, we typically have our crayon roll with us when travel. Other fun ideas are Invisible Ink books and, our latest discovery, Crayola Color Wonder markers & books. When I wasn't able to find an Invisible Ink book late last week, I ended up buying the Color Wonder Stow & Go kit. It was a huge hit and kept him occupied most of the drive each way. We'll definitely be investing in additional books before future trips.

Button Snake
Another Pinterest idea found here. I quickly whipped up the button snake one afternoon with supplies in my house. I store it in a small fabric bag he got at a birthday party so all the pieces stay together. This simple eye/hand coordination project entertains him for a while. A lacing kit would also work.

Books & Magazines
We keep a few favorite small books in the car bag including our DIY I Spy book and a couple with digital music players (Elmo's Rockin' Road Trip). When I know we have a trip coming up, I'll often stash the latest issue of a magazine for him to enjoy on the ride.

DVD Player
Honestly, the last few trips we haven't even taken our DVD player with us! *gasp* We did try it at the start of our trip on Friday and quickly put it up. For whatever reason, it doesn't hold his attention for very long. Perhaps when he's older it will hold his attention again.

iPhone
This is part of the reason we don't need the DVD player - Dylan's iPhone has a few TV shows installed as well as a number of kid friendly apps. Plus he can take photographs, make videos and listen to his own music. Since he doesn't use it the entire trip (and is limited other times), I don't feel too guilty handing it over for the ride.

Assortment of Small Toys
Think army men, matchbox cars, etc. Perhaps toys from a kids' meal or the dollar spot. Little things that your kids will find fun for imaginative play in the car and even the hotel room during your trip. But also items that you won't fret over if they get lost. Usually ours turn up under a car seat or in the pockets in the door though.

Have other ideas? Let me know. Even with the list above, we are still on the hunt for new ones. 

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Little Tikes Neighborhood Market

Over the summer, Little Tikes hosted a giveaway to raise awareness for Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation. To enter, a photo needed to be shared on Twitter and include the hashtag #LittleTikesLovesLemonade. 5 winners received a free Neighborhood Market playset.

I shared a photo of Dylan driving his Cozy Coupe down our sidewalk. In early July I was contacted by Little Tikes and notified that we were one of the lucky winners!

All of this happened right as we were preparing to sell our house and move. I knew if Dylan saw this new toy, he'd want to open it immediately. Given that anything already boxed would be easier to move, I opted to ship it to my in-laws house and have them store it until we were in our new home.

The day we picked up the toy, I snuck it into our car while Dylan was busy playing with his grandmother. He fell asleep on the ride home. I took advantage of the opportunity to get it into the house without him seeing. A few minutes later, he walked in, saw the box and just stopped & stared. He finally walked over to the box and said, "Wow! Cool." This is before we had even opened it!

All 3 of us worked on putting it together (ok, so Dylan focused more on the toy food & cash register while Trent & I did the "construction" part). And all 3 of us have been playing with it since. Our days are now filled with, "Dada, you want to buy?" "Mama, you want to buy?" Dylan loves selling us food from his market. He even had me write "Dylan's Market" on the sign just like the box.

The entire market is so cute - It has a handle on one end and wheels on the opposite to easily move it to different locations. The food area has clear sliding doors on the front and 2 shelves with 3 bins each to hold the food (it comes with fruit, ice cream cones & cupcakes). Under the sign is an awning to pull down when closed or roll up when open. To complete the fun, the market includes a cash register, 4 plastic dollars and a credit card.

Note: The Neighborhood Market was received free to me as a prize in a giveaway sponsored by Little Tikes. A review or otherwise was not required as part of my win. The opinions expressed within the review are my own.

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Monster Pizzas

Looking for a fun Halloween inspired food idea for our playgroup when Dylan & I hosted earlier in the month, I came across a recipe for Monster Pizzas. We changed it up a bit, but kept the same general concept. The boys all loved creating their own special pizzas.

Ingredients

English Muffins
Pizza sauce
Mozzarella cheese 
Mini pepperoni
Red, green & yellow peppers in various sizes

I gave each toddler half an English muffin and added the sauce for those that wanted it. Then let them top with cheese.

Next I brought over a divided plate of peppers and mini pepperoni to top their pizzas and create the faces. I got mixed reactions. To be expected from toddlers. :)

Dylan loves his veggies - especially peppers. He made a face but kept eating the green pepper nose before I could snap a photo.

Red pepper hair (or eyebrows?), mini pepperoni eyes and yellow pepper mouth.

Then ate off all the veggies before I could nab the pizzas and put them on a tray to warm in the oven. Thus his is the "ate all my veggies" pizza.

The lunch was a hit. I think almost every bite of pizza was eaten plus a good amount of fresh fruit (bananas, apples & strawberries). Of course, the promise of mini pumpkin cupcakes for dessert might have helped. ;)

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Friday Freebie: 'I Spy' Book

Dylan loves I Spy books so when I saw the idea on Delia Creates blog for DIY I Spy Books, I knew I needed to make him one. He loves it especially since his toys are featured. He'll dig through his Duplo blocks to find the physical matching pieces as well as searching the photos. :)

Here's a peek at a few of the pages ...

The fun part? I'm sharing these pages with you. The alphabet find page is a bit different. It's 6 squares like the other search pages and features ABC instead of Dylan's name.

You can download the pages here. Please remember they are for personal use only. Thanks and enjoy!

The free I Spy pages today are in lieu of my typical monthly digital scrapbooking freebie. Find past Friday Freebies HERE and, don't forget to subscribe to my feeds so you won't miss future freebies!

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grow

One of those bittersweet moments in the past week, we took our final photo in front of the giraffe growth chart. I wasn't good about getting these on a monthly basis as I hoped, but we did take several over the last 3 years. Here are the first and last taken at 1 and 38 months respectively:

Supplies: Rocketman kit by Deena Rutter; Blossom kit by Karen Funk; In Stitches - Bright Basics by Robyn Meierotto; 2peas Island Style and Adobe Caslon Pro fonts. Scraplift of Playing Together by editorialdragon at DHD.

Why the giraffe is staying put and why we won't use vinyl wall decals in our next home here.

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NC Aquarium at Roanoke Island

The first of two pages detailing our fun at the NC Aquarium at Roanoke Island earlier in the month:

Supplies: Linen Line No 3 by Morjike & Agnes Biro; July Freebie by Anne Langpop; Recollect kit by Sara Schmutz; Nautical kit by Celeste Knight; Just the Way You Are and Caflisch Script Pro fonts. Scraplift of Aquarium page 2 by Jennifer Valencia.

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Football Tee

A couple weeks ago I shared a birthday t-shirt I made for one of Dylan's friends. I had a creative spurt and couldn't stop there. She regularly tailgates (and attends a few games, I believe) with her parents before Duke football games so I made her this Pinterest inspired shirt as our gift:

Close-up shot:

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Toddler Moving Books

This post contains affiliate links and I will be compensated if you make a purchase after clicking on my links.

After a suggestion from a friend, I made a request from our library for a couple of age appropriate books about moving to read to Dylan. While we've been telling him for about it for a few months, taken him to see the new house several times, he's seen the boxes piling up, etc. - we don't fully expect him to understand the concept at age 3. He's enjoyed these two books and both have led to further conversation that I hope will help with the transition. So far he's been excited, but last night he did show concern that the moving truck would have spiders and didn't want his stuff in it! Where he got that idea I'm unsure, but I promised the truck would be clean and, regardless, his bed and toys would be moved in Mama's car. That seemed to help!

A Tiger Named Thomas - cute story about a boy that moves to his new neighborhood shortly before Halloween. He doesn't think the new neighbors will like him, but on Halloween he learns otherwise.

The timing of this book is perfect as we're moving into our new home at the very end of September and are already talking about Halloween with Dylan. It gave me an opportunity to remind him that we will meet some new friends in our new neighborhood and I also reinforced that we will still see our old friends that both live in our current neighborhood and elsewhere.

The Berenstain Bears' Moving Day - the story of Papa Bear, Mama Bear and Brother Bear moving from their home in the side of a mountain to their treehouse.

We already have a few Berenstain Bears books that Dylan loves. Having a father, mother and son moving were a good comparison to our family of 3. We discussed how all our belonging are being boxed up and will be loaded into a truck to move (it was after the 2nd reading of this he mentioned spiders in the truck. I'm not seeing any in the illustrations so I'm thinking they came from his imagination). Since Dylan will be staying with grandparents during the actual move, I promised to send him a few photos so he could see what is happening. He liked that idea. Thank goodness for the digital age!

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from a toddler's view

While moving photos off my point & shoot camera after our vacation, I found a number of shots taken by a certain toddler. ;) I picked 8 to feature in this scrapbook page. Always fun to see a different perspective on our adventures.

Supplies: 8x8 Border Album, Page 5 template by Audrey Neal; 52 Templates No. 29 by Tiffany Tillman; Beach Ball papers by Robyn Meierotto; Just the Way You Are and Myriad Pro fonts.

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Princess "Three" Tee

The one girl in our playgroup of ten kids is turning 3 next week. I was honored when her mom asked my help in making the birthday t-shirt:

Looking forward to seeing her wearing this and celebrating the day in princess style. :)

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Pirate Spyglass

Dylan's imagination has grown in the last few months. He's really enjoying costumes and pretend play so much more that I've started expanding his costume collection. Most recently we added a pirate hat. Of course, all good pirates need a spyglass to help when searching for treasure so we dug around the house for supplies to create one. Here's how to make your own.

Supplies

• plastic or paper cup
• toilet paper tube
• aluminum foil
• tape
• glue (if desired)
• scissors (adult use only!)
• any decorative material you might like (stickers, buttons, etc) 

Start by cutting a hole in the bottom of the cup that is equal size to the toilet paper tube diameter. You can trace the tube outline to help. Note it doesn't have to be perfect.

Cut a few small slits along one end of the toilet paper tube. Have your child fold each of these sections outward.

Now slide the tube into the cup and out. Stop when the folded sections hit the bottom of the cup. Tape and/or glue in place.

Tear small sheets of aluminum foil. Wrap the tube and cup. Use tape and/or glue to adhere. We stuck entirely to tape using masking tape mainly in "hidden" areas and finishing off with black electrical tape. These could be decorated even further by adding stickers, gluing buttons or rhinestones, etc.

When complete, let your pirate imagination run wild as you search for treasure using your new spyglass! Dylan likes to do so from his Step2 Woodland Climber "ship" in the backyard as well as from various locations throughout the house. :)

A version of this post originally ran on August 22, 2012 for Arts & Crafts Thursday at Notes from a Mom in Chapel Hill blog here.

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Carwash

Dylan and his neighborhood buddy (green shirt) washing my car for me last month:

Supplies: DHD's August Blueprint template by Jen Flaherty; Beach Ball and Oceanside papers by Robyn Meierotto; Giggles & Grins kit by Karen Funk; Nursery Rhymes kit by Sara Schmutz; Splish Splash kit by Rhonna Farrer; Orange Crush kit by Audrey Neal; Favorite Things 2 by Gennifer Bursett; Meadow kit by Celeste Knight; Traffic Jam kit by Miss Mint; Stamp Act Jumbled font.

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Fizzy Fun

One of those simple, fun projects I've meant to try with Dylan for some time - mixing colored vinegar and baking soda.

This was a great way to use up an old container of fridge baking soda. It was long past time to switch it out so I just dumped the entire box into a small baking pan. We added a few drops of food coloring to four small bowls with vinegar. (No blue as I forgot we used it up making the "moon dough" for his party favors last month!)

We had a good 30 minutes of play with this project. Dylan loved squirting the colored vinegar into the pan and watching it fizzle and bubble. Then he tried sucking up a bit of the baking soda with the eye dropper and squirting it into the vinegar bowls - more bubbling fun!

He poured colored vinegar between the bowls - mixing the colors. Finally he poured it all into the pan and mixed both with the eye dropper and his hands. It was a brown mess by then, but still a fun textural experiment! We'll definitely try again.

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Argghh!

From our day of pirate fun at Oval Drive Park last week:

Supplies: Linen Line No 3 paper pack by Agnes Biro; Toolbox - Mist v1 by Gennifer Bursett; That Was Yesterday add on by Michelle Underwood; Little Buckaroo by Miss Mint; Antique Type font.

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Rainy Day Visitor

Yesterday morning I spotted a small visitor strolling across our patio in the rain - a little box turtle!

All 3 of us crowded around the patio door for a few minutes to watch it. After I grabbed my camera to take a pictures, Dylan wanted in on the action too.

Here are his shots taken on his Little Tikes digital camera:

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Week in a Nutshell

This week has been incredibly busy. Far from creatively productive (struggling there), but full in so many other ways ...

I've been packing more boxes. Still many, many more to go with only 6 weeks until closing.

We've looked at 8 more houses since Saturday and finally found 1 we are interested in. :)

The inspection of our current house took place on Tuesday. Thankful for a good friend letting Dylan & I hang out at her house while that was going on. Still waiting on the full report.

Dylan & I met friends at Oval Drive Park in Durham (our first visit - the pirate 'ship' is awesome!) and hosted our weekly playgroup get together.

I thought about blogging on Wednesday. I took a nap instead. :) The right choice.

I've worked 4 nights at my part time job since Saturday. Starting tomorrow I'll be working the closing shift for 4 nights straight.

My dad visited on Monday and watched Dylan while I attended a funeral for a friend's grandmother. She will definitely be missed and is probably having a blast in Heaven. Grateful to have known her. How many grandmothers take their granddaughter and friend to FL on spring break? Yes, there's a story there and it takes a unique individual to do that! :)

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Memorial Day 2012 layout

A bit of wet fun on a hot day! Dylan & his friends had fun splashing in the pool. They weren't quite certain what to think when the giraffe sprayer was turned on. It was hilarious to watch - until Dylan & Luke discovered they could turn it and spray their moms! ;)

Supplies: 52 Thursday Templates No 20 by Tiffany Tillman; Design House Digital's NSD 2011 collaborative kit; Of the Essence add on by Fei Fei's Stuff; April 2009 {Free Pea Kit} by Crystal Wilkerson; Poornut & Marker SD fonts.

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favorites at 3

Last fall, I pinned an idea to ask your child 20 questions each birthday beginning at age 3. Dylan participated for 11 of them. I'll take that as a success. Some answers were expected (favorite TV show - Tom & Jerry) and others had Trent & I laughing (favorite thing to eat for lunch? "Dinosaurs eat lunch." what???).

Inspired by the greens, blues & yellows in this month's Swatch Challenge at DHD, I paired his answers with my favorite photos from our photo shoot last month. I'm curious to see what answers I get next year!

Supplies: Convo Piece No 3 template by Paisless Press & One Little Bird; Design House Digital's NSD 2011 collaborative kit; This Week brushes by Karla Dudley; banner from DHD's August Swatch Challenge.

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Busted T-Switch

The words "uh oh" can mean a variety of things when it comes to a toddler. I went to see what led to them one morning last month. Dylan had been alone in the living room setting up a new train track while I was cleaning up the kitchen. As I approached, he said, "sorry, Mama." Uh oh. Then I saw it - the broken piece of track:

I was stunned. I didn't even think you could break these tracks. But, sure enough, a portion of it had snapped clean off. Thus I shared the photo via Instagram and Twitter commenting  ":( D broke his @MelissaAndDoug t-switch track." 

For what it's worth, I know Melissa and Doug is very responsive via Twitter. Maybe not to every comment, but they certain man their social media well. I had a quick response to call their 800 number. I did and was shocked to find a REAL person answered the phone. Seriously, for a chatty person, I was momentarily stunned. I expected an automated system and told their customer service rep just that! She laughed and joked with me about it. Then listened to my explanation of why I was calling (broken piece, Twitter). Which all led to this:

Melissa and Doug shipped Dylan a replacement piece! Amazing. I did not expect that at all. Thank you, Melissa and Doug! You rate #1 for us with quality toys and personable, awesome customer service.

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