Sponge bath toy

This idea came from one of the blogs I follow, but I can't recall (or find by Google) which one, so here is another link that details the how to as well.

I grabbed three new household sponges and sliced them up.  In hindsight, I would have sliced them up lengthways into thirds as the above link suggests.  I then cable tied them in the centre, which took a few attempts as the bundle was originally too fat.  Voila!  A nice bright spongy bath toy!

I am also thinking of some fabulous messy outdoor painting we could do with these when the weather warms up.

Edit: I found these on another couple of blogs since this post: Here

Paddlepop sticks & a travel mug

This idea came from one of my favourite blogs, Chasing Cheerios and was so cheap!  I pilfered six paddlepop sticks and bought a pack of two travel mugs from Big W for $2.97.

I was amazed that Geekling picked it up immediately and would happily sit on the floor picking up the sticks, inserting them into the travel mug one by one, occasionally knocking the mug over but happily righting it again before continuing.  When complete he would bring me the mug saying "ta, ta, ta" until I would open it, let him grab all the sticks out then put the lid back on and give it back to him to start again.

I'm really impressed with his growing ability to focus and work on a task from beginning to end with little if any assistance.

Muffin Tray Meal #2

A very tardy update featuring another muffin tray meal:

Clockwise from top left: Grapes, banana mini-uffin, peach, sausage and onion, toast and chicken & vegie soup.

Dyeing Playsilks with Kool-Aid

I know, I know, every craft or parenting blog on the planet has a post about dying playsilks or yarn or other products with Kool-Aid.  But I did it recently, had a lot of fun doing it so am going to give you the run down :)

I ordered the 1m square silks from Dharma Trading Co, and the Kool-Aid on ebay because its not usually sold here in Australia (or if it is, its at expensive imported candy stores - although I have some other colours/flavours to collect from a Canadian online store that allows pickup from a French patisserie in the city).  I planned to dye pink, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple and leave one white.

Clockwise from top left: Yellow silk dyed with 3 packs Lemonade and 1 pack Mango, Blue silk dyed with 4 backs Blue Berry, Pink silk dyed with 3 packs Pink Lemonade and the Orange silk was dyed with 4 packs of Orange.

 Step 1: Dump silks in hot water with a fairly good glug of vinegar.  I think there would be a cup or so in this pan with the hot water.  Soak for 15 - 30 minutes (although I am sure longer won't hurt) while you prepare the dye.

 Step 2: gather containers for the dye baths.  You can use glass or metal but not plastic as it will stain and absorb the smell and flavour a little.  Kool-aid and vinegar are foods and not toxic so you can use your every day cookware.

 Step 3: Empty the Kool-aid into the containers, then add hot water and a good splash of vinegar.  I think there is about a cup and a half of hot water in each container.

 Step 4: Add silks to the dye baths and move and squish around fast if you want the most even coverage.  Keep squishing and moving until the water left in the container looks milky or pretty clear - its actually really cool seeing how fast the dye attaches to the silk!

 Oh yeah, wear gloves if you have them.  This stuff stains!!!  If you don't have gloves and are itching to dye, washing your hands well with toothpaste afterwards will remove most the dye, except around the edges of your nails.  I hear shaving cream works too?

 My orange silk being dyed.

 Step 5: Rinse under COLD water until water is running clear.  Then hang out to dry!

 Step 6: PLAY!!!  Geekling loves kicking his legs around in them, throwing them over his head and loves to play peek-a-boo with us.

I just love how vibrant the colours turned out, I think because I was heavy handed with the vinegar?  Some I've seen online are a lot paler.  I'm looking forward to completing the set with Purple, Green and Red soon!

Kids-made window art

I saw this amazing post  at Filth Wizardry (what a sensational name for a blog!) and would love to do it for our large living room sliding door and window, or the window over our kitchen table or Geekling's own bedroom window... but I fear he is a bit young for it.

Will have to settle for, or at least practice with, smaller scale versions using clear contact with the sticky side facing out ready for decoration.  Here's our first one:

Geekling LOVED sticking the different things to the contact, though he did get a little frustrated when trying to stick something to a part of it that was already covered and couldn't understand why it wasn't sticky in that spot anymore.  We used pink tissue paper, blue cellophane, newspaper and leaves from outside.  The photo doesn't do it justice, it actually looked quite lovely with the dappled sun coming through and cast coloured patches of light on our floorboards.