Local Children's Band: Ben Rudnick & Friends

Last week I entered a contest by Ben Rudnick & Friends to win their new cd, "A Frog Named Sam."  I found out 2 days ago that I won!  The cd, 2 stickers, and a postcard came in the mail today.  My youngest son immediately put one of the stickers on his hand, and we listened to the cd while picking up my other son from school.

We saw them preform a few weeks ago at the Teddy Bear Picnic.  Thats when I found out that they had a facebook page and a newsletter with some free downloads.  It was the combination of those 2 things that resulted in winning the cd.  They asked on their fb page what was one of the free downloads and what did we like about it.

Well after downloading the 2 songs, I played them for my son.  He went crazy over one of them and starting dancing all around the room.  Here he is with his teddy bear at the concert.  I'm hoping to take him to see them again soon.  They are preforming in MA, NH, and CO from now through July 3rd.  You can check their website for dates, times, and locations.

Happy Birthday (Bags)

My oldest son is turning 11 this week, and his party is on Saturday.  I finished sewing 10 goodie bags for the party.  I only needed to make 9 though.

 I made them just like I would a reusable shopping bag.  I then cut out a food box and used it as a label.  I numbered 7 of them 1 - 7.  I left a space to write the child's name, otherwise they can just remember which number is theirs.

The larger cat tag is for my youngest son's bag.  Both of my kids have their name on their tags / bags.  The goodie bags are packed and ready for the party.

Last month I fused a bunch of plastic bags.  Yesterday I turned 2 sheets of them into bags.  This one is slightly clear.

The orange bags were given to me by an employee at Jo Anns.  I thought that the Boston Globe pink was a nice touch for the top of the bag.  Its a tall, thin bag, perfect for a bottle of wine.

I actually used these two bags to wrap some of my son's presents in.

Up-cycled Earrings

Earlier this month while wearing my blue bar code earrings (top right), I told my husband that I would love another pair for my birthday.  I get several compliments on these earrings every time that I wear them.  They say "proof of" then "purchase."  So cute.  So for my birthday my husband got me the pair on the right hand side.  Aren't they cute?  The very back of them is solid green.  They are made from thick plastic containers.  Both earrings were made by Beach Chicken.  I just love her products.  I bought several notebooks from her and gave them to people for Christmas last year.  Her notebooks are made from old hardback books.  Here products are well made, and she mails them in a timely manner.  I'm so happy that my husband listened and picked out just the right pair for me.  I'm looking forward to showing them off.

Tuesday's Tot Craft Time: Plaster Fun Time

My older son's birthday is coming up, and I wanted my youngest to make something for his brother.  We had not been to Plaster Fun Time in a year, so we went today.  It is a place that sells different plaster items that you can paint.  Then they have 4 different types of spray coatings for you to choose from when you are finished.  Last year my youngest painted the 1st letter in his brother's name for his birthday.  This year he wanted to paint this poke ball for him.  I gave him red, white, and yellow paint.  In the end that peach / orange color was all the paint mixed together.  I tried to salvage it a bit by painting over the wet paint.  It's not perfect, but we had fun.

My little one liked this astronaut magnet that was there, so I painted it for him.  He wanted the glitter finish on his.  The other one got a gloss finish.  Would you know that 1 minute after this picture was taken, he dropped the magnet and it broke in half.  So now I need to glue it back together.

I usually like to go to the pottery place to paint presents, but we do not have a week to wait for it to be fired.  At the pottery place I like to give my toddler a tile to paint.  He can paint whatever he wants to and it doesn't matter.  I like to use the tiles as trivets.

The Zoo

This weekend we checked out a new zoo, at least new to us.  I was very impressed when I saw this bench that was made out of 1550 milk jugs.

Right across from it was this bench that was made out of 100% recycled materials.

Unfortunately they still permitted people to smoke inside of the zoo.  However this sign was really cute.  I immediately pictured a fish coming up out of the water and using its side fins to move around.

This sign was also pretty cute.  That night we watch Zathura.  There is a part in the movie where the kid asks what the aliens eat.  When told that they eat meat, he was relieved.  That is until he found out that he is meat.  Well that kind of describes one of the conversations that I had with my kids while looking at the lions. P.S. We are all vegetarians.

My husband took all of these pictures for me.  To see what pictures he took for himself, please visit his blog.  Check back later this week to vote for your favorite picture (on his blog).  He is entering a photo contest that the zoo is running, and he wants opinions on which pictures to submit (there is a 3 picture limit).

Memorial Day Weekend

I hope that everyone is having a wonderful 3 day weekend.  I've put aside the crafts this weekend to spend time outside with my family.  I did have my last Sunday School class yesterday (making juice pouch notebooks and paper beads).  I'll post some interesting recycling pictures later, after my husband turns over the pictures (he took them).  Mean while, I took this picture last summer while on vacation.  It seems to suit today.

Birthday Goodie Bags

Ever since my oldest son's 4th birthday I have been making the goodie bags for his parties.  I don't like those plastic ones.  The kids take them home and throw them away.  I like the goodie bag to be one of the goodies that they take home and use again and again.  I also hope that they get passed on to younger kids when the other child is to big for them.  This will be the 2nd year that I am making them out of printed fabric.  My son is having a lazer tag party.  I couldn't find any fabric that matched the theme, but this black birthday fabric works great.  I am making them the same way that I make my reusable shopping bags, only smaller.  I need to make 9 for this year.  Seven birthday guests, the birthday boy, and his little brother.

These are the fabric goodies bags from last year's water themed party.

This Pikachu one is from his Pokemon birthday party.  It is made from felt.  I just used fabric paint and google eyes to decorate it.

Here is the back of the Pikachu one, a poke ball.  I started painting these 3 months early, because I was pregnant with my 2nd child.  I knew that he would be born before the party, and that I wouldn't have much time to work on them after his birth.

I think Elmo was from his 5th birthday.  It took a long time to paint all of the Elmo faces.  I prefer to attach the child's name to the handle so that it can be removed and passed on to another child.  The soccer one was for his 6th birthday.

The back of the Elmo bag is fake fur and google eyes to represent some of the monsters on Sesame Street.  The back of the soccer one had glow-in-the-dark paint and the child's name.  I had to make about 27 of the soccer bags, because he wanted to hand them out to his whole class.  He opted to not have a party that year and do something special with us (mom & dad) instead.

Bags not pictured: Spiderman, mini golf, and the webkinz tiger.  The webkinz tiger was the most labor intensive.  I had to fuse a forest printed fabric to felt.  Then I machine applicayed fake tiger fur to it, along with fake white fur for the cheeks.  I embroidered whiskers, sewed on a button nose, and glued google eyes on it.  It looked great, and my youngest son still plays with his bag.