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- How To Make Fairy Houses Your Kids Will LoveJune 7, 2019Learn How to Make a Fairy House. This is fun project will keep your kids busy for hours. Simple DIY ideas using natural items or craft stuff you already have. Make magical memories with your children. A great activity for all ages! I work at a small library in a rural community. One summer our very talented Summer Reading Program coordinator spent an afternoon making fairy houses with the children. What excitement! We mounted an expedition to the nearby woods to gather materials. Then constructed homes fit for fairy royalty. I expected the younger ones to enjoy this activity, but everyone loved it. Boys, girls, and all ages from preschoolers to tweens had fun that afternoon. This still remains one of the most popular events we ever held. I loved how the children excitedly shared their creations. The young architects eagerly showed me their fairy houses. Even the shyest child couldn’t wait to tell me about the special features they built for the fairy owners to enjoy. It was wonderful. Related: 25 Insanely Fun Activities To Get Your Kids Outdoors This Summer HOW TO MAKE A FAIRY HOUSES YOU WILL NEED A container to collect materials. We also used the container as a base for the houses. Your imagination A collection of natural building materials. these might include fallen leaves, bark from dead trees, twigs, pine cones, stones, feathers, dropped flower petals, nuts, seeds, seashells. Craft supplies (optional). These might include, fabric scraps, silk flowers and leaves, ribbons, craft sticks, beads, shells, gravel, jungle bells. Glue gun (optional) If possible visit a park and ask everyone to search for materials that can be used to construct and decorate fairy houses. Emphasize that only found materials can be used, as fairies do not wish you to destroy or pick anything living. If you are unable to go to a park, you will probably find enough materials in your back yard and you can still do this activity with crafts supplies. INSTRUCTIONS You have your building material, so you are ready to start building! There are two options Build your house outdoors. Find a suitable place to build and work together to construct and decorate your house. If you have several children you may want to create a fairy court with several dwellings. Build your house indoors. This is what the children at our library did. We made shallow boxes from card stock, which acted as bases. The children built their houses around the bases using the materials they had gathered outside. We also provided some surplus craft supplies to add a little pizzazz. For more inspiration watch the start of this short video that features a fairy village built from natural materials Try to use what you have on hand, rather than buying anything extra. It just adds to the fun! You might also need a hot glue gun for indoor building. LET YOUR KIDS TAKE THE LEAD Although you will be working on this project together, I would strongly encourage you to let your children take the lead. Try to focus on the process rather than the end result. It really doesn’t matter if the finished house looks a little lopsided, as the fairies won’t mind a bit. The most important thing is that you all have fun together and make connections. As you work encourage conversation about who might live in your house. What are their names? Tell me what you think they look like I wonder what work they do? What do you think they do for fun? Encourage your children to make up stories about the adventures of these little people and prepare to be amazed by your young storyteller’s imaginations. THE BENEFITS OF MAKING FAIRY HOUSES This activity is a lot of fun and it is so good for kids to engage in these kinds of activities Your children are outside enjoying the natural world. It gets them away from the screens for a while. Encourages healthy, imaginative, and creative play. But best of all it creates a wonderful opportunity to make memories and build connections. And you get to make a fairy house! What could be better than that? I hope the photographs I have enclosed will provide some inspiration. I would also encourage you to visit The Fairy Houses Picture Gallery. It has some lovely photographs of fairy houses built by people of all ages. ...
- A Really Simple Homemade Teacher’s Gift (Free Printable)May 28, 2019Do you need a quick homemade teacher’s gift? Here’s a simple DIY gift teachers will enjoy all summer. Pair a potted plant with these free printable tags. It’s the perfect way to express your appreciation at the end of the year. By the end of the school year my boy’s excitement mounted as the days counted down. “I can’t wait Mom” exclaimed my middle son at least twice a day. I felt the exact same way. It was such a relief to move into the relaxed routine of summer vacation. Still it was a busy time of year for us. There was all the end of year school stuff with it’s special activities. We also had extra curricula activities ending. This meant myriads of special events and requests for things like cupcakes! It always seemed that June was the busiest time of the year. It was even busier than Christmas and that’s saying something. I felt as if I was running from one thing to another. You too? THE DILEMMA OF TEACHER’S GIFTS Amid all this business came the realization that I had a whole wack of teacher appreciation gifts to organize. Yikes! I knew I wanted to do something special for my boy’s teachers because Our teachers are saints, so they deserve all the recognition they can get. I wanted to show my boys that it was important to say thank you to their teachers for a job well done. It wasn’t just school teachers either. We had music and Sunday School teachers who all appreciated a thoughtful gift. By the time we counted them up, it was usually about 8 gifts. The trouble is that all these teacher appreciation gifts can become quite expensive. We didn’t have a lot of money, so they needed to be homemade and inexpensive. But I didn’t have the time (or patience) to do something too time consuming. At this time of year, it needed to be something simple, quick and cheap. PLANTS TO THE RESCUE! I found it was possible to create a homemade teacher’s gift that is inexpensive, easy to put together and meaningful. All I needed was a few plants and a printer! Today I’m sharing our idea for a simple teacher’s gift that doesn’t take any time to put together. There are loads of cheap plants available at this time of year. Just stick one into a cheap pot and you have an instant gift that can be enjoyed all summer long. Dress it up with a FREE PRINTABLE plant label and it becomes something special. Look at this isn’t it cute? A REALLY SIMPLE HOMEMADE TEACHER’S GIFT It literally takes 10 minutes to print the labels, cut them out, and tape them to a craft stick. And voila you are done! Easy peasy! Has your child has developed scissor skills? Invite them to cut out the labels and make the gift themselves. That way it becomes even more meaningful. Mom tip: Kids love planting, so if you have time try planting seeds from scratch. It takes about 4 weeks for plants to grow to a decent size, so you will need to start 4-6 weeks before the end of year. Here are some plants that are easy to grow from seed. Nasturtiums Marigold Pansies Calendula Petunias Zinnia Here’s a tutorial for those of you who have never planted seeds before. MATERIALS NEEDED Shopping list Small plant in a pot Free Printable (see below) Cardstock Extra Planting Dirt Craft sticks Scotch Tape Mom tip: Thrift stores are great places to find cheap pots. It doesn’t actually need to be a pot. A pretty mug or tea cup can make a lovely plant container. Here’s a video that shows you how to re-purpose thrift store finds into plant pots. Don’t fancy drilling holes in the bottom? I don’t blame you! Place some small decorative stones in the bottom to provide drainage and you won’t need a hole. MAKING THE PLANT LABEL Download the printable file. Print page 3 (labels) onto card stock. Cut out labels Tape craft sticks to the back of each label Push ends of craft sticks into the soil next to the plant The great thing about this gift is that it is perfect for all your kids teachers. They all deserve a thank you, especially the volunteers. MORE IDEAS Check out my Pinterest Board Gifts That Kids Can Make Looking for more gifts that kids can make? Here’s 26 Easy Father’s Day gifts For Kids to Make YOUR TURN Do you give homemade teacher’s gifts? What have you made? share a comment below....

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