Taking Time To Create: March 2013

Monday, March 25, 2013

Dr. Seuss Activities|Dr. Seuss-A-Thon Continues{Oh, The Thinks You Can Think and Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are?}

Oh boy! If there were a character limit for post titles, I certainly would have reached it with that one. These are some long titled books! Oh The Thinks You Can Think! and Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are? were last week's Dr. Seuss books for the Dr. Seuss-A-Thon.

My copies are what you might call "well loved" as you can see above. They're actually my mom's and I'm pretty sure she bought them from the library in one of those sales with the books that are just too worn for them to keep. But, hey, they're still all there and still readable, so I say we keep using them!

Oh, The Thinks You Can Think! Activities

Recreate the front cover: scan the people, print them out, and cut them out (maybe even do this on magnetic paper or attach them to magnets. Print or draw different shapes and have the people walk around and/or in them. You can talk about the directions they're going: up, down, left, right.
Create a "think story": the book is all about the things you can think up or imagine. Let your kid's draw their own think story or create one by putting together pictures from magazines. You could even scan pictures from books and print them out.

Did I Ever tell You How Lucky You Are? Activities

Color and/or draw some cactus. Discuss how it would feel to really sit on one...probably not the best idea!

Some of the "unlucky" characters on pages 6-7 are trying to build a bridge.

Try building a bridge of your own with things around your house. Legos are an obvious choice, but try other things too; books might be a fun option.

This poor little guy on pages 20-21 has his tail all in knots!

Practice making your own knots with yarn or rope. If it's something you don't want to stay knotted up, rope might be the better option. If you're using rope, you could also untie the knots (this would be fairly difficult with yard though).

This fellow on pages 24-25 has endless rows of i's to dot and t's to cross.

Try dotting some i's and cross and crossing some t's of your own.

What a job this guy from pages 26-27 has! All he does is watch bees all day!

Do some bee watching of your own. From a safe distance, watch for bees in your yard or in a local park or garden. One of our local parks has a nice flower garden, so we're going to take a picnic there one day when the flowers starting blooming and keep an eye out for bees. You could do the same with birds. Just be sure that your kids understand how to act around bees, so they don't get stung.

One of these guys from pages 34-35 is missing his shadow!

Check out some shadows of your own.

Go outside and take a look at how different objects make different shadows.
See how shadows change with the sun's movement. Mark or outline a shadow in the morning and then go back later in the day to see where the shadow has moved.

There's so much potential for activities with any Dr. Seuss book. The key is to use your imagination!

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This Week's Book

The Bippolo Seed and Other Lost Stories
(we're just going to do the one book since there are several stories in it)

Learn more about the Dr. Seuss-A-Thon here.

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This is where I party:

Wednesdays: Super Link Party | Show & Share | {Wow Me} Wednesday | From Dream To Reality | Create & Share | What I Whipped Up Wednesday | What We Wore & Made Wednesday | The Creative Spark Wednesdays | Milk & Cuddles | Made By Me Wednesdays | Adorned From Above | Creative Muster

Sundays: Nifty Thrifty Sunday | It's Overflowing Sunday Party | Cooking & Crafts Party

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Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Easter Bunny {Free} Printable

Spring is certainly in the air here in Colorado and with only a couple more weeks to go until Easter, I wanted to create a little something for the occasion--this cute Easter Bunny Printable!

The yellow and blue just call out "Spring!"

You can download a watermark free 5x7 version of this printable here.

Enjoy!

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This is where I party:

Sundays: Nifty Thrifty Sunday | It's Overflowing Sunday Party | Cooking & Crafts Party

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Monday, March 18, 2013

ABC Baby Card {A Quick Tutorial}

I made this card a couple weeks ago for a baby shower, and the hardest thing about making this card was finding the font I wanted to use. Seriously, it's that easy!

Print "abcdeBabyfgh" on a piece of white card stock. Mine is almost centered on the page; it's just a little lower than centered. Cut two pieces of coordinating paper the same width of the card and glue them beneath the sentiment. My green piece overlapped the blue piece.

That's it folks!

More Information About Making This Card:

This piece was inspired by a card I saw in an older issue of Paper Crafts Magazine I was flipping through at the library.

The font I used was Brady Bunch.

You can download a PDF the template I created here to use or to give you an idea of how to line up your text. It will print to a 8.5x11 sheet of paper, and you'll want to cut that piece of paper in half to create your card base.

Happy Card Making!

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This is where I party:

Sundays: Nifty Thrifty Sunday | It's Overflowing Sunday Party | Cooking & Crafts Party

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Friday, March 15, 2013

Dr. Seuss-A-Thon {On Beyond Zebra! Activities}

This week's Dr. Seuss book was On Beyond Zebra! I'm not sure how popular this book is (I didn't find much on Pinterest for it), but it's one of my favorites! It's classic silly Dr. Seuss with a bunch of letters that aren't in the regular alphabet. You'll find them if you keep going past the end of the regular alphabet...they're on beyond 'Z is for Zebra'. There are new letters and new creatures to discover "On Beyond Zebra"!

Since there weren't many activities to be found on Pinterest, we thought up our own: "On Beyond Zebra Hopscotch". It's like regular hopscotch, but instead of numbers in each square, we drew the letters and some of the creatures from the book.

A chalk artist I am not, but it sure was fun to try to recreate the letters and creatures!

Once we finished with the drawings and squares, we played!

While we drew, we also talked about what kinds of animals some of the creatures in the book looked like...

The Wumbus, of course, reminds us of a whale (and is actually called a whale in the book).

The Zatz-it reminded us of a giraffe.

Other Ideas:

Take the book to the zoo and try to find similar animals to those in the book. Zoo not your thing? Try searching online or maybe get a book or two with lots of animals from the library (this option is FREE!).

Try drawing the creatures and letters on paper instead of in hopscotch squares.

Next Week's Books

Next week we'll be back to two books:

Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are?

and

Oh, The Thinks You Can Think

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This is where I party:

Sundays: Nifty Thrifty Sunday | It's Overflowing Sunday Party | Cooking & Crafts Party

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Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Layered Paper Gift Bag {An Easy DIY}

This is an eeaaasy DIY that you can do in just a few minutes! Quickly transform a plain bag into something beautiful!

Here's how to make your very own:

You'll need a plain paper gift bag (you can find a 2 pack at the dollar store), patterned or colored paper, and tape.

Start with your plain paper bag and measure the width.

Cut 8 pieces of paper that measure 2.5-3 inches high and the same inches wide as your bag. You'll use four pieces for each side.

If you're going to scallop the edges like I did, do that on one edge of each piece. I used a paper punch, but you could also use scissors that create a decorative edge.

Optional: To create more dimension, roll each piece, so they don't just lay flat.

Start at the bottom and tape each piece/layer in place making sure to line up the edges and space them as evenly as possible. I used a few "loops" of tape on the back of each layer.