Magical ice block.

An ice block can open child's imagination to another world!

Letting girls to choose forms for their ice cubes, we once agin spoke about what ice is, about temperature and about parts of the world which are covered in ice.

Our ice is ready to be explored!

In bigger blocks of ice presence of impurities such as air inclusions makes the ice block look like a frozen world of shooting bubbles. "There must be something hidden in between these bubbles! What do you think it could be?" I asked girls. "Somebody could be hiding in there!" girls says with an excitement.

Using food colorants, pipettes or a pant brush girls are starting to colour their magical frozen world. Sides of the ice block are starting to melt creating thin lines which are starting to look like colourful rivers at the side of the ice cube. Under the ice cube a lake is starting to form where all the colours are mixing together. "Look, Mammy, it's a rainbow!" screams the small one. "Do you think it could be the place where the rainbow starts?" I ask. "Yes! This is the beginning of rainbow!!!" girls are over excited with their new discovery.

Once the painting was complete and day light started to fade away, we turned all lights off and using a torch we lighted up the world inside the ice cube. It was a mind blowing view through the colour cover ice cube which now looked so magical with white fog in the very middle and frozen bubbles around it and rainbow rivers over it. They took some glitter and shifted it over their ice cube pretending it's snowing rainbow snowflakes. Beautiful!

And then something extraordinary happened! Having no snow in Ireland, girls were dreaming about having some ice and snow outside. Next moment smallest one lets out the loudest scream - "it's snowing outside!!!". I looked outside the window and there they were - snowflakes dancing between stormy winds all over our garden!!! Speechless and excited we ran outside to be a part of this magical moment. Snowflake hunting with the torch was in operation!!!

Those who don't believe in magic will never find it....

Flour castles.

This project is for brave parents who don't fear great and heavy cleaning session... :/

We discovered this madness while preparing some Christmas baking. Dough mixing got out of control and became a flour storm! Girls had so much fun that we have been practising flour castle building at least every second week. Candy volcanos, animal prints in flour, snowing over candies... so many things to imagine with flour!

All you need to have is a pack of flour. Some summer sand forms, spoons, animals, cake sprinkles goes well together.

I highly recommend to make candy volcanos - mini and large. Small one was stamping small craters and filling them with sprinkles and my oldest daughter made a big volcano which collapsed and swallowed all of sweet lava sprinkles.

Than animals were passing over volcanic area in search for candies but all they found was just another footprints in flour....

And saving best for last - a total freestyle vandalism! And a footprint on the rug which apparently doesn't belong to anybody... :/

Shaving foam art and pooping rabbits :)

Who thought of this?!!! What a total genius! Since our discovery of shaving foam crafts there have been no rest. And our shopping basket is starting to get attention from our local shop assistants... :/ I can only imagine what are their thoughts.... :D :D :D

Having our friends over, entertainment level had to be tip-top. And shaving foam did just that! We did two art sessions and one science session. And kids were kept busy for over 3 hours! Success or what :D

You will need

1. Shaving foam

2. Liquid glue (we used all craft white clue)

3. Colours. Any. We used food colorants but it stains your hands. Gouache colours would be the best for younger kids.

4. Bowl to mix all ingredients.

Pour equal parts shaving cream and white glue into a bowl. Stir the two ingredients together with a spoon until the finished product is slightly stiff. When you take the spoon out of the bowl and hold it upside down, the paint should stay on the spoon. Make a new mixture for each color you'd like to paint. Once paintings are done, allow the paint to dry overnight before touching it.

So here is what we did, how we did it and why we did it:

Our two rabbits Hiccups and Bruce Lee had been constipated for nearly 2 days. We were so worried... And one moment my oldest daughter notices that there are few tiny, little poo in the rabbits toilet. Well, the excitement in the room! (... :D ...)

Kids decided that they need to make a drawing for this happy moment. And here is the result - happy, healthy, pooping rabbits (What a laugh I had... :D :D :D )

After that there was some intense colour mixing, more glue pouring and more foam and foam and foam and foam. There was no end to new ideas of what to draw next.

Highly addictive art. Be advised!

Imitating a rain cloud.

When art session was done it was time to get some science going. I found this really educational and fun activity on pinterest. It looked so interesting that I myself couldn't wait to try this out! This is one of the greatest and most simplest way of learning the very basic concept of clouds - how they hold water and when there is too much water it starts to rain.

You will need:

-a clear glass or a jar or a vase

-Food colouring (you can use other coloured water but this seems to give the best colours)

-Water

-Shaving cream

-pipette (eye dropper)

Fill drinking glass or vase with water but not to the top, leave an inch from the top unfilled. Then top the glass with shaving cream. This is the moment when you can explain about clouds and what types of clouds are there. Then add blue food coloring to the "clouds". Please note that this works best to concentrate the food coloring in a couple areas...rather than add a drop here or there. For more colourful rain add all the colours you have :)

Life in Arctic project.

Highly, highly educational project for children! And too much fun! This is probably the most favourite project of mine we have done so far.

This is our idea of what Arctic looks like :) And this is how we did it: First of all we had to suit-up for the project with our Icelandic t-shirts!

Then we took out our map to see where Arctic is.

We talked about how cold it is there and which animals lives there.

Then it was time to learn what is ice and what is it made of.

Girls learnt that ice can be frozen from a liquid to a solid. The ideal is to have an ice cube tray. That way kids can be putting blocs of ice on the top of each other and build away. Unfortunately we had only ice bags. But they were fun, too! You can have a great fun squeezing the ice between your fingers until they slips out knocking down some ice buildings :)

Girls were fascinated to follow the progress of ice forming.

They kept opening the freezer and touching ice bag to see if the bag is getting any harder.

While waiting on the ice, we watched National Geography documentary about polo bears.

It is time to build Arctic scene! We used polystyrene box. Not only it is perfectly white but it also ensured that the ice blocks stayed frozen for longer. We took the ice cubes out of the bag and learnt that ice is starting to melt once you hold it in your hands.

Great way to experiencing temperatures and textures with fingertips

Once the ice was in the box, we added polo bears and reindeers.

And then it was time to let it snow!

We got some silver, sparkling glitter and sifted it all over our Arctic scene. It was an amazing picture. Looked really, really pretty.

After our project girls asked me to watch just a bit more about polo bears :)

Science. Geography. Construction. Art. All in one project!

Capes for kids from kids!

Thanks to Craft Hope we found out about organisation called "Enchanted Makeover" and we are very much excited to support it any way we can!

Since 2007, Enchanted Makeovers' mission has been to transform homeless shelters for women and children into places that inspire behavioral and psychological change. Through their various projects, mentoring programs, and makeovers of the physical space, women and children are introduced to a way of thinking that helps to shift their outlook about their lives and possibilities for the future. The shelter is transformed into a beacon of hope. Mentoring programs such as the Sacred Sewing Room, Stepping into the Dream, and Capes for Kids develop important life and coping skills.

When I started to share this project with people, I didn't get very positive feedback.

Many people shared thoughts that "if you would be in their position - would you care if someone would give you a cape?" Yes, I would.

And I hope that if I ever have to go through an experience like that, someone will do the same to my children.

Need of play, need of pretend play, need of imagination boost that can be brought to child with a simple cape, a toy together with attention is grater that one can imagine. For a child in such harsh living conditions, the imagination become the only escape. To put on a superhero cape and run around the field, climb the tree and inform child's fellow superheros that the day have been saved, that the sun is about to unfold and the food carried by giant dragonflies has been brought to the kingdom of grate Shelter and the next task is only for the bravest and faster superheros - to make sure that food gets served to elderly and injured warriors first! And off they go flying around their great kingdom helping to bring a smile and a hope to those who have lost it... Now how can that be a silly idea, how can this not be important? When you see a laugh from a child who has been through the most desasterous experience one can imagine, when you see a child wanting to be a help not just another mouth to feed...

An innocent child should not be exposed to world's disasters, catastrophes, life long struggles... No one should... But the reality is heartbreaking. A shelter where people are united by the worst possible cause, where you breath sadness and loneliness, where you walk a road of fear and desperation, where people around you are too occupied with caring for food supplies and searching for family members, no one stops and looks at a child as a child. Child with childish needs of a silly play... In times of crises no one stops to play... and it is understandable, of course.. There are more important things to be done than play with children. And childhood slowly gets erased, a child is being dragged to the broken world before he becomes an adult. Hope for a positive future? I don't think so.. When you meet a child, have a child or work with a child - the only way to understand him/her is to try to see the world with an eye of a child. You have been one yourself, it's impossible to forget...

The designs on the capes are entirely chosen by girls. We sat down and had a look at few fabrics we had at home and talked through what could we put on the capes. There were no question about Captain Lollypops! Flower and heart was the only option :) For "Commander Cosmos" we had to brain storm a bit. And we came up with this amazing idea to create a little universe and sew our very own Planet "Strawberries" on it :) That little red planet is ours :D

My oldest daughter cut out the entire Captain Lollipops cape and proudly operated sewing machine's pedal. Both girls made all the buttons and planets.

We are happy to help any way we can. These capes will be sent on Monday together with lot of love.

Small hands shares big hearts..