headband decoration

I made two felt flowers to decorate simple headbands. On the back I attached elastic loops- like this you can take them easily down from one headband and change to another headband.

self-made play dough

I read about this somewhere- well I forgot where- and it's simple and fun to try. Kept the girls busy almost one hour- except for the bit of fighting in the end, it was a success.

You will need an equal amount of corn flour and shaving foam- at least according to my source- we had to add quite a bit more shaving foam. You can add some food colour or leave it white.

I would recommend to do this outside.

The fun part starts already with pushing out the foam :o)

Helen liked it first and then she preferred to go and wash her hands while I mixed and kneaded.

How smooth! And it smells.... (because of the shaving foam)

In the end the girls made caked with the dough. They wanted to add dirt to create chocolate balls and they wanted to add flowers for decoration. I stopped them. I wrapped the dough in plastic wrap- hopefully we can use it again tomorrow.

The girls went on to make flower-grass-leaf-soups...

All the while Yotam was busy with the old phone cards- taking them out of a box and putting them back.... and throwing them to the floor.

improvised seesaw

All you need is a thick branch and a board (does not even need to be wooden)... And then the fun can start. Balancing alone, walk from one side to the other, two together, sitting, lying.... so many ways to experience balancing on the seesaw....

The girls were busy for a while and then the "truck" came to take away the board and branch and transport them somewhere else in the garden and another game emerged.

fun with cloud dough

Ever heared of cloud dough? I did not before I saw it at "kiwi crates" (By the way- this looks like a great project, those crates!)
So I decided to try it with my girls. I made only a "small" amount. I don't really like to spoil food like this.
Take 1 part baby oil and 8 parts flour.
The mix can easily be shaped... a bit like playing with wet sand...
So far I did not throw the mix- they are still playing with it. Maybe I can re-use it and make play-dough.

Other than that? Yotam likes to explore the garden- eating flowers, tasting dirt, checking out the water hose...

The girls like to paint with watercolours, playing with the beads and all kinds of other things....

And my husband found a fun and fast way to sharpen the colour pencils of the girls.... with his driller :o)

paperdolls

Did you play with paper dolls when you were a child?

I remember that I had some.

I looked in the internet for some printables, found some nice ones here and here, but decided to draw my own ones for the girls. I copied the drawings and the girls (tried to) colour them and cut them out.

It was a way to spend some time while visiting their aunt. Something to keep them busy for a while and away from their cousin's ipad….

If you want you can print the below drawings and make some yourself...

busy days

It has been a while since I wrote something here on my blog…

It has been a busy time with Passover holidays, sickness, visits and I had not much inspiration to either try something new with the kids or time to be creative myself.

We pretty much stuck to things we already did and like- walking in the fields, making puzzles and soap bubbles, painting with liquid chalk and gouache, building tents and tend to the garden, baking loads of mud-cakes... we did one trip to the "harbor area" of Tel Aviv which was very nice and we could have spent the whole day there…

I hope I will be a bit more inspired in the coming days.

yes... there were a lot of annoying flies...

where are those ants walking to?

Fun to play with the hose and water...

and napping outside...

Liquid chalk is fun to paint on the street (and the feet) with ... and then to scratch it down, make a soup with it and splash it again on the street... 

a saturday trip

I like old airplanes... I would love to fly one time in one... I just have one (big) problem- I prefer steady ground under my feet...

On Saturday we took the kids to the skydiving center not so far away from were we live. Every time we go to the beach we see the parachutes and the girls wanted to go and see them going up and landing from close.

They enjoyed to watch the people climbing into the airplane with their backpacks on, they watched the take offs and tried to spy the people high up before the parachute was opening. They were specially interested to watch how they folded back the parachutes into the backpacks.

They already want to go again... :o)
There's a small aviation museum close by and next time I would like to go and  take a look.

little pillow

I made a small pillow for the baby of friends of us. I saw somewhere something similar and thought it could be a nice present. I had some spare velvet for the hair, a nice button for the hair-clip and left over from a lovely ribbon with little red riding hood on it. If I would have time I would produce some more.

tangram

I made two tangram games from foam rubber for the girls. I loved to play with tangram when I was a kid. It's nice to try to make the shapes and to invent shapes yourself. You can find some here or here.

Helen is still a bit small, but she loved to play with the shapes anyway.

the clown and tinkerbell

Tomorrow is the big day. The costumes are ready and I made some pictures.
Helen is a clown. I took a red shirt from the 2nd hand and  added some self made buttons. The tulle skirt is very simple- just some tulle knotted to an elastic band (should have ordered a bit more tulle though).
Helen helped to make the paper hat- if you need an instruction you can find one here.

Neomi wanted to be Tinkerbell. I made the skirt from an old tunic from the 2nd hand and added some green tulle below (bit hard to see on the pictures). From an old shirt I made a cape. The wings we had at home. The hat Neomi sew herself- it is very simple to make- an instruction to something quite similar you can find here.
We added some feathers and some glitter. I love her costume and she thinks she will be "the most beautiful girl" tomorrow... well, I hope she will still feel the same tomorrow.
Last year we made pirate costumes and she really loved it until she met all the princesses, queens and brides in kindergarten...