{ Crafting With Friends }

My kids LOVE to do crafts. I meant to share this post with you all a while back and not sure why it never got out there but I thought, since I've been literally sleeping every.single.second I can get due to having bronchitis and an upper respiratory infection and coughing non-stinkin-stop, I would show you a few crafts we did over the summer since I've got nothing else prepared to show you yet when it comes to our recent house projects.

I love to do crafts with them too but is it just me but so many "kid craft project" are more like "mom does all the work and the kids sit and watch projects". Maybe it's just me. I love when I come across a craft that when I lay out all the necessary items the kids can just go to town and I don't have to be standing over their shoulder practically doing the whole thing myself.

One thing my kids love to do is paint. I let them paint almost every day that I am home. They love doing it, paint is relatively inexpensive, paper is cheap and the hour long painting project is a perfect distraction for the kids so I can get some much needed work done around the house. It gets even better when friends are involved.

Then we did a craft last week, that I've done before, and would say it's one of those mom does more of the work than the kids BUT the outcome is fun so I still will do this one on occasion.

 We call these silly hats...

They wore their hats (crowns is what the kids called them) for about two hours around the house after making them! They played kings and queens and princess and had so much fun!

These are easy to assemble and most of the items are typical craft items that you probably already have stashed away...or at least I do #craftinghoarder

Items you need:

Duck tape (so many fun patterns at Meijers or any craft store)

Straws

Pipe cleaners

Pencil

Scissors (not pictured)

You can measure the circumference of the child's head and then cut the tape to that length and lay it sticky side up on the counter. Obviously this is the mom part since the tape would all be stuck to the kids head and stuck to itself if the child did it themselves. That wouldn't be pretty.

Have the child pick out a few (really doesn't matter how many) of their favorite colored straws. Mine were the bendy straws so I just cut off that part. Stick the straws onto the sticky side.

After that you take another piece of tape the same length as before and lay it directly on top of the other piece so both sticky sides are now together with the straws in between the layers.

Have the kids wrap the top of the pipe cleaners around a pencil so they get curly and stick them into the straws. Wrap around the child's head and stick another small piece of tape on to hold it in place. Now enjoy!

I made these for the kids for Halloween a couple years ago too and they were a big hit.
Instead of using straws, I used black paper strips for the legs and round paper cut outs for the eyes. He loved this hat!

Sometimes it's worth doing some of the work so the kids can have a fun time playing with their new "toy" once they are done!

Tonight we are planning on having a few friends over for a small Halloween get together after we make a quick trip to the school trick-r-treat walk-through to pick up some candy. We probably wont go outside too much tonight since I've been sick plus it's snowing here already. dun.dun.dun. I'm excited to spend time with our friends tonight, we plan to snack, have a kids dance party (maybe us adults will get in on the dancing too), and let the kids paint up some funky looking gourds. It should be fun. Or maybe a paint disaster, but I bought washable paint, so we should be good. All in all thankful that it's finally Friday, and the weekend should be full of house projects and family time which is totally good with me!