Project Runway -- Pre-School Edition

In Zoe's Pre-school class, they've been reading a book about a princess who was trying to find the perfect dress for her birthday party. (FYI, the book is all in Chinese, so this is my interpretation of the illustrations, lol). She is given different dresses in all the different colors of the rainbow, but none of them are quite right.





Finally, her family and friends show up with a big surprise, a rainbow dress!



She is incredibly happy, and they all live happily ever after....



So yesterday, Zoe came home with a bag full of materials and instructions to make her own "Princess Dress" (or some kind of clothing.) I felt like this was similar to the Project Runway challenge where they have to go into a hardware store or a pet store, and make a ball gown out of things they find there. Not that 4 year olds are expected to make a ball gown, but you know what I mean! :)

So, here is what we started with...



Maya was really keen to help, so she cut the blue garbage bag in half and planned to make a vest. Once it was cut in half, she wasn't quite sure what to do, so I stepped in and cut the arm holes and folded down the "collar." As I was working on that, I thought that it would be cute to add a little ruffle of sorts to the hem, so I also worked that in. (Thank you double-sided sticky tape!) Once that was on, Zoe tried on the vest, but it kept slipping off, so we fashioned a button to hold it in place.




I added a pocket on the side, and then let the girls go wild gluing and taping all of the decorations on.






What do you think? Is it worthy of the runway?

Easter garland

Last night I was feeling a little crafty, but I knew I wanted to do something that my kids could also help with. The other day, I saw this really cool idea on another blog:

(photo from Modern Parents Messy Kids)

Unfortunately, I don't have piles of paint chips lying around, but I do have tons of scrapbook paper scraps that I've been saving for just this sort of activity. I pulled out a bunch of "Eastery" colored papers, and traced egg shapes on the back. (I used the template available from the above link). Then we got to work. My almost-8-year-old, and my newly-4-year-old both had a fabulous time cutting them out. I thought about "fixing" the ones that my younger daughter cut, but then decided against it. I love that she was able to help!

(Sorry for not "staging" my photo better, lol. I was in a hurry!)



Can you guess which ones my 4-year-old cut?




It was a great activity for the 3 of us to do together, and I'm thinking about making a few more garlands to put up elsewhere in our home, too.

Silk painting

WOW... it has been way too long since I did anything crafty. I am definitely due to get some stuff done!! Well, today, I did get a couple things done. Yay!

For Maya's birthday back in May, one of her friends gave her this little craft activity for painting a silk scarf and bandana. She's been asking and asking to do it, but I was afraid of the mess. Today, we finally got it out, and it was surprisingly easy. I wish we would have done it a long time ago! Maya was very sweet and let Zoe do the bandana, while Maya did the scarf. They had a great time.





Zoe was napping when they were finished drying, so here is Maya modeling both the scarf and bandana.