Sponge Rainbow

St. Patrick's Day is tomorrow and this is a fun and simple activity to do with your toddlers.

SUPPLIES:

1. Paint (I used finger paint because it was easy to squeeze out of the bottle onto the sponge)


2. Sponge


3. Paper

Before we dived into making the art on paper, I showed Caden (4 yo) a few pictures of rainbows.  We've seen them a few times before in real life, but I wasn't sure if he remembered what they were exactly.  I asked him what colors he saw in the rainbow.  It was fun to see him realize that the colors in a rainbow were the same colors on the sponge laying before him.  Then I placed his sponge on his paper and let him make his interpretation of a rainbow.

Once he was finished with his painting, you can see him beaming with pride.  "Mom, I made a rainbow!"



It sure is, and a beautiful rainbow at that!  I hope you have a wonderful weekend and that the weather is treating you well.  It's been in the 70s all week here and has been fun to be outdoors so much.  And don't forget to make some green food for tomorrow.  Your kids will love it!

Reuse Your Wrapping Paper

Did everyone have a fantastic weekend?  I know I did.  I ate way too much and had such fun time with family!  Are you one of those that saves all your wrapping paper or do you trash/recycle it?  All mine usually gets recycled, but if you want to keep it this time, here are a few ideas for you:



How to make Paper from B Zedan.

Shredded paper picture from Jesse James.

Sort it into similar colors and put through your paper shredder for gift packing.

Let your kids use it for making collages.  You know Valentine's day is coming up.  Cut the red and white paper into small, unidentifiable pieces and they'll never know that there were penguins on the paper!

Use it as packaging for your Christmas decorations.

Do you have anything special you do with your wrapping paper leftovers?

Easy Gift Wrapping

Still wrapping gifts?  Me too! Here are some beautiful wrapped gifts and ideas that I've seen lately:

{Paper Lantern Ornaments with Divine Twine from Whisker Graphics}

{Monogrammed gift from Paper Source}

{Yule Log Gift Tubes from Martha Stewart}

Paper Wreaths

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving.  We are having a wonderful time spending it with family and friends.  {And we are still stuffed from yesterday}.   Since we have a little break from the day to day hustle and bustle of life, we are going to be relaxing and hopefully spend a little time crafting too.

Ever since Danielle was here sharing her Fresh Nest with us, I have been on the look out for some great paper wreaths.  Here are a couple different variations I found that I think would be fun.  {And they would make great gifts too!}

{From left to right clockwise: Living with Lindsay, The Red Thread Blog, 2H Design, The Daisy Chick}

Do you have wreaths hanging in your home?  If so, where do you hang it?  On your front door?  In the living room?

Children's Playroom- Redesign

Darcy sent over this wonderful redesign on her children's playroom.

Isn't it amazing what a little colorful paper can do to a room?

We love to see what you are working on.  It's so inspiring.  Send us your before and after pictures here.

DIY Hutch Redesign

Kristen sent over this beautiful redesign that she did on her hutch.  This is a redesign that anyone could do.  She painted the hutch black and then used 12 x 12 pieces of paper to line the back of the shelves.  Great job Kristen!  We love the new & updated look of your hutch! 

Have a redesign that you'd like to share?  Send us an email- contactus AT freshnestdesign DOT com or fill out this form here.

{images here}

This Makes Me Happy

Who loves paper as much as I do? I'm sure that someone out there does, but as you know I really, really heart paper. So how excited do you think I was when I found out about this??

A local shop (Porridge Papers) that sells hand made paper (including seeded paper- paper you can plant- oh, so eco friendly!!)They make all of the paper by hand in their shop. How cool is that?

And you know what's even cooler? They do letterpress. Who wants to learn how to do letterpress? ME, ME, ME!!!

They have a link on their website to sign up for classes so I hope they offer them soon. I have some designs I would love to try out using this.

*all images from Pulp Obsession