Easter outdoor decorations

This is actually an idea a friend of mine had: for her son's 4th birthday she had painted a giant ninja turtle onto a piece of cardboard and hung it on the fence. It stayed there for almost 9 months before she took it down. So when she told me that she wanted to have her kids paint Easter bunnies and eggs on cardboard and decorate her fence with them, I thought that was a fantastic idea and I should copy it. Our garage currently looks like a giant cardboard storage facility. Thanks to Amazon we have lots of boxes in different shapes and sizes, especially since I've recently ordered some large picture frames. So I pulled out some large pieces and started drawing and cutting.
My son had a lot of fun painting the eggs. We did them together, since some shapes turned out to be too hard for a 4yo, and he tried really hard to follow the patterns. But that's ok. I find painting incredibly relaxing, so I was happy I got to do some painting, too!
We haven't done the bunnies yet, but the eggs are already up on the fence. Our yard is right along a popular walking path, so hopefully the people walking by will be cheered up and smile when they see them.

There is also currently a trend going around of kids painting rainbows in windows, symbolizing hope that all will be well and reminding other kids that they are not the only ones having to stay at home. We painted a rainbow on cardboard and hung it on the fence, too.

                 

 

Toucan Box

Some time last year I came across the Toucan box. It's a crafting box for kids ages 3-8. For a monthly fee, they'll send your kid a box with 2 craft projects: it includes instructions, all the materials, a little magazine with more ideas and games, sometimes they include stickers, or erasers and such. They always send more stuff than you actually need in case something goes wrong. The projects are always matched with the age of your child. Some projects require drying time, help from a parent, or are especially messy, but those things you're told in the instructions. It's usually one project that takes a little longer, and one that is done quite quickly.

My 4yo really enjoys getting mail and is always looking forward to getting his "blue box"!
The materials are of a really good quality. The ghost pinata we made for Halloween is still hanging in our living room. I was really looking forward to the Easter box, since it included either a bunny race car, or a wooden greenhouse to grow herbs in. Both would have been great for my son, but I was secretly rooting for the greenhouse, since I wanted to do some gardening with him anyway, and we were lucky!

The second project is a paper Easter egg chain to colour with watercolours and decorate with feathers. And since it includes paint, my little artist wanted to start with those.

The box is shipped from England, but I am not sure in which countries they ship. But if you use my discount link, you'll get 50% off of your first box. There is no minimum amount of boxes you have to order, you can just give the first one a try and then see if it is something you'd like to get more regularly: https://www.toucanbox.com/friends/mareike-fwy5

Slime

It's been over a week again! I wanted to write several posts with crafting ideas and I was flooded in various groups with free things to do, to download, to watch, etc. that I haven't been able to go through, yet, and update my list in one of my previous posts. We also had some isolation drama. Not being able to see his friends, nor be able to do all the fun outdoor activities we're usually doing, is starting to take a toll on my 4yo. He had quite some down days this week that we've been working through. And on top of that, my phone dropped one time too many and the screen fell of. The case is the only thing that keeps it attached to the rest of the phone so that I was able to keep using it for a few more days, save all the pictures I had not yet transferred to my computer, and, after almost five years, order a new phone. It's supposed to get here in a day or two, so yay!

Anyway, since my 4yo wasn't really in the mood for lots of crafting, I brought out the slime kit I had bought a few weeks ago and which we had tested with one of his playmates. (I still have painting posts to write from when he was in a better mood, so I'll try to get those uploaded soon.)
Slime always makes him happy, even though I'm not that happy when he sticks his Hot Wheels cars into it to play mud or car wash and I have to get the slime out from inside the tires afterwards.

What I like about this kit, though, is that it's not as messy as other slimes we've had before, it comes with a HUGE selection of differently coloured slime, and it has lots of beads and pearls and glitter and even glow in the dark powder to add into your slime.

    

I was sent a recipe today to make slime at home. I'll post the ingredient in German for now (trying to get the kids into bed early today after daylight savings time) and will add the translation later.

Guarkernmehl-Slime:
* 200-300ml warmes Wasser
* 1 TL Guarkernmehl
* Lebensmittelfarbe
* 5gr Natron
* Kontaktlinsenlösung

You'll find instructions on www. slime-diy.de and there is also a youtube video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63Wp4eXtynw minute 18:50). That video has 12 different recipes for slime. I was intriqued by the nutella-marshmellow one!

Buchempfehlung - book recommendation 1

Disney Ideen Buch - Disney Ideas Book

Yes, you see correctly, I ordered the book twice. Amazon had 2 different delivery dates for them, both roughly in 2-3 weeks, so I ordered both to see which one got here faster. Guess what, they both showed up at the same time 3 days after I had ordered them. The English version is 5€ cheapter, so if you don't care about the language, buy that one, they're both absolutely identical! 😉 I'm either going to return my duplicate, or I'll put on in my private crafting library, and one in my school material library.

I flipped through the book and I have to say, I really like it! It has two table of contents, one is sorted by topic, like "costumes", the other one is sorted by Disney characters. I love that it is not only a craft book but it also offers games, physical activities, and experiments.
Some crafts take a lot of materials or skills, so I'd say the book aim at ages 8-14. For sewing projects you definitely need to have an adult help you. And you need to be able to use scissors well, there is a lot of cutting required in most projects. Only a few ones looked like I can do them with my 4yo without having to do most of the work myself. But I'm excited to give them a try! I love the narrating stones! So we'll spend some time painting stones and tell each other stories. I'll let you know how that goes!