The Heart Project: a collaborative fundraiser

It's been nearly eight years since I got the news that every parent dreads hearing.  My two month old baby had a congenital heart defect.  She had a ventricular septal defect [VSD] as well as an atrial septal defect [ASD]: she had holes in her heart.  My husband and I were devastated.  We had waited so long to get this child here and finding she had a serious health problem was tough to swallow.

We had to press forward, she needed to gain weight.  At two months old she weighed only 6 pounds [birth weight was 5 lbs., 2 oz.].  We did all we could, the doctors wanted to at least wait until she was a year old to do the surgery, but she was just not thriving.  The only answer was open-heart surgery to repair the holes in her heart.  At 5 months old, she went in for the procedure.  There were some bumps in the road; she went into cardiac arrest during recovery, but miraculously she is still with us today.  And she is thriving.

Last month, Jamie at hands on: as we grow began recruiting bloggers to join in a fundraiser for the American Heart Association.  I knew we had to be a part of this.  I owe so much to the doctors and technology that saved my daughter's life.  It is personal for Jamie as well.  You can read about her husband's cousin Ellie here.

70+ bloggers from around the world have now joined to bring you a book full of creative heart projects!  The book includes 100+ projects that are heart and kid related.  There are projects to create, cook, play with and put on display.

By making a small donation of $5 to the AHA, you will receive this extraordinary collection of photographed heart projects.  We hope you will join us in our efforts to raise $1000 by Valentine's Day for the AHA.

This eBook contains a link to nearly every heart project contributed in the book.  The link will take you to a tutorial on how to complete the project.  The printed version has a index to each blog so you can check it out that way as well.

Are you dying to see what's in the book? Here's a sneak peak:

Plus we have contributed our stained glass hearts and heart flakes to the book.

Make a donation of $5 to the American Heart Association
and receive The Heart Project ebook as a free gift!

U.S. $5 donation to AHA for eBook

This book will only be available through the month of February, so don't wait!

And as a bonus, craftprojectideas.com is donating another $1 for each book that is sold! That means that in addition to your $5 donation, craftprojectideas.com will donate another $1 on your behalf [up to $500]!

Please hop on over the Craftprojectideas.com Facebook page and give them a big thank you for being so generous!

There's a printed version of "The Heart Book" also available! It's beautifully printed, 8.5 x 8.5", full color, paperback. Five dollars (US $5) of every book sold will be donated to the American Heart Association.

US $20.00

Order the Printed Version
♥  $5 of every sale of the book will go to the AHA  ♥
This book only available through the month of February.


If you'd rather just donate without receiving the eBook, feel free to do so!

In addition to the book, we're raising funds for the AHA in several other ways too!

Fundraiser Auctions:

♥  All proceeds of each auction will go to the AHA  ♥

Melissa & Doug -  4 Trunki with Teddy Bear Auctions!

1. Trunki with Teddy Bear, ends Feb 10
2. Trunki with Teddy Bear, ends Feb 10
3. Trunki with Teddy Bear, ends Feb 10
4. Trunki with Teddy Bear, ends Feb 10

Fudoo Boards - 3 Fudoo Board Kits for Auction!

1. Fudoo Board Kit, ends Feb 10
2. Fudoo Board Kit, ends Feb 10
3. Fudoo Board Kit, ends Feb 10

Giveaways are going to be happening every day from now until the 14th! There's more than one some days, so be sure to check them all out! These giveaways are from The Heart Project Bloggers who are very generously donating their projects (from The Heart Book!), or something related to their heart project.

There are also a couple special giveaways from Melissa & Doug, Fudoo Boards and CraftProjectIdeas.com!

The Heart Project Contributing Bloggers:

hands on : as we grow	♥	A Little Learning for Two	♥	Among Many Blessings
Angelique Felix	♥	At Home with Ali	♥	Broken Treasures
Busy at Home	♥	Busy Kids Happy Mom	♥	Carrie Saindon's Photo Journey
Child Central Station	♥	Classified: Mom	♥	Classroom Magic
Creative with Kids	♥	Creativity My Passion	♥	Critters and Crayons
De Tout et de Rien	♥	Dilly-Dali Art	♥	Dinosaurs & Octopuses
Excited 2 Learn	♥	Hand Over the Cookies	♥	Handprint & Footprint Art
Happy Hooligans	♥	Heart Journey	♥	Imagination Soup
Jamie's Jumble	♥	Kitchen Counter Chronicles	♥	Kreative Resources
Let Kids Create	♥	Little Illuminationss	♥	Living Montessori Now
Loudness of the Lambs	♥	Love and Lollipops	♥	Mama, hocemo nesto da pravimo
Mama Pea Pod	♥	Mama Smiles	♥	MemeTales
Messy Kids	♥	Mindful Meanderings	♥	Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas
Mommy Labs	♥	Mommy Perks	♥	Mum Paints Lives
Mummy Mummy Mum	♥	My Creative Family	♥	NurtureStore
One Artsy Mama	♥	Peace Love & Rainbows	♥	Play Dr Mom
Putti Prapancha	♥	Rainbows within Reach	♥	Reading Confetti
Ready. Set. Read!	♥	Red Ted Art	♥	Sense of Wonder
Share & Remember	♥	Stacy Molter	♥	Sun Hats & Wellie Boots
Teach Preschool	♥	The Artful Child	♥	The Chocolate Muffin Tree
The Craft Barn	♥	The Educators' Spin on It	♥	The Golden Gleam
The Imagination Tree	♥	The Iowa Farmer's Wife	♥	The Joy of My Life
The Kids Fun Review	♥	The Outlaw Mom Blog	♥	The Preschool Toolbox
The Seeds Network	♥	Toddler Approved

A big THANK YOU for your consideration!

Pass the Pigs Balloon Toss

Last week we had our 3 Little Pigs themed play group and ran out of time before playing our game.  I had seen this fun balloon activity from Toddler Approved and adapted it to fit in with our theme.

I drew a pig face on each balloon and made a paddle with a paper plate and craft stick.  However, we quickly ditched the paddle and just started coming up with other ways to play with the balloons.

It was a classic game of  "don't let the balloon touch the floor" as we passed it back and forth between us.  Then we tried to juggle with the balloons.

And then Maisy made up her own game of trying not to use her hands to hit the balloon.  She had a blast bopping it with her head, shoulder, elbows and toes.  I played along and  boy did it wear me out.  I think the best exercise can come from just playing with your kids.

Mina had a fun time just tossing her balloon around and giggling.  Balloons are pretty fantastic.  And it was a great energy burner on top of all the fun.

What do your kids like to do with balloons?  

Hands on : as we grow has a wonderful list of 30 ways to play with them.  

Monday Madness 18

Thanks to all of you who linked up to last week's party.  I have the hardest time deciding which posts to feature so I am letting the numbers do the talking this week.  These are a few of the most clicked-on links shared last week:

Tree of Hearts from Putti Prapancha

DIY Foam Stamps from Make, Do & Friend

If You Give a Moose a Muffin activities from Crayon Freckles

If you have been featured here go ahead and grab the "featured at" button from my side bar!

And don't forget to go and see what my co-host Art for Little Hands is featuring this week.

Now on to this week's party! Art for Little Hands and I would love if you would share something to brighten our day and start our week off on the right foot. Go ahead and link up one (ok, maybe 2 or 3 if it's fantastic) blog post: new or old posts welcome.

Don't worry if you don't have a craft to link up, it can be absolutely anything to help brighten our day! One of us will be by to comment on your post and each of us will share some of our favorites next week.

Feel free to add this button if you are submitting:

<a href="http://letkidscreate.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1189.photobucket.com/albums/z423/art4littlehands/Art%20For%20Little%20Hands/MondayMadness.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" /></a>"

*with your link you give me permission to use pictures from your post to share with others.

Don't forget to share some comment love while you are checking out some of the other great posts linked up this week.

3 Little Pigs {Play group}

Back in November I shared our activities from hosting a 2 and 3-year-olds  play group.  Some moms in my neighborhood and I take turns each week hosting our little group which consists of 4 little girls who are now all 3 years old. Contrary to what you may think, this is a super fun and easy thing to host.  These kids get along so well and are so well behaved.  Of course, it helps that activities are planned for the whole amount of time.  If only a birthday party could go this smoothly.

I am just getting around to hosting it again in my home.  This time I decided on a 3 Little Pigs theme and set up the activities and crafts accordingly. 

As the kids arrived, they came in and began to play with the Little People village I had set up.  This was a huge hit, I think they could have played with just these toys the entire time.  

After the kids had all arrived, I was able to coax them over to the table (really, they just wanted to play with the Little People).  I had found these little plaster pigs on clearance at Michael's for only 19 cents a piece.  The kids had a great time painting these.

Mina's finished pig

While we were letting the pigs dry, we sat down and read some pig books: The Three Little Pigs, Olivia the Princess, This Little Piggy, If You Give a Pig a Pancake, and If You Give a Pig a Party.  I am truly amazed at how these kids can sit through this many books.  Well, there were a few who were still playing with the toys.

By now, we were running out of time.  We barely had time to get started on these Little Pigs houses and parents were arriving to pick up their kids.  I also had a game planned that we entirely didn't get around to.  

I opted to do the craft instead of the game because I had prepared all this stuff and didn't want it to go to waste.  The kids got to glue straws, sticks and bricks to the three houses.  I think that any craft involving glue is a hit with kids.  

The first house pictured here is just a shot of how I had envisioned the craft to turn out- just to give you an idea of what it was "supposed" to look like.  The middle shot is one my 7 year-old put together the night before when I was prepping.  She used shredded paper for the straw house, but I opted to use drinking straws the next day purely for the purpose of having less of a mess.  The third set of houses pictured is the one my 3 year-old put together and pretty accurately resembles how the other kids put their houses together as well.  

My girls and I ended up playing the game later in the afternoon. . . stay tuned.  We had a lot of fun!

Linking to NurtureStore Play Academy.

Melted Crayons on Canvas {3 ways}

 

Last week was my hubby's birthday and I wanted the girls to be able to give him something extra special this year.  I wanted it to be something he could really keep and possibly even take to work to brighten his office a bit.  I had seen this awesome way to do melted crayon dot art on Pinterest and thought my 7-1/2 year old would be able to do that technique.  But I had to figure a different way for my other younger daughters {ages 5 and 3} to do something similar.

I had the girls start out by making a drawing.  Maisy and Lou both decided they wanted to make their picture of our new cat Lolly.  They like using this Usborne drawing book to help them out when drawing animals.

Maisy wanted to draw a sitting cat and Lou opted for the sleeping cat.  They just used regular white copy paper to make their drawings and then we transferred them over to the canvas.

To transfer the drawing onto the canvas, I laid the drawing face down onto the canvas and rubbed over the back of the image with the side of my pencil.

The transferred image was very faint so I lightly traced around the image.  I didn't want it to be too dark since I didn't really want the pencil to show through on the finished product.

We didn't actually start on this part until the next day.  Maisy was at a friend's house playing and it was the perfect chance for me to supervise Lou with her crayon melting and dotting.  While Lou started on her crayon dotting, I was busy doing an outline on Mina's drawing with melty crayon so she could just do some painting over the top.

Mina had drawn a picture of Daddy.  She wanted to paint it red.  I had added a few crayon dots at the bottom of her picture so I could show Lou how to make dots and fill the area in.

Melting the crayon over the candle was frustrating to say the least.  I think I had to light and re-light the candle about 20 times.  The flame just kept burning out when the crayon wax would drip down.  It wasn't even dripping directly on the flame.  Maybe it was because they were dollar store candles, I don't know.  

Another stumbling block was using cheap crayons.  I finally had to pull out some nice Crayolas because the dollar store crayons were just gloppy.  The Crayola went on so much more smoothly.  

After Lou was done with the crayons, she painted a background.  What do you think?  The texture of it is so fun - almost like oil paints.  

Maisy was able to finish her painting when she got home.  Instead of doing the melted crayon outline like I had done on Mina's, I just made a bold outline with the crayon closely following her outline.  Then I had her choose her paint colors.  I did take pictures, but didn't realize that they all came out blurry so all I have is the picture of her finished painting.

I think the girls really enjoyed doing a piece of art on canvas - we had never done that before.  What "masterpieces" have your kids done on canvas?  I would love to know.

Monday Madness 17

Welcome to Monday Madness.  Thanks for all the great link-ups last week.  Here are a few of my favorites:

Love bugs from East Coast Mommy

Hand and Footprint Dragon from Classified: Mom

Glue Paint from My Barrel of Monkeys

If you have been featured here go ahead and grab the "featured at" button from my side bar!

And don't forget to go and see what my co-host Art for Little Hands is featuring this week.

Now on to this week's party! Art for Little Hands and I would love if you would share something to brighten our day and start our week off on the right foot. Go ahead and link up one (ok, maybe 2 or 3 if it's fantastic) blog post: new or old posts welcome.

Don't worry if you don't have a craft to link up, it can be absolutely anything to help brighten our day! One of us will be by to comment on your post and each of us will share some of our favorites next week.

Feel free to add this button if you are submitting:

<a href="http://letkidscreate.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1189.photobucket.com/albums/z423/art4littlehands/Art%20For%20Little%20Hands/MondayMadness.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" /></a>"

*with your link you give me permission to use pictures from your post to share with others.

Don't forget to share some comment love while you are checking out some of the other great posts linked up this week.

Stained glass hearts

On Wednesday, I shared our heart flakes and this is what we decided to do with our scraps.  Mina {nearly age 3} was busy snipping away at tissue paper while the other girls were busy creating snippets of their own while creating their project.

Valentine Craft: Heart {snow} flakes

I came across this Valentine's themed snowflake craft last year in Family Fun magazine.  My girls loved doing them so much last year, and again this year.  We used sheets of tissue paper since that is what we had on hand to get the color we wanted and to be able to cut through the layers with ease.

Monday Madness 16

 It's Monday already!  Thanks to all of you who shared last week.  It was really hard to choose which posts to feature, but I narrowed it down to these three:

Creative Connections for Kids shared a fun DIY game to get the kiddos moving and work on hand-eye coordination.

DIY Felt Birthday Cake

My house is still somewhat in shambles from the holidays.  I am trying to get it together, but I just am not quite there yet.  Baby steps.  Organization will abound.

I literally stumbled upon this toy today as it's many pieces are strewn across the floor.  So today I want to share it with you.  I saw the idea in Family Fun magazine and thought it would be something Lou and I could make together for Maisy's 4th birthday.  Family Fun had covered paper boxes with felt and then cut out felt shapes and made candles to use as decorations.  Felt on felt- so simple.

It finally snowed- let's play!

 

There is something magical about snow.  It doesn't matter how many times in a season it snows, kids never seem to lose their fascination with it.  Back in November we got a good snow storm and I was able to capture this small moment of snow play.

Monday Madness 15

It's been a week trying to get back into the swing of normal life after the holidays. It has flown by and I must admit, I have been feeling a little burned out. My creativity level has been very low . . . And then I read through all the posts that were linked up last week. I am feeling rejuvenated and ready to go this week thanks to all of you who shared on this linky party. Here are some of my favorites from last week:

Watercolor Snowflake Resist Art

I had this grand idea {I thought} to use up some old gouache that had been sitting in my art drawer for quite a while.  I bought this gouache several years ago when I actually had time to do a little of my own art.  I was introduced to it in my calligraphy class I took in college.  It is similar to watercolor, but produces a more opaque finish than watercolor. 

Monday Madness 14

Welcome back to Monday Madness!  Art for Little Hands and I are so glad to have you here!  I hope you all had a fantastic week of celebrating and playing with your little ones. 

Here are some of my favorite posts that were shared last time, and be sure to go and check out what my co-host is featuring today as well.

How did Teaching 2 and 3 year olds do this stamping?

Go check it out!

Best of 2011: my kids' favorite and blog hop

2011 has been a wonderfully creative and active year for me and my girls.  Since starting this blog in May, we have all grown so much creatively and had so much fun together doing it.  I asked my two oldest girls what their favorite thing was that we had done this year and they both agreed that making these dollhouses out of shoe boxes was the most memorable: