Krafty Kiddos!!

We had our first ever gathering of the Krafty Kiddos and their mamas today.  It was fabulous!  Everything went pretty well.  We made batik tee shirts and bird seed cakes.  I'm not even going to pretend this was all my idea.  I stole the birdseed cakes from here and I got the idea for the shirts from CHILDHOOD MAGIC but the full instructions are at That Artist Woman.  So here's how it went...

We started by letting the kids pick pictures from a coloring book since I can't draw anything freehand and it let the kids pick something without making the possibilities endless.

Next we tore out the pages and put in inside of the shirt.  We had our mama's in charge of the gluing

 process.

We figured it was a more precise job, better suited for  the adults, but feel free to let the kids do it themselves if you'd like. 

Once the whole thing is outlined your ready to let them dry.

I live in a wind tunnel of sorts so this was a bit easier said then done.  The best way we found to accomplish this without them blowing over in the wind and smearing all our glue was to weigh it down with rocks...

While we let them dry we mixed up our birdseed and got that project started.

The kids had a blast getting handfuls of birdseed mix and packing it into their cookie cutters. 

We didn't have molds so we made the mix a bit thicker than the original recipe. We covered a cookie sheet with wax paper and just put the mix into cookie cutters.

I added a loop of yarn to each one for hanging and put them in the freezer to speed up the process.  And then on to painting our shirts...

All the kids really liked this part.

We mixed acrylic paint with some water.  We put each color in Tupperware and let the kids loose. 

I think the hardest part for me was getting Freedom to use a variety of colors. At one point the whole thing was almost orange.

All the kids were really good about sharing.

Even the adults got into the fun.  Moments before this photo was taken he was painting her toe nails orange, awww!

It was really great for me to see so much creative fun in my own back yard.  I love having everyone together, just beautiful!

Happy kids, happy mamas!

Ariana was the first one done...

The rest weren't far behind

Some of the mama's went through afterwards and filled in some of the white parts just to give it a more complete look.  Then it was time to pop our little birdseed cakes out of their molds.

That was a witch, this one's a ghost.  Can you guess which holiday is my favorite?

Aren't they cute?  They set up pretty quickly too I was impressed.  I could hardly wait to check out our shirts.  Once they were all rinsed in warm water this is what we ended up with...

I think they turned out great.

All in all it was a great day.  Lots of laughter and fun, getting old friends together and making new ones. Some of the other highlights were when all the mamas were pumping out peanut butter, jelly and banana sandwiches assembly line style.  It was hilarious, classic teamwork.  Oh and the fact that Kim and I were dressed almost identically.  Green shirts, skirts, even the hair matched.  And NO, before you ask, we did not plan this.

So many reasons to smile today I can't even count.  I want to give a special thanks to all my mamas who made it today, and made it fabulous!  I am looking forward to see all of you (and a few more) next week.  I can hardly wait for next week when we make giant bubble wands and something else.  Any suggestions?

This was my sunset today, just gorgeous!  It made the whole area look pink.  Just wanted to throw that in there. 

Blessings,

Kat