Father's Day - Part 2

Today definitely was a Monday... in every way.  Thankfully we are reaching the end of it.  The weekend was way more fun.  I had fun doing all the Father's Day crafts with the kids.  I really do not get enough time doing crafts.  I feel guilty if I hide out and do them alone.  OK, not guilty.  I need a better hiding place.  I swear my kids have an inner radar that alerts them if I dare go downstairs.  It results in Mom, Mom, Mom, MOM, MOM, MOM - WHERE ARE YOU??? As for doing it in the evening when they are in bed sleeping - NOPE.  That requires them all to go to sleep, at the same time, while I am awake.  That is a pretty tall order.
My mom says I should have had my kids closer together.  I say, NO NO NO.  I needed to sleep in between kids to reserve my sanity.  My kids have never been good sleepers.  They are the kids that have been getting up at the crack of dawn since birth and by the time you had one eye cracked open they had their coat on and were standing at the front door saying, "Go Bye Bye?"

So, crafting alone is not really in my reality yet.  I find that I can spend time in the kitchen.  It seems the kids expect me to be there so the panic of not being able to see me does not set in.  That is why I have fun baking and making CUPCAKES - for other people of course. I can do my kitchen thing and they can fight zombies on video games or play zombie tag - as long as they always can see me.

 For Father's Day I purposely tried to find things the kids would like to do.  My good friend has 2 daughters and she let me help throw a Rainbow Art Party for a 9th birthday party.  I am going to devote an entire blog to that later.  There was paint involved.  She asked me why I never did an art party for the boys?  Gee... the terror that strikes into my heart.  Lots of little boys and paint. There is NO WAY that will not end badly.  So, I decided to scale it down to JUST MY KIDS and paint.  I was still scared.  I spent a few days on Pinterest... found a few EASY and QUICK (2 things that are important in my family) art projects.

First Project...
Supplies:  Elmer's White Glue, canvas, and paint.

Apparently if you draw on canvas with white glue and then let it dry you can paint over it for a cool effect... OK.  I can do that.  Canvases and white glue and paint.  I tried to take a picture of the canvas with the glue on it before the paint.  It is really hard to see the glue.  Painting over it with one color is recommended.

I wanted to try one too.  My freehand drawing skills are about par with a monkey.  OK that is probably unfair to the monkey.  I doodle flowers a lot.  I tried to draw them out of glue.  This is the result.  Hey, I said earlier that I AM NOT MARTHA STEWART.  Don't judge me.  This is art for Dad - by kids - and maybe a craft deprived Mom.

Next project...
Supplies - canvas, masking tape and paint.

Spell out Dad (or whatever word/s you like) with masking tape.

Paint the entire canvas.

 Peel off the tape.

Very cute.

Last project...
Supplies:  Dad's favorite things, basket, ribbon

Go WILD.  We used Dad's cookies and Dad's Root Beer because it was Father's Day.  Then we put in all Dad's favorite snacks.  KitKat, Mars Bars, Bits and Bites, Lays, Skittles etc.

This one is pretty self explanatory... but Dad's favorite things in a basket.  Add ribbon.

The kids were absolutely in love with this idea.  S says "YOU ARE THE BEST MOM IN THE WORLD...Now can you make me a favorite things basket??"

Do you think Dad will share?

Happy Father's Day!

Father's Day - Part One

Two posts in one day?  That probably will not happen very often.  As mentioned I have 3 crazy busy male children who keep me insanely busy.  I also have a full time job where I work 9-5:30 during the week.  I have a part time job at the local Rec Centre so I can teach the Babysitting Course and run Girls Night and other kid friendly programs. As well occasionally I drive a zamboni.  OK - just for the record we call it an Olympia here in Lillooet.  However, it is still cool... and also terrifying if there are a lot of people in the stands staring at you.  Stories for another time.  Just adds up to being super busy.  The crafts and things I will be talking about are ones that real people do.  I am not Martha Stewart.  I don't have time to spend 30 minutes decorating ONE cookie.  It has to be real.

Today is Father's Day.  Happy Father's Day to all you dads out there... and to all those who do the job of Dad.

I wanted to do some crafts for Father's Day.  So of course I went on Pinterest.  I know you all did too.  Admit it.  It is ok.  It is crack for women.  They said so on the News so you know it is true!

I created an entire board.  Seriously.  Now what to make?  What will BOYS want to make... hmm.  What does he like?  Well... ZOMBIES.  Duh.  OK, what do I want to make?

First - cake.  Well in MY family we can rule that out.  What looks like a cake but is something that will not go in the garbage after the pictures are taken?  My twin friends Jo and Sue have a blog and for their birthday they made each other a pop can cake.  Jo likes Diet Coke and Sue likes Coke.  They are awesome so I thought I would borrow their idea. Check out their blog joandsue.blogspot.ca

To the store I went.  I of course did not read the directions first and figure out how much pop I would need... 3 cases should be lots.  Nope.  It was not.  READ THE DIRECTIONS FIRST.  My tip of the day.

The bottom layer has 30 cans.  The middle layer has 12.  The top has 2.  If you are using one kind of pop then it is probably easier.  My family likes orange and cream soda.  I made a sqaure cake because I wanted to change it up a little.  I thought they would stack better this way too (which is very true).  If you do a square cake vs round it does not require cardboard in between layers so that they do not fall over.  Maybe if you lived in a house where it was calm and there were not wrestling matches happening every 5 seconds your cake would be safe.  Not here.

Do not attempt to move this once built.  It is heavy!!!  We built it on the table were it was going to be displayed.  Much easier.  You can just use a tiny dab of hot glue to attach the ribbons - one dab on each side of the cake is lots.  It peels off easily too so you can still drink the pop.

If you live in a house where the adult males drink beer - beer can cake would be also cool.  We are boring. Pop it is.

More later...