Saturday, October 11, 2014

Easy Fall Crafts for Toddlers

My little guy is turning three in a month (wow, when did that happen??) and we've been having all sorts of fall fun.  We already went to the pumpkin patch in our new little town.  We didn't purchase pumpkins there, but he had great fun.  We did purchase pumpkins elsewhere and he just can't wait to carve them!

To keep the fall fun going on some of these rainy days we've had here, we did a couple of really really simple fall crafts with a few things that we already had and can be easily picked up at any craft store.

Our first craft...giant spiders (friendly ones, of course!)  All you need is some construction paper cut into circles (I had some already cut from a previous project), pipe cleaners, a hole punch, and crayons/markers/whatever.  I didn't have googly eyes, but those would make an excellent addition!

Just put eyes on the circle and let your little one decorate his/her spider with crayons or markers...if you don't mind the mess, glitter is fun too...but since I don't want to be cleaning up glitter until my son leaves for college, I stuck with crayons.  Once he was done, I punched eight holes in the edge and twisted the pipe cleaners around them to look like legs.  Bam!  Insta-spider.  He was so thrilled that he played with his spiders all day and we even folded the legs up and sent one to his aunt.  

Another craft we did, also super easy and simple, is very similar to one we did with edible finger paints a while back.  Now that he's older we used regular paint and instead of our fingers, we used a bunched up paper towel.  You'll need a canvas sheet, letter stickers, paint, and paper towels.  

On the canvas, place your letters to spell out whatever fall phrase you want.  I'm a minimalist at heart so I just said 'fall' and left him lots of room to make beautiful fall 'leaves'.  Then I basically squirted a glob of yellow, red, and orange paint on a plate and gave him a bunched up paper towel and let him have at it.  I did help a little to make sure the canvas was completely covered, but he really did most of it himself.  The fall colors blended together very nicely.  Once he was finished and before the paint was dried, I VERY CAREFULLY peeled off the letters revealing the negative image of 'fall' amongst the leaves.  Absolutely adorable and looks great next to my cinnamon broom and a colorful gourd we picked out.

It's Not Me

Ok, y'all, I got another product review for ya.  I know I've mentioned Influenster before, so I won't get too much into it now.  Basically, for those of you not in the 'know', it's a company that gives out free product samples from various places in exchange for you reviewing them on social media.  If you are active online and like free stuff, I highly recommend checking them out.

This most recent Vox Box was the It's Not Me Gillette Venus Sensitive box.  I got myself a free Gillette Sensitive razor and so far I really do like it.  I usually use whatever razors I have a coupon for, so I've used quite a variety.  Gillette is one of my go-to brands already, so I was already pretty familiar with the Venus razor.  The sensitive one is a Venus, but obviously it's geared toward those of us with sensitive skin.  If you're like me, shaving usually results in ingrowns, razor burn, or itchiness...and that's even when I use shaving cream/gel/lotion/whatever.  Nothing really seems to prevent that...and I've tried it all.  

I tried this razor both with and without shaving cream and it seems to do a pretty decent job either way.  I definitely prefer the feel of the shave itself with the cream, but if you're in a pinch, it's not bad without as it has moisturizer built right into the razor (which has 5 blades by the way).  

I will say, I didn't have a rash this time when I shaved, so it must work.  I'd definitely be willing to buy it again at around $12.99 for the initial pack and $16.99 for refills, I'll be waiting for a coupon.