I like to make things.  I like parties.  My original plan for Penny’s party this year was to convert our back yard into Pixie Hollow.  I was going to make fairy houses out of tents, flowers the size of Brett, and let kiddos run around our house in fairy wings.  I tend to go a little too far some times.

After chatting about Penny’s birthday with senor Brettles we decided that we could throw an epic Tinkerbell party…ooooor we could take Penny to meet the actual Tinkerbell!  Thus, the plot to take this little to Disneyland was hatched.

After looking at our September we realized there was just no way to fit a d-land trip in on her actual birthday, or even her birthday month at all.  Sadly, we decided to push it to a Christmas trip of sorts, let her see the snow and cheer and all that jazz.

So…now what?

My desire to throw a giant party in the middle of summer really has left me. so in lieu of such an event we’re going to just throw a tiny little party with or immediate family.

We have been finger painting up a storm and there are TONS of papers strewn around our kitchen table that look a lot like this.

I don’t necessarily want to save every single one (there’s like 50 at this point) thus,  a new theme was born!  I grabbed a giant circle punch (like we all have lying around) and some natural colored paper.  I cut a whole in the top piece of paper and made a little window highlighting Penny’s little art work.

Stacked the two papers on top with a little glue action and wrote in the deets with a sharpie.

This was a super fast little invite with about as much effort as I’m willing to offer up these days.  Penny did most of the work, I just helped assemble.  I sort of love the idea of us working on these sorts of things together from now on.  I can’t wait to hear the things she comes up for future birthdays.  She’s pretty creative already.

This is not the only project, theres a banner situation working its self out in my brain.  And I’m going to be pinterest-ing it up looking for painting party ideas.  We’ll see what comes out of this small burst of birthday planning.

Happy Friday!

I definitely try my best to use as little technology with Penny as possible.  I’m pretty sure I was the last person to get an iphone, I will NEVER read a book that is not printed on paper, and I do not like to write with my fingertip.  I like making things with my hands and I want Penny to enjoy that growing up as well.  I’m not gonna lie…we watch a lot of Daniel Tiger and I do a lot of my artwork using programs that are super awesome, so I’m totally not saying all technology is banned in our home. But when it comes to Penny doing art projects, no technology for us!  Mainly because I want her to know what paper and pens are.  I want her to learn how to hold a paint brush and to get her hands a little dirty creating.

My daughter has had an intense growing interest in art.  She rarely requests anything other than “PAINT!” these days…which i LOVE.  But, some days I really just don’t want to deal with cleaning up after the little artist.  So against my pre set rules for ipad use, I’ve let her start doodling with the app Sketchbook.  I don’t feel too bad about it, because I have her use a stylus so she’s still getting that pen holding technique down.  So I thought I’d share a fun little project that is…DUN DUN DUN…solely with apps!

I pick the paint brush style and Penny asks for new colors as she pleases, and we’ve ended up with some of these fun looking little pieces of artwork.

If you can see the occasional arc in those…those are definitely “rainbows” according to Penny.

I decided to run the little “paintings” through the AfterLight app.  This is my favorite app for editing photos and it also has super awesome borders you can use, including the alphabet, so this got me thinking.  What could we spell out with these bad boys?  After messing around a bit, I made these little examples.

I may use the little x’s and o’s as Valentines Day cards for Pennys friends and family this year.

The great thing about a project like this is, there are SO many things you could do!  You can print them out individually at your nearest photo printing store and put them in square frames.  Or you can use pic stitch and make a square print of a 4-letter word.  You can spell out your childs name in their room from their own artwork, or I thought of making Pen a little art corner and printing out the word CREATE.  Seriously…you can do anything with it.

It’s such a fun way to display your kids art work, even if it is completely created through that stinky ol ipad.  And I have to add…these arent too shabby for a nearly 2 year old.