We craft every day at Chez McDougall-Foster, usually during Alice’s nap. It’s just part of Lucy’s being. She loves to create.

At Valentine’s Day, we strung decorated paper hearts across our mantle. I got lazy and left the string up, tucking it behind the lamps. Perfect for Eater, we decided!

Lucy and I spent a few hours the other week crafting mantle decorations out of paper plates: flowers, a bunny face, a rather freaky yellow chick, and some eggs. We used glitter (no crafts are done @ Chez McDougall-Foster without it), jewels, stickers, feathers, pipe cleaners, paint and markers. We topped it off with some ceramic egg cup holders and a bunny cart.

Voila! Easter mantle. And lots of excited jabbering for Alice and compliments from our visitors. I know the childishness of it may not appeal to everyone, but I figure the time when Lucy will want to craft and be so proud of her creations is very fleeting.

And hey — it helps guide the Easter Bunny here, too.

Hope he is good to all of you and your wee ones!

Our decorated eggs from last year (we're doing speckled ones tomorrow)

A while ago Lucy and I did some old school crafting: Potato prints!

We made some beautiful cards and pictues. This is a great way to use up potatoes, and I love that you can compost the materials when you’re done. We used simple craft paint. Lucy chose the shapes, and I carved them as best I could.

I have to admit these are often just as fun for her as they are for me! I totally felt like I was back in grade school, and loved it.

After eating candy and anything princess, Lucy loves to make crafts. Stickering, painting, gluing, sparkling, colouring. We have so much fun creating together. While we sometimes get Alice involved in our projects (we made hand-print tulips in the spring), crafting is usually a Mumma-Lucy activity when Alice is napping, which makes the process extra special. It’s our Thing.

Here are some of our favourite fall and Halloween crafts we’ve done at home and daycare. They’re fun and easy for all ages — the cat is actually decorated by Alice!

(We have a wire strung across a wall in Lucy’s bedroom, and hang a lot of her artwork here with clothespins. The rest goes on the fridge, front door and in keepsake binders.)

Lucy is a craft-a-holic, created that way by her daycare provider’s love of art and my and my Mom’s creative sides.

This morning she wanted to do “a Dora craft” (when asked for elaboration, she replied, “pink and purple.” Thanks for clarifying that, you middle manager you), so we hopped on the computer for ideas.

And we found colouring pages! Tons of free, printable ones! And had to share our favourites:

• Dora colouring activites (here’s an Easter one)
• Yo Gabba Gabba (I *heart* DJ Lance, and am sad there isn’t one of him to colour and thumbtack to my bedroom wall)
• Funky Easter drawings (Lucy and I fell in love with the bunny)
• Strawberry Shortcake (my childhood hero)
• Rainbow Brite and My Little Pony

Punch any favourite cartoon into google with “colouring pages” and see what you can find. I feel like I’ve discovered a neverending world of fun…for Lucy, of course.

• Spooky Halloween food for kids: Some really cool ideas here, including a skeleton veggie n’ dip tray and jack-o-lantern layered dip 
• Best of Parent Hacks — Halloween: Tons of fabulous stuff for both before (new-sew costumes, how-to remove face paint, toddler-friendly jack-o-lantern decorating) and after (discounted costumes great for dress-up, candy in cookies, store Halloween books with decorations) the holiday
• Decorating and carving pumpkins: Oh, Martha, you and your fabulous jack-o-lantern ideas…
• Pumpkin desserts: Oh, Martha, you and your fabulous baking ideas…
• Pet costumes: Maybe spending more time doing Google image searches for these will send me into labour, because I’m killing myself laughing (especially because most of the animal faces read: “I am going to kill you in your sleep for making me do this”)
• Costco chocolate coins melamine tainted: Yep, some of the toxic milk products from China made it out through a big distributor. See details on Snopes and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency