Wednesday, September 3, 2008

WFMW - "J" Crafts

Join us in our jaunt through "J"s last week! Thank you, commenters from last week, for your many great ideas! We ended up with more than we had time to use!

Here are the "J" activities that worked for this 16-month-old.

Juggle. I colored a picture of a juggler, which Mommy cut out and pasted on yellow paper. Then she gave me 8 pink balls backed with double-sided tape to put around the juggler.

I've got my own sense of order, though. She put the first ball in the lower right corner to show me how to do it. Then I put all the other balls right on top of hers very carefully.

She says it wasn't quite the effect she was looking for. So we compromised and I put a ball on top of a circle on the juggler's outfit and one on top of the juggler's hat's flower. The other six stayed in the lower right corner.

But it's MY art, right? So if I want to put all the balls on top of each other, what's the problem?

Juice. Mommy made some fresh squeezed orange juice for me. I got to drink it by myself in a big people cup. (Mommy's note: See that orange dribble right down the front of the white shirt? The stain still hasn't come out. Any suggestions?)

Jiggle Jello. When Mommy was making the orange juice, she saved the orange peel to make jello in. Very pretty, huh?

The idea was that you can take the orange peel off and have a ball-shaped jello mold. It didn't work, though. The jello fell apart. She says next time she'll have to smear the orange insides with oil before putting the jello in.

But I had lots of fun eating it, so it still worked for me. We pretended I was eating pieces of jellyfish! It takes a lot of concentration to keep that jello on your spoon all the way up to your mouth. And Mommy kept disturbing me with her camera flash.

Jello Art. Mommy took some jello powder and mixed it up with cold water. Then she gave me a medicine dropper and let me drop the jello mix onto newspaper. I had lots of fun using the dropper and squirting jello mix everywhere! I added some color with red tempera paint left out from another project.

(Mommy's Note: Be prepared for a very sticky floor on this one, and plan it around bathtime! Also, it would have been more interesting if I had jello that was a darker color - peach wasn't too exciting.)

Jungle Jar Bouquet. We picked some flowers and greenery and stuck them in a peanut butter jar to make a jungle jar bouquet. Pretty, huh?

Jungle Art. And on the jungle theme, Ms. Cathrine and I painted a piece of paper green. Then we put jungle animal stickers (like BIG snakes) on the paper. And we taped some curly ribbon on it to resemble vines.

Jump Rope. Daddy has been practicing jump rope last week, and it doesn't look too hard. He helped me jump a little while Mommy moved the rope back and forth. That meant no one was available to take photos at the time - sorry.

But I did play with the rope by myself a little bit. And the handles make great karaoke microphones!

Japanese Cherry Blossoms. Mommy gave me a yellow piece of paper, some brown paint, and some torn up pink tissue paper pieces. I used the brown paint to make branches. She dripped some glue drops on the paper, and I scrunched up the tissue paper pieces and put them on the glue drops.

I also spent a lot of time painting the scrunched up tissue papers brown. But it is still a pretty cool effect though, isn't it?

Jack-in-the-Box.
Mommy made a jack-in-the-box with a square piece of paper, two pieces of paper folded up to act like a spring, and a circle face taped on top. She let me color it. I had fun trying to tear it apart!

Jack-O-Lantern. Mommy cut a pumpkin shape out of orange paper and some triangles out of black paper. She put glue on the triangles and let me put them wherever I wanted on the pumpkin. Double-sided tape would have worked better than glue, I think. I kept messing around with the glue.

Jingle Jar. Mommy put some coins in a baby food jar and let me jingle them around. We don't have any bells, so we used the jingle jar to keep time to the "Jingle Bells" demo on the keyboard.

Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring. Mommy played this song for me on her flute. It is a very pretty song - I sang along. Mommy says I have a beautiful voice!

I decided I wanted to play the flute, too. Here I am trying to figure out that blowing thing.

Kisses to you all - we'll check in with the "K"s next week!
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22 comments:

CC said...

These are so cute! We're doing a jungle themed birthday party for my daughter next week. Maybe we should try some of your art!

carrhop said...

What fantastic ideas! You have a VERY creative mommy!
Blessings!

SarahHub said...

You are such a great mommy!

Tari said...

Great pictures and great ideas! She is just precious.

dani said...

esme, i love your "j" week!!! i laughed out loud at the picture of you with the flute!!! those instruments can be pretty tricky...
have a lovely day with your awesome mommy and daddy:D
love,
dani

Debra Kaye said...

What a joyful "j" week!

Kori said...

You are really and truly the kind of mom that I would love to hate-because I am SUCH a crappy parent about things like this! Yet you are such an inspiration that I keep coming back-it's a conundrum, for sure. :)

Donna said...

She is precious, as usual!

Andrea said...

I love that last picture of Esme trying to play the flute! haha...that is so cute! Great job on all the 'J' items!!

SandyCarlson said...

What great ideas. That orange makes me want to go get creative in the kitchen.

(I'm glad you liked the quote on my blog. You're welcome to it!)

BaronessBlack said...

Yay! I'm so glad the jello thing worked! Lovely post!

Anonymous said...

Such a fun Mommy you are. Can I borrow you? LOL

Anonymous said...

What awesome crafts!!

Vered said...

Wow, you're a great mom!

16 months old... seems like ages ago. My kids are 6 and 8. :)

Anonymous said...

I love the jiggle jello and the japanese cherry blossoms. You always do the neatest things!

Damselfly said...

I love that flute picture! I'm sure Fly would try to eat my flute if I gave it to him. In fact, he would still try to eat just about every craft here!

Jackie said...

So creative!

Tell your mommy she needs to post a video of her playing her flute for us, with you singing...that would be perfect!

Anonymous said...

Wow,Esme, you are a busy little girl. You have such a good mommy to do all of these projects with you.

Love all the pics.....you're so cute, Esme!

Anonymous said...

You are incredibly creative! Another fun week of great ideas!

Mary@notbefore7 said...

Your creativity and energy with your little gal continually astounds me. I think I'll have to steal some ideas again :)

KathyLikesPink said...

Love the photos! The flute blowing is priceless - as is the look she's giving you when you took her picture while she was eating jello!

Kellie said...

love the idea of jello in the orange peel!! How cool was that (even if it didn't come out as a nice ball) still very cool!!