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Posts Tagged ‘Creativity’

  1. It’s In The Bag!

    December 10, 2014 by admin

    IMG_8994Now that we are deep into the holiday season, gift buying and gift making are well underway in this TR home.

    We have a generous supply of wrapping paper. But our kids find wrapping gifts more of a hassle than fun. The tape usually fights back and ends up in an unusable sticky crumple. And the cut paper is either too big or too small and refuses to bend into neat folds.

    So what to do? Make your own gift bags!

    Tip1: Gift bags aren’t just for the holidays. Make them for birthdays, cookie exchanges, etc.

    We picked up a pack of 40 red paper lunch bags at a local box store for under $2.00. We thought red was fitting for Christmas but you can easily find an assortment of colors.

    Once home, we got out our supply of winter and holiday themed foam stickers. Our kids got right to work decorating bags for all of their friends and family.

    Tip2: A container of foam stickers from the box stores runs about $8 but you can usually find them on deep discount after each holiday. We’ve never paid more than $2 per container.

    IMG_8991You can make the bags as fancy as you wish. Punch out holes along the top and weave ribbon through the circles. Jazz the gift bags up with glitter or coloring. The possibilities are numerous.

    Bluey and Plum had a great time and were very proud of their creations. Adding a personal touch to any gift is always a move in the right direction!

     

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  2. Cinnamon Ornaments

    December 7, 2014 by admin

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    This TRFamily loves the holidays.  And we greatly enjoy spreading the holiday spirit with handmade gifts to our friends and family.  There is something special about the love and effort that goes into handmade gifts.  And our children take great pride in creating gifts for the special folks that impact their lives.

    Last Christmas, we made fantastic salt dough ornaments.  But even though that was fun and successful, we wanted to do something different this holiday season.  We decided to make cinnamon ornaments!

    Recipe:

    • 1 cup of cinnamon
    • 1/4 cup of applesauce
    • 1/2 cup of glue

     

    Tip:  Your batch will yield about 15 ornaments

    Combine the cinnamon and applesauce, mixing until clumpy.  Then pour in the glue and continue mixing.  Dough will be incredibly sticky.  We found it necessary to mix by hand and add liberal amounts of flour until we could roll out our ornament dough.  Add decorations if you’d like.  Punch out a hole in the ornament with a plastic straw and then bake at 200F for 1 hour.  Let cool for at least 3 hours.

    Bonus – You’re entire house will smell like cinnamon!

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  3. Lego Designer Videos

    December 5, 2014 by admin

    Lego Design TeamFor a quick and fun way to inspire your builders, let your young inventor learn from some of the best with help from a short on-line video.

    Just point your browser towards YouTube, and type “Lego Designer” in the search field. Up pops a long list of videos narrated by actual Lego Designers, proudly showing off their works. Most of the videos are only 3 or 4 minutes long- just the perfect length for inspiration!

    Get an inside look at the new Jawa Sandcrawler, or the Sydney Opera House. Learn the thought processes behind buildings, vehicles and movies sets.

    Fun Sidenote: Lego Designers hail from all over the world. It is fun to hear their accents and think about what language they spoke as children.Lego Town Hall

    You and your kiddoes will no doubt move straight from the computer to the Legos to try out new ideas!

    For another twist, search under “Lego Designer Tips.” Here you’ll find not insights into existing Lego sets, but pro tips from the builders on everything from making cool furniture to jazzing up a motorcycle. These are all tips from people whose job is to play with Legos- the things they come up with are pretty cool and sure to get your builder juices flowing!

    So when you or your kiddoes need a jumpstart, check out a few Lego Designer videos and get your creativity on!

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  4. Food Creativity Unleashed

    November 28, 2014 by admin

    IMG_8824_2Does your kiddo like to cook?  It’s a great thing at any age- having a young helper in the kitchen. They learn so much and you get to bond with them while mixing, stirring and measuring.

    IMG_2278We suggest that you to talk about different foods and discuss with your kiddos that cooking is a creative endeavor.  Recipes are guides– not the gospel, and everyone should develop their own idea of what tastes good.  If you have these conversations and encourage your kids to invent and create in other areas of their lives….Eventually, your kiddo might want to create a fully original food.

    What to do?  Well, encourage it, of course!

    For several weeks before Thanksgiving, Bluey started talking to TRDad about this great dish he wanted to make for the occasion: Peanut Butter Pie.  TRDad’s first response was: “Great!  Let’s talk about that.”  By staying upbeat and positive, we got Bluey to think through his dish further and explain his ideas.

    In talking it through with him, we helped him think about different ways to create his dish and different choices he could make.  We encouraged him to think of this as his test run.  Just like with his other inventions, it might not work perfectly the very first time.

    So on Thanksgiving, we plunged into this new recipe.  Bluey was happy that he was getting to make his very own holiday treat and that he was seeing his invention carried out.  He loved the process and that we all took his idea seriously.IMG_8829_2

    He ended up making a sort of PB&J pizza.  He liked it and the entire family thought it was pretty good, too.  But Bluey declares that it wasn’t EXACTLY what he wanted.  His dish was supposed to have a top dough as well.   Next time he’ll do it a little differently…

    Let your kids (and yourself) explore in the kitchen.  Food should be fun.  Cooking is a creative endeavor.  Who knows what amazing treats you might discover?

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  5. True Colors

    October 17, 2014 by admin

    IMG_2420You probably remember your basic art skills- combining primary (red, yellow, blue) colors produce the secondary (orange, green, purple) colors.  And if you combine further, you can produce a whole spectrum of shades and hues.

    Certainly many children’s books and television shows discuss or demonstrate this art fact.

    But the best way to learn is to dive right into it– discover for yourself!

    Bluey learned how colors combine when working on a recent painting project.  And you can recreate this scenario quite easily.

    He was painting a small wooden sailboat and given only the three Primary colors.  In addition, we gave him a small palette (aka plastic container lid) to dab out extra paint.  Sure enough, he mixed two colors on top of each other and discovered that they combine to make orange.  IMG_2417

    This lead to a whole series of experiments about color mixing, and he learned color facts in a way that no TV or book could ever show him.

    So next time you have a small project to paint- don’t get out the whole paint set.  Just provide the primary colors and let your young artist discover the color wheel!

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  6. Costumes

    October 5, 2014 by admin

    IMG_0996This TR Family adores Halloween. Our kids love dressing up and trick or treating. We all enjoy decorating the house and feeling spooooooky for a bit.

    We view Halloween as a chance to put our creative juices to good use. We ask the kiddoes for their costume ideas and brainstorm on methods to create their vision.  Over the years our kids have been giraffes, zombies, tigers, astronauts, housecats, witches, devils, vampires and more. It’s always great fun to bring their ideas to life.

    The process of choosing and making a costume helps make Halloween into a season, rather than a single night’s adventure.IMG_7219

    Most of our costumes are fairly simple (we are effective, but not extremely accomplished tailors). We start at the base: what articles of clothing do we need to make this work?

    A well chosen second-hand sweatshirt or pair of pants can become a great beginning to a costume. A yellow shirt fabric-painted with tiger stripes and the addition of an attached tail, and you are halfway to being a tiger. A different pattern and you could be a giraffe.

    Tip: We live where it is usually quite cold on Halloween, so we buy the base a few sizes too big to make sure we can fit some warm layers underneath.

    Once you have the basic framework, try to find a few small bits that clearly identify the character.  It’s little details, like the right tail for a giraffe, that are easy to construct and make all the difference for a successful costume. We use an inexpensive hair band as the mount for ears, antennae, or horns that we sew on ourselves. We just get small pieces of cloth in the right color from a craft store- easy cheesy!

    Tip#2: For little kids especially, but true as well for older ones, there’s not much need to worry about the design from the waist down. We just go with a pair of pants that match the general color scheme.

    Likewise, a small amount of make-up can be applied at home without needing a degree in special effects. Whiskers, vampire blood and zombie paleness are simply achieved.   A creative older kiddo might enjoy trying to make a scar or bleeding wound by sing some of the theater make up sold at a pharmacy or specialty store.

    IMG_2175So skip the store-bought costumes and put your creativity into gear for the month of October.  You’ll emerge with a fun costume that you and your kiddo made together, along with memories to last a lifetime.

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  7. The Lego Store

    September 21, 2014 by admin

    IMG_7865It’s no secret that we love Legos at our house.   So on a recent Saturday we decided to check out the Lego Store!

    We don’t often make a whole day of a shopping expedition, but once we discovered there was a Lego Store near, we knew nothing could stop us from going!

    What had a great trip!

    The Lego Store is just chock full of Lego sets.  We loved being able to check out sets we don’t usually get to see, from high end Mindstorms to smaller sets from the Hobbit that we’d never spotted at our local stores.

    We especially loved the small, free building stations spread through the store which encourage young builders to explore and create while shopping.

    The whole family loved picking out an assortment of loose pieces to fill a roughly quart-sized bin to add to our collection at home.  The store staff was very helpful here, offering tips on how to get the maximum number of of Legos into the container.

    IMG_7862We picked up a Lego brick separator (which hard-core Lego fans will love having!) and our first Lego Technic set to build when we got home.

    If you have a Lego fan in your home, you won’t be disappointed if you track down your nearest Lego store.

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  8. You Tube Inspires

    September 17, 2014 by admin

    Robot TruckWe’ve recently started a new routine at our house. Each weekday morning, TRDad and Bluey spend a few minutes surfing YouTube. It’s quickly become a valued part of our day.

    What’s so good about YouTube? Well, we find it inspires us to go out and do things, create things, learn things.

    Yes, YouTube is filled with videos of funny dogs and karaoke. But it is also filled with cool building projects, information on home repairs, science projects and classic comedy.

    For example, Bluey recently spent the day trying to make a Lego robot, because he saw one on YouTube. Forget that we don’t have the expensive Lego Remote Control- Bluey didn’t let that slow him down. He headed for our Lego supply, mashed it up with some K’Nex and had a great creative morning. He then moved on to constructing a bunch of unique Lego cars and planes of his own design.

    Other days, he has created science projects, reenacted complex video stories, and practiced his silly walks- all based on what he has seen on YouTube.Silly Walks

    So we welcome YouTube into our daily lives- who knows what we’ll be inspired to do next?

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  9. Shutterbugs!

    August 10, 2014 by admin

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    We take pictures all the time as one way of recording our family adventures. Thanks to the development of digital cameras, both of our kids also take photos frequently= putting their own visions to permanence.

    Digital photography allows us to really take the reins off our kiddos visual art. The photos cost essentially nothing, less than a penny for digital storage per pic.  And choosing to print them out isn’t all that expensive.

    So why not let the kiddoes cut loose?  Our kids can shoot all the pics they want  with minimal input from us.  Then they decide for themselves which ones are ‘good’ shots.

    We’ve recently taken a shining to the popular social network, Instragram. We love it because among other things, it has enhanced our artistic vision when taking photographs. Instagram has allowed us to break out of our photography rut and put a little extra art into our digital pics.  We enjoy trying a little harder to find a good angle, or making sure that shadows don’t interfere with an image.

    Instagram also offers a pretty safe way to introduce our tween to social media. We helped Plum set the privacy controls on her Instagram account, and talked with her about paying attention to the content of her photos. Now Plum can communicate with her friends and begin to make her own mark on the web.

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  10. Speaker Speaker!

    July 13, 2014 by admin

    IMG_6736“Speaker speaker!”  That’s our son’s adaptation of the CB lingo “Breaker Breaker.” He likes to give it his own spin.

    Our Bluey recently found some walkie-talkies among our old toys.   With a new set of batteries, he was all set. What a great find!

    The walkie-talkies give Bluey a way to communicate with his friends and family from different parts of the house, and a fun new way to play spy/detective/superhero.

    A great discovery for him was that he could pick up other conversations from around the neighborhood. He loves to chime in with his own completely random commenatary into the goings on at the local high school, or among workers on a nearby construction site. We’re not sure if they can hear him, but he loves to chat with them anyway.

    (No worries: they are not channel adjustable, so there’s no risk of him breaking in on a police/ ambulance channel and interrupting something important.)

    For just a few dollars, he turned an unused toy from the basement into a portal for hours of enjoyment and imaginative adventures. So don’t throw out those old walkie-talkies- give them a new purpose.

    And when you hear “Speaker Speaker!” on the line, you know who’s calling.

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