Penny Pinching Peach

For the semi crunchy, homeschool friendly and totally frugal!

Tag Archives: toddler


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Egg Carton Flowers

Egg carton flowers

Egg carton flowers


I had a stack of egg cartons piling up, waiting on some inspiration, and my daughter brought them to me wanting to do a project. I came up with egg carton flowers. She was thrilled! Since my little princess enjoyed her new project, I thought I’d share it with other folks who might want something new to do to keep their munchkins happy. 🙂

We gathered together our supplies: An egg carton (of course! 🙂 ), then some scissors, markers, marker stampers and some stickers that aren’t pictured below.

Egg carton flower supplies

Egg carton flower supplies

First, I cut the top off of the egg carton, then cut between the cups. Next, I cut the cups into a smoother rounded shape around the top. Last, I went snippety snip around the cup to make the petals. The different stages of development in the picture should help fill in any confuzzlement left by my description. 🙂

From there, it was up to Princess Peachy to finish up. She smashed the petals flat with her little hand, then got to work decorating. She had a good ol’ time being creative with decorating them all sorts of different ways with the supplies we had on hand. When she was finished, we arranged them in a flower shape on a green piece of construction paper. You could glue them on, if you want, but my little one enjoyed rearranging them too much to let me glue them on.

What household item do you have overflowing, but don’t want to throw out because you think you can find some nifty way to upcycle it? Maybe I can come up with something. 🙂


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Christmas Bead Ornaments

Bead Ornaments

 Bead Ornaments

My 4 year old loves crafts and Christmas, so I’ve had to come up with alot of random crafty things for her to do that are Christmas related. One thing she has especially enjoyed is beading. She’s done ornaments, as well as making bracelets and necklaces galore. We even made a camo bracelet for her baby brother.  I also had to come up with a way to include her 19 month old brother in her new favorite activity, which I’ll share in a second. 🙂

Concentrating on beading

Concentrating on beading

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She made a few candy canes and a wreath to hang on our little Christmas tree. I just twirl one end of a Creativity Street Stetems/Pipe Cleaners 12″ X 4mm 100-Piece Assorted Colors
to hold the Pony Beads Multi Color 9mm 1000 Pcs in Bag
on and shape the finished beads into whatever we are making. She enjoys making a pattern by laying out beads in the color scheme we are going to use,  and then using that to remind her of the order her colors should go on her pipe cleaner.

Her brother was jealous after she’d made bracelets for herself and me, so I came up with a camo themed bracelet idea. He wears it proudly, and Daddy isn’t the least bit bothered by his son wearing a camo bracelet like he might be of Princess Peach’s suggestion of purple and pink for her brother’s bracelet. 😉

 

Camo bracelet

Camo bracelet

 

Of course, I couldn’t leave the little guy out of all of this Christmas fun! I was looking at his little face, which he would’ve stuffed with all of the pretty candy colored beads, and had an AHA!! moment. I strapped him in his highchair, handed him a pipe cleaner and dumped a handful of multigrain Cheerios on his tray. Tada! Edible beads for baby! He was thrilled to be doing what big sister was doing, and I was happy that both of my children were safely entertained. 🙂

Baby beading Cheerios

Baby beading Cheerios

This is a super cheap and easy activity that will keep Princess Peach busy for hours, and my little squirt happily engaged for as long as 20 or 30 minutes. Anyone who has ever cared for small children 24/7 knows that a fun activity like that is priceless!

What are you keeping the little ones in your life busy with during the holiday season? Need another idea? Check out my popular Salt Dough Christmas Ornaments!


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Crafty Snacking

 

Smiling With A Smiley Face Cracker

Smiling With A Smiley Face Cracker

Crafty Snacking

My daughter loves all things cutesy and yummy. Combining those two loves, I sometimes make her snacks or meals in cutie patootie delicious forms.

Princess Peach loves peanut butter on crackers. I take large round crackers, peanut butter and either craisins or raisins. I spread the peanut butter on the crackers, then make faces, flowers or sun designs with the craisins or raisins. She loves it!

Flowery Crackers

Flowery Crackers

She also adores marshmallows, so that was an obvious one to make a crafty critter out of. I took eight small pretzel sticks, painted a smiley face on a flat side with one of the pretzel sticks dipped into a drop of Hershey’s syrup, then jabbed them in the sides of the marshmallow to look like spider legs. This would be a fun and easy snack for those who celebrate Halloween.

Happy Spider

Happy Spider

We often have sandwiches for lunch. Sometimes I’ll cut it into triangle shapes and put a large cherry tomato in the middle, all arranged like a flower. I’ll also take a cookie cutter and cut three or four pieces out of the sandwich in whatever shape it is.

Flower Sandwich

Flower Sandwich

There is an endless array of cool things you can do with food! I only do the quick, easy and cheap varieties myself, since I am actually chasing around the kiddos I’m feeding, but I’ve seen some “food art” that would break your heart to eat.

Does anyone else like to get creative with food for their munchkins sometimes for no reason other than making them smile? 🙂

For more great food for kids, check out After School Snacks!

 


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Egg Carton Caterpillars

Egg Carton Caterpillars

Egg Carton Caterpillars

My 3 1/2 year old, Princess Peach, loves to do anything cute, creative and crafty. I love anything that will keep her content, busy and not destroying anything for an entire hour at a time. I went on a quick internet browse for some things to fit the bill the other day when I felt a migraine coming on and needed her quietly occupied. I saw something kinda similar to this, and did my own thing from there with the materials I had on hand and the age of my munchkin. This little egg carton upcycled caterpillar project made us both happy! 🙂

First, I took an egg carton and cut the bottom off of it, then cut the two egg holder rows apart.

Curliques

Curliques

Next, I poked a hole in each side of the end I designated the head of each caterpillar. I had a green pipe cleaner that I cut in half, threaded one half through the head of each little critter’s head and twirled the ends into cutsie curliques.

At this point, I would’ve put some googly eyes on the caterpillars for best results, but I didn’t have any. I thought about gluing small black buttons on for the eyes, but did I mention I started this whole project ’cause I had a migraine coming on? Yeah. So, I wound up just doodling eyes and a little cartoon mouth on each with markers and calling it good.

Princess Peach's Project

Princess Peach’s Project

From here, Princess Peach took the reins. I laid out her markers and a few different types of stickers for her to choose from to decorate and left her at the kitchen table while I laid on the living room couch trying to keep the migraine from coming on while being able to keep an eye on her and my little Bam-Bam baby boy. (Didn’t work, by the way. Worst migraine in forever!) For older kiddos or when you’re in a more hands-on mood, you could definitely add some glitter glue, buttons to be glued on as spots, macaroni art designs or anything else your little hearts desire.

My little artist had a great time creating her little critters, and when she was done she had just as much fun playing with them. She dubbed them brother and sister, and had them going on adventures together all over the house. It was pretty stinkin’ cute, even though part of her adventures took place making them fly around the bathroom telling me to feel better while I was throwing up from the migraine pain & pressure.

Want a rating on a scale of “zero” to “you’ve gotta do this”? Honey, if you’ve got preschoolers who need a rainy day or busy time activity that costs you nothing you don’t already have on hand and could even be considered “green”, I’d call egg carton caterpillars a “gotta do this” kinda activity. 😉

Playing with her caterpillars

Playing with her caterpillars