Bubble Wrap Art

Today I gave Deen some supplies: finger paints, cars, paintbrush, yellow colored salt, bubble wrap, and some colored rice. I then set him free to do as he pleased...



Paint Bubble wrap


Stamp onto paper

See the beautiful result :)


After driving the cars through he added some colored salt and colored rice. Deen gets really excited when I take out the colored rice and salt as he always enjoys using it.

When we were done then we took a paintbrush and watched what happened as we mixed the colors.

I had seen the bubble wrap art done on so many blogs and I planned to do this so long ago but I'm glad we finally had the chance to today. I think I'm gonna leave some bubble wrap in our permanent art box.

Save your memories with digital scrapbooking

I've been busy recently trying to scrapbook a little for Aaliya. For Deen I made atleast one layout per month capturing our special moments, writing down their milestones or as a way of saving multiple smiles of theirs.
I have never been a paper scrapbooker but I LOVE to digital scrapbook. The best part about it is if you don't like something all you need to click is UNDO. No wasted glue and paper and things can be moved around however you like.
All images are linked to a gallery where you can read the words better.

Here are some of the pages I made recently for Aaliya:


Yes.. I couldn't decide which layout i liked so i showed you both

Don't think you have the time to spend designing a layout? Then you can just use a quickpage. For a quickpage all you need to add in is your pictures. It is so simple.
Here is a quickpage I used: All I did was add pictures and some journaling.


Here are a few of Deens (I did not use quickpages for these, I made them just using Digital Scrap booking Kits):

Yes that is Deen, not Aaliya.




You can then print them out at home on your photo printer or get them made into a book from companies like Blurb and Shutterfly. This would be such a great gift to give your children when they get older.

There are some great ideas in this addition of Simply Sweet Magazine. I just recently found that online magazine and it definitely helped inspire me.

Here is a link to some quickpages and quickbooks. Everything is done except for journaling and pictures.
Sweet Shoppe Designs quickpages.

If you ever need any help or inspiration DigiShopTalk is such a great place to look. Their gallery is full of ideas and their forums are really helpful!

There are some other great scrap booking stores out there just google "digital scrapbooking" or if you need more advice you can leave me a comment or email.
The Digi Chick
Oscraps
After Five Designs

You can get GREAT free stuff here at Shabby Princess. She has some free kits which are great.

Some designers give out free quick pages on their blogs as well as free kits or add ons.

With digital scrap booking papers you can even do up your blog design, make banners and buttons, etc. (Like I have done).

All you need on your computer is a photo editing software like Photoshop, Photoshop Elements ( I have this and definitely recommend it. Great price for a great product), or Paint Shop Pro. Any program that has Layers can be used.


I hope you guys are inspired by this post and found it helpful! :)


*I am not affiliated to any of the links I have given, just a happy customer or member.*

Tot School and Learning through love

We had a lot of fun with my bingo colors printable. When I brought the bingo chips and color cards out Deen immediately matched the chips to their colors... smart thinking on his part.
Thereafter we played bingo with the color cards... Deen won!



Then we did my food cut and paste activity that I put up last week and he really enjoyed that too! I definitely think I need to make more of these because he seems to like them a lot and he does them really quick.


Here is his pasting skills... Pretty good for a 2 year old...


Then we played our animal sounds bingo game! Each player gets a card and then Deen presses the sound button on the game... an animal makes a sound and whoever has the animal that makes that sound puts a chip on their card. This is a great game for teaching kids what sounds animals make.

You can definitely tell which picture here was taken with a Digital SLR camera huh ... :) which one? I need to start using that camera more... and learn how to get off the AUTO mode.

I haven't been able to participate in Tot school for a while and this is my first week participating in Learning through love... I cant wait to see what others did.

Deen is 34 months old.

Pop in at those sites to see what others did and get some inspiration! :)

Twinkle Wish Adventure Review and Giveaway!

I walked into the local Toys R Us store in South Africa this past weekend and what do I see all over the girls section? A Lot of My Little Pony toys! My Little Pony seems to be very popular right now and I can definitely see why.. (I used to love my little pony when I was younger)

Shout! Factory was kind enough to not only send me their new My Little Pony Twinkle Wish Adventure to review but they also sent me 2 copies to giveaway to two of my lucky readers!

My Little Pony Twinkle Wish adventure is a fun story with great lessons about friendship. Pinkie Pie and her friends are so excited about the Winter Wishes Festival because the wishing star will grant them one of their wishes. Unfortunately the wishing star goes missing so Pinkie Pie and her friends go on a journey to find the wishing star.



The dvd is full of bonus features including:
6 Sing along songs
Downloadable Activities
An animated story called Elefun and Friends ( which is about a frog and an elephant learning to help each other out)
Waiting for the Winter Wishes Festival a prequel

This DVD would make a great Christmas Present or a great birthday present!

Even though Deen is a boy he really enjoyed the DVD... as soon as he saw the DVD he helped me open it up and asked me to play it immediately.

The theme song for my little pony is so sweet... I now sing it to Deen with a few word changes... It is so easy to substitute your own words in... "My little Deeny, my little Deeny"

To enter the giveaway(MANDATORY entry):
Leave me a comment telling me one of your favorite things about Fun With Mama... It could be an activity, a printable, etc..

Extra Entries(leave appropriate comments for each extra entry):
Subscribe to my blog in a reader. (1 entry)
Become a follower of mine. (1 entry)
Add my button to your sites sidebar. (1 entry)
Tweet about this giveaway. (1 entry. Leave link to tweet in comment)
Post about this giveaway on facebook. (1 entry. Leave a link to your facebook page)
Blog about this giveaway (2 entries. Leave link to blog entry in comment)

This giveaway will end at midnight on Saturday November 28 2009. Good luck to all my readers!

*Disclaimer: I was not paid to do this review. I was given a free product to try and to review honestly.*

Muffin Tin Monday - Foods We are thankful for - Deen's way

This is what Deen came to me with today as a snack...

An ice cube tray muffin tin with cereal inside.. It was just so adorable I had to take a pic!

We haven't been participating in muffin tin monday recently because for some reason Deen does not seem to eat the foods I put in it... I dont know if he doesn't like the fact that its in a tin which is not normal for him or what...
Also Deen is an extremely picky eater so when I spend time on preparing it I get really sad when he doesn't eat anything in it...
but he does seem to love putting his cereal in it and treats himself to muffin tin monday on different days of the week!

A Fun Cut and Paste Printable

This activity was inspired by the Kumon first work books. Deen was doing the cut and paste activities in his Kumon workbook and seemed to really enjoy it. The only problem was that we were getting through the pages really quickly and it would be too expensive to purchase another book. I decided to try making some of the activities myself and thought I'd offer them to my readers to try.

Download by clicking the following link or the picture: Cut and Paste Printable Activity


Cut out the pieces and either have your child add glue to the bottom of the shapes or to the white space within the pictures. They can then place the coordinating piece into the right spot. Younger children may not be so precise in placement but this will help them practice. Older children will probably concentrate and try to align everything perfectly.

If you would like more of this type of activity sheets or have any suggestions please let me know.
I will post pictures up tomorrow of us using the Bingo Colors and this cut and paste activity.

Bingo Colors Printable

I wanted to help Deen learn his colors while still having fun. I do believe in "learning through play" which is when I decided to create a Bingo Colors game. We haven't had a chance to use it since Deen took an extra long nap today but we will definitely make use of it tomorrow. I've created a printable for my readers to download as well if you wanted to help your kids learn their colors: Bingo Color Game

I've included four bingo color cards and 8 name cards. Stack the name cards in the middle and turn the card over to see which color is revealed. Whichever player has that color on their card should place a marker. Whoever finishes their card first is the winner.

I know that I could have made the color cards larger to include more colors but I felt that at this age group (approx. three) the kids attention span may not be up for it. If you have an older child have them play two cards at once.

How have you helped your child learn their colors?

I'd love to know if you end up using the cards :)