The Art Box – Oct. 25, 2010

I really need to get back in the habit of letting M choose his own supplies for the week from my craft stash, but that would mean re-organizing my craft stash which somehow has turned into a big mess in the last few weeks, and I just haven’t gotten around to it yet.   I put out many of our “regular” items for the Art Box this week, but M really was only interested in his roller paints:

We actually have the primary color ones,
but the ones pictured above were
the only ones available on Amazon. 

M’s cousin S spent two days with us last week and in the days before she came he spent hours drawing pictures with these rollers and making art for her.  Most of the pictures are of he and she together.  Note that several of them have hearts.  M loves “little cousin S” very, very much!  (He calls her “little cousin S___”, even though she is 2 years older than him. :) )

The one above has their names written on it – see all the letters?  M just can’t seem to remember that the letters should be in a row to actually spell something, not just scattered around the paper. :)

He did this one by stamping with porcupine balls dipped in tempera.  

So, I guess there was a tiny bit more than roller paints going on. :)

Since the Art Box is all about child-directed art with no mama input, I try to get M anything extra he wants or needs (if I have it) that he asks for.  He did a contact paper collage with a variety of “stuff” on it a year or two ago; he has the original hanging in his room, and apparently it caught his eye at some point and he begged to do another one.          

I put together this little tray of items for him: foil, glitter foam cut into pieces, ribbons, yarn, fabric scraps, tissue paper, construction paper, pom poms, sequins, foam beads, and little sponge shapes (from those capsules you melt in warm water):

I hung some contact paper on the wall, sticky side out, and he worked on it for close to an hour.  He used scissors to cut the yarn and paper to just the right size and very carefully arranged everything:                                                          I love how it turned out!

Have any children’s art work you’d like to share?  Link it up below!  Remember to link back here somewhere in your post!

Have a beautiful day! :)

 

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CSN Product Reviews

I recently received a $75 gift card from CSN Stores in order to purchase and review some products.  I am very pleased with all my choices and happy to review them here for you!

M recently played with the Melissa and Doug Fold and Go Mini Castle at a friend’s house:He enjoyed it so much and played with it so long that I decided to get one for a Christmas present for him.  It engaged him in make-believe play in a way that not many toys can.  He will love it!  The castle is made of wood, as are the figures.  It comes with a king, queen, two knights, two horses, two thrones, a royal bed, and a treasure box.  I love how this captured his imagination and this little set is a great toy for a girl or boy.  The castle opens up, like this:   It is full of rooms and staircases, has a dungeon, and a working drawbridge.
 
I also chose this set of Junior Design Cards to go with our Wedgits:There are 48 cards in all.  8 of the cards offer instructions on the various ways of wedging the blocks together, then there are 40 cards of designs to build.  These are a lot of fun and add another dimension to M’s playtime with his Wedgits (ok, my play time too – I love them!).  The cards are separated into 4 levels of difficulty, A through D, with 10 cards in each level.  There is a full color image of the finished design on one side; on the other side of each card is a black and white image of each design, along with a listing of each size and number of Wedgit needed to make the design.  It’s fun to try to figure out which Wedgit goes where when using the black and white image only.  M has already gone through the A and B sets, but seems content to do them over and over.  This was going to be a stocking stuffer for him, but he loves his Wedgits so much I broke them out early. :)

Lastly, the choice that I am the happiest with – this little darling: The Electrolux Cordless Rechargeable Vacuum.  I am in love.  The one pictured above is blue, but mine is silver and very streamlined looking.  Where do I begin with all that I love about this vacuum?

1. It’s cordless, so it takes no time to get it out of the closet and start vacuuming
2. It vacuums my entire home on one full charge.
3. It comes with two batteries so you can always have an extra one charged.
4. The charger can be wall-mounted or simply set on top of a counter (which is the way we currently have it).  The battery is simple to remove and replace, and the charger allows either the entire vacuum to hang on it (when wall-mounted), OR you can just charge the battery in the side section of the charger. 
5. The handle removes easily, and converts to a smaller hand-vac, making it easy to vacuum stairs, drapery, etc.
6. It has one setting for carpets, and one for hard surfaces.  The roller brush spins on the carpet setting, and is idle on the hard surface setting, so it simply sucks instead of beating up your hardwood floors.
7. It is bagless, and has a cup that you empty into the garbage.  And, man, does this thing suck up a lot of dirt and dust!  The filter is excellent and I can not believe all that we’ve vacuumed up every time I empty it – it’s amazing!  Not only that, but I really only have to empty once every 3 or so times of using it because the cup holds so much!
8. My absolute favorite thing is that this is light-weight enough for M to use.  He calls it “his” vacuum (I really think he believes I got it just for him), and he uses it at least once a day.  I haven’t had to vacuum in 2 weeks now, no kidding. :)  Vacuuming has officially become his chore, and he really does a great job with this thing.  We haven’t had our regular vacuum with a cord out since we received this one. 

I received the products in this post for free for the purposes of reviewing them.  The opinions stated are completely mine, and I’m very happy with each products, and happy to be able to share them with you!

Have a beautiful day! :)