I'm A Sucker for Valentine's Day!

This week we got a notice about the impending Valentine's Day party at my son's daycare.  They told parents they'd "prefer" that we give the kids lollipops with the Valentine's cards (no idea why).  This idea came to mind immediately, I've been waiting for an excuse to try it.  I was really pleasantly surprised at how easy it turned out to be! 

So..it started with trying to get a decent picture of my three year old holding out his fist.  I couldn't get him to straighten it any further, because for some reason his fist was connected to his head and when he straightened one he tilted the other.  LOL!

Then, I uploaded it to photobucket and added some hearts and words.

Then, because I can't leave well enough alone, I added more words, lol.

Then I took it to Walgreen's to have them printed...and again, can't leave well enough alone so I added a border, which was just one of the choices once the picture uploaded.

Next, you have to cut a slit at the top of the fist;

And the bottom as well.  I noticed as I went on that if you can manage to curve the cut to match the way the fist is held out, it looks best.

Then, to stick in the sucker, you push from the back to separate the two slits, and stick it into the slot.  I'll probably put tape on the back to secure them as well.

And that's it!  How easy is that?  All that was left was to try to see what looked better...a small lollipop or a bigger one (the bigger one kind of bent the photograph but I had more of those than the small ones, so that made that choice, lol).

So, I hope you enjoyed my special Valentine's Day project, I love these and I can't wait to see what his teachers think of them!

Trace This!

So..this mom is on a budget.  Always.  Therefore, I'm always looking at how to do things I'd do anyway cheaper and easier.  Enter my latest project from Pinterest. 
My three year old is ready to start practicing his letters, and so I created this booklet...I dropped by Office Depot, bought a binder, some page protectors, a trace book (it was $7.00) and some dry erase markers (EXPENSIVE...lame!).

So then, I (obviously) just ripped out the perforated sheets and put them back to back in the binder. 

Fairly easy stuff, as you can see.

And my son COULD NOT wait to use it...he did really really well, especially considering this is his first day tracing letters!

So it's not really involved, but a unique way to do something we're all doing and my son had a really good time tracing and then erasing and trying again!
Okay, I'll confess, sometimes he was scribbling just so he could erase.  Ha ha!

So people...what have we learned today?  We've learned that: