Malibu and the Mauli Ola Foundation

For several years, my nephew Timothy has participated in a really neat event put on by the Mauli Ola Foundation. During their Surf Experience Days, kids with cystic fibrosis are teamed up with professional surfers for a day at the beach. Surfing in salt water provides a natural therapy for those with CF.

Steve, Trevor and I had heard about Timothy's surfing events and seen pictures, but we'd never actually been to one. So when the opportunity came up for us to go, we did. We spent the day before the event exploring the La Brea Tar Pits and Santa Monica, then watched Timothy surfing in Malibu. It was awesome.

Thank you to the Mauli Ola Foundation for all you do. 

'We Are All God's Children' Rainbow Handprint

Why do just one rainbow handprint craft when you can do two? Affiliate links below. 

'We Are All God's Children' Rainbow Handprint Craft

Materials: 

• cardstock (white, blue)
• foam brush
• paint (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple)
• paper trimmer
• heart punch
• craft glue

Steps:

Squirt craft paint onto your hand in rainbow order, starting with red at your fingertips and ending with purple on your thumb and lower palm. Use a foam brush to spread the paint evenly, taking care not to mix the colors too much. 

Stamp your hand onto the center of a piece of white cardstock. Wash your hands and let the paint dry completely.

When the paint is dry, trim the white cardstock so that it has an even margin around the handprint. Use the blue cardstock to make a mat. 

Punch a heart from the scraps of white cardstock and write your message on it. You can use the same message I wrote or something else.

'Hand-Painted' Paper Plate Rainbow

Usually, the term 'hand-painted' means that a person did the painting vs. a machine. For this project, 'hand-painted' is more literal. 

---------

Hand-Painted Paper Plate Rainbow

Materials:

• paper plate
• scissors
• craft paint (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple)
• cotton balls
• glue

Steps:

Cut the paper plate to make an arc.

Squeeze bands of paint onto your fingers. The band of red should stretch from the tip of your pointer finger to the tip of your pinkie. Follow that with orange, yellow, green, blue and purple. The purple should be where your fingers meet your palm.

A helpful hint: if you are doing this project alone, open all the paint bottles BEFORE squirting the red paint onto your fingers. It is a bit challenging to open paint bottles when one of your hand is covered in paint. As you can see, some orange glurped out on my wrist while I was trying to open the bottle.

Put your hand down in the middle of the arc. Keeping your fingers lined up with the edge of the arc, smear one direction, lift and return to center, then smear the other direction. 

It's so pretty! And really satisfying. 

Wash your hands (or do another rainbow project while your hand is still painted) and then cut two cloud shapes from the rest of the paper plate. Fluff up some cotton balls and glue them to the clouds, then glue the clouds to the rainbow. 

 All done! Hang your rainbow with fishing line, tape it to the wall, or display it in a window. 

 This project is great for crafters of all ages, from toddler to adult.

Exploring Arizona Through Little Passports

Trevor had never been to Arizona, so when I traveled there for the Creativation show in January, we turned it into a family vacation. And we brought Little Passports with us. 

Little Passports was a great way to pass time at the airport. First, we learned about Petrified Forest National Park, which Trevor desperately wanted to add to our already-full itinerary. Someday! Then we learned all about the Grand Canyon. That's another Arizona destination on Trevor's bucket list. We enjoyed the photos of the wacky attractions located along Route 66. One of them is Meteor Crater, a mile-wide hole left when a meteorite hit Earth 50,000 years ago. That one is on Steve's bucket list! 

The activity about the different climates in Arizona was very interesting. I'm glad we were in Phoenix in January and not the summer! We read all about Arizona history and famous events that happened there. Next, Trevor followed the directions to draw a gila monster. He added a cute smile, since they are gentle (but poisonous) lizards. The activity about making shadow puppets of Arizona wildlife was neat, but that had to wait until we got to the hotel. 

We saved the rest of the Arizona Little Passports activities for when we were back home. Trevor made us delicious chicken fajitas for dinner that night. Yum!

The science activity was really cool. It was inspired by Arizona's status as the #1 producer of copper in the US, which I didn't know. The experiment was the usual clean-a-penny-with-vinegar, but with a twist. Instead of soaking the pennies, rinsing them and admiring how shiny they became, this takes it a step farther and does a great job showing how copper reacts with oxygen. 

The model was a cactus. 

We certainly saw a lot of cacti in Arizona. One of Trevor's favorite places he visited was the Desert Botanical Garden. 

Our final activity was making a bolo tie. We'd seen a really clever piece of public art involving bolo ties in Phoenix that Trevor had loved, so he was excited to make his own. We deviated from the instructions a little bit. 

Bolo Tie

Materials: 

• wood disc
• large button
• hot glue
• straw
• scissors
• black cord
• scotch tape
• wooden beads

Steps:

Glue the button to the wood disc. Cut the straw into two small pieces and glue the side by side on the reverse side of the disc. 

He loves the Hot Glue Gun Helpers! (affiliate link)

Cut a length of cord so it fits around your neck with the ends dangling down. Wrap a small piece of scotch tape around the ends of the cord, like a shoelace. Thread the cord through one piece of straw and then through the other. It should be a tight fit so that friction holds the bolo tie in place. 

Thread the beads onto the ends of the cord. Tie a knot on each end, then trim the tape off the bottom. Add a dot of hot glue to keep the cord from fraying. 

Now put a wrinkled too-large dress shirt over your bulky sweater, try on your bolo tie and pose for a photo! (That's not actually a step, but it's what Trevor did.)

Trevor and I had great fun exploring Arizona together, both in person and virtually through Little Passports. As always, we learned so much and had great fun together. 

Fun Family Crafts Round-Ups

Time to share the past few months of kids' craft round-ups I've made as Editor of Fun Family Crafts. First is penguins. We have over 50 cute penguin projects at Fun Family Crafts, of which eight are mine. I included two of them in the round-up. Do you recognize them? 

Next up is rainbow crafts and recipes. Apparently I've never done a rainbow craft tutorial. Time to fix that! Expect one soon. In the meantime, look at all this beautiful inspiration.

From rainbows to St. Patrick's Day... with more rainbows!

We have almost 900 spring projects on Fun Family Crafts. It was very difficult choosing just 10 to feature. I had to include my bird nest. It just screams spring.  

Did you know that March 1st is National Pig Day? One of my pig crafts is in the roundup. 

Writing the text for the round-ups is ok, but I absolutely LOVE making the collage and graphics. As always, I made these with PicMonkey. The process is so easy and there are so many options. I am in love with the pig stamp that I shrunk to become the dot of the i in Pig Crafts. If you've never checked out PicMonkey, I highly recommend that you do. You can do a ton with their free tools. Or, get a free 7-day trial of the Royale membership. Be prepared to love it!