Bathtub Paint Soap

Rainy days mean fun in the bathtub around here. The kid's tub is equipped with measuring cups, foam letters, bathtub books, and most recently bathtub paint soap. It's ironic....they can be creative with paint while getting clean! Hannah Grace really enjoys erasing the bathtub art with her bath poof. It's part of the fun. I've seen tub paint in the stores from $5 to $20. I'm going to teach you how to make it on the cheap. This recipe is just a proportional way to measure your ingredients. You can make as much as you want.

Bath paint soap:

- 1 part water

- 4 parts liquid soap (i use baby shampoo)

- 1 part tempera paint 

Put the tub paint in a little cup, give your kids a paint brush, and go get yourself a cup of coffee! It keeps my kids busy for at least a half hour. It will clean up with water...so no mess either! Enjoy and pass this recipe on to any mom who needs a breather:)

Homemade Teacher Appreciation Gift

Asher and Hannah Grace have been attending Mrs. Bobbie's story hour (it's actually 3.5 hours) on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. They do crafts and finger plays, read books, practice handwriting and so much more. They love it. It adds nice structure to our week and they get to play and interact with a handful of other kids their age. I like that its not all day and everyday...it's the perfect balance for us. 

So the real kicker is this....Mrs. Bobbie volunteers her time, resources, and abilities to make story hour a biweekly success. When i first heard about this free program i couldn't believe it...but i took Asher last fall and found that it really did exist. Mrs. Bobbie is a retired educator with a passion for teaching little ones. She has been such a blessing to our family!

If ever a teacher deserved a thoughtful homemade gift...Mrs Bobbie does! So, my mom and i collaborated on this plant/pot/card combo. My niece Alaina also attends story hour so I had all three kids color a picture. I traced their hand prints over the picture, cut them out and mod podged them onto a terracotta pot. I also cut out shapes from some of the artwork the kids created in class and mod podged it onto the pot. I used a sharpie to write each child's name next to his/her hand print. Painted around the rim is "Thanks Mrs. Bobbie for helping us GROW! 2012" My mom found a beautiful peace lily at the farmers market to go in the pot. I placed a piece of rebar wire coiled at one end into the soil to hold up the card.

It turned out nicely. A larger pot could feature the hand prints of an entire class. That could be a neat idea for an elementary school teacher. Thanks for reading! I hope this inspires you to make a homemade gift for your child's beloved teacher.