FLOWER SUNCATCHERS

Last night, Kinley and I made a Wendy's run for dinner because, after a long day of cleaning and reorganizing, even this SuperMom didn't feel like cooking. Why am I mentioning this, you ask? Because our trip to Wendy's was a drive on snow-covered, slushy roads. On March 29th. In Ohio. Enough already, Mother Nature. We need spring desperately. 

It was a little warmer and much less snowy today, thank goodness, so Kinley and I decided we needed to catch as much sunshine as we could while it lasted. I don't know of any other way to collect sunshine than with a suncatcher, so we made some beautiful suncatcher flowers for our dining room window.

To make your own suncatchers, you will need:

Flower-colored construction paper (We used pink, orange, and fushia, but this is, of course, your choice)

Green construction paper (for leaves and stems)

Yellow tissue paper

Clear contact paper

Scotch tape

Markers

Scissors

Pencil

Flower stencil (if you need it)

I had Kinley color her construction paper before I cut the flowers out of it. She was extra clingy today and adding extra steps means spending extra quiet happy time with my teething sugar baby, so I did it. You can skip this part if you want, but it does make the flowers look extra pretty when the sun is down.

This was our brand-spanking-new dining room set's inaugural craft project! Since Dave and I met, he has had a octagonal oak dining table that turns into, not only a poker table, but a bumper pool table. That sounds really fun and great, and it would be in a man cave, but in our dining room it's lame. When we have friends over, we can all fit for cards, but for dinner with plates and dishes, no way. So after many years of nagging, we finally grew up and got a real table. So exciting!

Anyway, after Kin finished coloring, I made a flower pattern (hopefully Dave will have time to scan it for me tomorrow,) and traced it onto each of the pieces of flower-colored construction paper and cut them all out. 

I saved the middles because Kinley did such a great coloring job, and just trimmed them into egg shapes and hung them in the Cabinet Gallery with her footprint art from yesterday.

Next, you just cut a piece of contact paper that will cover the hole in the middle of the flower, peel off the backer paper, and stick the sticky side to the backside of the flower. 

I just used Scotch tape to stick the flowers up on the window.

Now, you need to cut up some of your yellow tissue paper. I just cut a strip off of one big sheet, and cut that strip into skinny rectangles.

 I put those puppies in a little bowl to make it easier for Kin to hold them all and just stood her up on a brand new chair to get to sticking.

Kinley had just as much fun banging on the window for this project as she did for our St. Paddy's Day version. This time we listened to the iTunes Radio station One Hit Wonders, which was far less violent than the ShamROCK station, but still entertaining. ;) We heard everything from "It's Raining Men" to "Achy Breaky Heart," "Lean Back" to "Putting on the Ritz," which by the way is still stuck in my head. SuperBaby and I had the most fun dancing to "99 Red Balloons" and we both highly recommend giving this new station a listen for a nice stroll-down-memory-lane kind of dance party. :)

So after all of your flowers have pretty yellow tissue paper all over their middles, just cut out some stems and leaves out of your green construction paper and tape those things to your window, too.

TA-DA!

Even Dave loved this project, and Kinley and I were both super proud. This picture doesn't do them justice...the construction paper is really pretty and bright in real life and they really do capture all the pretty sunshine streaming through. 

I guess the next step in growing up is buying a real camera. Haha

I got some super exciting news today that I can't hold in any longer. I entered two of my blog posts from last week--the plastic egg wreath and the paint chip egg wreath--in Link Party Palooza, which is hosted every weekend by five seriously awesome mom blogs like I Heart Naptime and Tatortots and Jello. There were 850 entries, and out of all of them, I Heart Naptime picked BOTH OF MINE to be in their Top 20!! I cried happy, proud tears about that one. What an honor! And what a great way to start the week :) 

Hope your week starts just as happily as mine did! Kinley and I are headed to the zoo tomorrow, so I better get some shut-eye. Happy Monday! Oh, and if anyone has old Ma Nature's number, would ya mind calling her and telling her we are requesting sunny and 70 for tomorrow afternoon. :)