Thinking Thursdays: Celebrating spring

Hello!  Junior J and I have been exploring the seasons.  Its really nice, since we get to see the seasonal changes around us right now, from the tidal wave of flowers in spring (cherry blossoms, then tulips then roses), to the rising temperatures as we now enter summer.  To celebrate spring-time, we did a few crafts!

First up we tried making flower petal stained glass, which was inspired by this lovely door.  We went for walks and picked up some wild flowers, and also bought a bunch of roses.  Then I cut out heart shapes from contact paper and let Junior J pluck petals from the flowers, and he stuck them down:

He plucked out every single petal from a dandelion and stuck them all carefully down!

Then we just pasted the hearts up on our balcony door.  Its especially lovely when the sun streams through and lights up the petals in the evening:

We also dressed up the twigs that were sitting in the washi tin-can vase on our nature shelf (we're going to do 4 different vases, each filled with twigs and representing one season).  I discussed with Junior J, and he said he wanted to have roses in the spring vase, since spring is characterized by all those blooms!  So I grabbed some paper that we had from our pile of boxes and packing material (if you want to try, crepe and paper napkins also work fine), and made pompoms like those clouds in Junior J's room.  You just need to cut to size and pile up about 6-8 pieces of paper, accordian-fold them together as shown and trim the two ends such that they are rounded.  Then secure the center using pipe-cleaners (or paper clips), and separate and fluff out the layers:

Then we mixed up some pastel shades for Junior J to dab randomly on the flowers.  He insisted on using two brushes (get your kid to hold the ends of the pipe-cleaner as he paints):

And when the flowers were dry, we just twisted the ends of the pipe-cleaners around the twigs to attach them!

And finally, we made a sign for the vase... So I cut out the letters that spelt "spring" (using a book depository envelope again, don't you love those!)...

... tore out bits of washi tape for Junior J (you can also use those plastic deco tapes which come in a whole load of patterns in Daiso, and even duct tape!), and let him just randomly cover the letters.  I just patched up some bits that he left uncovered with the remaining bits of tape...

... and strung it up on the twigs using yarn.  Tada!  Our spring-time vase!

Will be back tomorrow to share about the books we read, as well as the other activities we did for spring!

Don't forget to hop over to see what other mums are doing for this two weeks of creative fun!  Up tomorrow will be Adora:

Adora is mum to Poppy, 4, and Calla, 11 weeks. She is a freelance writer for parenting magazines and runs Buggy Bee Kids, a crafts-for-kids business when she's not changing dirty diapers of picking socks from the floor. Adora enjoys cheap chocolate, smelling her baby’s neck, and would really like a good night’s sleep. Adora blogs at http://www.gingerbreadmum.blogspot.com/ (I've been loving her Wordless Wednesdays posts, do check them out!) 

Over 2 weeks, these mummy bloggers will be sharing their creative projects.  Hop over on these dates to see what they are up to, and have fun!

June 23 - Sandra @ http://www.sanses.com/  
June 24 - Winnie @ http://toddlymummy.blogspot.com/ 
June 25 - Susan @ http://www.ajugglingmom.com/ 
June 26 - Ann @ http://beautifulrevelry.com/ 
June 27 - Justina @ http://makingmum.blogspot.com/ 
June 28 - Adora @ http://www.gingerbreadmum.blogspot.com/ 
June 29 - Regina @ http://www.reginamoo.blogspot.com/  
June 30 - Sarah @ http://www.theplayfulparents.com/ 
July 1 - Jennifer @ http://augdinoegg.blogspot.com/ 
July 2 - Pamela @ http://tanfamilychronicles.blogspot.com/ 
July 3 - Ming Yuan @ http://blog.mybabyfootsteps.com/  
July 4 - Dominique @ http://dominiquegoh.com/ 
July 5 - Karen @ http://littlejazzelle.blogspot.com