Category: Do It Yourself

Make Your Own Literary Magnets

Our three year old loves her Very Hungry Caterpillar magnets, a wonderful hand-me-down from friends. Unfortunately, these Eric Carle magnets appear to no longer be available for sale.

This got us searching for other magnets featuring beloved storybook characters. You know what we found? Nothing! There were plenty of magnets featuring television or movie characters, but none featuring our favorite storybook characters.

So, in true Spritzer Leyba fashion, we quickly set out to make our own.

We printed pictures from our favorite Kevin Henkes picture books onto plain white paper. Next time we may print the characters directly on magnetic photo paper (who knew such a thing existed?! Brilliant!).

We then laminated the paper (alternatively, instead of laminating sheets you could use packing tape).

After adhering the paper to magnetic sheets, we then cut out the characters.

A simple and quick project! Now we can use and love these literary magnets on our fridge or on the magnetic board that’s waiting to be hung in our daughter’s new room.



Curious about the characters?

From left to right: Jessica (from Jessica), Lilly (from Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse), and Chester, Victor, Wilson, and Lilly (from Chester’s Way). All family favorites! We almost always read each and every one of these books before bed each night. Check them out!

A Creative Salad (Felt Salad Project)

For the several weeks I’ve been slowly sewing up a felt salad of mixed greens and baby spinach to add to our play kitchen.

First I traced the leaves (pulled straight from our garden/fridge!), then I matched the colors of the leaves to felt and found embroidery thread to match the leaf veins. I cut out the templates, cut the felt, and sewed up the veins.


I made baby spinach leaves:

Mesclun salad mix:

Felt mushrooms to match:

I sewed two pieces of felt together where you see the brown ridges, then we felt glued the rest of the mushroom together.

She may not be that interested in eating a real mixed greens salad yet, but she’s playing with her felt salad every day.

I figure we’re one step closer to the enjoying real thing and, for now, I’ll take it!

Make Your Own Coloring Book

Printables featuring my daughter’s favorite book characters?! Perfect for this little girl.

Lilly, Chester, Angelina, Little Bear, Winnie the Pooh, the Very Hungry Caterpillar, Frances…

Every day when we read their stories, we visit with them. To my daughter, these storybook characters are dear friends.

I’m thrilled she loves and admires these wonderful characters instead of drooling over Disney characters or Princesses. (Although that stage is probably just around the corner, knock on wood.)

The best part about these printables? They are free. So many children’s illustrators have wonderful websites and many of them contain fantastic games and coloring pages to download and print to share.

Here are some of our favorites:

+ Kevin Henkes, author/illustrator of Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse and Chester’s Way

+ Jan Brett, author/illustrator of The Mitten and The Owl and the Pussycat

+ Eric Carle, author/illustrator of The Very Hungry Caterpillar (more Eric Carle printables here)

+ Laura Numeroff, author of If You Give a Mouse a Cookie

+ Tomie dePaola, author and illustrator of Strega Nona

Museum Map

In the past two months we’ve visited both the American Museum of Natural History in New York and the California Academy of Sciences here in the Bay Area. Both experiences were formative for our three year old and she frequently talks the magical things we saw there (dinosaur bones! penguins! (stuffed) lions! fish!).

Yesterday she announced that she needed a map for her upcoming (pretend) museum trip and so we immediately set about making one.

I was there for spelling help and letter forming support.

She picked the animals, designed the museum layout, and drew it herself (except for one word that I wrote, but I bet you spotted that one already!).

In our daughter’s world dinosaurs are alive and well, my friends. After reading the classic I Can Read Book, Danny and the Dinosaur, there was so convincing her that they are extinct. If Danny can ride a dinosaur around town, than so can my daughter.

After all, as I am frequently reminded, you can do anything in your imagination.

Little Girl Manicure

I’ve been on the lookout for non-toxic, smell-free, affordable nail polish for a while now. There are several good, expensive non-toxic polishes out there that I’ve tried in the past, but could we find a cheaper one?

I looked for less-toxic suggestions on Skin Deep, a database that lists and evaluates toxins in cosmetics, and found WaterColors by Honeybee Gardens, a water-based polish with no fumes. What I love best? You can remove it with rubbing alcohol or their less toxic nail polish remover. Perfect for using with kids!

At around five dollars a pop, they aren’t too pricey, plus they come in a variety of fun colors.

We bought two: Valentine, a bright bubble gum pink, and Tuscany, a metallic purple.

The perfect product for our daughter’s first manicure!

Talk about little girl heaven… plus, mama gave herself a pedicure! We’re both happy girls today.