Everyday Learning – Page 16 – The Creative Salad

Colorful Scrabble Letter Magnets

Any time I see Scrabble at the thrift store, I scoop it up! We’re hoarding wooden scrabble letters over at our house! We play spelling games with them, use them as mini-blocks, and created these colorful alphabet magnets (inspired by this pin on Pinterest).

First we painted the Scrabble pieces using washable paint. After the letters dried for about ten minutes we added another layer of paint and then another, again. (Alternatively you could lightly sand the Scrabble pieces first and just do one layer of acrylic paint on them!)

Then we traced each letter several times with a silver Gel marker. I found that by applying very little pressure — barely touching the pen to the wood! — lets the pen ink flow and fill the indentation on each letter.

We added glitter (using Elmer’s Glitter Glue Pens) to some of the Scrabble pieces, before we Mod Podged them all to add a glossy sheen and to protect the paint from chipping.

We adhered some magnets to the back of the letters and voila!

Simple, colorful alphabet magnets made from re-purposed Scrabble letters!

Wondering about the other magnets? Read more about them here.

Can’t find Scrabble at your thrift store? You can buy it new here.

“Puzzling” Makes a Return

Hello, September! Our Summer Postcard series for the month of August is over and we’re back to regular posting. That was fun. Hopefully I’ve reclaimed my daily blogging rhythm as we head into the fall…

After a nearly year-long hiatus, our daughter’s puzzle obsession has returned with gusto. Today’s challenge for our three year old?

This 100 piece Ravensburger ocean puzzle that we recently found at a thrift store for $1.

We worked on sorting the pieces by colors and textures together and then she flew through assembling it.

Such fun. A perfect morning homeschool activity.

And quite honestly I don’t think she looked at the box top once. That being said, I might have used it to point her in the right direction once or twice or ten times. Cause mama’s are helpful like that and sometimes *we* need help.

Creative (Pretend) Pizza Toppings

Our daughter may only eat cheese pizza in the real world, but she likes all kinds of creative toppings in the world of pretend.

Featured here is the often-played-with and much-loved wooden Melissa and Doug Pizza dressed with our felt, hand-sewn spinach, mixed-greens salad and mushrooms, topped with several slices of cheese.

Order’s up!

Copious Amounts of Poppy Seeds

You may be wondering, just how many seeds are in one poppy seed pod?

Let me tell you, plenty!

Behind those adorable little girl fingers, you can see hundreds (!) of seeds from just five (!!!) dried poppy seed pods. Those poppy plants mean serious business.

I don’t know about you, but seeing all those poppy seeds makes me crave a poppy seed bagel. Do they even sell gluten-free poppy seed bagels?! Perhaps I need to make some.

Our other poppy seed posts:
– Poppy Seed Pods (with movie!)
– Poppy Flower Inspired Tissue Paper Art

Mod Podged Trays

A simple art project that reuses those cardboard-like compostable trays.

We inadvertently buy several of these compostable trays each week. Our local supermarket uses them in their bulk foods section, placing them under dried fruits.

I always save the trays without a set use in mind, knowing they’d be fun for a project.

We decided to paint them simply, layering and mixing red, pink and blue washable kids paint.

After they dried, we added a touch of glitter before sealing the trays with mod podge. They certainly won’t last forever. Because they’re made out of sugarcane, they’re probably already breaking down. But we can enjoy them for a few weeks or months certainly.

We love our simple, sparkly trays with a myriad of uses.

This week they’re holding felt salad greens, shells, and our over-sized decoupage eggs.