Super-Easy Cool Comets

Faced with yet another hot afternoon, we made up some comets, dipped them in a bucket of water, and the girls had a blast hurling them at each other until they were soaked!

It started off innocently enough with Emily tossing a comet at Clara.....

Sunday Snapshot -- You MUST Try This!

If you do only ONE thing this Summer, you MUST do this!!

WOW!!! Summer Prize Pack Giveaway from CSN Stores

WOW!!! Here's a SUPER FUN Summer Prize Pack Giveaway from our very generous sponsor, CSN Stores!

CSN Stores is made up of more than 200 online stores, and offers an incredible array of products ranging from everything you need for your dining room to fantastic toys. They offer quick shipping and friendly customer service.

One VERY lucky Frugal Family Fun Blog reader will win a SUPER FUN Summer Prize Pack consisting of the following items (giveaway open to all US and Canadian residents only):

The kiddos will never be bored in one of these Super Duper Kid Play Tent by Pacific Tents!!

If they ever decide to come out of the tent, they might want to cool off with one of these Penguin Splash Slip 'N Slide Junior......

.... or maybe the entire family would like some frozen treats made with these Volcano Fillable Ice Pop Molds?

Of course, we do what we can to promote pretend play here at Frugal Family Fun Blog, so I thought it would be nice to include this Pretend Ice Cream Play Set by Melissa and Doug....

..... and we also encourage lots of craft time! So how about a Pack of 100 Sheets of Bleeding Art Tissue Paper by Pacon Creative Products?

Finally, what Summer Prize Pack would be complete without a box of 52 Pieces of Jumbo Stick Sidewalk Chalk by Creativity Street?

Isn't it FANTASTIC?? The entire prize package has a retail value of just over $98.00!!! Woo Hoo!!!

To enter for your chance to win this amazing Summer Fun Prize Pack, leave a comment on this post telling us about one thing that makes you happy! Be sure to leave your email address in the comments field! You may enter as many times as you like.

For extra entries, you can also follow FFFB on Twitter, or subscribe to our feed. Blog/Facebook/Tweet about this fabulous giveaway. (Just leave a comment for each.)

Giveaway ends Wednesday, July 21st @ 6:30pm EST and winner will be chosen by random.org

Good luck, and a BIG thank you to CSN Stores for this FUN giveaway opportunity!!

Watermelon Wrapping Paper

We have some special packages to mail out to friends, and I thought it would be fun to dress them up a bit. Emily had so much fun making this watermelon wrapping paper!! With just a bit of grown-up help, toddlers can have a go at this one too!

We used a potato to make the prints on long sheets of freezer paper using pink washable paint. I think it's kind of weird that we used a potato to make a watermelon print, but whatever! It worked well!

DIY: Summer Party Invites

After the girls were in bed, I sat down with some color coding labels (one of my fave art supplies, since they are sooooo frugal) and drew up some cute watermelons!

They are so EASY to do:

Solar-Powered Lunch!

We had a scorcher of an afternoon today -- prime conditions to make our own solar oven! We recycled a pizza box and a clear plastic lid from a disposable cake pan. Add a little aluminum foil, and voilá... a super eco-friendly and frugal solar oven!!

We even made our own sun tea, just to harness the power of the sun a bit more. I love that it's made from a tea called "Children's Tea". Mark and I often joke that it is "made from only the most well-behaved real children".

It's actually a caffeine free berry/honey tea, and it's quite delicious! 

Emily LOVED helping out with the solar oven! We made our own pizzas using spinach tortillas, mozzarella cheese, tomato sauce, and oregano... yum!

Adjust the reflector to get as much sun as possible directed into the solar oven. You can use a stick or wooden dowel to prop it up, but we found a little more foil worked well too.

After a few minutes, the pizza was done and baked to perfection!!

Now it's time to stuff yo' face!!!

Nom, nom, nom!!

I love that we were able to bake while keeping the house cool, and without using any electricity! We had so much fun, that we may even try baking some cookies for dessert!!!

Painted Orange Slices

The girls loved painting these cute orange slices, and they were so simple to make! Just cut a paper plate in half, and use some masking tape to mark off the segments of the orange. Invite the kiddos over to paint!!

Emily will take any excuse to paint, plus her favorite color is orange, so this craft was an instant hit!

It didn't take long for Clara to get in on the painting action too!

Orange slices always make me think of Summer!

Allow the paint to dry completely, then peel off the masking tape and outline with black marker. Beautiful and super-frugal!!

Have fun!!

Quick Craft -- Tie Dyed Sunshine Ornaments

You won't believe how quick, easy and frugal this project is!!

For a crafty fun time, fold a coffee filter in half 3 times, and cut the outer edge as shown.

Open up the coffee filter to make a sun, and invite the kiddos over to paint with yellow, orange, and pink/red water colors on it!!

Since Clara is so young, I gave her markers to use instead (which kept the mess to a minimum), and then she painted with water over top.

She loved all the bright yellow and orange!

...and she especially loved using the paintbrush with some water to blend the colors together!

Emily thought the colors blended so well that it looked a bit like tie-dye!

Groovy, man!

Allow the coffee filters to dry, and display proudly in a sunny window!

They make me smile every time I see them!! Have fun!!!

Emily and I will be on NBC's The 10! Show this Tuesday to demo quick (and frugal) Summer crafts for kids -- if you would like free tickets to the show, click here! We would LOVE to meet you!!

Painting.... with Ice Cubes!

Today was a real scorcher, but the girls still wanted some outside play time (and of course some sort of art is aways a necessary part of our day). I had some very inexpensive "paint with water" books, but we thought it would be more fun to paint with ice cubes instead!!

If you're afraid of messy paint, this is the project for you! 

Since the ice cube melts relatively slowly, Clara was able to paint her picture nicely without dumping so much water on it that the pages tear. 

Next, we brought out the Aqua Doodle mats, but again painted with ice cubes on them. These mats are a wonderful mess-free way to enjoy painting and drawing!

Once the mat is covered in doodles, wait for it to dry, and then start drawing all over again!

Clara thought this was a great way to cool off!

They had so much fun, that I had to bribe them with homemade chewy granola bars to get them to go back in the house.

Stay cool, and have fun!!

Lemon Rubbings from Yogurt Lids

Do you follow FFFB on Twitter? If not, you should! The Stonyfield Blogger Barnstorming Tour is starting this weekend, and I'll be tweeting and posting virtual postcards from the road. Thank you, thank you, thank you for voting for me! I wish I could give each of you a great big hug!! If it weren't for your votes, I wouldn't be able to go, and this trip means so much to me. In honor of all the upcoming Stonyfield fun, we made super-cute lemon rubbings recycling two foil lids from Stonyfield yogurt!!

First, layer the two lids as shown...

By the way, have you tried the Oikos yogurt with caramel?????? OH. MY. Goodness. Heaven! Now, where was I? Oh, yes....The two lids should form a lemon shape, as shown below.

Place the lids under a piece of white paper, and invite your child to make crayon rubbings with a yellow crayon. I used masking tape to help Clara keep the paper in place.

Ta-Da!!

Persuade your big sister to join you -- this shouldn't be too hard if your big sister is like Emily.

Both of the girls were so happy these drawings looked so much like real lemons!

For a more finished look, outline your lemon with a black crayon.

I love the face Emily added to her lemon! She glued her picture to a piece of yellow construction paper, and made a neat card to mail off to Grandma!

Have fun!!

Have any questions for the farmers while I'm on the tour? Leave a comment on this post, and I'll ask them for you!

Hurray for Playgrounds!

After driving to nearby Lewisburg, PA -- We are all suffering from a serious case of playground envy! Seriously. My skull still hurts from trying to wrap my brain around the size of this GINORMOUS playground.

The girls wasted no time! 

Cheap Thrills -- Airplane Racers

For a fun time, make up some paper airplanes (Emily has a slight obsession with making these lately), attach some bent paper clips and tie a long piece of string. Race your airplanes!!!

Emily thought this was so much fun, and Clara was quick to pick up on the racing fun too! Since Clara isn't quite old enough to be able to throw a paper airplane, having a string to race them along worked perfectly.

Shake, shake, shake your string!!

Ready.... set........

.................GO!!!!