Preschooler

I found this adorable idea on Being Savvy: Boston. Jill and her kids took a beach vacation and made some crafty, personal souvenirs that doubled as daytime entertainment. Brilliant.

Jill writes:

Vacations are special, and I often say they are what memories are made of. So it is important to preserve these memories, and what better way to do this than to find fun crafts to do with your kids.

We vacationed on the beach this summer. To break up the long, hot day, we spent part of out morning looking for seashells on the shore. All different shapes and sizes will do. After lunch, we broke out the paint. Water colors work well but make sure you have enough brushes for all the colors. We also brought glitter – not such a messy ordeal when you’re on the beach! After washing the shells, we painted and decorated them. When we got home, we went to a crafts store and bought an unfinished wood picture frame for a few dollars, attached our painted shells with a glue gun, and we were done. A few dollars and a lot of fun later, we had the perfect picture frame in which to display a photograph from our trip.

Another fun way to preserve those vacation memories is to create a photo album, personalized to represent your trip. At a crafts store, buy a simple solid photo album (AC Moore has them cheap) or a memory book. Gather some glue, some fun things you and the kids collected during your trip such as store receipts, the wrapper from a snack you enjoyed while away, a ticket stub from an amusement park or museum you may have visited. Decorate the front of the book with these mementos and fill the inside pages with the pictures you took. You’ll be happy to re-visit these warm memories on a cold winter’s night!

Whitney, you can do this on your staycation to the beach. I bet Julian will dig it.

After much research on Mexico and Hawaii, Ryan and I began looking at rental houses in San Diego, not wanting to be contained in a resort where our search for a casual restaurant would be an ordeal. In San Diego, we’d get the weather, the beach, and be able to have oatmeal on hand to just make a quick breakfast in our rental. Then, after thinking about packing up everything to fly, we switched our search criteria to Santa Cruz, CA. So basically, our big summer vacation is going to take place about 90 minutes from our house. I am totally excited, almost as if we were getting new stamps on our passports.

To take it to the next level of convenience and cheapness however, we could have just canceled all work obligations for a week and stayed home. Called a staycation by the trend-watching media, this would allow us to spend all the money saved on travel on meals and activities that we never engage in. Just think about applying a $200/day budget to a week at home. Bring your meals in! Bring a babysitter with you to the beach, so if you want to fall asleep in the sun, it’s ok! Rent a crazy backyard tent and sleep out there! Host a margarita party for 20 friends!

Beyond the budget issue, there’s the time at home to appreciate. Not the time to clean out the garage, but rather the time to use those toys you usually don’t feel like setting up. The tunnels, the art supplies, the huge cardboard boxes I’ve been saving for fort-making.

And the outings! The zoo, the farmer’s market, the public pools with cool splashy things. Having the d-a-d at home during the day makes some of these possible for me. He can take the baby to Gymboree or to Studio Grow or to SFMOMA or all the other things that stay-at-home-parents can do. And I can do sewing projects, make pumpkin pie, and build very tall lego buildings with my almost-4-year-old without having baby sis pull at our legs the whole time.

And one more naughty thought for working moms: plan a staycation for you and your partner and KEEP your daycare situation. How much fun would that be? Daytime movies, leisurely bike rides, afternoon naps, lunchtime at a restaurant.

For those who live in the below cities, keep in mind we have staycation guides for each of them.
San Francisco
Washington D.C.
San Diego
Portland
Seattle
New York City
Chicago

If you are willing to write one of these guides for Santa Cruz before August 15, I will be your best friend forever. (Sorry, Heather!)

When I saw this on girl with fabric’s website, I immediately asked to borrow the idea. Turns out she saw a variation of it on Ohdeedoh, but either way, I think there are countless creative ways to riff on this idea.

You might set it up as a nursery decoration - the alphabet in it’s entirety - as fabric girl has done.

Or, make it an ongoing project to work on with your preschooler - whenever you’re out and about or on a special vacation, finding a letter to add to your letter collection would be a little thrill. Any reason to take Julian to thrift stores is exciting for me, and we have a bunch of awesome salvage stores around here that sell old signs. Surely a good place for us to start.

If you want to just do the whole thing upfront, you’ll probably have to buy and decorate some letters yourself. Fabric girl used mod-podge and papers. I might try fabric. Other ideas?