What to do with all that "art"??

H is an artist. Or at least he thinks he is, I'm not so sure, I sometimes think he is just making a mess. He is good enough, however, that he has mastered the art of painting while eating a cookie. Multitasking at its finest. Needless to say, we have to have art time at least once a day. It can get boring and in my opinion wasteful, paper after paper with not but random squiggles. We typically just re-used the papers until they we covered in art and then I would recycle them.  Lately, H has been getting more particular and insisting that he can only create on clean new pieces of white paper! Honestly! So to keep encouraging his creative urges and make myself feel less wasteful we have been coming up with new uses for his art.  Our current favorite is envelopes & thank you note in one.  It's sort of a win-win situation, h gets to do his art and I get to check something off my to do list.  They are actually pretty fun and more personal than store bought thank you's. So for all my friends who are looking for an winter afternoon activity, here you go!

All you need are your art supplies, scissors, a mad artist and a little time.

Here are the measurements, in inches, we used to make an envelope. We used a thicker art style paper, but anything will work. These measurements are nice because 4x6 pictures fit perfectly inside. However, if you don't mind smaller envelopes, here is a template you can print and copy. You can cut first or draw first, doesn't matter, but make sure you write your thank you note before you fold 

Place double sided sticky tape on the sides, fold, and stick

For thank  you notes, we just wrote right on the inside of the envelope, before folding and sticking, obviously!

These are far from perfect but they are a fun kid friendly idea.

This one is my personal favorite.  Sometimes, I have grand visions of how our art projects are going turn out; cute, color coordinated, going perfect with my decor and then reality hits and I remember I am working with a two year old who does not share my vision of "art".  When I told H I was going to take a picture of his art to put on the blog, he drew the big BUTT above...I'm not sure what he was trying to tell me here???

AND Since we make pancakes at least once a week we are always experimenting with the recipes.  Here was today's and they were delicious.  So good that I think we will be making this same recipe but with pumpkin later in the week! 

Gluten Free Pear Pancakes

1  small banana mashed up
1/2 cup pear puree
1 Cup Bob's Red Mill Gluten free flour
1/2 Oat flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. cinnamon1/2 tsp. salt
1 tbls. maple syrup
3/4 -ish cup warm water (plus more to desired consistency - I like thick doughy pancakes so I used less)

Mix together, in order listed above, and make pancakes.