Tag Archives: paint

May10

Mom’s Night Out….. Make it a Paint Night!

Posted on May 10, 2017 by samoorstuff

Mom’s Night Out….. Make it a Paint Night!

Every mom deserves a night in the week to do just something that takes her mind off of the schedules, organizing and parenting she has to structure every week.

Well with Mother’s day there’s so much but you can always do something a little extra the day after tooo!!! Because after all Every day should b Mother’s Day!!!

Head over to one of my favorite spots. “Good Earth Cafe” and get painting with the guidance of Floral Blueprint.

You can book your ticket by clicking the image below….

Making Life Memorable with every brush stroke……

Sep27

Birthday Games

Posted on September 27, 2014 by samoorstuff

Birthday Games

When planning my girls’ birthdays I always like to have at least 2 or 3 games for the kids. I’ve come to realize that all they want to do is just run around and have fun but I still do it anyway!!

One thing I always like to make sure of is choosing a game where everyone is a winner and no hard feelings. There’s nothing worse than making a kid cry on your child’s birthday. So musical chairs is OUT! Too rough and just our mean of a game for me!

The way I avoid any losers is by actually having the kids that are out choose a gift from a huge box of 100fils toys, stickers, bubbles, stationary, colors, play dough….etc Soon some of the kids wanted to loose just to be able to choose a gift from the box.

Off course the games I choose are always theme related.

For example, Zeenah’s 3rd birthday was a monkey theme. So instead of the traditional pass the parcel I had pass the monkey.

I used a stuffed monkey that they passed around. Whenever the music stopped the person that had the monkey got to leave the circle and choose a gift from the “Box”.

Last person got to keep the stuffed monkey as their prize.

I take every opportunity I get to get artistic and crafty.

The minute I found these cute little plush bananas I had a light bulb moment…..

A Banana toss would be a perfect “Monkey Themed” game.

First on the agenda was to get a big cardboard box.

Perfect, conveniently I have a gift shop that I always save some shipping boxes just for occasions such as these!

I took the box and outlines the monkey I wanted.

I then cut out the “mouth” intended for the banana’s to be tossed into.

Off course after that was my favorite part which is painting!!!

It was even better than the way I imagined… The girls were super excited after I had finished it that they played with it constantly before the big debut on the birthday.

For a 3 year old birthday I figured 2 games was just enough and I was right!!!

We had the singing of the birthday shortly after and a chance in Making Life Memorable for everyone involved.

Sep21

Tooth Fairy Door

Posted on September 21, 2014 by samoorstuff

Tooth Fairy Door

The wonderful world of make believe is such an amazing place to be, I remember as a child when you thought EVERYTHING was real… Call it the Disney syndrome or perhaps it’s the Peter Pan? Whatever the name it’s all the same a world where everything is magical that’s where I want to live.

If any of you out there is like me with “issues” about being a grown up I’m sure you’d agree. Life was so simple when the worst thing was your mom not letting you go to a friend’s house and you’d feel like it’s the end of the world.

If we only knew what was REALLY in store:) Well moving right along before it turns into a therapy session…….

The world of make believe. Santa, Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny are those things that make you tingle and feel young.

I had to make the experience of Jennah’s wiggly tooth and the much awaited Tooth fairy visit extremely special.

I decided to make a little tooth fairy door for that occasion. I debated for a while if it should be a surprise or make Jennah involved but I figured it would make it all that more special if Jennah made it.

So here’s your inspiration and How to…..

You’ll need:
Ruler
Cardboard (about 18cm x 11cm, 7inchx4.5inch)
3 Popsicle sticks
Glue
Pencil
Glitter
Beads
Paint
Pipe cleaner
PomPom
Any cutting tool (scissors, razor blade..)

Directions:
Measuring and cutting the door.

Place 2 of the popsicle sticks on the sides of the cardboard from the bottom to make and the third on the top to attach the other two making a rectangle.

Mark the inside of the sticks with a pencil.

With your cutting tool, I suggest a razor blade, cut the left marking and top all the way through. Slightly shear the right marking to enable you to bend it easily.

Cut the top of the door as to resemble a rooftop.

Paint the cardboard white or any color your child prefers.

Other ideas would be to either use white cardboard or cover it with tissue or construction paper…

We went with painting because it’s just more fun for the kids!

Off course the challenge is to keep them occupied with something else while the paint dries.

My suggestion is stick to the Tooth Fairy theme and either makeup or read a tooth fairy story or find cute facts online about Tooth Fairies.

Glue the popsicle sticks on the sides and top of the cut/ folded edged of the cardboard.

Now the real fun begins….

Let your child paint and design the door the way they like. In my world that’s really hard to ust let them do it “their” way.

If you have a younger child that’s continuously getting into the older child’s work keep them involved tooo….

I gave Zeenah a big piece of cardboard to paint. That really kept her busy and away from her sister’s project.

After the paint has completely dried it’s time for the Fairy Décor!

Jennah added the beads, glitter, pompom for the door knob and the pipe cleaner for the door knocker.

Now you have a gorgeous Tooth Fairy Door that can be placed anywhere the night of the lost tooth allowing her to enter and surprise your child with something in the morning.

Here’s Making Life Memorable one lost tooth at a time!

Sep13

Fun @ Art Space

Posted on September 13, 2014 by samoorstuff

Fun @ Art Space

I hope that yesterdays post made you even more curious and intrigued to learn more about Art Space in Galleria 2000-Salmiya.

Between my busy schedule and the girls its been really difficult to make it out to Art Space and enjoy the full experience until last week everything changed!

The perfect date, time and artwork!! My husband, two girls and I head to Galleria 2000 and live it up.

The kids workshop we went to was 5pm-7pm with Mr. Salem, A man full of life and enthusiasm and the ability to captivate the children to follow his step-by-step tutorial of what seemed like a difficult painting at the time.

The girls sat eagerly with their cute Art Space aprons on watching Mr. Salem’s every movement as he began to set everything up for them from paints, canvases and brushes. It was hard for me to resist not going into the studio to join in the fun!!

Then the fun began as he started to explain to the children every step, his interaction with the children made it even more fun as they also stated their opinions and choices. With occasional one on one help, especially for Zeenah (she is after all only 4!) every child felt his special touch and assistance.

Every child had added their own version of what they wanted and cam out with an amazing canvas that’s going to go up on our wall. You can actually see the girls personality in each paining.

I am extremely impressed with their capabilities and with their capacity of following instructions. All this while my husband sat comfortably in the café enjoying the girls enthusiasm from behind the window and sipping our coffee.

Needless to say we ALL went home happy.

But this was not enough for me!!! I wanted in on the fun too, for days all I can think of is “They have adult classes!!”, “this is my kinda place”, “I need to go again”

While talking to my best friend and how much I love the place it suddenly dawns on me!! “WE HAVE TO GO!!” So we set it our next “Date night” is going to be at Art Space….

We found the perfect time to join the class and our Painting conveniently had my favorite quote of all time

Off course as soon as I walk in I’m greeted by the gorgeous Sarah and Salem, immediately feel like I’ve known them for years. My best friend walks in and she feels the same way!!

We make our way into the art studio Apron and all and meet our Instructor Lamia. A truly adorable lady that made painting seem like it was a piece of cake!! Oh which we were served by one of the other instructors, just because.

As I’m sitting there painting my background all I keep thinking too myself is “I can live here and how are they going to keep me away!”

Sure enough as we follow Lamia’s steps, instructions and techniques while choosing our own little changes and tweaks the painting starts to look more and more presentable than ever expected.

This all wouldn’t have been remotely possible without Lamia (our instructor) and the Art Space team’s continuous support, encouragement and cheering.

To that I have great honor in presenting my “first” work of art without complete embarrassment.

Here I am proud by Making Life Memorable one canvas at a time. Surely not the last of them!

Sep5

One week down!!!

Posted on September 5, 2014 by samoorstuff

One week down!!!

OOOHHHHHHOOOOOO!!!

We survived the first week of school chaos. Between the traffic, figuring out classes, getting the new uniforms and settling into routine I think we did pretty good.

I’m jumping for joy as to how convenient this year is going to be with both girls having the same schedule and I don’t need to spend 4 hours a day on the road from one location to another.

Off course with that I had to have some sort of celebration at the end of their first week.

The girls decided that they wanted to go out for ice cream after school and that’s exactly what we did.

The funny thing is they insisted on having a big dessert.

We therefore went to Chilis (one of our favorite restaurant choices) Conveniently there’s one located at Al-Mohalab Mall next to their school.

They ordered the Chocolate Molten cake with ice cream while I was having the BBQ Chicken Salad. After about 4 bites of their dessert they looked at me and said “Can we share your salad”. I am truly blessed that my children eat healthy and would actually turn their dessert away and devour a salad.

I must have done something right!!

We then walked around the mall, went into makeup stores and put lip gloss on. Went into The body shop and tried almost everything that had a “TRY ME” sticker on it. And just giggled all the time.

Then it was time to head out before the security had enough of us!

Next choice was the infamous “Color Me Mine”

We are addicted to that place and soon will run out of choices of what to paint because we pretty much painted almost every mug, plate, bowl that they have.

The trick about what I do at color Me mine to make my money worth while is that the girls MUST choose something useful.

We used to do the figurines but then I just have a shelf full of “STUFF” and at the rate we go I’m going to run out of space. So it must be something we can use. Therefore we have plates of different sizes, bowls and mugs!

Let me tell you we can spend so much time there it’s crazy.

Now that the girls are older they really take their time and it’s not just about painting with colors over each other.

Trust me we have a bunch of Icky brown bowls from mixing colors. Now the girls chose colors wisely and start to make designs on their ceramics.

I was especially impressed with Zeenah on how she was handling her cup and taking her time in making it pretty.

By the end of this day we had a calm ride home, talking about what a wonderful day we had.

I am so privileged to have girls that appreciate me and here’s to “Making Life Memorable” as a family!

Aug23

Quick Playdate

Posted on August 23, 2013 by samarhajjaj

Quick Playdate

Sometimes your playdates happen without any pre-planning. Especially when your kids are as social and independent as my girls are. The summers are long and it seems the older they are the longer they seem. I have kept them busy with my own activities but they need some space and free will. As the summer is reaching an end and all the girls’ friends are coming back from their travels its time for 8am calls “are your kids free?” If you received such a call and need a quick menu for lunch Here’s what I made when 2 friends came over. Simple, quick and no fuss!

Lunch Menu:
Cucumber, Carrots and cherry tomato platter.
Vegetable Soup
Corn on the Cob
Baked Breaded Chicken drumsticks.

Viola! You’re all set.

Now you can sit back and relax and have fun with the kids. Highlight one major activity and let them have tons of free play. Our activity for the day was spreading a large sheet of poster paper and just letting them paint, paint and paint…..

Aug19

CAP kids Art program

Posted on August 19, 2013 by samarhajjaj

CAP kids Art program

Today I’ll be taking Jennah to her first class at the CAP kids art classes. I think I’m more excited than she is. I was happy to actually read about it on @whats_kickin.

The program duration is 1 month for twice a week, each session is 2 hours. The great thing is that the program is teaching everything about art. Techniques, artists and practical drawing too. I’m actually curious to see how the end result of their Art work. Hopefully it will light something up in Jennah and she can pursue it further…..but with school closing in I’m not sure if I’ll continue after the first month.

For those that are interested be sure to visit their website. They’re located in Life Center (same building as Eureka and Midas), Industrial Shuwaikh. I also highly recommend visiting their art library. So many books to go through and learn about artists and techniques. I’m planning to sit with Zeenah my 3 year old in their library and hopefully do some “learning about Art” while Jennah’s in class.

For those of you that are wondering how serious these classes are…check out the supply list we had to buy.

Defintatly going to see some frame worthy artwork!! Jennah’s “Making life Memorable”