First let me start by apologizing for my absence. I may have the Facebook going for quick thoughts or fun links but I haven't got a post up in awhile. I actually have a lot I was dying to share with you guys but unfortunately I could not risk ruining the surprise for my Christmas gifts this year. But, hopefully this blog will get your brain churning for the next go around.
Today's Fabulous Finds Blog was full of cute little gifts with the perfect tag to make it all tie in. I just loved the "We 'WISK' you a Merry 'KISS'mas!" This one was cheap & cute, just perfect for my family's White Elephant Game. All you need is some scrap paper, a little plastic bag, ribbon, a wisk and some kisses. I went for a color theme so I got the Hershey's Candy Cane Kisses.
Now to my special DIY Ornament finds:
Your friends and family can't get to the beach, bring the beach to them. ;) Just felt like it was sending a piece of home to our loved ones. Check out Completely Coastal & One Art Mama Blog. Honestly, there were a few versions I saw floating out there, but these two sites have generally what I did. I really just went off the images I saw an went for it. We had a fun family day walking along the shore collecting shells then letting my daughter sift into her bucket some of the best sand. Craft store plastic ornament made it a lot safer to ship and to handle the weight. We placed each ornament in one of my daughter plastic cups so we did not have any rolling accidents as we got started. I let her pour the sand into each with a funnel then we added the shells just right through the top. Now, this is where their instructions an mine may differ, I cut tape to place on the top part of the ornament. The very top, silver (maybe gold in your case), the part where the hook and wire is located. You may notice there are small holes where the wire goes through the top and I really didn't want the sand to escape. After taping it, I added some craft glue in a generous amount to make like a plastic coating. After it dried I painted on some more of the glue around the top rim of the plastic ornaments so when I would pop on the top it would help glue and permanentlyattach the top. Then used Fabri Tac Glue to hold my ribbon in place with the tag. In my case I did one side of the tag with the beach we went to, Mission Beach and on the other side the city, San Diego.
Last but not least, for those Harry Potter fans on your list, A Golden Snitch. This was not the easiest. The ornament also required a lot more time. Each step required it's own dry time. I followed Tiny Apartment Crafts Blog's tutorial as close as I could. I also did lots of google images of the snitches. This was about as close as I could get it. Mine did not look like the blogs, but my cousin seemed to really enjoy it, so maybe your fan will to.
Remember gifts from the heart are sometimes more special.
We bought a little pack of foam gingerbread men, foam Christmas stickers, and googly eyes. To work on these little masterpieces we got out all our puffy paint and glitter glue. I just sat by and let my kid go to town, every once in awhile she let me put a sticker down.
Once she deemed it as done, I got my favorite scrapbooking hole puncher out, a star. I thought it was fitting for the Christmas spirit. I punched a little hole at the top of his head. If you are choosing to make a magnet do not add a hole, just let it dry. NO HOLE.
Once it is dry, you can either bend a Christmas tree hook to hold your man, or the way I preferred was to get out some of my Christmas ribbon. I left a little room so I could slide a branch through my circle and tied a couple little knots. Then curled the edges of the ribbon.
If you were wondering how we decided which was what, well we thought the one with hair would look better as a magnet then a ornament. We didn't want to put a hole in his pretty hair.
Now for the other option. Once it is all dry get one of those ready to stick magnet strips and cut it down to a size you feel comfortable with. Peel and place hard, you want it to really be stuck (*TIP* - this also works for those cute gift cards that are to awesomely cute to throw away). I just added two strips to ours so it laid nicer against my fridge, do to size. They are extremely light so I am sure you can get away with one, if you wish.
Have fun placing on tree, putting on fridge or giving as a gift.
Fun Project with stuff around the house. Bust out some scraps of paper, some round objects, a few toothpicks, glue & lots of cotton balls.
This one I actually did some prep work. I personally love the foam sticker sheets we have so I cut out some shapes. I figured it would cut down on time and impatience. Honestly though, just cutting out the carrot nose, pieces of coal, and top hat would be just as easy & cut if you use construction paper. The fun thing about coal is I din't have to worry about tiny little perfect circles. The hat ended up looking plain so my daughter pulled out one of her Christmas shaped foam stickers an added to the top hat. Other then that we we're pretty prepared. I wouldn't had minded busting out some little bit of ribbon for a scarf, but she felt it was good.
I used one of my daughter's old scribbled up poster boards to trace. I found three small similar, but not exact same circle shapes. In our households case a toilet paper roll and two of her snack bowls. I did that just so she had a easy reference of where we would be gluing all the cotton balls, but you can also just trace the circles straight onto the color of chosen background construction paper. I also did this just to give a little more strength encase my toddler went over board with glue it wouldn't rip up the paper. When tracing let your circles overlap a bit. i tried to remember a real snowman wouldn't have very perfect circles. Then cut out my snowman outline. After all that pre-cutting and gathering of tools I let her get to it. First she used that good old fashioned white glue to place the small poster board snowman shape on to the background color of her choice (the bigger one just served to be under the project just in case, I also wasn't sure what size she would want to do). After that as glued to the paper, then more glue on top of the snowman shape. This is up to your kid, mine is more into mess but yours may like placing glue on each cotton ball as he/she goes. Since the glue was there she dug right into the cotton balls and got to sticking. Covering as much of the dark blue as she could see. Next she got to sticking the hat on, followed by the eyes, then nose, next the smile. She chose to save the extra pieces of "charcoal" as the buttons. She then glued toothpicks to each side for stick arms. That's when she thought the hat needed more & we found the candy cane sticker. I put away the good old white glue when she went to work at ripping apart some white construction paper to use as snow. She used a glue stick to place those about. She said the small ones were like snow flakes and her bigger chunks she felt looked better on the bottom like a sign. In this project order doesn't really matter, so if you wanna cut the harder shapes while your little one works on the tearing and gluing that would work, well as long as your kid doesn't mind the snowman covering some of their background master piece.
We will probably be doing this project again on a smaller scale so I can turn it into a ornament. Instead of the background she can decorate both sides of the board with cotton. Where the hat is I will continue the board so I can add a hole punch an a piece of cute ribbon.
This is a terrific one! Super easy & really not much a a clean up or set up required. Especially great if you are a busy mom, like any of us aren't. ;)
Things you will need:
Kids/Your choice of construction paper colors. (As you see my daughter wanted the normal brown, but wanted yellow antlers & a green background.) No matter what mix you end up with it's cute.
Pencil for tracing.
Googly eyes. (I found a 125 count mix sized pack at the Dollar Store)
1 Red Circle, now we used some of the sticker foam sheets, just cut out a circle, but you can use paper, a pom-pom, whatever you have.
2 types of Glue. Although, this is up to you and your kid's abilities. I had regular squeeze out white glue for her to dot the back of each eye. Also a glue stick for the back of the paper. I chose that so she wouldn't over glue, but she could feel freedom in the project. Also so it would dry fast & have the right amount of hold.
Your choice of item to label child's name & year.
First trace foot on color chosen for head or let your little one trace it themselves. Then trace both hands on color chosen for antlers. In my case I let my daughter, Riley loves to trace, so I jumped in at cutting out the foot while she traced the hands. Start with the foot so your little one can assemble the face as you cut out the hands. She got to dot glue on the back of her chosen eyes with the squeeze glue. We chose toes on top heel for snout. Really as long as the eyes are semi by each other & the nose is placed below it will work out. But it is up to you how much guidance your little one needs. Sometimes showing them a image of what they are doing ahead of time helps a little to. In our case she next peeled sticker back & placed. This may be a glue step for you, depending on nose choice. I let her get at glue sticking the back of the hands and placing on chosen background color. In our case her hands were small enough were the background could be horizontal or vertical, but like everything else I let her make the call. Now the foot, just had to remind her to be gentle while adding glue to the back since there was eyes and a nose on the other side. Last of all she placed the foot on top. You can flip the order on that to, but it will hide a little of the foot instead of palm area. Up to you. Time to label...or not. Lots of choices in a little cute quick little project. Have fun, before you know it, it'll be DONE!
Thinking about Yo Gabba Gabba being on tour made me want share one of my daughter's past birthday parties. She's a big Gabba friend, so for the big 2 we planned a Gabba "Pool Party". If you've seen the "Summer" episode you know what it means, if not here:
As my daughter being a big fan that she is we already had the soundtrack ready to go. Ipod playlist & little player, check!, Even a "Happy Birthday" from The Ting Tings, but the party stuff was another thing. So hopefully my searching and making helps you have a easier process.
The biggest thing I can first recommend to you is check out Gabba Friends! It's a awesome resource for all us mom's trying to make a theme out of not many store items. They were a HUGE help in offering clip art for invites. They even have how to do Gabba Character wrapping paper. I wish I had a image cause I made a Muno bag out of a red target gift bag. It was so easy & awesome (just think eye & mouth, just black & white construction paper an a glue stick). They even offer how to's for Invitations. This is what I came up with using their clip-art link an a little Photoshop:
I drew my pool & tried to hide Riley's sizing info under the pool just in case some people wanted it was there. I tried to take the lyrics & tie that in with a simple fun invite. Paired it with a nice bright yellow envelope & a YGG sticker to seal.
The cool thing about YGG is they have basic bright colors to work with as a base. If you are like me, it was way cheaper and easier to buy the right paper plates without blowing budget. I don't really care for the one time use, perfectly matched picture deal items. I hate being stuck with leftovers that look more like money reminders then party fun, like these: YGG 1st Wish Birthday Deluxe Set. It's great don't get me wrong, but for the $, not my thing. So seek out the colors that match the characters save yourself some bucks.
Now to think how to occupy those little ones. Besides the obvious summer stuff, of the water table, bubbles & pool. I wanted something extra. I was soooo happy I did cause this was the one year it happened to be freezing! So the indoor ideas were very handy. We had a little craft time of making Foam Visors. I found them super cheap at Shindigz.com and keep my eye out for sells on foam stickers. Glitter, non, letters, numbers, shapes, a fun mix goes a long way. No matter the age stickers are easy and not really a clean up issue. I bought a pack of plastic glad like tubs from a dollar store and made it so there was enough of a mix so kids wouldn't fight an stickers wouldn't be all over. It was very easy to close the lids & hide when all done.
We posted Yo Gabba Gabba Safety Zone Signs (free Nick Jr Print) every where so kids knew where they could go. Had a big happy Green - Safe Zone sign on the door to the set up a play room. In it we had all of Riley's toys & YGG dvd's playing on a tv. Best thing for the little ones was her Yo Gabba Gabba Dance Mat. I actually drew inspiration from that for the inside top of our Super Music Friend Show Player.
I wish I had a picture for you, but let me tell you about how we made this. I found a huge box outside a appliance store. It was a dish washer box, I believe. It was awesomely huge! Well once the process of getting it home was figured out I took a pencil & the best picture I could find of the thing & started to map it out. A ruler & some painters tape will be your best friend so the openings are as close to center an straight as possible. Then my wonderful husband went at it with a box cutter, removing the rectangle in front openings on the sides. I removed the extras first so not to waste extra paint, but it's up to you. Red paint to the whole thing...minus the painters tapped off white frame area around the front opening. Inside, top, sides...everything LOTS of red paint. Next I got to work on the inside backdrop collage. I pieced together a couple of poster boards. Then started a hunt through old magazines for the most colorful & most musical images. Sometimes I got lucky and found a actual Gabba images. Then I hopped on my computer & got to printing. Nick Jr has coloring pages & lots of printables, like the YGG Puppet Theater. I used all images along with the magazine's to cover ever single inch of the poster board. I chose not to color the characters but glue them to their color of construction paper & cut around. Like Brobee was green, Muno red...etc.
The button in the front was much like the silloutettes from the Nightmare Before Christmas blog. Painters tapped a big white sheet of paper to my computer monitor & pulled up a image of it. I used the image above & increased the size as large as possible to easily trace on my 12x12 paper. Trace image outlines lightly with pencil. I made sure to code each section with what color to paint it. Use your nice smaller paint brushes for this part, those lines are so precise for the effect. In the meantime of that drying I found a flat piece of styrofoam and cut to the size of the buttons. Find your strong white glue and secure it to the front, allow plenty of room in between that and opening edge. When I glued the paper with the painting I did not cut my 12x12 sheet down. I did slice the comers diagonal to fold flatter around the foam, think like Christmas wrapping. I used my painters tape along with the glue to secure it flat. Time to add more red paint. If everything is ready an dry go for the white edges of opening. I used black paint & added the images in the background of the dance mat to the roof of the box to surprise the kids when they walked in. Use that great craft glue & secure your collage to the inside back wall. Much easier if the box is dry so you can lay it down on the back. I originally planned to buy Dollar Store red plastic table cover to slice it into strips and secure on inside above entry on the sides, but I got worried if my wet pool kids would get suck, so I left them open. I also chose to for go the 2 speakers you can kind of see in some images of it, just felt like it wouldn't add, but rather take away.
Kids had fun playing with little character action figures in there & posing for pictures. It became a great little play house for my daughter long after the party.
The food was easy to fit the theme, the song even tells you some sides, "HOLY GUACAMOLE! We've got chips" so I went for the BBQ, summer picnic feel. Easy & yummy. But when it came time for the cake, a lot of the things offered weren't exactly what I wanted. I mean for the price they charge I want it to be something my kid can keep & play with not some hard plastic with a sticker. So I searched around. She already had the hard plastic action figures, but I keep thinking with their weight I couldn't really guarantee them not falling over or into the cake, then finally Yo Gabba Gabba Bath Squirters! Fantastic. Light colorful & she can use them in the bath or her outside water table! I found a great music theme cake & fit it right in. It was soooo awesome!
OK, I know not all parents subscribe to the idea of goody bags, but I love them. So ebay had great deals on little stuff like Gabba Stickers & tattoos, but I found some really cheap & neat stuff of the Shindigz site. Besides the foam visors from the craft mentioned above, I found sunglasses & beach balls. So do your research and sign up with them or other party sites cause you never know what you will find or what kind of coupons they will offer. They seem to always have some deal & I was very happy to apply it to their already great prices.
Even the adults seemed to enjoy. ;)
Just remember LISTENING AND DANCING TO MUSIC IS AWESOME!!!!!
