Alphabet Bean Bags

These Alphabet Bean Bags are such a cute idea.

Loving this site!!!!

I have always wanted to be a super mommy! This site teaches you how! She has such fantastic ideas!! I am so excited to try some of these. One of my favorites is the Birthday Board and all the fun birthday ideas!

Bookmarks

More from Kerry's Paper Crafts:

sooo I got a laminating machine. And I was all inspired to use it - and I thought what better use than these bookmarks?

(Random Craft Fair Tip: the best selling items are bookmarks, and other $1 items - especially when you gear them towards little kids!!)

I went a little nuts creating a LOT of bookmarks and laminating them. They are just so much more sturdy & durable when they are laminated. I am hoping to sell these bookmarks at my fairs for $2 each. What do you think?

Supplies: LOTS of different stuff! Mostly SU! Cardstock. Wild About You Stamp Set, October Afternoon Stamps & DP, We R Memory Keepers Animal Stickers, SU! & Other Various Ribbon. (there is more I know, but I can’t think of it! If you have a specific question on any of the above just leave me a comment. thanks!)

Confetti Popper Rockets

If you are up to the mess, check out these Confetti Popper Rockets from Alpha Mom:

Fourth of July Confetti Popper Rockets
By Brenda Ponnay

Who says you can't have fireworks in the house? With these confetti popper rockets you can blow things up inside without ever catching anything on fire! Explosive, yet completely safe and super fun for kids: That's how I like to celebrate my independence. Get your vacuum cleaners ready cause we're gonna blow this craft up!

I know paper rockets have been made before but this rocket has a trap door in the bottom. When you pull the string, that dangles there ever-so enticingly at kid height, a small compartment opens up and a tiny bucket full of confetti will land on said kid's head. It's great. We tried it and my kid definitely gives this craft a thumbs up.

This craft is fun for many ages. My kid liked it because she got to decorate the rocket and what's not to love about confetti raining down on your head but I think older kids would really enjoy the engineering part of this project. You can get creative with it and maybe have a contest to see who can build the best rocket. Some explode spectacularly, some are a bit of a dud. There are lots of ways you can make these. They also make great decorations for a party!

Here's how you make it:

First you will need to gather your supplies.

1. Paper towel or toilet paper tubes cut to rocket-like lengths


2. colored paper (we chose patriotic colors and used everything from origami paper to scrapbook paper), make sure you have at least one sheet of something stiffer, like card stock too


3. tissue paper (we used red)


4. stickers and marker pens (feel free to get crazy here) to decorate with


5. confetti (homemade or store-bought


6. bakers twine or string


7. tape


8. glue (any kind that works on paper will do)


9. beads (these will not show so it doesn't matter what they look like)


10. ribbons for streamers

Tools you will need:

1. a stapler


2. scissors


3. a craft or needlework needle


4. fun craft punches for confetti (if you make your own)


5. hole puncher

Now to build it! First you will build the "propulsion system." Of course this rocket isn't really going to take off and fly around the room but the confetti is housed where a normal propulsion system would be so we call it that.

Cut yourself a small square of tissue paper that will be big enough to cover the bottom of your cardboard tube--about three inches across. Cut a small disc out of a sheet of card stock that will fit just within the radius of the cardboard tube. With some glue attach this disc to the center of your tissue paper. Let it dry for a few minutes. Thread about an arm's length of twine onto your craft needle and tie a bead to the end for a not. With this, puncture the center of your disc that is attached to the tissue paper. This is the trap door.

Next you will need to glue this tissue paper trap door to your cardboard tube with a small line of glue around the bottom of the tube. Make sure you attach it with the bead side inside the tube and the string (or fuse) side hanging outside of your tube. You can add a pull tab to your long dangling fuse or just let it hang. We added stars to some of ours. Let this dry and you're done with that part! Now onto decorating!

There are lots of ways you can decorate your rocket but the most important part is to cover the tube with some decorative paper so that you don't see that it used to be a toilet paper roll (or paper towel tube). This decorative sheet (roughly 6.5x4.25 inches big, depending on your tube) also holds your tissue paper trap door on, or at least covers the ruffles of tissue where it is glued to the tube. We attached ribbons to the bottom inside of our decorative covering so that the rockets looked like they were flying--or just pretty and festive.

Roll your paper around the tube and staple at the top for strength. You can't staple the bottom because your tissue paper trap door keeps the stapler from getting inside but I found that a couple of pieces of tape did the trick.

Now you can fill your tube with confetti. We just put in a few handfuls but feel free to load this sucker up. Just think about how much confetti you want to clean up later and act accordingly. I say the more the better but then I'm a bit of a free spirit who doesn't mind a little mess for the sake of some good old fashioned American fun.

Attaching the cone to the top of your rocket can be a bit tedious. It's purely aesthetic so if you opt out of this part that's totally fine. I just really wanted my confetti poppers to really look like old fashioned Fourth of July fire crackers so we made rocket cones.

Here's how you do it:

Cut a circle about 3.25 inches wide across, then cut one snip all the way to the center of the disc like you see above. Take the edges of your cut and pull them together, probably about a half an inch or more. When your cone has reached a desirable height, staple it at the base.

Now for the tricky part: attaching the cone to your rocket. The important thing here is creating a strong holder that you can use to hang your rocket from. Since these rockets will be tugged upon, it's important that the rocket holds together and doesn't come crashing down on your head instead of releasing it's payload of confetti. I found the best way to hang these rockets was to put the weight bearing string through two holes punched in the top of the rocket body. Then I strung the two sides of the string through a center bead (just to keep it centered) and up through the center of the cone so that it came out of the point or top of the cone. The cone itself can't really hold the rocket together so taping it wouldn't work.

An easy way to string the cone is to open up your stapled cut from the inside of your cone and pull your string through the gap. This will take some patience but you can do it!

Here's a super scientific diagram (it's rocket science hee hee!) in case you've gotten confused along the way.

Now you can hang them up and let the festivities begin!

I found that I needed to "prime" some of the rockets to ensure maximum explosiveness. You can do this by simply poking some small holes (or cutting with a sharp blade) around the bottom of the trap door. Just make sure you don't cut it completely out because the ripping sound of that trap door being yanked out is probably the biggest part of the fun.

That and the confetti party you can have afterwards! Woot!

P.S. I wanted to step this craft up a notch by adding those strings that pop with real explosives but I couldn't find any at the time of this writing. If anyone tries this, I'd love to hear how it goes. Of course exercise caution. I don't want anybody really burning down their house!

Harry Potter Party

This is an amazing Harry Potter party idea post from Design Dazzle:

In celebration of the new movie release Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, I've included some fun ideas for a Harry Potter party. Wouldn't his flying blue car be a hit at a Harry Potter party? Fun, fun photo op!! Some very good art skills would be required to paint the moon and car - photo from here.

Hogwarts Express from here.

"Minerva McGonagall" from Seattle put on this fabulous party for her daughters 8th birthday. These photos are from the Potions Class.

Hogwarts Express Platform 9 3/4 sign
Not interested in making your own sign?
Harry Potter Hogwarts Express Wooden Sign

This is my favorite idea of Minerva's. The platform 9 3/4 brick wall made out of an old curtain. Check out her blog for fabulous Harry Potter birthday party ideas.

Awesome and amazing Ace of Cakes Hogwarts Castle Cake - image from here.

Harry Potter Cupcake Tower - image from flickr.

Download paper Harry Potter glasses. Via blog.miragestudio7.com

Fold-up paper models would be an inexpensive way to make a castle. This would be a time consuming but cheap way to make a paper castle - not quite Hogwarts.

Dalen OW6 Gardeneer 16-Inch Molded Owl

It's a free down loadable label for drinks at your very own Harry Potter Party. My family loves root beer, but cream soda is a close second! Since wizards love "ButterBeer" (cream soda), I made these drink labels for fun. Budget wise the 2 liter bottle makes sense for a large group. A fun activity for party guests would be to make their own butterbeer - add butterscotch syrup to cream soda!

The label reads:

Ingredients:
Cream Soda and Butterscotch Drops
Concocted for Centuries

I hope this post helps you get started with some fun ideas for planning a Harry Potter party of your own. Some of these ideas are over-the-top party ideas, but hopefully they inspire you to create your own Harry Potter party - whether it's a simple party or over-the-top celebration! Keep a look out next week for another party post with more Harry Potter party ideas - table decor, favors, etc...

Recycling Baby Food Jars

I love the matching game included below from Homemade by Jill:

Baby food jars are just too cute to throw in the recycling bin. I'm using some of mine for color-coordinated button storage, but I'd like to think of more uses.

It would be cute to fill the taller 6oz baby food jars with homemade lemon curd for holiday gifts. With a festive label and some ribbon, they would be a perfect little item to have on hand.

Oscar loves to play with the baby food jar lids. To make them a more interesting, I put some simple pictures inside. When he's older we can make it a matching game.


Would you like to play, too? Click here for the .pdf.Print two copies on cardstock or photo paper, cut out the circles, and press into the inside of (clean) baby food jar lids. It is a tight enough fit that no glue is required. For an older child, though, you could paint the lids a pretty color and glue the images to the inside for a longer lasting (and cuter) game.

Car Book

Great Car Book idea from 30 days:

Here's solution number 1:
custom car books
I have 2 out of 3 almost done with less than a week to go
(which is WAY good for this procrastinator)
I gathered pictures on my computer and
using PSE7, I created this fun, interactive book.

For my 3 year old I did some tracing, matching and coloring.
For my 7 year old I did cursive tracing, favorites and car games.
Only my 9 year old to go- he's the tricky one. ;)
Laminated them up.
Next I will bind them at Kinko's.
I'm bringing along dry erase markers from them to trace
and color on their books (and erase and repeat, I hope).
{Click on pictures to enlarge} the 3 year old's the 7 year old's

I also plan to make cool car bags to organize all their junk stuff for the trip.
Think crayon roll/journal keeper/tote bag.
Of course I will post about it when they are done. To join in on the Brassy Apple's fun series go here.
And check out other creative car ideas here.
Thanks for hosting this Meg!

Traveling w/ Kids

This is one I will need next month for our travels. Great Traveling w/ kids ideas from 30 days:

Make & Take's packing for a trip with the kids
and check out her other related posts:
traveling with kids in the car
busy bags

House on Hill Road's clever kids packing list
Mommy Monsters, Inc tips for traveling with kids
Getting road trip ready video found via Tip Junkie
Kids neck pillow from Make It and Love It

Here are some free printables to check out:
Family Fun's travel games section
Travel games for kids at Kids Turn Central
Mom's Minivan printables
Best Westerns Fun on the Road

{What tips do you have for traveling with kids?}

Family Yahtzee

This is a very cute idea. Family Yahtzee by The Thrifty Chick:



With Summer coming up and kids home from school, I thought I would post this fun game I made for my family a few years ago. We have a family night at our house every Monday night. Games are always a BIG hit with the kids! I decided I wanted to try and duplicate some of our favorite games, but make my versions a little more personal. The first game was Yahtzee!! It is really easy to do, but I will admit is a little time consuming (there is a lot of waiting going on in the process of making this game). But in the end it is worth it!!
Supply List:
5- wooden blocks/cubes, (These can be in any size you prefer. When I first made this game 3 years ago I used 3 x 3 paper cubes. It was fun that they were so big, but awkward to store the game) The cubes I used for this tutorial are 1 1/2" x 1 1/2" wooden cubes. I just purchased a 10 foot piece of 2 x 2 wood for $2.50 at Lowes and cut the amount of cubes I needed. (I don't know why wood is measured this way, they say the wood is 2 x 2 but the actual size is 1 1/2 x 1 1/2??) I did find these wooden cubes for a farely decent price on oriental trading If you want to buy some ready made.
Acrylic paint for the actual color of cubes you want (mine are painted in white)
1- 12 x 12 sheet of scrapbook paper in whatever pattern you choose
Mod Podge
3 sponge brushes
A container to store your finished dice/cubes in ( I just bought a small chipboard box with a lid from Michaels Craft store)
6 different pictures cut in squares
The first thing you'll want to do, regardless of where you get your wood is lightly sand all the edges so they are smooth, and then paint each entire cube with 2 layers of whatever color paint you choose. (Oh and I didn't have my box in this picture, but if you are going to store your game in a chipboard box you'll want to paint it also with 2 layers of paint at the same time)

You'll want to let them dry at least 45min to an hour, or until you know for sure they are totally dry. In the meantime you'll want to cut your patterned paper into the right size pieces to place as a background on each side of the cube. You will have 6 sides to each cube, and 5 cubes. So you will need 30 small squares of paper. How big you want them, is based upon how big your cubes are. (I cut my patterned paper into 1 1/4" x 1 1/4" pieces, so there was a quarter inch wooden boarder around each piece of paper.)

Next you'll want to spread 1 layer of mod podge onto one side of the wooden block and place a square of patterned paper over it. Making sure you rub all over on the paper pushing out any bubbles underneath it and sealing down the edges and corners. There was no rhyme or reason to what angle my patterned paper faced, it's just whatever floats your boat!! Once you have placed the paper on, you'll then want to paint a second layer of mod podge over the patterned paper, completely sealing it on. This is where the waiting begins. You'll want to do the mod podged pattern paper on all sides of the cubes. But you'll want to wait at least 5 - 10 minutes to let each side dry before placing it face down to do another side.
If you want to add a matching patterned paper game title to your box like I did, this is when you'll do the same process as the cubes. By painting one mod podge layer, then sticking your patterned paper over it, and then painting a final mod podge layer over your patterned paper.

All of the patterned paper mod podged to the cubes and now drying...

While waiting for my cubes to dry, I spent about 25 minutes picking out what pictures I wanted to use on the cubes and printing them. You will need 6 different pictures, and then each picture duplicated 5 times. I just used my Photoshop to line up my pictures and print them all on 1 page. (My pictures were 1 inch x 1 inch squared. You can cut your pics out any size you wish for your cubes. I wanted mine to be about 1/2" less than my wood size)

While editing and cropping my photos down to size, I used my round paintbrush in photoshop to add a white dot to the corner of each pic. I then assigned a number to each pic, representing the number the pic would be on the dice(cube).

Once all the mod podged dice were totally dry...

I then added my pictures to the blocks the same way I added the patterned paper. With a layer of mod podge, then the pic smoothed down, and a sealing layer of mod podge over the pic.

Again, you'll want to let the mod podge dry for about 5-10 minutes between layers and pics. After it's all mod podged you'll want to leave it drying on a cooling rack over night. And that's it! By the next day it should be totally dry and ready to play with!!

These are some pics of my original game I made a few years ago. I made them with cardstock cubes, so they didn't hold up as well, and they were really big so they had to be stored in one of these big plastic containers.

We only had 4 family members at the time and 1 family pic, so I just used the word Family as the last side of my dice.


I printed up my own game cards to store with my game. These are totally identical to the actual games cards that come with the game of yahtzee, just in a cuter font to go with my home-made game.


A close-up pic of the final storage box the game goes into..

A close-up pic of the final dice/cubes...

Obviously you don't even have to make this a family yahtzee game. You can personalize it with any theme!! It would make a great gift to a family member who loves games!! Whatever you decide to do, hopefully you will have as many fun hours enjoying your game as we have!!

P.S. So I was thinking that giveaways on blogs are just too stinken fun to not do them on a regular basis. I was thinking of my next giveaway to actually be one of these personalized Yahtzee games. Where the winner just emails me there 6 pics they want on the cubes and I make them a game? Is it cheezy? Or if I did this as a giveaway in a few days you would totally be interested??