Category Archives: Crafts

Dinosaur Terrarium Grow Jar

Makers Kit: Craft Projects for the Whole Family

Crafts, ,

Kids love to make things. Leave them in the dining room alone even for five minutes, and you’ll return to a tower built from chopsticks, napkins, and those coasters your mother-in-law gave you for Christmas last year. Why not channel that creativity into something productive and fun for the whole family?

Makerskit is a service offering everything a family will need to making interesting, fun crafts. With crafts as varied as a Mason Herb Garden Kit to a Dream Catcher Kit, there’s something for everyone regardless of age, gender, or interests. Each kit of Makers Craft craft projects kits contains all of the supplies and ingredients necessary to create the crafts, as well as a template of instructions showing how.

Dinosaur Terrarium Grow Jar

Perhaps best of all, the kits are inexpensive. The Dinosaur Terrarium Glow Jar — a perfect choice for young boys fascinated with dinosaurs — is only $18. That means that when an accident happens (and with young children, they will) there’s nothing to worry about. The kit can easily be replaced and you can replicate the experience again, using the previous accident as a learning experience.

The creators of Makerskit also started the Give a Kit Campaign in partnership with the Pledge 1% organization. This means that each purchase of a MakersKit results in the donation of an art supply kit to a public school in your home state or country. If you want to make fun, family-friendly crafts with your kids and give to a charitable organization, order a MakersKit.

Thanksgiving Craft: Thankful Turkey Box – Great For Everyone In The Family To Get Involved In!

Crafts,

I had a bummer of a day yesterday so when I woke up this morning I decided that Madelyn and I would make crafts in order to keep my mind off things. Madelyn and I went to an event for work about an hour from home yesterday and when the event was over at 1pm, we went to leave and what do you know.. the car wouldn’t open.  The keyfob wouldn’t even unlock the car.  I got the key out of the keyfob and unlocked the car manually but still no power.. at all.  We were an hour away from home in an unfamiliar area for 7 hours yesterday and she didn’t whine at all.  I  am THANKFUL for that!  Now my car is an hour away from me and I won’t know what’s wrong with it (it’s a 2-year-old car) until tomorrow. 🙁

Fast forward to this morning..

I went to Pinterest to search for Thanksgiving Kids Crafts and found tons of great ideas!   Seeing as how I don’t have a car and can’t go to the craft store to buy materials, we had to choose crafts that we had all of the materials for already.    Madelyn was super excited when she saw this “Thankful Turkey Box” and I was thrilled that we had most of what we needed to make the craft.

Here is the Thankful Turkey Box we created, inspired by I Heart Crafty Things.

Thankful Turkey Box Thanksgiving Craft

It took Madelyn and I about an hour to make this beautiful craft.

You will find instructions on this page of I Heart Crafty Things.

I created a “I am thankful for..” template that you are welcome to use.  The sizing of the strips in the template is just right for putting the strips of paper in a pocket on the side of the box as shown in the photo above.

Madelyn quickly filled out her “I am thankful for.. ” strip, folded it, and put it in the box.  She printed and cut out 12 strips, enough for everyone in our family and for who is coming to visit us for Thanksgiving.  She will take all the strips out before Thanksgiving dinner and read them aloud.

I hope you enjoy this fun Thanksgiving craft!

Here is my Thanksgiving Crafts board on Pinterest where you’ll find more fun craft ideas!

Alicia, The Mommy Insider blog author

DIY Craft: Hey America! What’s Your ID? Teacher’s Gift Craft Instructions

Crafts, Food and Drink, ,

I am a big fan of International Delight’s Cold Stone Creamery’s Sweet Cream Creamer.  It reminds me of warm summer days and making homemade ice cream with the kids.  I love summer.. warmer weather and ice cream!

With summer comes the end of school and with the end of school comes gifts for teachers.  Most years we make a craft for the kid’s teachers.  What better way to use the empty International Delight creamer bottles than to recycle them into a gift!

This year we decorated empty International Delight Creamer bottles and put dry ingredients for cookie mix inside them!
Yummy, right?

teacher's gift idea

How to make the craft:

  1. Remove the label from the bottle
  2. Wash the bottle with soap and water and let dry
  3. Once the bottle is dry paint,  the bottle any color you want. We had acrylic paint left over from another art project. It worked great for this project!
  4. Let the paint dry. You might have to apply more than one coat.  We had to apply two coats.
  5. Decorate the bottle any way you want. My son did not want anything else on the bottle.. as you can see in the photo. He’s a simple kind of guy.

Now it’s time to add your ingredients into the bottle!

  1. Decide what cookie recipe you are going to use
  2. Use a small funnel to add the ingredients one at a time
  3. You might need to tap the bottom of the bottle on the counter to pack down the ingredients.
  4. Once all the dry ingredients are in you can put the lid on.

Our bottle was big enough to put the ingredients of one sugar cookie recipe in it.

Next I printed the recipe on card stock, punched a hole in the top corner of the paper, put ribbon through it and tied it to the bottle.

This was an easy project and only took a couple of hours from start to finish.

The added bonus is that you get to drink your favorite International Delight creamer before you reuse the bottle!

Hey America! What’s Your ID? Giveaway!

What’s Your ID? 
International Delight is looking for their most passionate flavor fans. Put your ID on the map to enter to win a Magical Trip, play games and discover more unexpected delight. Share your ID flavor at http://whatsyourid.com.

What you could win:

  • Magical Trip grand prize
  • ID Coffee Mugs, Tumblers and Creamers
  • Visa gift cards
  • ID Re-Usable Grocery Bag
  • Cold Stone gift cards
  • Beach towels
  • Free ID for a year
  • Baking Kit: Kitchen Aid mixer, apron and coupons
  • Coffee Bar Kit: Kuerig Coffee Maker, Folgers K-cups, coupons, mug, and Cinnamon.

Connect with ID:

What’s Your ID? International Delight is looking for their most passionate flavor fans. Put your ID on the map to enter to win a Magical Trip, play games and discover more unexpected delight. Share your ID flavor at http://whatsyourid.com.

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of International Delight. The opinions and text are all mine.

St. Patrick’s Day History for Kids and Printable Coloring Pages & Activities

Age 5-7, Age 7-10, Alicia's Corner, Crafts, Holiday, , , ,

St. Patrick’s Day is a fun holiday for both children and adults. It is one of my husband’s favorite holidays.

To understand what is special about this holiday kids should learn about the man it was named after. When Patrick was 16 years old he was captured by Irish raiders and sold into slavery. During his time in slavery his faith in God became strong. After 6 years he escaped and returned to his family. Patrick became a priest and was later sent to Ireland. Patrick wasn’t always treated well in Ireland and endured many hardships. He still managed to win many converts to Christianity and established several schools, churches, and monasteries.

The color originally associated with St. Patrick’s Day was blue. The knights of the Order of St. Patrick wore blue. Some legends say that the color representing St. Patrick was changed to green because it represented Ireland’s independence.

There are many legends surrounding St. Patrick. He supposedly drove away all the snakes that were in Ireland and he reportedly used a three leaf clover to explain the Holy Trinity. He was born in Britain in the fourth century and is usually given credit for bringing the written word to Ireland.
Legend says he died on March 17, in the 5th century. This day celebrates Christianity coming to Ireland. Children traditionally wear green, orange, and white badges to celebrate. Today kids try to pinch each other if they don’t wear green on St. Patrick’s Day. Many people eat corned beef and cabbage on this day in the United States. However, pork is a more popular dish among the Irish.

St. Patrick’s Day was first celebrated in the United States in Boston in 1737. Although St. Patrick’s Day is not a legal holiday in the United States, it is a public holiday in Ireland.

Help your kids get excited about St. Patrick’s Day by decorating the house, wearing green clothes, making St. Patrick’s Day crafts, printable coloring pages, and printable St. Patrick’s Day activities.

St. Patrick's Day coloring pages, cookies, crafts, and activities for kids

Here are a few fun St. Patrick’s Day recipes, coloring pages and activites:

Easy Valentine’s Day Craft: Valentine’s Day Heart Clasp Box

Crafts, Holiday, ,

Valentine's Heart Clasp Box - valentine craft

My 5 year old daughter is not a procrastinator.   As soon as she finds out that she’s been assigned to do something at school, she does it.  Getting ready for Valentine’s Day has been no exception.  She is in Kindergarten and has never shared Valentine’s that she made before so she’s very excited about Valentine’s Day and couldn’t wait to get to crafting when we had a few extra hours yesterday.

We have an HP Photosmart Premium Touchscreen printer that allows us to print activities, coloring pages, writing paper, and craft templates right from the printer.  My kids love to go to the printer and browse the latest activity pages and coloring pages.  My Mom has the same printer and actually found the Valentine’s Day icon on the touchscreen and printed a few Valentine’s Heart Clasp Box templates out for my daughter and I to try out.  I spent the next hour cutting the box templates out after printing them on cardstock.  We settled on making seven boxes.  One for each of her teachers and an extra in case one of us messed up.

Here’s the Valentine’s Day Heart Clasp Box template:

Valentine Box - HP Printable craft idea

You can print the Valentine’s Box template here.

Supplies needed:

  • A printer
  • Paper – white cardstock is best but not required
  • Scissors
  • Double sided tape or glue stick
  • Candy

Steps:

  • I cut the template out.
  • My daughter folded along the dotted lines
  • My daughter put double sided tape on the box where the instructions call for glue.
  • We folded the box together.
  • Each box took about 10 minutes from print to fold.

Valentine's Heart Clasp Box - craft idea

After putting the boxes together, we dropped a few Hershey’s Kisses and SweetTarts in them.

I hope you enjoy this Valentine’s Day craft as much as my daughter and I did!  These make great gifts for teachers and friends!

Alicia Hagan, Editor