This is a quick Easter craft that you can do with stuff you probably already have around the house!

You will need:

-embroidery thread, thin elastic, or dental floss
-scissors
-a tapestry needle (the kind with the big eye)
-peeps, jelly beans, any other seasonal candy your heart desires

Directions: Using the needle, thread (carefully) the candy on the floss/thread/elastic in whatever pattern you wish. Tie (carefully) around your neck. EAT!



Anouk needed a little help with the needle but mostly was able to complete this craft herself. Gus helped by sampling the jellybeans and throwing all the black ones onto the floor where the dog also refused to eat them. I DON'T GET IT EITHER.

Little Bunny Foo Foo bout to get his.

Well, we didn't get a whole lot of snow this past weekend, but we made up for it by sledding a lot in the little bit we did get, drinking lots of hot chocolate and making some of the paper-type snowflakes to hang around our house. After a few dozen we decided to get creative and made some snowflakes out of our names!

It's pretty simple: cut a circle in your paper and then fold in half, in half again, and in half one more time. Write your name in bubble letters (make sure they touch each other in at least one place). Then cut them out (you can use an x-acto knife to get the fiddly little spots in As and Rs). An 8x11 piece of paper was big enough to do our names but if you're a Jonathan or a Cassandra you might want to invest in a larger size.




It's pretty simple: cut a circle in your paper and They ended up being so pretty and just like real snowflakes -- no two were alike.



They're kind of the perfect snow day activity because they keep kids absorbed for a long time and it will look like it snowed inside your house by the time you;re done with all those bits of paper. Convenient AND seasonal!

This is one of my favorite fall activities ever and probably a new tradition in our family. It's also Anouk's brilliant idea and her first project contribution to the blog! "Mom, can we make a fairy house  out of one of our pumpkins and take pictures of it for the internet?" That's kind of the name of my game, kid!

Seashell crafts! They are the current craze in our house, mostly because we have amassed a giant collection of shells. It's also the easiest candle making process I've ever come across -- all you need is a bag of tea lights (ours were a million for $5 at IKEA) and some beach treasures, and voila.

Safety note before we begin! This is definitely a craft that needs not only adult supervision but definitely adult participation, too. The candles can sometimes be a little unstable, so make sure to keep them on a safe surface while lit and don't leave unattended while burning.

You will need:

• Seashells
• Tea lights in metal containers
• Hot plate
• Glass heat-safe container

Turn the hot plate on a low to medium low heat setting. Remove wicks from tea lights and place in a heat-safe glass container (we used a Pyrex measuring cup). Place the container on the hot plate until the candles have melted completely. While the wax is melting, prepare the shells by wiping them with water and a soft cloth and checking them for holes and cracks (you don't want the wax to run out).

When the wax is completely melted, use a potholder to pick up the glass and pour a small amount of wax into each shell. Place the shell back on the metal tea-light container to hold it steady and upright while it dries. While the wax is still clear and liquid, insert the wick. To speed up the wax hardening process, place on a cookie sheet in the freezer for 10-15 minutes.

I think these would make adorable stocking stuffers or teacher presents -- and is a fun way to preserve some of your favorite beach memories. Plus, they look really pretty scattered around the house. Ooh, ahh.

Happy weekend!

My friend Molly turned me on to flour sacks being the absolute best for drying dishes and now whenever I am out, I look out for them. I found this pair at the thrift store for $1 apiece, and after a wash with little bleach, they were as good as new.

Except the towels were a little plain, so I decided to spice them up with a few of Anouk's adorable drawings. She's been really into drawing people lately, and I think that they are so sweet, with their 90s sideswept hair and their little tiny bodies.

I think this would be an great DIY Christmas present for kids to make for the adults in their lives. Luckily, unlike most DIY Christmas projects, this is literally the easiest craft ever. Here's how it goes: Collect your child's drawing and lay underneath the flour sack towel. The design should show through the loose weave of the cloth. Trace the drawing with a sharpie. Boom!

A few weeks ago, when Anouk had a bad cold, our neighbor brought over a few bath bombs from Lush as a little treat for her. A. ended up liking them so much that she's been bugging me for more ever since. Of course we love Lush around these parts but why buy when you can DIY? Bath fizzes seemed like something that would be really hard to make, but was a surprisingly easy and  kid-friendly project.

DIY Bath Bombs (adapted from this recipe by Martha Stewart)

You'll need:

• 1 3/4 cups baking soda
• 1 cup citric acid  (a powder; we found ours at Wine and Cake hobbies, in their wine-making section but you can also find it online here.)
• 2 cups corn starch
• coconut oil
• essential oil of your choice
• food coloring (optional)
• spray bottle of water

Directions:

Sift the following the baking soda, corn starch, and citric acid into a bowl and mix well.

Transfer one cup of the mixture to a glass bowl. Add the liquefied coconut oil, a little at a time, mixing well with your hands. With your spray bottle, gently mist the mixture and mix with your hands between spritzes, until the mixture is moldable (holds shape when you squeeze it). NOTE: if you want your bombs to be colored, add food coloring to the water in the spray bottle. If you hear the mixture fizzing, you're adding too much water.

Add 5-6 drops of essential oil and mix again. Press firmly into cupcake liners or molds. After 2 hours, the mixture can be unmolded, but we found it was better to leave them overnight.




We made two different kinds of fizzies -- peppermint for the holidays and chamomile, for a relaxing bedtime bath. With the chamomile, I just tore open three or four tea bags and emptied them into the powder mix before adding the oil. The scent is really mild but there. Next time I might try chamomile essential oil to make it a little stronger. For peppermint, I used peppermint extract, from the baking aisle. It's a little less potent than the oil but still smells delish.

Store the leftover mixture (if there is any) in a ziploc bag to make more later. It should keep for a few weeks, as long as it doesn't get wet.

We're thinking of giving these away as Christmas presents to our friends. In the meantime we've been having a lot of fun testing them out.

It's been raining up a storm here in #HRVA these past few weeks -- my garden looks awesome but my kid is a little bored (and honestly, so am I). We've been turning a lot to craft books lately, and these two new releases are among our new favorites. I'm a big fan of sites like Pinterest, but they can get a little repetitive, with the same things appearing in my feed over and over -- it's nice to have a bunch of original, super-creative projects in one place when you're looking for a way to fill the rainy hours.

Disclaimer: I received review copies of these books from the publishers. My opinions are my own. This post contains affiliate links that may result in a small commission for the blog. 


Maker Dad by Mark Frauenfelder: My first thought on seeing this book's subtitle was to roll my eyes a little -- does a book really need to be marketed to one gender over another? Then I opened it up, and immediately forgave the marketing team. Maker Dad is crammed full of projects that not only look amazingly fun but teach things like computer programming and how to use basic hand tools, skills that girls (and boys, too!) can put to use long after they've put the book back on the shelf. There's a strong emphasis on science and technology projects (how to put a video camera on a kite, create your own podcast, or build a robot that can draw beautiful abstract designs) with a few simpler ones (soap molding and extreme-bubble-blowing) thrown in. For the most part, the projects are aimed toward the older kid/tween set but this is one I'm definitely keeping in mind for when A. hits elementary school.




Project Kid by Amanda Kingloff: Project Kid, written by the former Lifestyle Director of Parents magazine, is definitely on the artsier end of the arts-and-crafts spectrum, no automated robots here (but there is a tutorial for a cute robot coin bank). While a few of the projects were a little twee, even for me (does anybody really need an embroidered flyswatter?), most were adorably innovative, and I did appreciate the emphasis on recycling and reusing instead going out and buying a ton of stuff just for the purpose of crafting (see PK's K-cup mobile, which is so cute it makes me wish I had a Keurig so Anne and I could whip one up). Bonus: Kingloff's tutorials for things like fringing and fabric dyeing are really helpful for those of us new to the kids-crafts rodeo, as are her checklists of things to have in your craft box so that you can stop, drop, and DIY at a moment's notice.

Do you do a lot of DIY at your house? Where do you get your crafting inspiration? Do either of these books sound like something your kids would like?

Happy Tuesday!

t Darcy of No Monsters in My Bed posted last summer about sandcasting with plaster of Paris and I knew right away we had to try it, where had this idea been all my life? We finally got around to trying it last week, probably because during the summertime, we're too bogged down with towels and drinks and snacks and floaties to feel like lugging a box of plaster of Paris to the beach. This time of year, though, it's still too cold for swimming and there's only so much you can do with sand toys, so it seemed like the perfect opportunity. We ended up having a lot of fun and taking home some pretty souvenirs. And finding a new way to spend time in one of our favorite places.

Here's how to do it: mix up a batch of plaster according to the directions on the package -- we used a beach bucket and driftwood stick. Dig a shallow hole in the wet sand, and fill it with shells, sea glass, and all of the treasures you find. Pour in the plaster (make sure it's a few inches deep), wait, and then dig it out and ooh and ahh over your new treasure. (The digging it out is strangely satisfying, I loved how it just seemed to emerge from the sand like magic).



Some tips: the plaster dries incredibly quickly -- it was starting to set by the time we filled our final hole, about five minutes after we mixed it. So keep that in mind. Also, the best designs were the organically shaped ones -- the ones we tried to shape into letters or stars or hearts broke apart easily.

It was a lot simpler and low maintenance than I expected, and the results were pretty cool -- our new plaster objet sits on our coffee table at home and everybody who comes in comments on it. There was something so intriguing about bringing home a piece of the beach, almost like making a sandcastle you can keep. How cool would it be to do one of these at every beach you visit, a sort of memento of the trip?

When I was a little girl, my mom used to let me pick out a brand new Easter outfit every year, and they almost always came with hats. I still remember how fancy it felt to go to Easter dinner with my new frilly bonnet on, the elastic tucked firmly under my chin.

Kids' clothiers don't really do Easter hats as much anymore as they did when I was small, so I thought it would be fun to make DIY Easter bonnets with Anne, inspired by our tissue paper bowl craft from last year (which I'm also planning on using to make A.'s Easter basket this year). The technique is similar, with only a few tweaks, and the results are pretty fun and surprisingly wearable.

You'll need: balloons, a large bowl, tissue paper in at least two colors, Elmer's glue, a paintbrush, and trimmings (if you want them).

Here's how to do it: Blow up the balloon until it's roughly the same circumference as your child's head. Place the balloon in the bowl, knotted side down, so that it stands up on its own.

Place a sheet of tissue paper over the balloon (this will be the innermost layer of your hat). You can cover the balloon in Saran-Wrap to make removal easier later (we didn't and it still came off pretty easily). With the paintbrush, cover the top half of the tissue that touches the balloon with watered down glue until you have the basic hat shape (you'll want to leave a good-sized "brim" untouched).







Place another layer of tissue on top of the first layer, and cover with glue. Repeat this step until you have your desired thickness (we used four sheets of tissue per bonnet, varying colors by layer).

Wait a few hours. When the top of the bonnet is dry and hard to the touch, pop the balloon and peel it gently away from the tissue. Fold back/fluff the brim of the bonnet to show all of the colors underneath. Trim with all kinds of festive decorations! We used tissue paper flowers, pom-poms, and crepe paper for ribbon.



Voila! Now you're ready to be the grandest lady in the Easter parade.

Here's a last minute Valentines craft we did during the little snowstorm we had last night. I was browsing Pinterest a few weeks ago when I saw these adorable glittery heart-shaped shoe clips. At almost $35 a pair, the price was a little outside of our budget but Anouk was so enamored that I decided to try a DIY.

We cut hearts from red poster board, covered them in glitter, and then I verrrrry carefully superglued bobby pins to the back (flat side against the paper) (hot glue would probably work better). They slip right over the front of the shoe pretty comfortably and they look just as adorable as we'd hoped. Pro tip: if you have glitter cardstock already available to you, I think it would be even easier to use that.

As far as running and jumping and wearing them outside go....well, we haven't tried it but I don't I think they'll hold up super-great being just paper and all. I do, however, think they'll be just the right thing to wear on Valentines Day! Next year, I'd like to try to make a more durable version, maybe from felt or faux leather? Or else save my pennies for the original, which are gorgeous.

We're taking the rest of the week off. Happy Valentines Day! Hope you're spending it with somebody you love. x

My favorite part of the holidays so far this year has definitely been our playgroup Christmas party. Last Wednesday, we moms of the group got together and threw a big shindig (that was probably just as much fun for us as it was for the little ones). The lovely Molly hosted and everybody brought something to eat or drink and the result was the perfect way to celebrate the season with friends. I feel so lucky to have all of these folks in our life.

I thought I'd share some pics from our fete, including eats and crafts (we made snowglobes and "gingerbread" trees) and a visit by Santa to hand out gifts! If he looks familiar to you, it's probably because he shares a strong resemblance to somebody you see around these blog parts fairly frequently. But rest assured this was the real deal Santa. We have North Pole connections, you know.

Hope you make the most of this last weekend before the holiday! Click here for some local Christmas fun you might have missed.