Mom. Wife. Busy Life.

Category: Kids Crafts & Activities

  • 10 Things You’ll Need for Toddler Paint Time

    toddler paint time

    Painting is one of our favorite activities at my house. My girls love when I get the paint out!  In fact, I have a tote devoted to paint supplies that I keep in a closet and pull out on a regular basis. It’s filled with bottles of paint, paint brushes, paint paper, and other paint supplies. My girls love to paint, so having a paint tote ready to go is helpful for a busy mom like me!

    toddler paint time 3

    I encourage you to create a storage bin specifically for painting supplies to have on hand when you feel that the kids need to express their creativity!

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    Here are 10 items you’ll need for toddler paint time that you can include in your paint bin:

    1. White Paper
    2. Paint
    3. Paint Brushes
    4. Paint Trays
    5. Smock or old t-shirt
    6. Variety of Items for painting (yarn, q-tips, objects that are not small enough to be a choking hazard)
    7. Small Cup for water
    8. Water for cleaning paint brushes
    9. Paper towels for messy paint and water spills
    10. Patience

    Yes, that’s right! You’ll need a lot of patience during toddler paint time. Painting is fun, but can be very messy!

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    My youngest daughter isn’t a fan of big messes, so we are familiar with having extra paper towels on hand always for her! She used these paper towels several times throughout painting to clean up paint spills or wipe off paint that she got on herself.

    toddler paint time

    My oldest daughter rinses her paintbrushes in the water and then dabs them onto the paper towels before choosing another color of paint.

    paint

    Thinking of painting with your toddler? Create a paint storage bin for your little ones! They are perfect to have on hand for rainy days.

  • How to Throw a Princess Tea Party

    Hosting a tea party is a fun and easy way to show your friends and family you care. And, what could be more enchanting than throwing a princess tea party?

    Here are some tips on how to make your next get-together one fit for royalty. By following these simple steps, you can create an unforgettable experience that will have everyone feeling like a Disney princess!

    Learn how to throw a princess tea party!

    How to Throw a Princess Tea Party

    My girls have been begging me to have a princess tea party lately.

    We have a cute little porcelain tea set that sits in one of our cabinets and we decided to dust if off this weekend and have the princess tea party that they’ve been wishing for.

    To celebrate the weekend in style, I made sure to have princess accessories on hand to make this event special and memorable for my girls!

    How to Throw a Princess Tea Party

    How to Throw a Princess Tea Party

     To throw a princess tea party, you’ll need the following:

    Editable Tea Party Birthday Invitation Girl Par-tea Invite
    Editable Tea Party Birthday Invitation for Girl Par-tea


    Tea Party Invitation Watercolor Birthday Invite Woman Par-tea
    Printable Tea Party Invitation


    Don’t forget to dress up!

    Princess Dresses for Girls

    Princess Dresses for Toddlers

    Natures Harvest Bread 2

    Creating the sandwiches are easy.

    All you have to do is use the cookie cutters to cut out your shapes. Then spread peanut butter and jelly onto the sandwiches and serve!

    natures harvest bread 2

    My girls were surprised to see the princess tea party set up and wanted to join in right away!

    They thought the princess themed sandwiches were a cute idea and really enjoyed this royal time with mom!

    Natures Bread Harvest 6
    Natures Harvest Bread

    While drinking their tea and enjoying princess themed sandwiches, the girls talked, laughed, and giggled.

    This was certainly a memorable experience for all of us and we will be doing this on a regular basis!

    Natures Harvest Bread 4
    Natures Harvest Bread 8

    Throw your own princess tea party soon!

  • Unicorn Candy Machine

    Unicorn Candy Machine

    Learn how to make this adorable Unicorn Candy Machine! This simple craft is fun to make. Create yours today and place your child’s favorite candy inside!

    Unicorn Candy Machine

    I love getting my daughters involved in crafting and putting their imaginations to work. When I told my girls we were going to be making faux candy “machines” my youngest daughter immediately said, “I want to make mine a unicorn!” Unicorns seem to be everywhere right now and a favorite among most little girls, so I was all too excited about her idea. We made two different versions of the unicorn, but these could easily be transformed into your child’s favorite character!

    Unicorn Candy Machine

    Unicorn Candy Machine

    Supplies:

    Directions:

    1. Use the Crayola clay to make your horn and let dry overnight. We cut the base of our horn at an angle. Paint once it is dry (it will still be soft, but it’s ok).

    Unicorn Inspired Candy Machines
    Unicorn Inspired Candy Machines

    2. Paint terra-cotta pot and saucer. Spray with adhesive spray and then sprinkle glitter and allow time to dry.

    3. Place pot top down on your work surface. This will be the base of your “machine.” Hot glue the fish bowl (or mason jar) to the top of the base. Place saucer top down on top of the bowl.

    Unicorn Inspired Candy Machines


    4. Hot glue the wing nut to the base as the “knob” to your machine.

    Now it’s time to accessorize!

    5. Cut ears for your unicorn using the felt. The white will be the outer year and the pink will be the inner ear. Glue the two pieces together and then glue the ears to the top of your machine.

    6. Trim feathery boa to fit around the base of your bowl and hot glue.

    Unicorn Inspired Candy Machines

    7. Glue the horn on the center of the top, towards the front.

    8. Hot glue your paper flowers around the base of the horn and use black pain to draw the eyes and lashes on the front of the bowl.

    Unicorn Inspired Candy Machines

    Find more great crafts and activities here!

    More Unicorn Themed Ideas:

    How to Make Unicorn Slime

    Unicorn Themed Birthday Party Decorations and Supplies

    Back to School Unicorn Backpacks

  • How to Plan a Family Movie Night

    How to Plan a Family Movie Night

    how to plan a family movie night

    This has been one exciting summer so far.  To save money this summer, we are skipping the costly day camps and planning activities of our own. We swim in our neighborhood pool almost daily, visit the children’s library around the corner, go bowling, skating, and take advantage of cheaper entertainment.

    My husband and I have been on a strict budget these last few months. Our local movie theaters have discounted movie days for kids. At first, I thought we’d take advantage of them, but then decided we were better off staying home and planning our own movie days and nights in the comfort of our own home. We would still be able to watch popular movies for kids without the higher cost of paying to see a movie in a theater.

    how to plan a family movie night
    how to plan a family movie night

    It’s super simple and fun to plan your own movie night at home. If you stay at home with your kids during the day, plan movie days. My kids love to be entertained during the day with movies, too!

    To plan your own family movie night (or day), provide snacks and drinks for the kids. I create these fun snack trays for my kids that include popcorn, candy, and a drink. My girls love having their own tray with their own portions of treats and goodies to enjoy during the movie. I usually allow my girls to pick out the movie they want to watch, also.

    how to plan a family movie night

    These cute and festive candy bowls are perfect for your child’s favorite movie candy!

    how to plan a family movie night

    For our family movie nights, we let our girls build a fort in our living room with chairs, blankets, pillows, stuffed animals and more. When it’s movie time, we turn off all of the lights, provide their snacks and drinks, and start the movie. By creating a “theater like” atmosphere in our own home, we no longer feel the need to visit our local theaters anymore.

    Do you plan regular family movie nights at home? How do you make them special for your kids?

    How to Build an Indoor Fort for Movie Night

    How to Plan an Indoor Beach Themed Movie Day

    How to Plan a Family Movie Night
  • How to Make Green Slime

    How to Make Green Slime

    green-slime-6

    With St. Patrick’s Day around the corner, green slime is the perfect activity to make with the kids! My girls look forward to making slime! We make slime often. This slime recipe is pretty easy. You can always add fun textured beads, glitter, or gold sequins to the mix to make it more fun!

    How to make green slime:

    Note: This is a messy activity! I highly recommend adding a throwaway table cloth on the table to prevent food coloring stains, etc. We chose the green color for our themed green slime activity.

    green-slime-1

    Ingredients:

    Directions:

    1. Pour glue into a small mixing bowl. (My favorite mixing bowls!)

    2. Add green food coloring and stir well. (If you want it to be darker, add more food coloring.)

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    3. Add 1/2 cup of water and stir. Set aside.

    4. In another small mixing bowl, add borax with 1 cup of water. Stir well.

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    5. Add the glue mixture to the borax mixture and stir slowly until slime forms.

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    6. Allow your child to dig in and grab as much slime as they can get out! You’ll have a bowl left with excess water. Simply pour the water out as you won’t need it!

    7. Play time! Enjoy hours of fun with your new green slime!

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    green-slime-8

  • How to Make Shaving Cream Rain

    How to Make Shaving Cream Rain

    How to Make Shaving Cream Rain

    How to Make Shaving Cream Rain – a science experiment

    With the spring and summer approaching, you can be sure I’ve stocked up on a few basic household craft items to keep my kids entertained during the breaks! I love to find fun activities for the girls to do that don’t require too many ingredients or steps. I like for activities to be as easy as possible. The more complicated something gets, the more turned off of an experiment I get.

    With that being said, I found an amazing spring/summertime activity for your children to do on those days when they get bored! The best part? You only need four things! Read on to find how to make Shaving Cream Rain!

    How to Make Shaving Cream Rain

    Supplies:

    Directions: 

    Fill your glass about 75% full with water.

    Shake the shaving cream well.

    Spray a layer of shaving cream on top of the water until covered.

    Drop two drops of each color of food coloring on top of the shaving cream.

    Watch the food coloring make it’s way slowly down into the water.

    Add more food coloring as desired to create more rain!



    The shaving cream serves as the cloud while the food coloring is the rain! You can just use blue for this experiment if you’d like, but I think it’s more fun to watch the different colors come together!

    Here are a few YouTube videos that I found that show this experiment in action:

    **Warning! Do not drink! While this may look like a tasty beverage, it’s not, so please make sure your children know that this is not for drinking!**

    While you are here, check out how we made our own colorful sand and color changing milk!

    We also tried this using a large pitcher and it worked out very well! We used a “neon” set of food coloring for this experiment and the primary colors of food coloring for the experiment above.

    I love this picture below! You can see the food coloring coming down through the shaving cream!

    My girls loved this experiment and I did, too! We will definitely be making Shaving Cream Rain again!

  • Sundae Fundae Ice Cream

    Sundae Fundae Ice Cream

    Treat the kids to a Sundae Fundae Ice Cream party! This is such a simple set up that you can do at home during the summer or at an event like a birthday party.

    Sundae Fundae Ice Cream

    The beginning of summer is approaching quickly.

    When I think of summer, I think of swimming, backyard BBQs, and plenty of ice cream.

    Ice cream is the perfect addition to any summer day. The best part about ice cream during the summer is that you can get as creative with it as you’d like.

    15 Summer Activities for Kids

    Summer Activities to Keep Kids Busy

    How to Make Your Own Popsicles

    With two young girls at home, we like to get fancy with our ice cream and add fun toppings and colorful sprinkles on top!

    With the summer just beginning, I thought it would be fun to have a “Sundae Fundae” with them when school gets out!

    Smuckers 3
    Smuckers 7

    After a day of swimming, I set up our Sundae Fundae bar outside for my girls.

    I didn’t tell them ahead of time that we were going to have sundaes so when they walked out to see the yummy treats set out for them, they were all smiles.

    I told my girls that they could get as creative as they wanted with their sundaes and add whatever toppings and sprinkles they wanted to.

    Smuckers 4

    The Smuckers Hot Fudge and Smuckers Magic Shell Chocolate Fudge toppings are exactly what my girls wanted!

    They poured their toppings onto their ice cream and then added sprinkles.

    After their sundaes were made, they sat down and enjoyed their sweet treats and had nothing but good things to say about their creations.

    My girls loved their chocolate toppings on their Sundaes. In fact, they loved “Sundae Fundae” so much, they asked me if we could do it again!

    Smuckers 5

    Our Sundae Fundae was a success and a great way to begin the summer. This was a memory made and one to cherish for a lifetime!