How to Host a Bob Ross Party (With Adults or Kids!)

Looking for a creative and unique art activity to try with kids and adults?  Well, have you ever thought about doing a Bob Ross themed party?  Here's everything you need to know to paint Bob Ross with artists of all ages!  And bonus: expensive, fancy-shmancy materials definitely AREN'T required!

Everything You Need to Know to Throw a Bob Ross Party

(with adults and kids!)

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Easy way to host a graham cracker house making party

For the past four years we've hosted a yearly graham cracker house making party.  This year I got most of the kinks of planning worked out.  Today I'm sharing all my tips so that you can easily host your own kids playdate / party too!  (And please note- I'm a super lazy and cheap party planner.  Even though this sounds like a big event, it was really affordable and easy to set up!)

How to Host a Graham Cracker House Making Party 

How to make Giant Gorgeous Jellyfish

Giant Jellyfish Decorations?  What?  Yup.  Hi friends! Today's craft is a departure from my normal kids crafts.  But I just had to share this gorgeous jellyfish craft here.  Our church recently redecorated its nursery room.  The new theme is under the sea and one of my very talented friends came up with this super easy (and cheap!) jellyfish design.  We made about a dozen of them to hang up in the room and they look absolutely ethereal and gorgeous.   So I thought I'd share what we did here in case any of you want to make your own giant floaty sea creatures too.

Note:  This post contains affiliate links.  This means I make a small bit of change when you purchase items through the links.  Thank you for your support and the grocery money.  For my full disclosure policy, click here.

Gorgeous, Kid-Made Birthday Banner (And my dream job...)

A few weeks ago, we invited a few school friends over for a play date.  Since having a baby less than a year ago, I've been a bit (ok... let's be honest... VERY) nervous about having people over.  I'm always pooped and don't really feel like entertaining.  (Ever feel that way too?)  But, I pushed myself to try and that's how I found myself with 5 kids running around our fairly small home.  The kids played with toys and ran around outside... and surprisingly a lot of time was spent inside, painting and making art.

What?

You read that right, friends.  Our teacher's birthday was coming up and I invited the children to help me paint her birthday banner.  Once the kids saw the papers and art supplies on our table... they got right to work, creating the beautiful birthday letters below.

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Cute Kitty Gift Box

Who loves cats?  Who loves Halloween crafts?  Did you raise your hands for both?  If so, you'll love making this adorable kitty gift box craft!

3D DIY Butterfly Cutout Wrapping Paper

Are you a butterfly lover?  Do you know a butterfly lover?  Then you're going to love today's 3D butterfly cutout wrapping paper.  3D?  Oh yes.  The wings pop up, making this the ultimate spring craft!

DIY 3D Cutout Butterfly Wrapping Paper!

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Two ways to Make Confetti (And Celebrate Fiesta!)

Have you ever made confetti before?  I've seen bags of it in the stores, but never made my own.  Recently my son and I walked with our church in our town's parade.  It was a really fun Children's parade celebrating our town's Mexican, Spanish, American Indian, and early history.

I really wanted Chuck to have something to throw in the parade.  (Because let's face it, allowing a preschooler to throw colorful things at people = SUPER kid fun.)  So the night before the parade, my husband and I made two HUMONGOUS BAGS of confetti for kids to throw.  And guess what?  We made it in less than half an hour.  That's right.  We became confetti-making machines!  Here's how we did it!

Let's Make Confetti!

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Hello Summer! Let's have a Tie Dye Party!

This post is sponsored by  I Love To Create and Blueprint Social.  However, all opinions are my own!

Ah, summer, sweet summer.  Nothing screams summer to me more than sunny weather, grill outs, fresh watermelon, and tie dye!   I recently received a free box of tie dye curtesy of  I Love to Create's Tie Dye Your Summer campaign... and I couldn't wait to try it out!

Slinky Rainbow Garland

Are you looking for an easy, fun, and colorful kids craft?  Well, then today's slinky rainbow garland is just up your alley.  I've been digging rainbow crafts lately.  They're just so fun and happy! And these rainbow garlands are totally rocking my world.  I was inspired by Minieco's folded rainbow paper garlands and decided to make some of my own!  Chuck loves playing them like an accordion and watching them wiggle around. (Ok, I kinda do too. They're mesmerizing!)

Slinky Rainbow Paper Garland

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Make a Colorful Paper Garland

For some reason Spring seems to bring in parties galore.  Birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, boy, oh boy, it seems like every week we're celebrating something new.  Is it that way for you too?  Spring is definitely a happy season for us.  So with that in mind, I came up with this super simple paper garland that you and the kids can easily whip up within minutes!  Tape them up and then poof, instant party!

We're currently digging rainbow crafts over here, so of course I had to make one of every color!

Colorful Paper Garland

New Year's Party Horn Photo Props!

Oof.  I just realized that I never put up a happy New Year post on the blog!  Thank you, dear reader, for stopping by this year.  I hope you always leave entertained, smiling, and itching to  make something with the kids!

Here's a craft that I made to ring in 2015- Party Horn Photo Props! 

New Year's Party Horn Photo Props

Loud noises?  Funny faces?  These are seriously hilarious and would be super fun to make with the young'uns (and the young at heart!)  

Come on.  Tell me that isn't funny?

You can get the full tutorial on DIY Candy!

Happy making, friends!

Let's keep in Contact!

Like this idea?  You can always find other fun ideas on my Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter accounts!  Or, sign up for the newsletter in the pink bar at the top of the site. 

What's up, Chuck?

Yay!  It's finally Friday.  I've been counting down the days to the weekend since Monday.  Hooray! We made it. 

*Collapses*

The week really crawled by and honestly, by Wednesday I was ready to throw in the towel. (Do you ever feel like this too?  Too bad we can't just build ourselves a time machine and fast forward to Fridays and cool holidays.)  Thank God we made it.  Now it's finally Friday we're going to visit hubby in Pennsylvania.  I'm really looking forward to seeing him and hanging out together as a family.  Cross your fingers that the weather stays sunny for us, ok? 

Hopefully this weekend will be as nice as the last.  We had lots of adventures with family and friends.  Hubby came back from work, we celebrated a cousin's birthday, and I met up with my college roommates in the city.   Here are some photos from our adventures: 

Here's Chuck hanging out with Auntie Grace at the birthday party.  (This kid loves balls, gluten free pizza, rice kripsy treats, and balloon animals.  Luckily for him, the party included all of the above, so we had a blast!)

Me, my sister, and my cousin

I loved seeing this little cutie utterly enchanted by a puffy yellow yarn ball. 

It was so nice just hanging out with old college friends that I didn't remember to whip out my camera.  All I have to remember our time spent together are these sparkly nails.  One of the gals brought some cool nail stickers for us to try out.  It felt like we were back in college, laying on someone's bed, chatting and laughing.  (Can you see Chuck's hand in the background?  He wanted some sparkly nails too.)

This last photo is kind of unrelated but I wanted to include it anyway.  Nana gave Chuck a whole bunch of car socks.  He loves wearing them, but kept slipping and sliding on our wood floors.   I added some black puff paint to the bottom of his socks and now he's got some traction.  No more slipping!  (Thanks Pinterest!)

That's it!  I hope you have a wonderfully relaxing and refreshing weekend friends.  See you next week!

Make Party Blowers

When we go out to eat, one of Chuck's favorite things to get is bubble tea. 

It's so cute watching him order.  Too short to reach the counter, Hubby has to lift Chuck up so that he's eye level with the cashier. 

Of course, it's the same lady behind the counter every week.  Even though she already knows what he's going to say, she always asks Chuck what he wants.  And without fail, he gives the same response:  bubble tea with a blue straw.  (Blue is his favorite color.)

The lady then giggles when she hears his little voice.  When she's done, she hands over the drink and a couple extra straws.  (He loves straws.)  Typically, Chuck just blows and chews on the extras... but this time he generously gave them to me so that I could craft with them.  

I saw how much he loved blowing on party blowers at another child's birthday party.  So, of course I had to try making them for him at home.  

 Materials:

• Magazine paper (Cut into 5x9" rectangles)
• Bubble tea straws cut in half
• Scissors
• Tape

Directions:
1.  Fold your paper in thirds lengthwise.   Tape your paper where the two sides meet. 

2.  Fold over one end of the paper and tape that down too.  (Make sure your tape all the openings closed.  You want your party blower to be air tight.) 

3.  Starting from the sealed end, tightly wrap your magazine paper around a pen.   (Do this a couple of times with the pen and then without the pen to make sure that the curl stays.  I've also seen some other bloggers, like Design Mom, wrap their rolls with rubber bands to help the curl to stay better.)

4.  Now stick your straw in the open end of the paper.  Fold your paper over the straw and tape it down.  (Again, make sure that everything is air tight.) 

And that's it!  Hand your party blowers over to your kid and watch them have fun!

We just used magazine paper, so our blowers only lasted for about a couple of minutes before they stopped recoiling or ripped.  But not to worry!  I washed, dried, and cut up the straws to make some "beads."  Chuck then enjoyed stringing them onto some pipe cleaners. 

Happy crafting!

Homemade watercolor card and upcycled strawberry container gift box

Ok, so this post's title is rather long and not too creative... but I couldn't think of a better way to describe this:

To end this week's series of wedding themed posts, I wanted to show how I wrapped and presented our "Good Night, Bonne Nuit" pillow cases to the bride and groom   In the spirit of DIY, we made both the card and the gift box.

Chuck helped me to make the wedding card and envelope.  Say what?  Yup, you read right.  My little guy and I made these:

Remember those homemade watercolors I made a couple of weeks back?  Well, we pulled them out of the fridge, re-hydrated the paint with several drops of water, and then went to town using them as finger paints.  Their pale colors were perfect for the wedding.  (On the down side- The paint left a bit of powdery residue on the watercolor paper when it dried.  Fortunately I was able to wipe most of it off with a napkin.)

Chuck's finger painting became the envelope and mine became the card.  (The white swirls were made by first drawing on the watercolor paper with an old Easter egg wax crayon.  After covering the paper with paint, the portions that were scribbled on with the wax crayon remained white.)   Oh yeah, and in case you're wondering, the card reads something along these lines: "life is better when you're walking hand in hand with the person you love"

We then upcycled an old strawberry container into the gift box:  

Cute right?  Wish I could take credit  for this idea, but I can't.  I first spotted it at the amazing Aunt Peaches.

To do this, I simply:
- Washed and dried the strawberry container, making sure to remove any gooey sticker parts (I used Goo gone )
- Used a Sharpie marker and doodled some flowers on the inside of the box
- Used craft paint and dabbed paint on the inside of the box
- Used Mod Podge to seal my craft paint once I was finished

Then, I placed a piece of pink tissue paper inside just to make sure that my pillowcases stayed nice and clean.  And there you have it.  Tada! A handmade wedding card and gift box that's pretty to look at and  so simple to make.  (A child could do it...really.).

Hooray for creatively used crap!

A + C's wedding

This past weekend we attended a cousin's wedding in Brooklyn.  It was a wonderfully intimate and elegant affair.  The bride and her mother's touches were everywhere.  The lovely bride altered her own dress and both ladies worked together to bake and decorate the cake and put together all the floral arrangements.

Here's what we wore to the wedding:  (We took these photos beforehand because it would be nearly impossible to take photos while entertaining an active almost-two-year old during the event.)

 And here are photos taken before the event:

Something blue

Wedding cake made by the bride's mom

Can you believe these flowers aren't real?  They're edible and made by hand.

My small DIY contribution- Handwritten escort cards

Wall decorations at the reception

Bride's bouquet

Here are photos taken from the ceremony:

Here's how we entertained Chuck during the ceremony

 Here are photos taken during the reception:

Beautiful lace back

Dinner time!

Cake cutting

Congratulations A and C!   Thank you for letting us be a part of your special day.

What's up, Chuck?

Hi everyone!

 Did you have a good weekend?

Last week hubby had to work some pretty long hours, so Chuck and I really looked forward to the weekend.  Thank goodness everything was low key and relaxing.  We ended up visiting some nearby relatives and shopping for supplies for a new project...

Here are some photos from last week:

Chuck and I continue to really enjoy music time at the library.

Thanks Vanessa for taking such a lovely photo!

We celebrated St. Patrick's day: 

I think Chuck looks good with a beard, no?

Leprechaun?  Nope.  It's hubby!

And this is why toddler time rocks....

It's so sweet how Chuck's face lights up whenever he sees this little girl.  

Hope your week starts off well.... (and if not, well, there are only four more days till the weekend... woo hoo!)  Today I'm taking Chuck to the dentist for his first checkup. *Gulp.* We'll see how that goes....

St. Patrick's day photo props

Today our toddler time is holding a St. Patrick's day event for the kids.  Here are two photo props that I crapted for the event:

Both props were made out of old cereal boxes. The kids are supposed to stick their faces through the hole in the left prop and they're supposed to stand underneath the hat on the right.

Please send some good Irish luck our way.  I'm hoping that the kids will use the props and we get some super cute and silly photos.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Cowboy party

When we first moved back to New Jersey, I was afraid that we wouldn't find community.

Silly me.

Last week our toddlers group held a cowboy party for the kids.
Costume?  Party?
Yup.  I've found my kind of people.

Psst- Tomorrow I'll share how I crapted Baby Chuck's cowboy costume from felt, cardboard, and a cake tin.