Magnetic Christmas Tree Busy Bag with Scotch® Expressions Tapes

This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone. I hope you and your kids enjoy this fun magnetic Christmas tree busy bag over the holidays. #CraftAmazing #CollectiveBias Lets face it...Holidays are a busy time for Mom! Trying to tackle all the prep for the holiday all while keeping the kids busy and entertained during the day can be a daunting task. On those days that my to-do list is longer than I can imagine, I love to set out a variety of busy bags that my preschooler can play with while I'm busily working. This gives me some free time to get things done and crossed off my list. Last week I used Scotch® Expressions Tapes to help me create this stunning Magnetic Christmas Tree Busy Bag. Although it's intended for kids to play with, I have to admit I've already had quite a bit of fun with it also. 

Doily Turkey Craft for Kids

Gobble, Gobble! We are gearing up for Thanksgiving and having a blast making turkey crafts. Our latest is this fun doily turkey craft for kids. Using Dot Markers to decorate the doily makes it a perfect craft for even the youngest toddler crafters. So gather round the table as a family, grab your supplies and get ready for some turkey crafting fun! 

Contact Paper Sticky Wall Butterfly Craft

We had some Winter weather today which forced us to play inside this afternoon. I came up with this Contact Paper Sticky Wall Butterfly Craft to help entertain my daughter and it turned out to be a beautiful work of art as well!  

Fall Tree Play Dough (Invitation to Play)

I was at Michael's last week and came across this fun package of Table Scatter plastic leaves. I didn't know what I was going to do with them but I grabbed two packs and came home as giddy as could be.

We had a rainy inside day yesterday so I pulled them out and decided to whip up some brown homemade play dough and invite the kids to play.

I love that play dough is fun for all ages and makes such a great family activity! My 8 and 6 year old boys had even more fun with this activity than my toddler did. We all came up with our own creative way of making a fall tree out of our play dough and table scatter leaves.

These table scatter leaves have turned out to be so much fun! Definitely an awesome find! Stop by on Monday for a fun leave pattern printable.  :)

Circle Stamped Pumpkins

We made our last pumpkin craft of the season today after reading one of my favorite Halloween books, Big Pumpkin by Erica Silverman. My preschooler has been practicing drawing circles so we played off of that when making this craft.

I cut pumpkins out of orange cardstock paper and my daughter used an empty toilet paper tube dipped in orange paint to stamp circles all over her pumpkin.

 

After our pumpkins were completely dry, we glued them onto a green background and glued a brown stem on them. Here is the design I made on my pumpkin below.

  I definitely prefer my daughter's though! It's just so cute!!  

  I hope you've enjoyed all of our pumpkin crafts and activities lately.  :)  

Fireworks {Toddler-Style}

We love fireworks crafts this time of the year at our house! HERE is our favorite from a couple years ago:

While this one is my favorite, my toddler doesn't have control over the glue that well just yet so I decided to improvise this year for her.

I gave her a half sheet of black cardstock and some school glue and let her put dabs and lines where ever she wanted on her paper.

Then we got out our handy Patriotic Stars Spangle Mix from Craftprojectideas.com and she put the little stars (fireworks) all over her black sky.

She had lots of glue spots left over after adding some stars so we got out our Glitter Caddy (also a Craftprojectideas.com product) and she sprinkled glitter all over her paper. I directed her which spots to shake each color.

Pour the glitter off into the garbage can and you are left with a fun fireworks scene!

Thanks for coming by today! I hope you  have a fabulous 4th of July holiday!!


*I received our Patriotic Stars Spangle Mix for free from Craftprojectideas.com but all opinion expressed are my own.

Pony Bead Flag Craft

 

We finally got some 4th of July crafting in!! I was excited that my 8yr old wanted in on this craft too. He seems to steer away from crafty things lately, so doing projects with him is a special treat for me.

 

The craft is pretty straight forward but I started by cutting out a piece of cardboard about 5" x 7". We used a left over pizza box from dinner last night. I punched a hole at each end at the top with a hole punch so we could hang it after we were finished.

 

We started gluing our beads on in the blue section first. Squeeze school glue on a small section and then place your beads on and continue until you have the size you want. Our Pony Beads came from Craftprojectideas.com and were in a special patriotic pack. I couldn't find the exact pack on their website, but if you can't find the patriotic pack at your local Wal-Mart you could always buy individual packs of red, white and blue.

Then continue gluing with your red and white stripes down the flag. We decided to do rows of 2, but afterwards I thought "why didn't we just cut the cardboard at the right size to get 13 single stripes like the real flag?"  :-/ 

Your toddlers don't have to sit out on this one either. This is a great activity for color recognition and hand-to-eye coordination. I put a section of glue down and told her which color bead to put on the glue. She is Miss Crafty lately so she loved this!!

It is hard to tell but we conveniently covered our holes in the corners with beads. Just make sure the hole is showing inside the bead so you can get your string through it later.

For the stars we used this Patriotic Stars Spangle Mix also from Craftprojectideas.com. This little pack is so fun! We used them for another project too that I'll show you in a couple days.

Pull some white stars out of the pack and glue them down on your flag.

 

After the glue has completely dried, attach some string to each corner of your flag and you are all done! This is my 8yr old's flag.

 

 

Look how cute my toddler's flag turned out!

She's pretty proud of it!!

  Find a fun place to hang up your new flag in your house and you have perfect 4th of July decor!   

    Did you miss our Button Flag Craft last year??

 

*We received our Patriotic Pony Beads and Patriotic Stars Spangle Mix for free from Craftprojectideas.com, but all opinions expressed are my own.

Cupcake Liner & Foam Sticker Space Craft

My love for crafting with cupcake liners continues! This time we used them as planets and coupled them with fun space themed foam stickers to create an outer space scene.

 

 

Let me start by telling you that this craft was inspired by the book "The Three Little Aliens and the Big Bad Robot" by Maragaret McNamara and Mark Fearing. It is a spin on the familiar Three Little Pigs tale. I was worried the text would be too advanced for my toddler, but she actually sat and paid close attention the whole time. She seemed enthralled by all the illustrations throughout the story.

 

 

My toddler (2 1/2) is at the beginning stages of crafting so using simple materials that don't require cutting is perfect for her. These glow-in-the-dark Space Foam Stickers from Craftprojectideas.com are perfect for toddlers.

 

 

To make our project, I let my daughter pick out three cupcake liners to use as her planets. We used 2 mini liners and 1 regular-sized liner. She started by using crayons to add details to her planets. I obviously didn't expect much out of this since she's only 2, but I thought adding some scribbles would add some dimension to the planets.

 

  Next glue the cupcake liners to a black sheet of cardstock paper.  

Lastly, use the space themed foam stickers to finish your outer space scene. I've got to be honest, I think my little girls turned out waaaayyyyy better than mine!

 

 

This little polka-dot alien planet just warms my heart. It's too cute!

Did I mention that the foam stickers are glow-in-the-dark??!! Yep, BEST PART!! It doesn't get any more cool than a space craft that glows in the dark!

 

*I received the glow-in-the-dark Space Foam Stickers for free from Craftprojectideas.com, but all opinions expressed are my own.