Simple Christmas Activity Calendar Banner-Style

This year's Christmas Activity Advent Calendar came together quickly. I was able to get this done in under an hour! 

This was a very simple project:

 1. cut even strips of Kraft Paper

  2. fold in half

3. stamp numbers and stars on the front

 4.write the activity of the day inside

  5. close with Washi tape

 I then pinned them onto some twine that will hang somewhere in the house where my son can take them down each day to read the activity. I am excited to try this more simple version out this year.

A lot of the activities are the same as last year's Activity Calendar, but I changed around a few - we have a couple of events this December and I wanted to try out some new activities. too.

1. Decorate the House and Make a Decoration

2. Write a Letter to Santa (we use the Mega Monkey Mash printable) 

3. Take a Family Photo

4. Order and Make Christmas Cards

5. String Lights Outside

6. Go Ice Skating

7. Visit Santa at the Company Christmas Party (or the mall)

8. Christmas Family Game Night

9. Make Presents (my son makes small things for his Aunts and Uncles. Last year he painted ornaments)

10. Watch a Christmas Movie

11. Make a Christmas Craft (this year I am thinking of some hand and foot print crafts)

12. Dinner Date

13. See the Light Show at our local farm 

14. Decorate the Tree

15. Bake Cookies

16. Check out the lights around the neighborhood, pick out our favorite house (maybe leave a prize at their door!) 

17. Another Christmas Movie Night

18. Write and Draw a new Christmas Story

19. Christmas Date in the City (we live near Philadelphia)

20. Decorate Gingerbread House

21. Winter Walk in the Park 

22. Make a New Ornament for the Tree

23. Wrap the Presents We Made

24. Cookies and Milk for Santa! And go to sleep early of course.

Do you have any fun Christmastime traditions? Please share! I am always looking for something different to try. 

Handmade Captain America Greeting Cards

My Fiance's birthday is this weekend and I'm just in luck that Captain America Winter Soldier comes out this weekend, too! He loves superheroes even more than I do so the birthday date is all planned. 

My son and I worked together on the cards, using circle punches and star punches to make the iconic shield. 

I haven't always loved making my own cards, but when they are as simple as this it is great and you save yourself $4.00. 

The second card I made was also simple and fast. I just cut different sized rectangles with my scraps from the shield and used another star. It looks a little like the old school Captain America costume. 

If you have never tried card making before, I suggest you give it a go with simple shapes like these ones. 

Captain America's Shield - Kid's Craft

Getting Captain America Week started with a really simple Kid's Craft. We wanted to make an easy Captain America shield that the little kids could do that wouldn't take too long after dinner. 

We gathered plates (mine were plastic but I suggest paper), ribbon and tape, some paint for the older two kids and construction paper for the little one. I already had three white stars cut out from a die-cut machine. I loosely sketched some circles for them to divide the colors they could use. 

All I used for the back was some ribbon and tape so they could hold their shields up. Simple enough! 

Stay tuned all week for some more Captain America related crafts! 

Spring is here! Quick Spring Crafts

Spring is finally here! We couldn't be more thrilled, even if it is still a bit chilly outside. Time to do some crafting to welcome this wonderful season. 

First, we made some pinwheels.

We gathered the supplies below: 

A hole punch, pencils, push pins, scissors, and 6x6 paper in Spring colors.

After we picked out our papers, we cut diagonal lines from each corner towards the center. Do not cut all the way to the center! 

Next, we punched a hole in the center of the paper and on the right side of each of the triangular pieces. 

I folded each corner with the hole into the center, put the push pin through the hole and stuck the entire thing onto the eraser of the pencil.

Now we had pretty pinwheels for Nana's plants! They didn't spin all too well because we used thick paper, but they sure look festive.

The next craft we did was for the birds.

Spread the peanut butter onto a toilet paper roll.

Roll the toilet paper roll in some bird seed.

Hang your bird feeder up in a tree using a wire or string. Enjoy the bit of free time you get afterwards as your child stares out the window waiting for birds.

Have you been getting inspired by Spring? Show us in the comments below! 

Kids Valentine Crafts

I love getting the kids involved in Valentine's Day Crafts. Here is one that I did with my son two years ago. It was so easy for a 2 year old to do. I traced his hand and arm on brown card stock and cut it out. Then i used heart punches in two sizes to cut out light pink and hot pink hearts. I put sticker tabs on the backs of all the hearts and let him put them wherever he wanted. 

He went for a falling leaves style - so cute. I put green card stock on the bottom of the page for the grass and he picked out a picture he liked so I could put it on the page. 

This year we took an embroidery frame in the shape of a heart, used some thread to attach paper to it, and he and I both put our thumb prints on the paper to make a Love Bug. He added the googly eyes, the bow, and drew the legs. I wrote the Love Bug 2014. I love making a project together with him.

Another craft we did together was for preschool. It was this heart that was supposed to have our family in it. He picked out the papers from a 6x6 paper pad, I cut them and he told me where they go. Then he picked out the family sticker and hearts and put the glue on everything. I did the stickers with our names. 

Handmade Valentine's Day Cards - Fast and Easy

I have accumulated quite a few of these journaling cards that are designed for pocket pages, such as Project Life. They generally come in a 3x4 or 4x6 size. A lot of them have cute titles on one side and space for journaling on the back. I decided to use a few for my Valentine's Day cards this year. It was so easy and each card came together in five minutes or less! 

I used different sizes for the card bases and started with the 3x4 cards I knew I wanted to use. For most of the cards I either matted the card with more patterned paper or ran a border strip across the middle. I also used some stamping one the "Kissing Booth" card

. I highly recommend grabbing a pack of these cards- Michael's has some called Pocket Pages and they've also started carrying some Project Life and Snap! Then you can use your stickers, paper, and embellishments to make each card unique. I try not to think too hard on each one. Sometimes the simplest cards look the best to me! Hope this helps give you some ideas on fast and easy Valentine's Day Cards.

Lego Week- Lego Building Challenge Game

I love a challenge. When I was on a cruise last year, there was a Lego Building Challenge activity that we participated in, and I thought it was so fun! 

I decided I wanted to make a Lego Challenge Game of my own for my son and his cousins. First, I collected the scraps of Lego packaging that I saved. I know, I'm silly, but I love to cut out the pieces of packaging I think I can use on a project. I do it with every single super hero tag off of the clothes I buy. Obviously - it's buy a shirt get an embellishment free!

I used a tag punch to punch out some of that yellow cardboard, which is actually a yellow Lego background. I then cut each red square logo and inked the edges. I found some cute kraft envelopes in my stash and decided I'd use those to hold the challenges.

Next, I put red numbers on the yellow tags, punched small holes in the top of the yellow tags, and put twine through the holes. I attached the tags to the yellow journal cards using red washi tape. 

Lastly. I added some challenges. I thought that the kids could go through each challenge and whoever successfully completes each one wins. They can also roll a dice and just complete the one challenge that matches the number, too! The best part about the washi tape is that it is removable and you can make new journal cards with new challenges. 

The challenges in my game are make a garden, build something you find in the city, make an animal, build a house, build a car, train, or airplane, and make a boat. 

Lucky for you, I have created a Free Printable for you to make one of your own!

I hope you enjoyed! If you're looking for other fun Lego games to play, check out Creationary, this printable lego board game, DIY Lego Land Game, Lego Tic Tac Toe, and Lego Hangman. 

Lego Week- Lego Card & Gift Card Holder

I am loving Lego Week! Today I wanted to share a birthday card I made for a little boy who loves Legos. It was a super simple card to make.

The card is a 5 x 7 black card stock card. I cut a 4.5 x 6.5 piece of white card stock and adhered it to the black base. I then took some bright colors of card stock in red, yellow, green, and blue. I cut different sizes- 2 x 2, 1 x 2, 1 x 4, 2 x 4. I then used a 3/4 inch hole punch for the circles. I love to ink the edges of all my papers so that they pop off the page. I added pop dots to the circles so they would have dimension. After that, I added the "4" and stamped "happy birthday". It was surprisingly fast, after I knew what I wanted to do with the card. I'm happy with it! 

Here is a gift card holder I put together, too. 

I cut a piece of cardstock at 8 x 4.5. I folded one end over so that it was about 2 inches short of the top, then I folded the top over so it overlapped a bit. I cut out another cardstock at 10 x 1.5. I put it against the card and folded both sides around the whole card, using adhesive to tape the strip together. I added the circles to make both pieces look like Legos and used a Lego logo from some old packaging. Now all I need is a gift card for a local store selling Legos to attach to the inside! The sleeve helps keep the card holder closed. 

Do you have any Lego Inspired crafts to share? Add your link to our comments! 

Scrapbooking with a Sketch

If you've never scrapbooked before but are interested, there are so many ideas and inspiration to get you started. Sometimes, I get stuck or have scrapper's block and I'm not sure where to start. I like to find a sketch to follow so I can scrap faster without thinking too hard about where things should go! 

I made this scrapbook sketch for a 12 x 12 layout with 3 pictures, lots of paper, and embellishments. 

What I love about sketches is that you don't have to follow them exactly each time and you can end up with completely different layouts each time you use them! Below, I followed the sketch almost exactly, making sure I had the size of each paper just right. 

 Then I used that same sketch for the layout below, and it looks completely different! Also, these layouts won't be in the same album because they are in chronological order and these pictures were taken months apart. This time, I used Instagram pictures I printed from Origrami, my Canon Selphy, and my Polaroid Instant Camera. 

If you make a layout based on this sketch, be sure to add a link in the comments below so we can see all the varieties of pages!