Do It Yourself: Empty Spool Candy/Cracker Ornaments

This ornament was made by Sylvia (I helped her with the hot glue). She decided to make hers a piece of sour candy by gluing a paper label to the front.


This ornament was made by Beatrice (with the hot glue assist). Beatrice's is Sweet Sour Candy (?).

If you sew as much as I do, you probably have a giant bin full of empty thread spools. They are too good to throw away, but yet hard to use (especially the modern plastic ones). I designed this little project to do on a rainy (yes RAINY) December afternoon with the kiddos. My girls are 4 and 7, this project uses hot glue, so I needed to help them with the gluing and cutting the pieces to the right size. This project would be perfect for kids just a little bit older (8+).

Materials:
floral wire (medium gage)
wide ribbon
felt
empty spool
thin ribbon
hot glue
scissors



Prepare your pieces by cutting the felt into a rectangle that is large enough to roll entirely around the circumference of the spool with a little bit of an overlap. Leave the ends at least 1 1/2 " longer than the spool on each side.


Thread the wire through the center of the spool and bend a hook at the end. Secure this into the spokes of the spool with a small dab of hot glue.



Next, secure one edge of the felt with hot glue to the spool. lay the ribbon over it and secure the ribbon with hot glue to the spool as well.


Roll the felt and the ribbon around the spool. Fold the edge of the ribbon over the edge of the felt and secure with hot glue.


Finish rolling the felt and ribbon around the spool and secure with hot glue.


Using the thin ribbon, gather the ends and tie with a decorative bow.

To hang the ornament, either leave the wire long and bend a hook, OR clip the wire short, and bend over to create a loop to which you will tie a hanging ribbon.

Add a paper label if desired with glue.

To create a dish of candies, omit the center wire and continue with the rest of the steps.


Santa Cop means to show the new ornament who is the boss...

Do It Yourself: Cardboard City!

Beatrice playing with the finished product. They also had fun making a circle to keep out tornadoes (yes, they are true midwestern girls).

How many times have you heard "Mom! When are we going to do something fun?" I hear this about ten times a day (ironically it is often on the way home from the zoo or some other epic adventure.) Over Spring Break, our wallets demanded that we find some fun stuff to do at home. So we created cardboard city scapes.

Handmade Pretties uses a lot of 5 pound stuffing boxes, so we chose these as our starting box. Any large box will work.

The first step is to open up the box. Open the flaps on the top and the bottom, then carefully break the seam along the side of the box.

Next, draw your city scape on the main portion of the box (you will be cutting off the top flaps and using the bottom flaps as the supports to make the city stand). Using scissors or a serrated knife, cut out your city. I prefer the serrated knife, since it can be used like a saw, but I have been known to cut deeply into my finger tips while doing this, so be very careful.

Now, draw some doors that sit right along the crease between the main body of the box and the bottom flaps (this way the doors will be at ground level). When you cut out the doors, be sure to leave one side attached if you want the door to open and close.


Beatrice carefully choosing her stickers.

The final step is to give the city scape to your children to decorate. My kids used markers and stickers, but crayons, stamps, paint, and/or glitter glue can also be used.


Sylvia putting on the finishing touches.

Once the kids are done decorating, set up your city and play! The city scapes are a fun addition to blocks and cars, and can be easily folded flat to store. Once the kids are done with them, don't forget to recycle the cardboard!

Do It Yourself: Little Red Riding Hood Game

We used little wooden peg dolls that we found at Michaels for the game pieces.

Several years ago for Christmas, we bought the girls a small collection of blank books and puzzles from Bare Books. We also bought a blank game board with a spinner and a set of cards. We FINALLY decided it was time to make our first game.

First I showed the girls the game board, and we started talking about what kind of game they would like to play. We talked about which games we already have and how those games are played. They really like Candy Land (and candy...) so they wanted something with a path. They kicked around ideas including unicorns, candy, Little Red Riding Hood, and unicorns dressed up like little red riding hood looking for candy. Looking for a theme that had a story line they were both familiar with and that wasn't overly complex, we opted to make a Little Red Riding Hood game.

Getting Started:
Once we got our theme in mind, we started by deciding how the players would move through the game. They both like spinners more than dice, so we used the blank spinner that we got with the game board. It was divided into six sections four sections strictly for movement (go forward 1,2,3, or 4 spaces), one penalty type section (the wolf), and the bonus section (cookies and muffins). The girls also enjoy Chutes and Ladders (ok they like the ladder part better than the chute part) so they wanted to include "wolf paths" so that little red could cut through the forest and get to Grandma's house faster. To add an extra educational aspect to the game, we made the blank cards into "wolf cards". The wolf cards feature simple math problems, spelling, story completion (What big eyes you have the better to ________ you with"), and a handful of lose a turn cards. When the player spins a wolf, they have to answer a wolf card. If they get the answer correct, they get to move one space if not they lose a turn. Also, if the player lands on the space that leads to the wolf path, they can draw a wolf card. If they answer correctly, they get to cross the path. If the cookie/muffin section of the spinner is spun, the player gets to advance to the next cookie or muffin space on the board.

Planning out the game ahead of time will make a big difference in how it ends up.


You can see some of our preliminary plans on the drawings next to the game.

Get to Work:

My girls are six and three (almost four), so I needed to give them simple tasks that would make them feel like they were really contributing to the game. Sylvia (my six year old) is very artistic, so after I drew in the basic path, her job was to draw grandma's house and all of the background decorations. (She chose to make it Grandpa's house, apparently grandma was at the grocery store...) Beatrice helped me decorate the wolf cards and drew little red's house at the start. Sylvia also worked on the spinner. We used markers and watercolors to color in the game board. Both girls are pretty good at painting, so all three of us painted in the background of the board using watercolors.

The final missing piece were the player pieces. Of course the girls wanted them to look like Little Red Riding Hood, so we took a break and went to Michael's to find some blank peg dolls. I cut little red pieces of fabric for hoods and to distinguish players we used different colors of yarn to tie the hoods. I drew the faces with a sharpie.

While at Michael's we also purchased a gift box large enough to hold the game. I taped paper dividers inside the box to hold the parts, and the girls beautified the outside.


This is a 9.5" x 12" gift box that I taped paper dividers into to house our game. We also considered a shallow plastic bin, but I am cheap, and the 69¢ box won.


Working on the game board. Sylvia is finishing up Grandpa's House, Bea is finishing up Little Red's House.


My little game elf hard at work.


After TWO HOURS of solid work (I can't believe they stayed with me the WHOLE time!) the game is ready to play!

The whole process took us over two hours to complete. Sylvia was completely on board the entire time, while Beatrice took a snack break and a drawing break. This project (or a similar one) would be a great activity for kids 6-10. There are a few things I would change about the game, for example, there are not enough penalty spots and there is no way for a player to move backwards, so it is pretty easy to play. As a parent, I like that the game can end pretty fast, but the kids would probably get a good lesson from having to move backwards. Overall, I am happy with the game. The girls definitely love it, since we play it at least once a day...

Do It Yourself: Marshmallow and Toothpick Erector Set

Beatrice with our creation.

It's cold. It's really cold, and Beatrice is bored. Really bored. While we could play another round of Tea Party the game, today I decided to try something a little different. We built a structure out of marshmallows and toothpicks.

Here is what you need to try it too:
One bag of mini marshmallows
AT LEAST 2 -250 count boxes of toothpicks (we use the round ones because my kids are used to being around pointy things, but flat would work too)

Start simply by showing your child how to stick the toothpicks into the marshmallows. Explore basic shapes like barbells, wands, triangles, squares, etc. Move on to more complex shapes like cubes etc. Beatrice and I worked together on our structure. We started by building onto our simple shapes as the structure grew, we talked about what shapes were the strongest (triangles) and how to build support to hold up the structure. As one piece sagged, we built others to hold it up. We played for almost 45 minutes.

Beatrice is 3 and a half years old, and she was able to add to the structure and support her own additions. I helped her if she asked and worked on the "groundwork" to make sure she had a good time building. The structure will continually morph as you build. Parts will sag down as you prop up other parts. Pyramidal supports will hold up sagging sections while emphasizing the importance of supporting structures. See the photos for examples.

Building with blocks, legos, tinker toys or even marshmallows and toothpicks teaches very important spatial and mathematical concepts to your child and is rewarding and fun!


Close-Up

The Masterpiece!

Etsy Favorites: 4 Season Cone Gnomes from CutesyPoo

I don't know about you, but here in the land of the perpetual snow, I would like the spring gnome to start pulling his weight. These cute little guys arrive in the form of a .pdf file that you can print from home and assemble. At $1.99 I almost don't even have to think about it! Cutesypoo Toys also makes similar gnomes in fabric, pre-assembled.

I picture these up on a shelf in the girls' room or peek out from behind a plant. What about you?

Do It Yourself: Valentine's Day Crackers

The finished goods, ready for delivery.

Oh sure Valentine's Day is a corporate creation to get us to buy each other satin underwear and boxes of chocolate, but it is also a great time to whip up something delightfully pink, fill it with chocolate, and give it to the people you love (or even like a little).

This Valentine's Day, my girls and I made Valentine's Day crackers filled with chocolate kisses for their class. This project is relatively simple. Children over 8 should be able to finish this project with little assistance, while younger kids will need help, but will still enjoy filling the tubes with goodies.


Our work station

Materials
Scotch Tape
Cardstock cut into 3" x 4.25" pieces
Tissue paper cut into 10" x 8" pieces (the thin gift wrapping type is best)
Scissors
thin ribbon or yarn cut into 10" pieces
Medium to large stickers
Kisses or other small candies or treats


Our supplies ready to go. I use my paper cutter to cut down the tissue and cardstock to size.

Roll the cardstock into 3" tubes. Overlap the edges of the cardstock about 1/2" and tape.

With the tube on the 8" side of the tissue paper, roll the tissue around the tube. Twist one end closed, and stick the sticker on the seam of the tissue (little ones are great at sticking the stickers). Tie a ribbon on the twisted end.


Rolling the tube in tissue.


Before we have twisted the end.

Check that the tissue paper opening is clear into the tube, and insert two kisses (or other small goodies). Twist the other end closed and tie with a ribbon.




One end twisted and tied and ready to be filled.


Beatrice (2) filling the tubes with kisses for her friends.

A few years back when making stamps for my business, I had stamps made of my girls' names. The kids' schools want each valentine to only be signed, not individually addressed, so we use the stamps to sign the valentines.

For our close friends and family, we will be making larger versions of this project filled with more treats and a few pics of the girls. If you have a stash of cardboard tubes from toilet paper or paper towels, you can use those, otherwise create larger cardstock tubes.

Happy Crafting!