Do you remember scratch and sniff stickers growing up? I was shopping at Michael's and saw scented embossing powder. I started googling for reviews and found a forum that mentioned you could make your own scented embossing powder using KoolAid. This made me think of making my daughter Shopkins Scratch and Sniff stickers. I really am impressed at how they turned out. The smell is strong and its been about three weeks and the scent is still strong!
It's so hard to buy toys for my kids that keep them entertained for more than twenty minutes. Most of the toys that they own just get piled up in an baskets. Even if it holds their attention for more than twenty minutes, it is only when they first open the toy. After the novelty has worn off they never really play with it again. There are a few toys that keep my daughter entertained over and over again. A few tried and true toys that has kept my three year old entertained for quite some time are the Spin n Spiral Doodler Drawing Set (this is basically a toddler version of Spirograph), Kid Kraft Retro Play kitchen and newest on the list Perler Beads (also known as Hama Beads).
I seriously love these Perler Beads. They keep Avery entertained for hours, and not only on the first time she used it, but for consecutive weekends. The beads help her with hand and eye coordination and they aren't messy like Playdoh (unless you spill the box). The beads are small, so its not recommended if your child still puts things in their mouths.
The beads not only kept her occupied but it was fun to create things with her. These beads are strangely addicting. I made little cupcakes to decorate greeting cards with. I love this idea of making thank you cards to get her more involved in writing thank you cards. She gets super excited because she had a hand in making the card, so writing in the card isn't a chore for her.
The kits basically come with small plastic beads, a pegboard, an sheet of parchment paper. You place the beads on the pegboard in any pattern and then melt them with an iron. You can buy kits online at ConsumerCrafts.com, Amazon.com or at Michael's.
Made rainbows with the sides of the heart, since I don't have a circle pegboard.
I don't have a square peg board so I just used the cupcake pegboard.
This is the first year Avery is in school, so it's the first time I needed to make Valentines for her classmates. I wanted to give out something that is not candy, because she get enough candy nowadays (yes, I am the house that gives out pretzels for Halloween). Don't get me wrong, Avery eats candy, every time my husband goes to the bank, he comes back with a lollipop for her. But coming back with twenty small bags of candy, that will sit in our pantry, I just find it a waste.
I saw this idea on Pinterest to give out Clementine "Cuties" and loved it. I decided to make my own labels and even put Avery's name in dot traceable penmanship font so she could practice writing her name. That was probably my best idea ever. It's usually like pulling teeth making her practice her writing, but with these labels, she eagerly wrote her name twenty times without complaining!
If you want to print make these I have attached my label that I used:
To put the label on I staple the back onto the plastic bag and then use double stick tape to adhere the front. When you do it this way you won't be able to see staples in the front.
Here are some other great Valentine's Day ideas that are not candy:
I've been having lots of fun decorating Avery's new dollhouse. Dollhouse furniture is surprisingly very expensive, so I decided to make my own. This dollhouse is very addicting If you love making things, you could spend hours crafting stuff for a dollhouse. Below I made the sofa, lamp, side chair and pouf. The rug is a piece of fur that I cut to size and the coffee table is a small table that I found at Dollar Tree. Dollar Tree does sell cheap dollhouse furniture, but it is the wrong scale. My dollhouse is 1:12, but the Dollar Tree/Dollar General dollhouse furniture is 1:18 scale I think. So the coffee table was suppose to be a dining table, but since it was too small I cut the legs shorter and made it into a coffee table. The pieces I cut off I actually used for the legs of the sofa.
I'm still experimenting with layout of the house.
I also purchased a kitchen from Hobby Lobby for the dollhouse. I love this dollhouse modern kitchen, it has a french door refrigerator! All the cabinet doors open and its pretty well made. The modern kitchen was on the pricey side, $44.99 (in store), but they had a 40% off coupon (which you can just show them on your mobile phone), so it came out ot 30 dollars. Thirty dollars is still pricey but cheaper than any other dollhouse kitchen set I found. Ebay has some sets from China, but with shipping all the sets were over 40 dollars.
Hobby Lobby modern kitchen. Pots, pans and baskets were not part of the set.
All of the cabinets open which is pretty cool.
I will publish tutorials (when I have time) on the furniture, which can be scaled for Barbie also.
I've been building a dollhouse. Not a premade easy assembly Costco dollhouse. This is a real dollhouse, one where you have to paint every wall, stain the floors and shingle the roof. I have to admit when I first saw this dollhouse online I was super excited. Then when I received it and opened the box I felt overwhelmed. The dollhouse sat in the corner of our room for months (8 months to be exact) before I opened the box again and decided that I had the confidence to build it. The dollhouse had what felt like a million pieces all which needed to be primed, sanded, painted, assembled, sanded again, and touched up. The interior needed to be wallpapered and all the moldings needed to be put together. The floor sanded, stained, sanded again, cleaned off for a top coat. This was a real serious dollhouse. It was just as much work as my real house (except I couldn't hire a contractor to do the work).
Here is timelapse video of all the work. It isn't a tutorial, but it will give you an idea of how much work goes into building this house, if you ever decided you want to build one.
Finished dollhouse. I picked colors like the Disney movie "Up" house.
Each shingle needed to be hand cut to get the angle on the roof!
The house isn't furnished yet. The current furniture is too small a scale for the house.
Purple room for my Avery who loves purple.
I still need to wallpaper one last room with the crazy angles. I'm saving that for another day.
I found this free paper doll printable online and thought it was adorable. I loved playing with paper dolls as a child and decided to print some out for my daughter Avery is getting to the age where she is starting to enjoy toys like this. To make the paper dolls sturdier and easier to play with I decided to back them with magnetic paper. This magnetic paper has adhesive so no gluing is needed. You could also get printable magnetic paper and print the dolls right on. The printable had a lot of white space so I decided to cut out the dolls and position them to utilize the paper better.
I love personalized things. It's because growing up, when my relatives would buy me souvenirs, I would always get the one that said "# 1 Girl" or sometimes "Renee"(which apparently was close enough), because Rena is not a common name.
I made these personalized name tags for the holidays for all the kids in the family. The name tags can be attached to a lunch box, back pack or a jacket or anything that needs some identification.
To make these tags you needs shrink plastic, 1/8 inch hole punch, a jump ring, a key chain loop, sharpie (optional) and a die cut machine (or if you are really good with a craft knife you can use that too).
Cut out your the name on shrink plastic using a die cut machine. You do want to use a thicker font and
make sure all the letters are overlapped with good thickness, or the tag may break at the thin areas.
Punch a hole at one end of the shrink plastic. I used a 1/8 inch hole punch which when shrunk makes
a very small hold (smaller than 1/16 inch) just large enough for the jump ring. If you have a bigger jump ring
you should use a larger hole punch.
To draw on polka dots I used a pattern as a template and just followed the dots with a sharpie.
My shrink plastic was semi transparent so I could
see the pattern through the plastic.
Follow the instruction on the shrink plastic to shrink. After plastic is cooled attach key chain.
