My boys were so excited to hear about the new (third) season of "Dragons: Race to the Edge" on Netflix, that we decided to make a simple craft to celebrate. I love watching my boys dress up and "pretend", so I am always willing to craft a new item for their costume box. Today, I am sharing the simple instructions for this paper Viking helmet. To make your own Viking hat, follow the steps and graphic below. Step 1: Cut two strips of card stock and cover both strips with tin foil. Secure with tape. One strip should be long enough to wrap around the child's head, and the other strip (which will be the top of the helmet) should be shorter. Step 2: Fit the long strip around the child's head, and tape in place. Step 3: Use tape to attach the shorter strip to the helmet. Step 4: Draw horns on a piece of white card stock, and tape to the sides of the helmet. If your kids are fans of the "Dragons: Race to the Edge" series, you are going to want to check out the announcement that inspired our little craft. I love this little DIY Viking helmet, don't you? If you make one, let me know. I always love hearing from people that have made crafts from my tutorials. ♥ Gina (aka East Coast Mommy)
Learn how to host a vision board party! Get tips for making a vision board, supplies to buy, what guests should bring, and what NOT to do.
The origins of this art lesson came from a pin that I found on Pinterest connecting to the blog B Art Z - Elementary Art. I have been SO excited to blog about my new and improved cup weaving lesson! So last year I attempted to do cup weaving with my some of my students.. and while I loved the results.. the process was infuriating! For some reason I thought it was a great idea to weave with plastic cups - which made sharp jagged edges when cut by children. When that didn't go smoothly I thought myself sooooo clever to switch to styrofoam cups - which ended up making spokes (warp strips) that snapped off when pulled on to much. FINALLY I figured it out - PAPER CUPS!! These work PERFECTLY!! It is easy for the kids to cut the strips themselves AND they are surprisingly very durable. **Get them in bulk here! The first thing I had my kids do was write their name on the bottom of their cup with a sharpie. Then they placed their upside-down cup onto a template I created and made a tick mark on the rim of the cup everywhere where they saw a triangle poking out - this gave them evenly spaced points to cut from. When cutting out the spokes/warp strips, it is extremely important to remember to cut out an odd number of strips so that when you are weaving your AB pattern, the pattern alternates each consecutive time around. I found that with the 9oz cups my kids were using, 9 strips turned out to be the perfect number. Once the strips were cut, students double-knotted a piece of yarn to one of the strips, then began weaving! This particular class worked for 5 days straight on this (they really are a wonderful group).. and I had a few students who even completed 3 very well done cups in this amount of time (a couple even got pulled for our county art show)! :)
Lifestyle blog showcasing craft tutorials, holiday fun, party planning, recipes, DIY projects, travel tips, and more. Easy & inexpensive family fun.
House Beautiful's ultimate entertaining guide will give you 101 tips on how to throw a dinner party that no guest will forget.
My son's spy party last year was a TON of work, but so much fun to put together. I knew that I wanted the party to include clues to figure out and solve a mystery, but I wasn't sure exactly how to do it. Some of my earliest ideas were so complicated that my family just stared at me like I was crazy when I tried to explain it to them. I was getting myself confused! So I will skip those ideas, and just tell you about what we did - because it worked. THEME: Our plan was to make our house a Top Secret Spy training center. The Evil Dr. Chaos became our villain trying to ruin our party and blow up the loot (treat bags) if we didn't solve the clues to stop him in time. INVITATIONS: My parties always start with inspiration from other creative party planners out there on the internet. I found an invitation that was a mini file folder, and that's what I duplicated, with my own twist of course. I got the pattern for the mini file folders from here and sized them to be about 1/2 sheet when folded to fit into a 6"x9" envelope. The font I used for the 'TOP SECRET' is Reprise Title found here. They all had another tag on them that read "For ____'s eyes only" so my son would know who to give them to. The invitation included a mason cipher to solve the secret code which was "I love cake and ice cream". The font I used for the cipher was Fam-Code found here. *I have a copy of the spy seal I used in the invites and for the front cover of the handbooks that I can email you. Or get a blank one here. I also have versions of it for Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom that I have made upon request. Click on the links above to download the Spy Seals from Box.com *Update 5/29/18: I'm sorry that the Spy Seals for the above countries are no longer available due to unintentional copyright issues. I will work on changing the name on the seals, re-designing the whole seal, handbook, badges and freebies to be even better and getting new ones available soon! The blank one is still available for now. ACTIVITIES: So MANY activities!!! I'll just go in the order we did them. First we had the boys complete a background check. We asked them the secret password and then they were fingerprinted and received their security passes. These were really fun to make with my NSA symbol on them and their names, code name, and name in bar code. I bought plastic badge holders and clips at Walmart. The fonts I used to make the badges and the training manual cover sheets were: Reprise Stamp, Due Date, and Free 3 of 9 (bar code font). The bar codes actually spelled out everyone's names, so they were all different. The kids got the 'Agent in Training' badges, my older kid helpers got the 'Top Secret Agent' badges and I was the 'Chief Operating Officer'. You can see on these what I did with the Great Seal of the USA. I added the rings and text, the key, the bomb and NSA on the shield and the sunglasses on the eagle to make him cool. I took individual photos of each trainee at the party (in sunglasses), and my plan was to put their photo onto a new Top Secret Agent badge for completion of the program. Unfortunately, my oldest son had his appendix rupture a couple of days after the party and I never got around to it. The most important things must come first. BUT, for all you UK readers, awesome reader Wendy created one for your use. Download it here. Thank you Wendy! If you are from another country and need to change the badges with the above seals, here is the file for you. For all US readers, the badges are contained in the Spy Handbook link below. Fingerprinting: I saw some fingerprinting sheets kind of like these on a website for child safety and made my own version on cards for each guest. I just bought a cheap black ink pad at the dollar store and had my daughter fingerprint the boys and wipe off their fingers on a wet washcloth. While waiting for everyone to get fingerprinted I had them do some stretching exercises to prepare for training, then we went into the back yard where their spy training manuals were set up on a table. I bought big clips to hold in all of the papers, which was very important for an outdoor party with possible wind. Download the Spy Handbook pages here! *Update: The spy handbook had to be removed also (as mentioned above). I've added photos of the printables that don't have the Spy Seal on them for you to save and use. The first page included the activities that we would be doing for the rest of the party and what skills they would develop. Having a plan is SO important for a party with so much happening to keep you on schedule and make sure you remember to do everything. #1 Spy Words. This was a word search that I printed off from a website that creates word searches. There are tons of them out there, you just type in the words and tell it what size you want your puzzle. Since it took me quite a while to come up with the words for the word search, I will include them here since the whole purpose of this blog is to make party planning easier for everyone. If you don't want to know them, just skip down to #2. Intelligence, explosives, character, bribery, security, headquarters, cipher, objective, mystery, training, double agent, combat, laser beam, concealment, escape, evidence, mission, spying, eyewitness, fingerprints, clearance, informants, ammunition, secret, culprits, binoculars, rescue, fugitives, mastermind, observation, cover, badge, operative, disguise, incident, bugging, electronics, climbing, top secret, demolitions, warrant, bomb, footprints, target, investigation, villain, microchips, keys transmission, agency, magnify, undetectable, criminals. We only spent a few minutes working on these and then moved on. They could finish them at home. #2 Code Breaking. There are so many different codes, that I had a hard time deciding what ones to do. I must have been really tired coming up with these, because they totally made me crack up (well, the second one did). I got the Morse code photo last year on here, a site for kids run by the real NSA, but I can't find it on there anymore. If you want to decipher them yourself, then don't read this part because here are the solutions: 'The blue moose left the party' 'That thief is wearing a cheap suit. Wait, that's my suit!' (that one was my favorite) and 'The safe is in the outhouse'. I know, they're stupid, but I was trying to make it fun for 9-year old boys, and if I get a kick out of it, it's just an added bonus. :) #3 Memory Training. We've all played this game before. Bring out a tray of items, view them for 1 minute, write down all you can remember that was on the tray. Went great with this party theme! These are the items on our tray: digital camera, binoculars, cassette tape, air-mail envelope, $10.00 bill, measuring tape, pencil, flashlight, combination lock, Scotch tape, sunglasses, walkie-talkie, cell phone, pen, remote control, post-it notes, and it was all laying on top of the obituaries from the newspaper (nobody got that one). At the bottom of this page is a little spot-the-difference puzzle I got from here. #4 Pass the Dynamite. This was fun to play, and fun to make the dynamite! I love creating props. I found the dynamite idea here, and made mine just using cardboard tubes stuffed with newspaper and wrapped with red tissue paper. The colored wires were from the inside of a piece of electrical wire and they are just hot-glued into the tops. I wrapped them together with black electrical tape. If you want your dynamite to last for more that one party, then I suggest you Mod-Podge over the tissue paper because it tore from being handled so much. I made 5 sticks, and I recommend a digital timer. To play the game, you just set the timer and start passing the dynamite around a big circle like a hot potato. When the timer goes off, whoever is holding it - blows up! They are then out of the game until it gets down to the last person. #5 Gum Shoe Detective. The boys all traced their shoe on a piece of paper and then we mixed them up and gave everybody a tracing. They had to try and find out who the shoe print belonged to. It wasn't that exciting, so I don't recommend it. If nobody seems interested, I quickly move to the next activity. I think it would have been more fun to make a shoe print on a piece of tinfoil and they could have checked the tread pattern on the bottom of everyone's shoes. #6 Target Practice. This activity failed due to Nerf gun failure. I had printed out a target that they were going to take turns shooting at with Nerf guns, but apparently my son's had killed their guns and didn't let me know about it until we tried using them at the party. If I would have known that I would have done something like shooting Dixie cups off of a board with a squirt gun or something. Luckily we had plenty of other activities to fill the time. #7 Laser-beam Avoidance. I got two wooden poles and hooked a red piece of yarn between them. If they got under it, we lowered the string. You know, it was like Limbo, but the boys could go under the yarn any way they wanted to as long as they didn't touch the laser-beam. We got it down to about 6" off the ground and some of those boys could still scoot on their bellies under it. They had a lot of fun with this game. #8 Bomb Squad. We had to move indoors to do this activity since balloons don't agree with grass. We blew up tons of small black water balloons before the party and placed them on the carpet. Each boy had about 30 seconds to pop as many bombs as they could while everyone else counted. Some boys could only do a few and some did a lot. It made a big mess, but boys love making messes (and noise). FOOD: #9 Evidence Destroying. We told them that they had to get rid of any evidence that we had a party by eating all of the food. We had pizza and root beer for the food, nothing fancy, and cupcakes and ice cream cups. The cupcake toppers were just made with clip-art punched into circles and placed on wooden skewers. As they finished eating, the doorbell rang and there was an envelope on the doorstep with an MP3 player in it and a cipher for a secret code. We hooked the MP3 player up to a speaker and it played this message: "Welcome new recruits, I am the NSA President. We are aware that you are here for spy training, but an urgent situation has arisen. The Evil Dr. Chaos has been trying to disrupt this school for years. We have just been informed that he has stolen your loot bags and set a bomb to blow them up! You are the only available agents in the area, and all will be lost if you can't unravel the clues and diffuse the bomb before it goes off. If you complete this assignment you will automatically be promoted and receive your official spy certification. The secret message we discovered is hidden in the mailbox. Be careful - and good luck!" I wanted it to be in my husband's voice, but he was out of town (in the middle of the dessert) with no cell phone service or I would have had him call and say the message over the phone. I had my oldest son record it for me. This photo shows all of the different clues and the ciphers for each one. I thought they would make more sense if you could see them in a photo. Some are also included in the Spy Handbook files. Clue #1 in the mailbox. I got this wording idea from another site, but I can't find where. It was great though and got adapted to fit our party! I wrote the message to include all of the letters I needed to spell out my clue, then those letters were changed to italics. It's hard the tell in this font which is called Ghostwriter. Then I drew little boxes around all of the correct clue letters and changed the font to white and printed it so only the boxes showed up. With an Exacto knife I cut out the little boxes, and when you lay it over the message the next clue is revealed. It says 'The next clue is on the door of the shed'. Clue #2 tied to the door of the shed. This one used a code that was in their training handbooks which they had just used, so they recognized it and rushed over to figure out the code. We tried to make sure that different boys got to work on deciphering one of the codes if they wanted a turn. This clue said, "The hen is in the nest." Clue #3 was in the nesting boxes for our chickens. This clue used the Mason cipher which had come with their birthday invitation and included two ciphers. There is actually a font for this code called FAM-Code so you don't have to draw little pictures, you can just type in what you want it to read. The clue spelled out, "They lay eggs in sand, but in this one you dig!" Clue #4 was in our turtle sandbox. The clue was in a plastic bag which contained a small mirror. I printed out the clue in reverse so they had to use the reflection in the mirror to read it. It read, "So you think you're on my heels? Well, this final clue is on wheels. It doesn't drive you anywhere, but pulls your stuff in there. In a chest shut up tight, but don't search in the back yard or it will take all night. You'll have to stop me soon, because if you're too late then....BOOM!!!" Before the party I lit this paper on fire to try and make it look like someone tried to burn it. Well, I almost had to start over because I barely got the flames put out in time! (Do that part near water!) The bomb and treat bags were hidden in a tool chest on our trailer. The kids all grabbed their loot and the bomb and after getting a photo of them all, I told them that their final task was to de-fuse the bomb by destroying it. They happily tore it to shreds and it was full of candy. It would be fun to do a pinata for the bomb, but we were out of time anyway. The bomb was made out of a cardboard dishwasher tablet canister. You could also use a round oatmeal container. TREAT BAGS: I wanted to get cloth bags made for the loot bags, but it didn't happen. I used white paper sacks instead, and I think they turned out just as cute! The $ labels are in the Spy Handbook. They included: A notebook, magnifying glass, Mentos (if you've seen the Agent Cody Banks movies you know why), 100 Grand candybar, Smarties, Atomic Warhead jawbreakers, a squirt gun, and play money. They also got to take home their training folders, badges and pencils. WHEW! That was exhausting just blogging about the party, you can only imagine how I felt after planning it. It was really a lot of fun though, and now completely ready for you to copy. All you need to do is come up with clues to fit your party, make some cupcakes and go shopping for loot! Yeah, I know there's a little more to it than that, but hopefully I got some good spy party vibes heading your way. Happy party planning!
While prepping for this week's Studio 5 segment, I came across these darling toothpick dolls. They are so easy to make, and inexpensive! All you need is toothpicks, cut like this: Embroidery floss, in whatever color you want. I like #739 for the skin color. Embroidery floss is not expensive, and can be purchased at most craft or sewing stores. I got mine at Ben Franklin, for $.39 each. Alene's Tacky Glue: First, glue the legs on, as shown in the photo above. Let them dry. Place a small dot of glue on where the three pieces meet, and wrap the floss starting at the top, and making your way down. Decide where you want the skirt to end, and place a dot of glue there, and smooth the floss into it. Make sure you always end on the same side. Next, glue the arms on. You can wrap them first in skin color floss, I don't mind leaving the toothpicks natural. Next, wrap the shoulders starting with a glue dot in the back. My daughter wrapped this with thicker floss. You can see if gives if a different look and texture. Next, wrap the head. You can make a long thin head, or a round head. You choose what you want. Just make sure not to go over the top of the toothpick, and add glue to the back of the head periodically, otherwise, all your floss could come off, and that would lead to more work. Next, add the hair. The best tip is to start in the back, with a two inch piece of floss folded in half. Add a dot of glue to the hairline. Place the fold on the glue. Then, add more until you feel it is thick enough. After you have finished, give your doll a haircut for the desired length. Small embroidery scissors work best. Boys are fun to make as well, you will use the same technique, just wrap each leg separately first. These were so fun, my daughter started making them with me, and now we have a little family! Have a Happy and Creative Day! Risa
As a class, we made a chart listing words with the /oo/ sound. I titled the chart "Words That Say BOO" and used the enormous googly eyes in the word boo.
Learn how to host a vision board party! Get tips for making a vision board, supplies to buy, what guests should bring, and what NOT to do.
Planning an airplane-themed party and looking for fun game ideas? Check out this free printable airplane game of charades. Sure to cause giggles!
Lifestyle blog showcasing craft tutorials, holiday fun, party planning, recipes, DIY projects, travel tips, and more. Easy & inexpensive family fun.
We may earn money or products from the companies mentioned in this post. Please see policies for more information. We’ve gotten LOTS of comments on some updates we’ve done to our home throughout the years so I thought I’d share the latest that I am SO happy to have done. The door knobs! Goodbye cheap knobs that
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When I took the job at my school two years ago, I inherited this fantastic maypole: Apparently the maintenance people (who are amazing!) at our school made it a few years ago. The pole is a really thick pvc pipe. The ribbons are attached to a rotating bike wheel at the top. Even though it rotates, the ribbons still create a fantastic weave! Usually sand bags are placed over the boards at the base, but we could not find them. The must have walked away for something else. Last year I did not get the maypole out because I had no clue how to do it or teach it and it seemed incredibly daunting last year. This year as May drew nearer I knew that I wanted to try it. I started researching maypole dancing. Here were some helpful links: http://www.maypoledance.com/maypoledance.html And here is a link about making your own: http://www.maypoledance.com/maypole.html Procedures: 1. Have every student stand beside a ribbon 2. Demonstrate how to hold the ribbon (in your hand farthest away in the maypole,using your other hand to guide the ribbon over and under). I had everyone facing clockwise. Our ribbons were long enough that I told my kids that they should have a "tail" hanging down from their hand. We practiced how to make the tails longer or shorter so that the ribbons would not touch the floor. 3. The first time through we just walked in our circle. We may sure not to pass anyone and keep ourselves evenly spaced. Once I could see that was successful, we would turn and go the other way, then we would try the same thing with skipping feet. 4. Then we would number off (1, 2) and I would have my 2's (blue in picture below) stay put and my 1's (greens) got to weave in and out the 2's. I would call "under" and "over" and I modeled what that would look like for both ones and twos. Starting out we moved very slowly and I would wait til all my ones had progressed one space before I would give the next call. In a few of my classes I would have a student who would move ahead of my instructions and it would mess up the weave and we would have to restart. After that, everyone listened perfectly because the really wanted to be able to create the weave and unweave it correctly. My first graders were even able to do this weave! Here's a picture from one of my third grade classes. Sorry it's not the best quality but it gives you an idea. I didn't have enough kids for every ribbon, so I wound the extra ribbons around the maypole before we started the song so they would be out of the way. You can see them below the weave in the picture (blue and orange ribbons). Here is a link to some other weaves you could try: http://www.ldssplash.com/traditions/may_day_traditions/mayday_dances.htm The music I used to accompany our maypole dancing was from the Amidons CD that I already owned. I did not buy any specific music for the maypole, but I just used an instrumental reel and it worked perfectly. In other news, this week is Teacher Appreciation day, and Teachers Pay Teachers is celebrating with a site wide sale starting on May 7th. Everything on the site will be at least 10% off and most teachers are throwing a sale on top of that so some stores can be up to 28% off (mine included!). This would be a great time to get stocked up before summer to help with your yearly planning. So hop on over and check out my store. Sale prices will show up on May 7th, but you can always get your wishlist ready. Of if your wishlist is already full and you have just been waiting for a great sale, your wait is almost over! You can also check out my newest item, Charlie (Over the River to Feed My Sheep): Slides for teaching tika-ti - friendly to whatever rhythm syllables you use! Just click on the picture below!
When I have an opportunity to get together and celebrate… I go all out! This month it was my turn to host book club, so it was the perfect opportunity to plan something fun! Occasionally, we…
Do you have any fun Halloween plans for this weekend or next week? Jenn here, looking forward to a few different costume parties… but I doubt any of them will be as much fun as our “The Birds”-themed Halloween party we shared last week! Due to the great response the post has received, today we’re […]
Party Planning is my middle name. Okay, so it's not. And thank goodness, because that would be a long middle name (you hear that, Chef Oliv...
I've been thinking about this party since last spring. When my best friend Mac suggested we throw a party together with our other best friend Chelle, I knew this would be the perfect theme. Chelle is a graphic designer (who I'm trying to convince to open an etsy site) and Mac has great taste in decorating and is the most awesome baker ever - as one guest said when "our powers combine parties happen" - ha ha ha. The idea of the party is to bring a book to exchange with someone else. We had the guests fill out this book plate (which we sent with the invite) and place it inside the book that they were giving away. The book table decor. Behind the table are garlands strung with book pages and circles of scrapbook paper. We gave book bags with a book journal and book marks to each guest. We played a little literature quiz that Chelle created, really cute and surprising how much you forget! For the actual book exchange we had each guest write their name on a piece of paper and then everyone drew another person's name to see whose book you would get. We had all the guests wrap their books before coming and so we each took turns unwrapping them and seeing what book we received. That created a lot of conversation and some of the guests left with a list of new books they "needed" to read. Of course no party is complete with out delicious food: I created the food labels from this card catalog generator. We did a soup and grilled cheese sandwich buffet. The grilled cheeses were to die for - parmesan sourdough bread from great harvest yum! We cooked them on the George Foreman grill which made it super quick and easy! Mac made the deserts, pumpkin cupcakes with cream cheese frosting - her own recipe! Chocolate cupcakes with gnash centers and cookie dough truffles - heaven. Water bottles wrapped in paper from a book. Great party - thanks ladies! Because we've had a lot of requests Michelle decided to give us a free download of the invite! Just open it in photoshop and add your text! Book Check Out-Template
You May Also Like 2009 – The Year That Was {Part Two} Kat December 31, 2009 The Cimbo Limbo posts continue with part deux of the grand review of 2009. Brace yourselves for the July to December extravaganza people! ♥ Jenny & Johnny were way to stylish and way to cool to exclude from this […]
A tutorial on how to make the easiest paper lantern in the world. So easy with high impact! Perfect for garden parties and birthday parties.
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Looking for a party that’s fun AND crafty?! Do yourself a favor and check out this cute New Year Dream Board Crafting Party at Kara's Party Ideas!
Do you hate networking but know it's important? Hosting your own networking event while also gaining leadership experience! Here's your complete guide!
Father's Day is right around the corner! And surprise, surprise... Chuck and I have yet to make hubby a gift or a card. (I've been pretty sick lately, so I've totally been off the ball with crafts. Ack.) Last year we made these super cute Father's Day Cards. This year... well... it might just be a chocolate bar and a doodle. (Sorry hubby!) But I still have a cute Father's Day card to share. This super-secret spy card would be great for older kids to make for dad. Kids create their own ciphers and codes. Then, dad decodes the message on Father's Day. Neat, right? You even turn the dials to find out the code. So. Cool! You can find a video for this Super Secret Father's Day Message Card on PBS today! (And if you need more tips on how to make the cipher work, check out my comments down in the comment section!) Let's keep in Contact! You can always find fun ideas on my Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter accounts! (Or subscribe to my email mailing list by filling out the pink bar at the top of your screen.) Happy making, friends!
170 p. : 22cm
Come and learn some new group games to make your next activity and get together a whole load of fun!
This Spy Party was one of the BEST birthday parties we've ever had! Each of the 7 missions were so much fun and the kids were totally into it!
