Create-Celebrate-Explore

Princess Adventure Story Book

At some stage during BlogHer I received this:

 

www.hellohanna.com

Hello Books: Princess Castle

Ages: 4+

rrp: $9.95

I have no idea where I was, or how I acquired it, but Marisol was over the moon when I showed it to her. 

We love to make our own books.  I feel that it encourages imagination, helps children's reading skills, as well as inspiring a love of books and crafting. 

The kit comes with an accordian style book, removable stickers and lots of ideas for fun things to create.  It's very simple for children to understand.  Marisol was able to look at the pictures and immediately choose the stickers she would need to re-create them in her book.  She also used her crayons to create things like a pond, clouds, grass and a mountain.

This is just one reason why I love attending conferences such as BlogHer.  I am introduced to fabulous companies such as this one.  If you haven't taken a look at the Hello Hanna website, I highly recommend it.  They have some lovely things for children that would make wonderful gifts such as paper dolls, books, and placemats. 

They also have edible cupcake toppers, cupcake stands, and wishing trees, as well as new items on the horizon.  Their books and placemats would also make lovely additions to birthday parties.  Take a look at their ideas gallery.  Such fabulous ideas and beautiful images.

Spring Memory Books

I'm over at Multiples and More today sharing a tutorial to make a Spring Memory Book with your kids.  They can fill the pages with writing, drawing, dried flowers, photographs, anything they want to remember their spring adventures.

 

This post linked to:

 

 

My Crayola Kids (+ a giveaway)

UPDATE: THIS GIVEAWAY HAS ENDED

The WINNER drawn by random.org is:

Nicole Carpenter who said ... We plan on "sharing" the gift of imagination this season. My two children and I are going to sit down and make our own homemade Christmas cards this year,that way we can share with all of our family and friends.

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This is one page of a 6-page coloring book I created on Crayola's Story Studio for Flynn

(P.S. You might need to click on the photo above to read the story)

Isn't it adorable.  He's going to love it.   Especially the train.  I printed it out on card stock and am  going to bind it and pop it under the Christmas tree with a box of Crayola Crayons.

Want to make one too?  I have a code so you can try it out.  Now just make sure you don't use the code until you are ready to go because it only gives you access for 48 hours: Access code: PRY4DBJJ

So to give you a quick run-down of what you do, once you log on and use the access code, you upload a headshot of your child, that gets turned into a character, which you choose a story and costume for.  Once you are done editing your story (it took me about 30 minutes from start to finish), you can save it to your Crayola profile and print it out.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

A couple of days ago I had a large box of Crayola products turn up on the doorstep from MyBlogSpark.  The box contained:

My kids immediately jumped with joy.  They love doing activities.  But, I sat down and explained to them about the gift of giving over the holiday season and that not all little boys and girls are as lucky as they are.   Without whining or complaining they more than happily let me donate these wonderful gifts to a local toy drive.  I'm so proud of them.   Although I did keep the box of crayons to give to Flynn with his new Crayola Story Studio coloring book ... but shh, he doesn't know.

Now here is where I get to keep on giving.

One of my readers will win:

• Glow Explosion Spin Magic
• Mess Free Color Wonder Sound Studio
• Model Magic Presto Dots
• A box of 64 Crayola Crayons with a Story Studio access code

That's right, all of the items that I received pictured above - value $83.  To learn more about these items, please check out the Crayola Holiday Gift Guide.

To enter, answer this question:

How do you plan on giving the gift of imagination this holiday season?

This giveaway will end on Thursday 16 December, 2010 at 10pm PST.   A winner will be chosen via random.org.

Entry is open to all U.S. Residents over the age of 18.

Crayola are on Facebook and Twitter.  You should follow them.

 

Disclaimer:  The Crayola products that I received (and donated), access code and the giveaway are provided by Crayola through MyBlogSpark. 

Kids Activities: Spring Scrapbooks

Armed with glitter, stickers, chipboard cut-outs, glue, crayons and stamps, the kids set to work making their own Spring books.  I won't share every page of the books, but I've added photos of a few of my favorites.  It became a day-long project while we waited for glue to dry before moving onto the next page, but that kept them interested as they got a break to play outside in-between pages.

MARISOL'S BOOK

FLYNN'S BOOK

 

Linked up with: Tip Junkie, Today's Creative Blog, Skip to my Lou,  Making The World Cuter

 

How to Preserve Kids Artwork

Having 3 children and being a crafter who encourages her children to explore arts and crafts regularly means that we have boxes upon boxes of art and craft projects in our garage - those that aren't hanging on the wall of course.  We are not going to be able to store these forever so I have been looking into alternatives to hanging onto everything.

For example, recently I posted about the kids wearing their art.  One day these art shirts will be used as part of a quilt for each of the kids.

So when I was presented with an opportunity to try out American Greetings PhotoWorks I jumped at the chance.  I knew exactly what I wanted to create. 

A coffee table art book. 

Marisol absolutely adores it.  She has asked my husband and I each to read it to her a couple of times, and it was only delivered today.  I chose pieces of art that had a special meaning behind them - her very first crayon art, Holiday projects, a few special school projects and a handmade card that was sent to her daddy while he was deployed, to name just a few.  Each piece has a meaning behind it and most of them have a little story that goes along with the image.  Like the time her and her brother decided to paint the downstairs bathroom pink and blue and then paint themselves.  Yep, that was included.

Once all of the pieces of art were scanned or photographed it was extremely easy to upload them to the PhotoWorks site and arrange them onto pages.  Their editing tools are a breeze to use and you can change the page layouts, colors and typefaces with the click of a button.  

Over time I plan on whittling away at the boxes in the garage and make a series of books for each of the children.  A series that I can pass onto them when they are older, that they can share with their children.  

 

As seen on:

iVillage  /  Modern Parents Messy Kids

Disclosure: "I wrote this review while participating in a blog tour campaign by Mom Central on behalf of American Greetings PhotoWorks and received a free photo book to facilitate my review."

3rd Birthday Party at School

Seeing as we have just recently moved to a new town and don’t know too many people, I didn’t organize a big birthday bash for the twins this year. 

Yes, those who know me personally are gasping in horror right now. 

That doesn’t mean that we won’t be celebrating.  After all, we had a last week while my parents were visiting from Australia and we will have another one tomorrow on their actual birthday.

Instead I arranged for the kids to have a celebration in their classroom at school.

In keeping with the ‘school’ theme I sent along bags of organic fruit (oranges, apples, pears and peaches) that the teachers cut up after lunch and I made educational gift bags for all of the children in the class to take home.

Each gift bag contained:

• A chipboard book – 50 cents each from Michaels
• Packet of 24 crayons – 20 cents each from Target
• Scrap paper cut-outs – $2.68 for 1 packet of multi-patterned papers from Target

And all of this for a little under $2 per gift bag.

On each chipboard book I hand-stamped “My Book” on the cover and then using the twins play-doh cutters as stencils I cut out assorted characters that the children could glue into their book.

Each book kit was put into a lunch bag.

I hope all of the children in their class enjoy the extra art activity that we sent home with them today.

THE PINK BOOK

Here is the last book in the series for the twins. 

 

Inside pages

Created using Scrapblog

View all the books in this series: Blue book - Red book -  Orange book -  Green book -  Brown book -  Pink book

As seen on:

Tip Junkie / Kireei / Crafts Cool /  The Crafty Crow /  Craft Gossip /  One Pretty Thing

THE BROWN BOOK

Inside pages:

Created using Scrapblog

 

View all the books in this series: Blue book - Red book -  Orange book -  Green book -  Brown book -  Pink book

As seen on:

Tip Junkie / Kireei / Crafts Cool /  The Crafty Crow /  Craft Gossip /  One Pretty Thing

THE GREEN BOOK

Inside pages

 

Created using Scrapblog

 

View all the books in this series: Blue book - Red book -  Orange book -  Green book -  Brown book -  Pink book

As seen on:

Tip Junkie / Kireei / Crafts Cool /  The Crafty Crow /  Craft Gossip /  One Pretty Thing

THE ORANGE BOOK

Here it is, THE ORANGE BOOK. 

Inside pages

Created using Scrapblog

View all the books in this series: Blue book - Red book -  Orange book -  Green book -  Brown book -  Pink book

As seen on:

Tip Junkie / Kireei / Crafts Cool /  The Crafty Crow /  Craft Gossip /  One Pretty Thing