Tonya Staab

The LEGO NINJAGO Movie: Handmade Dragon Piñata

Disclosure: This Dragon Piñata inspired by The LEGO NINJAGO Movie is sponsored by Warner Bros. Pictures.

We are so excited about The LEGO NINJAGO Movie being released in theaters on September 22nd. If you've been visiting my blog for a while you would know how much we love LEGO, and Flynn loves LEGO NINJAGO!

The LEGO NINJAGO Movie stars Dave Franco, Justin Theroux, Fred Armisen, Abbi Jacobson, Olivia Munn, Kumail Nanjiani, Michael Peña, Zach Woods, and the legendary Jackie Chan.

In this big-screen NINJAGO adventure, the battle for NINJAGO City calls to action young Master Builder Lloyd, aka the Green Ninja, along with his friends, who are all secret ninja warriors. Led by Master Wu, as wise-cracking as he is wise, they must defeat evil warlord Garmadon, The Worst Guy Ever, who also happens to be Lloyd’s dad. Pitting mech against mech and father against son, the epic showdown will test this fierce but undisciplined team of modern-day ninjas who must learn to check their egos and pull together to unleash their inner power of Spinjitzu.

I'll be bringing you more next week about the movie, including interviews, and more from LEGOLAND California, but for today, let's celebrate this fabulous new movie with a fun DIY project that your kids are going to love.

The Green Ninja Mech Dragon Piñata!

Isn't he spectacular!

Now, this is a slightly time-consuming project, but so rewarding, and the look on your kids' face when you are done will be worth it.

The Pirate Fairy Costume

Both Marisol and Flynn decided they want to dress as pirates this year for Halloween.

I think Flynn's been a pirate three times already, it seems to be his thing, but for the last two years I've handmade costumes for him - Mr Bump and LEGO Lord Vampyre. I'm sure I could have thrown together a DIY costume for him this year, but I decided to just purchase a new pirate shirt for him (from Party City), pair it with black pants that were already in his closet and re-use his pirate hat, hook and eye patch from previous years. So simple.

I was actually surprised though when Marisol suggested The Pirate Fairy to me, and of course she did this only a couple of days before we were headed to a social media event where the kids had been asked to wear costumes.

Nevertheless it came together quite well.

The best part, I only needed to purchase one item for it, the rest we already had.

Face Painting Ideas for Kids

This past weekend we celebrated Marisol and Flynn's 6th birthday at Legoland. They decided to do this instead of having a birthday party, but we are already members of Legoland so I wanted to make their birthday celebration there a little more special. I found a great Plum District for two nights accommodation in a villa with beautiful ocean views at the Grand Pacific Palisades, which is right across the street, and then we told the kids they could each invite a friend (and their friend's family) to join us at Legoland for a day of fun. Thankfully our Plum District deal also included tickets to Legoland and with a recent Klout Perk in hand too, we were pretty much covered for tickets for our guests.

On Friday afternoon Legoland was attempting a world record for having the most vampires in the same location at the same time. Unfortunately we fell short, but with over 700 vampires in attendance, it really was quite a sight. Of course the kids and I dressed as vampires to attend. This was a great way to kick off our weekend of fun.

Now, I don't profess to be an expert when it comes to face painting. I can whip up a quick costume, but I don't have a terribly steady hand so I normally stick to the basics when it comes to painting faces. However there is a bonus to being a Klutz Books Ambassador, they sent me the Face Painting book which comes with make-up, a sponge, and a brush. A bonus, was they had a tutorial for making a vampire face that was perfect for the little man.

Halloween Silhouette

Last year I won a lovely silhouette of Flynn from Simply Silhouettes.  I wanted to give it a little makeover this year so it didn't have the date and could be used every year as part of our Halloween decor.

Here are the step-by-step instructions to create this.  First off let me tell you that I purchased the embroidery hoop for 50 cents from a thrift shop last month.

1. Cut out the silhouette using an X-ACTO knife.
2. Lay the inner section of the embroidery hoop over a piece of paper and cut to the exact size.
3. Using a little Elmer's glue the silhouette to the paper and then the paper to the embroidery hoop.
4. Lay a piece of rope across the upper corner of the picture and attach small triangle flags (cut from scrap paper) using glue.
5. Using a black Elmer's painters pen paint the from section of the outer frame.
6. Once dry insert the inner section of the frame into the outer section.  Hang on the wall.

Disclosure: This project has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Elmer's #gluenglitter #collectivebias.  

AS SEEN ON:

Craft

MY PRINCESS PARTY TO GO

While at the BlogHer conference last week I picked up a little swag.  2 of the items I collected from the Mom Select Swag Suite were these:

These party favors were provided by the wonderful people at My Princess Party To Go.  My kids were over the moon when I gave them each their party favor last night. 

Check them out for your princess party needs.  They seem to carry a lot of really cute princess party items on their site and they are affordable too.