We had a backgammon set growing up in the 80s. It was brown pleather with tan and white triangular spaces. I loved everything about that set…I loved the snap of the clasps, the smell of the felt interior, and the smooth perfection of the playing pieces. Mind you I never played the game (I didn’t know how), but I loved to carry the set around like a briefcase holding important papers.
I finally learned to play the game during my senior year in college and gradually all of my roommates and close friends learned to play as well. We took our board everywhere…to the quad, to bars, on spring break, and to this day we still play when we’re together.
But now I’ve passed the love of the game onto my daughter Sommer. At only 7, she doesn’t have the most strategic moves and whenever I roll doubles, she declares that she’s going to lose. Whenever she sees a board at a friend’s house or restaurant, she insists on playing. And I’m always down.
I’ve seen lots of gorgeous backgammon boards, and I’ve always thought it would be the easiest of the classic games to make. Since the board itself is a lightweight bag, this DIY version is a perfect travel set. Your pieces can be virtually anything, but as I was crafting I wondered why I had never seen pieces that weren’t solid-colored circles. I thought about making ombre pieces, or patterned pieces, but then I settled on these charming, smirkish faces. And why Shrinky Dinks®? Basically because I am obsessed with them!
This is a great project to make as a gift or for yourself before a trip of any sort. Once the playing pieces are shrunk, they have a slightly rough texture which grips nicely to the felt board so no sliding.
Making Christmas ornaments is one of my favorite craft pastimes…they are like little artful sculptures, each one with its own personality. Snowmen, angels, elves…when you make these tiny little characters, you have so much opportunity to add little details that make them super special. And that’s why I was so excited when my friends at Brother asked me to use the new P-touch Embellish Elite to make a holiday craft for my blog this year.
When you hear P-touch you may automatically think of just a label. But the P-touch Embellish ELITE is SO not just a label maker…it’s a memory-maker, a craft-maker, and a gift-maker! First it prints on ribbon (from ~1/2″ to ~1″ wide) which is super-innovative. Next, you control it from your mobile device using the free P-touch Design&Print App, so you don’t have to type on a tiny buttoned keyboard. And lastly, you connect via Bluetooth® so it’s super slick, easy, and compact.
Have fun playing with all of the different ribbon and tape colors and printable patterns, fonts, and symbols that the P-touch Embellish ELITE has to offer. Definitely make this project a family affair…while you’re printing ribbon, your kids can be cutting felt or painting. And together you can bring some little elves to life to live on your Christmas tree this year!
Paint about 2/3 of the larger bead white. A nice trick for painting a bead is to put it on the end of a paintbrush so it can rest untouched while drying.
Once the white is dry, flip the bead over and paint the other half pink (or any color of your choice). Let this dry.
Use a black, red, and pink permanent marker to make the face of the elf.
Cut hair from felt and hot-glue it to the sides of the bead. Remember that you’ll have a hat on top, so it doesn’t have to be perfect!
Roll a piece of felt into a 1.5 to 2” cone and hot-glue the end to make an elf hat. Glue this on top of the doll’s head. Glue a white pom-pom to the point.
Cut 2-by-1/4” strips of felt to match the hat for the legs. Fold the end of the strip over and glue, then bend that folded end up and put a dot of glue to hold that part at a right angle. This creates a foot. Repeat for the second leg and glue to the bottom of the body (the non-white side).
Cut two thin 1-inch pieces of white felt for the arms. Cut out a small heart from red felt and glue it to connect the arms. Glue a thin white strip of felt around the base of the hat.
Glue the other ends of the arms to the top section of the larger bead. Glue the head to the body.
Print the scarf on the P-touch Embellish Elite using the thin ribbon. You can do a pattern, symbols, or vertical text and a frame, as shown here. The scarf should be about 5 to 6 inches long.
Print a 7 to 8-inch long wide ribbon on the P-touch Embellish Elite as the hanger. Fold ends over one another and glue the back of the elf’s hat.
I have loved stickers for as long as I can remember. As kids of the 80s, I, along with all my friends, carried my sticker binder to and from school, and at any free moment, we would sit in little clusters, trading scratch-n-sniffs for oilies (you know, the ones that had the oily liquid inside?). Some people would organize their collections by color, some by type, some by theme…mine were more chronological; I just liked to organize them in neat rows so my eyes could clearly scan the goods.
When my friends at Pipsticks, a super sticker subscription club that delivers a packet of stickers to your mailbox monthly, asked me if I wanted to collaborate on a winter sticker design, I nearly died. I went to town thinking of all of the ways I could combine my love of crafting with stickers to create a sticker sheet that gave sticker-lovers some creativity to create a design that felt uniquely theirs.
I went through my craft portfolio and thought about what people love to craft in the winter months…and snow globes came to mind. Some people like nature snow globes, some want skaters, and some go for animals and log cabins. With this sticker sheet, you can create the ideal DIY snow globe of your dreams—no hot-glue gun or fake snow required!
To get the Project Kid Snow Globe sticker sheet, subscribe by November 30, 2019…and, because you are a friend of ours, enter PROJECTKID15 at checkout for 15% off your first month! For all the sticker lovers in your life, this is a gift that keeps on giving!
It’s probably been at least 35 years since I’ve made a paper handprint turkey. And to be honest, in the nine years that I’ve been a mom, I don’t think either of my kids have ever brought home a handprint turkey. I’ve never been disappointed by that, mostly because I don’t totally love them.
But this year I decided that it would be fun to make a handprint turkey, using the hands of all four of our hands…my husband Michael, me, Oliver, and Sommer. I love the idea that it was a combo of all of our hands, so I wanted to figure out how to show the blending together of us. Instead of using construction paper, I used colored vellum.
These family handprint turkeys looks so pretty hanging in the window so the light can pass through them. If you want to make your own, check out the instructions below!
Draw an “8” on the printed side of the cereal box or grocery bag, about 6 inches tall. Cut out. Make sure the figure-8 has a smaller top than bottom.
Draw eyes, beak, and waddle on the smaller part of the figure 8. Set aside.
Trace each of your family members hands on a different color vellum. If there is only one small person in your family, trace his or her hand two times. Cut each out.
Using china marker or white colored pencil, draw feather like details on the fingers.
Cut two or three 2-by-2-inch pieces of cardboard.
Stack the hands with the largest in the back, stack cardboard squares on the palms, and then the turkey body on top.
Attach all of the layers with glue dots or a glue stick. (If you want to hang your turkey, punch a small hole in the longest finger and thread string through.)
Thank you UBTECH’s JIMU Robot for sponsoring this post. JIMU Robot kits are a fun way to bring robotics into every kid’s day to day. The system relies on three steps: Building, Coding, and Playing. Robot kits from UBTECH offer a wide variety of challenging builds for the curious children in your lives. With JIMU Robot, kids 8+ can engage in STEM learning with their award-winning interactive robotic building block system!
If I had to list all of the things that my 9-year-old son Oliver loves, until now I would have thought that it would be impossible for a toy to exist that touches all the bases. I find it hard to find toys for him that allow him to explore his creativity, his sharp robotics skills, and his love of building all in one. Let me explain…
Oliver’s top 3 interests right now include, but are not limited to…
Game design and coding
Construction toys
Anything related to Percy Jackson
But along came the UBTECH JIMU FireBot. This robot is amazing…you open the box to find all of the components and pieces neatly organized and arranged with a quick-start guide. You first download the free app (it works with both iOS and Android), and it takes you step-by-step through the building process, allowing you to zoom in and rotate the diagram 360 degrees so you can really make sure you are attaching the pieces accurately.
Right now Oliver is obsessed with mythical creatures from reading all of his Percy Jackson books, but if your kid is interested in sports, UBTECH has a JIMU robot for you too. (They also make a unicorn that my daughter is now begging me for!) And if your child loves to march to the beat of her own drum, she doesn’t have to build the robot exactly as it looks on the packaging (we are all about customization here at Project Kid)! As long as the mechanics are connected properly for the computer to function, the sky is the limit when it comes to design!
Whenever we build creations that have lots of little parts, we always get ourselves set up first. To start, we dump the large pieces in a tray (this time we used a big cookie sheet) and the small pieces go in separate small bowls. That helps prevent the “mom, I can’t find this piece!” mantra. And then I like to lay a fleece blanket on the floor under where we are sitting. This trick helps prevent dropped pieces from bouncing away from you. There is nothing worse than coming to the end of a build and not having all of the pieces!
We broke up our build into a few sessions one the weekend. We kept the components guide handy so we made sure we were selecting the right pieces for the right spots. And once we were done and connected to bluetooth, we were blown away at how the FireBot came to life!
The JIMU FireBot has you build, then code, and then play, igniting your child’s curiosity about STEM learning from beginning to end. You can code the LED light to glow fiery red as the jaw opens and closes, and make the FireBot drive smoothly around the house, flapping its wings.
I’m excited to continue to watch Oliver explore both his imagination and his coding skills!
The JIMU FireBot kit is available in store at Target, and from the following online retailers: Amazon.com, BestBuy.com, Kohls,com, Samsclub.com, Target.com, Walmart.com and ubtrobot.com.
The perfect craft equation to me is a bit of nature, something upcycled, and some traditional craft materials like yarn, buttons, and pipe cleaners. This cute yarn owl craft is exactly that!
This craft was inspired by the amazingly cool 1970’s macrame owls—when I was in Palm Springs last year, I saw this display at the Parker Hotel and couldn’t get it out of my head! I wanted to come up with an owl craft that had a branch for them to sit on, and that used yarn to give that soft feel like the rope macrame versions.
This craft works so well when done in large groups of kids…think birthday parties, classrooms, or craft events! Here are some examples of how kids create their own owls. One day I’m going to commission 30 kids to make me an owl so I can have my own wall!
What you’ll need:
• 1 stick
• 1 pipe cleaner
• felt
• glue
• yarn
• scissors
• 2 white buttons
• 2 black buttons
• 3×4” piece of cardboard
Make it!
1. Insert pipe cleaners through the holes of the cardboard and twist to attach to the stick to make the feet.
2. Glue ears to the top two corners of the cardboard.
3. Hook yarn into the slit on the cardboard and wrap until the cardboard is covered. Cut string and tuck the end.
4. Glue small black button to white button and glue to the owl as eyes.
5. Glue beak in between the eyes.
This post was sponsored by our friends at Aleene’s.
When it comes to ornaments, we think you can never have too many…and especially never too many homemade options! These little felt stocking ornaments are so cute, and when made with the super-strong Aleene’s Tacky Glue, they can actually hold little toys, candy, and other surprises. Just make the stocking base and decorate it however you like!
Trace stocking template onto felt and cut out. Repeat to make a second one.
Cut a strip of felt about ¾” wide with regular scissors or scallop shears. Cut a 3”-by-½” strip of felt.
Apply Aleene’s Tacky Glue around the outside edge of one stocking (make sure to not to glue the opening!) and stack the second stocking on top. Glue band around the top and then fold the thin strip and glue it into the inside. Now your stocking is made and it’s time to decorate it!
Trace three coins onto white felt and cut each out. Cut out a small thin triangle and a top hat from 2 other colors of felt. Cut out heel and toe from another color of felt (optional).
Arrange the felt circles into a snowman shape and glue to the stocking. Glue on the nose and hat.
This post was sponsored by our friends at Aleene’s.
This post was sponsored by our friends at Aleene’s.
Christmas garlands are not just for tree-trimming anymore…your kids can make this simple DIY paper ornament garland that can hang over the mantle, along the staircase, or even in their own room to add some holiday cheer! The cool thing about this design is that it has a spherical ornament shape that’s able to hang flat against the wall.
If you have enough garlands you can also make a bunch of these and turn them into ornaments for the Christmas tree!
What you’ll need:
Colored Card stock
2” circle punch
Aleene’s Tacky Glue
Scissors
String
Punch out two circles of the same color paper.
Fold both in half.
Glue two halves of each circle together to form a full circle.
Cut a ½”-by1” strip of gray paper and fold it in half.
Glue the open end to the back to create the ornament hanger. Repeat steps 1 through 5 to make as many ornaments as you’d like.
Once the glue is dry, string your thin cord through the loops in the gray paper.
This post was sponsored by our friends at Aleene’s.
This post was sponsored by our friends at Aleene’s.
You know that sinking feeling you have when it’s time to throw away the sugary gingerbread house that you and your kids slaved over? Here’s an upcycled paper version that you can save and display from year to year!
Starting with an empty tissue box as the basic shape, just add cardboard and any crafty embellishments that you have to make it magical and sweet. Great creative and crafty…think about what usually lives on a gingerbread house and think how you can make it from non-edible materials. Like you can twist a red and a white pipe cleaner together to make a candy cane if you don’t have these nifty paper straws! Here are a few little tips and tricks for how we dressed up our paper holiday gingerbread house!
Trace the side of the tissue box onto cardboard and cut out. Repeat to make a second piece. Print template, trace, and cut cardboard sides for the front and the back of the house. Cut a 5 ½ by 8 ½ piece of cardboard for the roof (make sure the corrugation is in the direction of the fold.)
Here is how we made our house, but use materials that you have and get creative!
Cut paper straws at an angle and glue them to the side edges of the front of the house. Glue two more to the front edge of the roof.
Cut colored cardstock into doors and windows.
Make a candy window by attaching small segments of a cupcake liner to the sides of a circular window.
Make a mini wreath by twisting a green pipe cleaner into a circle. Glue on a small pipe cleaner bow, and glue to the front door.
Add a snowy roof by painting a piece of white cardstock, sized to match the roof, with Aleene’s Tacky Glue, and sprinkle with glitter; let dry. Fold in half, cut a “drippy” edge, and glue to the roof.
Cut holly leaves from green felt and glue them to the apex of the roof with three mini red pom-poms.
Halloween ranks number one in holiday crafting both at Project Kid (the biz) and Project Kids IRL (Oliver and Sommer). We discuss our decorations and costumes about six months out and it’s constantly changing.
And every year I’m so exhausted by all the crafting that I never think about me (typical mom). And I thought to myself, what does a mom want in a costume…she wants it to be easy, comfortable, and chic. I threw on my favorite Entire World sweatshirt, jeans, and the DIY accessory that made it all come together!
So this year, I made a few costumes that are easy-to-make and take less than 20 minutes. I was inspired by this cute DIY beach bag design by Alice & Lois. Check out the how-to below!
