When my kids were younger, I would always start the Halloween costume suggestions with animals. First, who doesn’t love a cute little kiddo dressed up as a furry friend, a cute crawler, or an exotic species? There is so much DIY potential in these costumes from colors to textures to materials…what more could a crafty parent want??

When Parents magazine asked me to drum up some animal costumes this year for their October 2021 issue, I was all paws on deck. Starting with the smallest of the group…this elegant, stylish snail.

One great thing about this costume is that it’s worn like a backpack and is VERY lightweight, so it won’t aggravate even the most sensitive of kiddos. You can wear any under-clothes that you want from a frilly dress to leggings and a tee.

Check out the rest of the animals over at Parents.com!

Photos by Timothy Smith, Styling by Jill Rothstein

This post was sponsored by The Week Junior. 

The biggest summertime challenge of parenthood is how to balance out the summer fun while avoiding any brain drain. As we come off the weirdest school year in history, our kids’ focus on devices for learning, socializing, and playing have rocked the worlds of us parents…particularly ones like myself who pride themselves on the classics of unplugged fun: crafting, cooking, and especially reading.  

As the summer progresses, our world is feeling like it’s getting a bit closer to normal, and let me tell you, a subscription to The Week Junior for your 8-to-14-year-old kids will most definitely help you with that. Issue 63 is a treasure…one to hold onto for its amazing feature: ‘Best Kids’ Books for Summer.’ It’s a thoroughly curated list of exciting new books, classic books, and books of all genres for kids ages 8-14. Click this link to find the book list and for a chance to win a free bundle of books!

Oliver and Sommer LOVE getting their weekly issue of The Week Junior in the mail…Sommer immediately flips to the fun stuff in the back and Oliver goes directly to the science section. (And, to be honest, I like to read the politics and world news because I love the simplified version!) Also, when there’s a topic that feels hard to explain on their level, it serves as a great reference point. And for the summer, the ‘Best Kids’ Books for Summer’ feature really helps narrow the massive world of books for tweens. 

I was so excited when The Week Junior asked me to come up with some summer-inspired crafts for their summer marketing campaign! Check ‘em out below and use the templates and how-to instructions to make your own! 

And, whatever you do, don’t forget to click here for your own subscription to The Week Junior!

POPPY PAPER POPSICLES

What you’ll need: 

• Colorful craft paper
• Scissors
• Tongue depressors
• Glue or glue dots
• Bugle beads (optional)

Make it:

1. Print and cut out the template for the popsicle and trace onto colorful craft paper. 
2. Decide which design you want to make and cut the layers. Use the template to trace onto various colors of craft paper and cut them out from the full popsicle shape.
3. Glue each layer together. (Glue the bugle beads on as sprinkles: optional)
4. Glue a popsicle stick to the back.

Bonus idea: Tape a string to the backs of each popsicle and make a summery garland!

POSITIVE PENNANTS

What you’ll need:

• Felt in various colors
• Tacky glue
• Scissors
• ¼” dowels
• Straight pins

Make it: 

1. Print out word templates and pin them to a piece of felt.
2. Cut out the letters.
3. Place the letters on another piece of felt and cut the pennant shape around them.
4. Glue the letters to the pennant.
5. Cut a ¾” strip of a third color of felt and glue along the straight left edge. Trim the top and bottom to match the angle of the pennant.
6. Cut four 2” strips and glue behind the straight, left edge.
7. Glue the dowel behind the pennant and allow everything to dry completely.

ORIGAMI OCEAN

What you’ll need:

• Brown grocery bag
• Scissors
• Colorful craft paper
• Skewer
• Blue paint
• Large paper (16×20 inches)
• Paint brush
• Origami paper
• Upcycled manilla envelope

Make it:

LARGE BOAT

1. Cut a 9×12” piece of your grocery bag.
2. Follow these instructions to fold your boat. 
3. Trim your skewer to 8” tall. Poke skewer up through the bottom of the boat, through the middle point.
4. Print out the sail template and stack with craft paper. Cut out the templates and poke holes using the skewer on the top and bottom points of the sail.
5. Slip the sails over the skewer in this order: bottom of large sail, bottom of small sail, top of small sail, top of large sail.

WATER

1. Paint two pieces of paper blue. Let it dry.
2. Rip one piece of paper into strips, making waves as you rip.
3. Tape the strips over the solid blue paper.
4. Cut a wavy edge along the top of a manilla envelope to use as the beach.

You can also make small fish by following this origami tutorial.

This post was sponsored by The Week Junior. 

I have a thing for outdated tech…a wall-mounted rotary phone with a cord? Give me them all. Film cameras with bellows? I can’t resist. Typewriters? Yes and yes. And some might say that crafting one out of cardboard is as useful as owning a vintage one—neither actually work so why not design your own?

I made this super-fun DIY cardboard typewriter for Camp.com. In order to make one, you kind of have to be a recyclable hoarder—a shoebox, a paper towel roll, a cereal box, and some jar lids.

What you’ll need:

• What you’ll need:
• Shoebox (big kid size or larger)
• Scissors
• Ruler
• Duct tape
• 2 bendy straws
• 1 skewer
• Cardboard tube (paper towel or wrapping paper)
• 2 matching jar lids
• Black paint and paintbrush
• Tacky glue
• Glue stick
• Template
• Cereal box 
• Mounting squares
• Black plastic lid 
• Q-tips
• Black paint

Make it: 

1/ To create the sloped face of your typewriter, you have to cut the bottom half of the box on a slope. Measure 1 ½ to 2 inches from the bottom of the box and make a mark on the two front corners. Connect these points by drawing a line across the front and lines up the side diagonally to the top edge of the box’s bottom.

2/ Cut the box on these lines and cut off the rim of the box lid. Save the extra cardboard for Step 5.

3/ Fold the top of the box lid down and tape it on the three open sides (or four is your shoebox is not the hinged type.

4/ Cover the box in duct tape or a strong, colored masking tape. You may need to apply multiple layers to cover any logos.

5/ Cut 2 1 ½ -by-4-inch rectangles from the extra cardboard from Step 2. Cut two divots in the cardboard that fit the tube. (If your tube needs to be cut down, make sure it is about 1 inch wider than the box.)

6/ Cover them with tape, then tape them to the top sides of the box; trim the corner to follow the sloped line of the box.

7/ Paint cardboard tube black; let dry.

8/ Break skewer to match the width of the box. Bend your straws and trim the long ends to the length of the skewer; slip them over the skewer. Tape the short ends of the straws to the top corners of the shoebox typewriter. 

9/ Glue the jar lids to the ends of the painted cardboard tube; let dry.

10/ Print out keyboard template and use a glue stick to attach to the inside of a cereal box. (Choose your punctuation marks and emojis!)

11/ Cut out the keys and adhere them to the typewriter box using cut mounting squares. 

12/ Cut plastic lid (we used a tennis ball can lid) in half and glue one piece to the center of the typewriter along the top edge. (Save the other half for another project!)

Break Q-tips in half and dip the ends in black paint. Let them dry on wax paper. Glue them around the rim of the plastic lid from step 12. 

Who knows? This may be the start of the next great American novel!

Instead of preserving nature by pressing or drying leaves, you can instead use them to make an imprint in one of my favorite craft supplies: air dry clay.

Go on a nature walk with the kids and find leaves that have very pronounced veins—the more distinct the veins, the better the finished product. Roll out the air dry clay until it’s about 1/4″ thick, then use a rolling pin to press the leaves down into the clay. Peal away the leaves and use a toothpick to “cut out” the leaf. Gently rest the clay leaf inside a bowl, creating a bend, and let them dry completely (at least 24 hours). I made a very watery acrylic paint mixture to add a translucent coating to the leaves, but you can choose whatever paint finish you like. The one thing to keep in mind: if you are using water with your paint, you have to paint your strokes fast and few…when air-dry clay gets wet, guess what it does? It wants to return to malleable clay, so you have 2, maybe 3 strokes to get it fully covered.

Check out the full post that I did for Camp.com for more details!

Now that winter is over and spring cleaning is upon us, you likely have some lone gloves who lost their mate in the last sledding excursion of 2021. You have three options here…first, you can hold onto that glove, hoping that one day the other will magically reappear. Second, you might be the “out of sight, out of mind” type and you just get rid of the sad lone glove. And third, if you are like me, you’ll keep it and turn it into a fun craft.

The how-to for this recent project can be found over on Camp.com! And for other ideas of past glove monsters, check out this post from a few years back!