DIY Lion Guard Costumes

October 12, 2016October 13, 2016 / ProjectMom / 6 Comments

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Months ago, Jacob told me he wanted to be Kion from The Lion Guard for Halloween. To no surprise, Evan and Avery wanted to team up with him as Beshte and Ono to help defend the pride lands!

For Kion and Beshte, I used orange and grey footed pajamas from footedpajamas.com (while also scoring a 15% off coupon from Retail Me Not – deals rock!). I attached red and black craft fur that I got from Michael’s Craft store (also available online at Amazon or Walmart) for hair, and used fleece fabric to sew on ears and a tail.

For Beshte, I designed a mask and created this TEMPLATE to make it into a fabric mask using felt squares and Stitch Witchery. Seriously, this stuff is AMAZING! All you have to do is cut the Stitch Witchery to shape and iron your fabrics, bonding them together – no sewing required! (Note: I cut the eyes out after bonding all the materials together to make sure the fabric was even)

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For Ono, I purchased a white leotard from Amazon and created wings and a tail, using fleece fabric (Fleece is great for this purpose since it does not fray at all). The leotard fabric and skinny arms were a bit difficult to work with, so I chose to use a combination of Velcro and sewing to attach the wings. To give the tail a more 3 dimensional look, I sewed in pipe cleaners between the two tail fabrics.

diy-ono-costume-wings-and-tail Similar to Beshte – I designed an Ono mask for Avery and created a TEMPLATE so I could make a fabric mask, using felt squares and Stitch Witchery.

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diy-ono-costume-front diy-ono-costume-back

To complete their costumes, The Lion Guard needs their badge of honor – so again I used my trusty Stitch Witchery to fuse the symbol (from felt squares) to each costume’s left arm. Tip: After printing out this TEMPLATE, I cut out the shapes with an X-ACTO knife, and chalked out a mirror image as a stencil.

Now my little protectors of the pride lands are ready to roar on Halloween!

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Related: See Paw Patrol and Ghostbusters costumes.

Exploring Colors for Preschoolers

September 14, 2016September 27, 2016 / ProjectMom / Leave a comment

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Mix It Up! by Hervé Tullet has been a long-time favorite book in our house. A truly brilliant and engaging way to introduce the idea of mixing colors. One of the best parts = The kids can mix colors, over and over again, without the actual mess of paint! Another great book to compliment this read is The Wonders of the Color Wheel, by Charles Ghigna. Similar to Mix It Up!, this book explains color combinations, but also touches upon the categorization of primary and secondary colors.

While paint seems to be the most logical activity for hands-on learning of mixing colors, I’ve found that (specifically when working with toddlers) the secondary colors never come out quite right. For example, when attempting to mix the bright green of a shamrock, we end up with more of a brownish-green that looks like rotting seaweed 😦

To make things a little easier (and more accurate), I’ve come up with a few other mediums that are great for exploring colors with kids…

1. Mixing Colored Water

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I filled plastic cups with water and used food coloring to dye the cups in correspondence to this Color Math Printable. The boys then poured the 1st two cups in each row (primary colors), into the last empty cup, to create the secondary colors (green, purple & orange).

2. Play-Doh Color Wheel

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Using the primary colors of Play-Doh (blue, red & yellow), the boys mashed and rolled small pieces together to create each secondary color (green, purple & orange), and place them on their Color Wheel Printable.

3. Overlaying Transparency Colors

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Using the primary colors of Magnatiles, the boys held the tiles up to a window, overlapping them to discover each of the secondary colors. If you don’t have Magnatiles, any form of color transparencies can work.

Thanks for visiting my blog! For more fun kids’ activities and free printables, follow me on Pinterest and Facebook.

“The ones who are crazy enough to think they can color the world are the ones who do”

Weekly Calendar

August 29, 2016April 16, 2020 / ProjectMom / 2 Comments

Shortly after the boys turned 2 years old, they started finding Cory or I in the mornings and asking, “Is Dad home all day?”. If the answer was “no”, I often times had two crying kids on my hands. Understandably (in their minds), they were upset that Cory had to run off to some unknown “work” place, instead of staying home to play with them. Unfortunately for me, I had to break this news to them every Monday through Friday and they would be super angry with me – like it was MY choice which days Cory went to work.

While it was neat watching them realize the concept of days, I wanted to avoid the unnecessary tantrums and help them understand their schedules better. As a visual person myself, I decided to put together a weekly calendar *showing* them which days Dad was “home all day” (by putting a picture of Cory’s face on Saturday and Sunday). I printed out the calendar, put it in a sheet protector, and hung it on their bedroom door with a clothespin to mark the current day. Each morning, they would wake up and move the clothespin to the new day.

Both Jacob and Evan responded to the calendar extremely well, so I started adding images for almost everything – doctor’s appointments, swim class, holidays, etc. The boys quickly started understanding weekends vs. weekdays and were excited when something new would pop up on their calendar. Although our weekly events pretty much stayed the same, when I knew a holiday or special event was coming up, I would print the future week in advance and simply slide the sheet behind the current week (in the sheet protector) so that it was ready to go.

Avery is 2 years old now, and starting “toddler school” this week, so I started using the weekly calendar for her. She is loving the new responsibility of updating her marker for each day, and super excited for her 1st day of school. No more tantrums and full cooperation for the day’s activities (well, most of the time anyway). Either way, a definite WIN!

Weekly Calendar printable with school, special occasions and holiday clipart sheet is available to purchase in my Etsy Shop.
For sports classes such as swimming, gymnastics, tennis, etc., I recommend using images from Classroom Clipart (endless options and free!). This website also has perfect graphics to use for other activities (piano lessons, etc.) and additional holidays.
Other products used:
– Clothespins
– Sheet Protector

“December is here before its June. My goodness how the time has flewn. How did it get so late so soon?” – Dr. Seuss

Teacher Appreciation Coloring Page

April 26, 2016March 15, 2022 / ProjectMom / 3 Comments

Teacher Appreciation Coloring Page Free Printable

It’s time to celebrate our real life superheroes – teachers! With Teacher Appreciation Day just around the corner, I wanted to come up with something the boys could give to their teachers at preschool. I thought it would be nice if they had a hand in creating it with their own personal touch – so I designed a coloring page with an option to add a statement about their teacher/classroom.

Click HERE for my FREE Printable Teacher Appreciation Coloring Page.
Click HERE for more options on my Etsy Page.

Looking to give your teacher a little something extra? Below are some fun ideas:

Colorful Pencil Personalized Notepads:
Flower Pot Amazon Gift Card:
Sticky Note Dispenser:
Tape Dispenser:
Apple Personalized Notepads:

Thank you to all the hard-working teachers! I appreciate your dedication to making a difference, while inspiring curiosity and knowledge that ultimately shapes our children’s future.

“It takes a big heart to shape little minds.”

DIY Super Hero Valentine’s Day Cards

January 28, 2016April 26, 2016 / ProjectMom / 4 Comments

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It’s that time of year – spread the love by giving thoughtful cards to your friends, family and classmates!

While Valentine’s Day cards are nice – As a toddler, receiving ones with little favors (glow sticks, stickers, candy, etc.) are much more enjoyable, so I wanted to make something fun for the boys’ friends. With Evan being really into Batman right now, I created these Gotham City inspired cards and stapled on Batman tattoos I found at Party City. (Note if purchasing this specific tattoo pack: The label states “16 tattoos” which is essentially 8 perforated squares, with 2 tattoos each – so you can make 8 Valentine’s Day cards per pack)

DIY Batman Tattoo Valentines Card Download FREE printable HERE.

For Jacob, I stuck with the super hero theme, but included Avengers tattoos.

DIY Super Hero Tattoo Valentines Card Download FREE printable HERE.

Stay super and have a wonderful Valentine’s Day!!

Follow me on Pinterest and Facebook for more fun and creative ideas!

Constellation Sticker Craft

January 18, 2016February 1, 2019 / ProjectMom / 1 Comment

All things outer space has been a huge interest of the boys lately. They enjoy star gazing, identifying planets in the sky, and were thrilled to see the Super Blood Moon this past summer.

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Although it would be amazing if the moon were really that huge, it’s enlarged for effect 🙂

Jacob’s favorite thing to wear are his constellation pajama pants (as seen above) and he’s always asking us to point out the Big Dipper, especially after reading Touch the Brightest Star – one of his favorite interactive books, where you trace the Big and Little Dipper with your finger as part of the story. (Great book for any toddler’s bed time collection!)

I wanted a fun way to teach them the basic constellations, and ones that are easy to spot in the sky, so I came up with the following craft worksheets…

Click on individual worksheet above for FREE printable, or HERE for pdf with ALL Worksheets.

First I had the boys place star stickers on the grey dots, then using the picture as reference, draw lines to create each constellation.

After learning the constellations, the boys got creative with their worksheets – connecting the dots without stickers, outlining the constellation in all star stickers, putting other stars in the sky, tracing the letters to spell the constellations, etc. I enjoy watching them explore whatever materials I give them. It’s fun when they think outside the box and come up with new ways to do things… A great hands-on way to learn while using imagination and creativity!

“Don’t wait for the stars to align. Reach up, rearrange them the way you want them to be. Create your own constellation.” – Pharrell Williams

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DIY Disney Autograph Memory Book

January 12, 2016April 4, 2020 / ProjectMom / 16 Comments

The beginning of winter in Chicago can be quite exciting – the anticipation of snow, holiday season cheer, ringing in a new year… then BOOM – January rolls in and the magical part of winter seems to come to a screeching halt. Next comes months of frigid cold, making it seem as though spring is an eternity away. For me, winter sanity is planning something to look forward to – like a nice warm vacation.

We decided to book a trip to Florida and try our hand at Disney World for a few days. Cory and I have both been to Disney World when we were little, but this will be our 1st trip as parents… Although all the information for planning a “WDW” vacation can be overwhelming, and some websites even require a secret decoder ring to figure out their acronyms, I find most advise has the same staple suggestions. One of these recommendations is to be prepared with an autograph book for character photographs and signatures.

The Disney Store sells autograph books anywhere from $8 to $20, and customizable books can be found on Etsy for up to $75 (you read that right – SEVENTY FIVE!) To sell me on $75 I’d hope for them to be encrusted with princess jewels or sprinkled with Tinkerbell’s fairy dust, but my guess is they are not… I understand some Disney enthusiasts might be willing to fork over that kind of cash for a memory book, but I have 3 toddlers who – to my best guess – will develop stage fright and not even get close enough to the oversized, slightly terrifying characters for me to snap a photograph, let alone ask for an autograph… Don’t get me wrong, I’m all about keepsakes. But if I can create a quality, personalized version myself and save money, I’m definitely going to choose that route.

To keep the cost of their autograph books at a minimum, I scoped out Hobby Lobby’s 40% off Art Pads & Sketchbooks sale and purchased 6″ x 6″ Master’s Touch Wire Bound Sketch Books for $2.99 each. Here is a similar Wire Bound 6″ x 6″ Sketch Book from Amazon.

I created my own image featuring the kids’ favorite characters/movies…

Click HERE for editable PDF (accurate print size for above sketch book) or HERE for jpg format.

I then personalized each cover using a free New Waltograph font I found on Fontspace.com.

If you have a Mac — After downloading the New Waltograph font, you can open the PDF file in Preview and follow the below steps to add your text:

Step 1: Select the Edit button from the toolbar at the top of the Preview window.
Step 2: Select the Text tool .
Step 3: Select the color [white], [Waltograph] font, appropriate size – I used [48 pt], and [center] alignment.
Step 4: Click on document and type name / text. Note: You may have to do this a few times to get accurate placement.

Printing the images on card stock looked fabulous, but for an extra crisp result – I had them professionally printed online using matte photo paper (Note: Maintaining image size to scale is extremely important). I then trimmed the images with a paper cutter (leaving a white border) and used spray adhesive to attach each design to the kids’ autograph book covers.

This photograph shows image printed on card stock.

We are now prepared for character autographs… Take us to the mouse!

WANT MORE COLOR OPTIONS?? SEE MY NEW POST!!
DIY Disney Autograph Memory Book – Multiple Color Options

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“Today’s special moments are tomorrow’s memories.” – Genie, The Return of Jafar

Stained Glass Sun Catcher Ornament

December 11, 2015September 26, 2016 / ProjectMom / 2 Comments

‘Tis the season for Christmas crafts!

Stained Glass Ornament 2

We decided to make these beautiful sun catcher ornaments, to look like stained glass. They make great window decorations and help set the mood for the season. A super-easy, no-mess craft, perfect for all ages!

1st a little prep-work to get the project ready…

Click HERE for free printable.

Print this ornament shape (provided above), ideally on card stock, and cut out the CENTER of the ornament frame with an X-Acto knife or scissors.

Prepare colored tissue paper by cutting them into squares, strips and/or shapes. For toddlers, squares are perfect. For older kids, shapes would give them the opportunity to experiment with more complex designs (Example: A star in the center with stripes in the background, etc.)… NOTE: I separated the tissue paper squares into coordinating cup colors for easy selection. I’m not pointing this out to show how overly organized I can be, I’m sharing this to display one of the MANY ways I’ve re-purposed the cups provided in our Easter egg dying kit. Great items to save and reuse!

Adhere a piece of contact paper to the FRONT of your pre-cut ornament print-out, covering the entire ornament frame. Lay the paper down, sticky side up, onto a table. (I ran out of contact paper and discovered that clear packaging tape works as a wonderful substitute!) Now it’s time for your little artist(s) to decorate their ornaments. Have them select their tissue paper pieces, and press them down onto the contact paper.

When your ornament decorating is complete, seal the back with another piece of clear contact paper. Trim around the outside of your ornament frame and tape or hang your masterpiece in a window to enjoy the beautiful stained glass colors!

Follow me on Pinterest, for more fun ideas!

“People are like stained glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within.” – Elisabeth Kubler Ross

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Fun ideas for kid's crafts, activities and DIY projects – including free printables

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