Easy DIY Rocket Packs

My gorgeous little nephew turned one yesterday. ONE! *Insert OMG how does time move so fast sentiments here*

On the weekend he's having his first birthday party and it's SPACE themed. If you know me at all, you'll know I love a themed party! So what could I do when my kids were invited to an out of this world shin dig? DIY Rocket Packs! BOOYAH!

A quick glympse at Pinterest (collating the best bits from a few different styles) and I knocked up these bad boys in an afternoon.

You'll need:

• two empty soft drink bottles (thanks to that shape, everyone can tell ours are from Coke)
• gaffa tape (ours was silver)
• silver spray paint
• red, orange and yellow felt
• scissors
• marker
• hot glue gun

1. Spray your empty, dry bottles with paint - I put mine on sticks and stuck them in the garden so I could spray the whole thing without touching it. Leave it to dry for as long as the instructions on the paint say... don't take it off early or you'll get silver all over you. ASK ME HOW I KNOW!
2. While the paint is drying, figure out what shape you want your flames to be and draw a rough outline on the felt with a marker. Leave a tab at the end so that you can easily glue it to the bottom of the rocket later.
3. Cut out the first shape and use it as a template for the next. Keep going until you have the three layers (or two, up to you!).
4. Using a hot glue gun (and not burning off your fingerprints like I did), glue the layers of flame together. I went right to the tip of each flame because I know my kids would pick them apart if they were loose.
5. When your bottles are dry, tape them together using your gaffa tape. If you can't find silver tape, do this step before you spray them so that you don't have to do it all again.
6. When everything is dry, place more hot glue on the tab and push it in to the neck of the bottle, pressing down firmly until the glue sets. 
7. To create straps, pull out two lengths of gaffa tape and fold each in half length ways so that they are now silver strips, and thread them through the gap where you secured the bottles together. If it doesn't fit through, add another piece of tape. To secure them on to the kids you can either tie the strips together in a knot, or use a small piece of tape to fasten them all together, much like a four point harness. This worked best for my robust lot. 

It's that easy! And you can sing the Mr Maker theme song the whole time like I did, if you want!

If you can't be bothered with all the felt and burning of fingers, then you could easily substitute crepe paper, or even draw a flame on cardboard and let your kids colour it in.

My two zoomed around the yard and went for giant space walks (on the trampoline) for about an hour before I pulled the plug and said they had to keep them in one piece so we could wear them to the party! At which point they cried and I yelled, and it was bath time and OMG don't be so ungrateful I just made you a kickass jet pack. Kids, hey? 

How to recycle old Christmas cards in to homemade Christmas baubles

I love Advent Activities for a few reasons:

1. My kids love craft. I love craft. Win win. 

2. It makes excellent bribe material for over tired children ("if you don't stop hitting your sister, you can't do today's activity")

3. It means it's nearly Christmas!!!

I don't like spending a fortune though, and I if I can get away with activities that don't require purchasing anything or even recycling things we already have, it makes it even better.

I have heaps of old Christmas cards hanging around, most of which are in unopened packets from the 1980s when it would appear my Grandmother bought half a store in one go. They went in to my craft drawers a few years ago and now each year we try to do something with them. 

This year I thought we'd make some baubles!

You'll need: 

• Old Christmas cards or wrapping paper that you've glued on a sheet of cardboard to make it sturdier
• A circle punch - I used a two inch punch and any smaller would be tricky, but you can use any size you like, or make a template and cut your own with ye olde scissors 
• A stapler 
• A piece of string

After you've cut your circles, fold them in to triangles (see images 1, 2 and 3), then staple the edge of one to the edge of another until you've created a ball shape (see images 4, 5 and 6). It's up to you how many you put together, for these I put eight pieces together to make small baubles, but you can do whatever you like.

Staple or tape a string to the top (if you're really clever you can do this with your first circle to make it easier - I was not that clever!) and hang it on the tree! Voila! I find the kids love seeing their own creations on the tree, and are quick to point them out with pride to visitors, and to me, that's what it's all about. 

Happy decorating! 

How to make a kids viking costume on a budget

The Trickster was invited to an awesome How To Train Your Dragon party a few weeks ago, and because he is a little obsessed with dress up at the moment (gee, where does he get that from? *wink wink*), he said he wanted to be a viking for the day. Even after being told it wasn't actually a dress up party. The kid is a fabulous.

I didn't want to spend a lot of money on a costume and I've been embracing my inner craft blogger of late, so I decided to MAKE a costume. Ambitious, much? I thought I could stitch some material together and it would be quite, ahem, rustic and therefore historically correct. Vikings didn't have overlockers, ya know!

SO I checked for some faux fur material but on my way I stumbled across this:

Oh yeah, I did. I sent my kid to a party wearing a bathmat and toilet mat set. That cost $6 in a 50% off sale at Best and Less. Classy shit.

It's kinda fur-like, and the toilet mat part was even already shaped for a vest meaning less cutting work for Miss Lazypants. I got to work, cutting the bathmat up and sewing it, occasionally holding it up to the little guy to see if it was looking vest-y. My year eight home ec. teacher would have a seizure if she knew I was using my sewing "skills" 20 years later. Related: Holy shit it's been 20 years since I started high school.

I threw the off cuts from the arm holes down and they landed in the shape of a beard and moustache... BRAINWAVE! All vikings need facial hair for historical accuracy, yes? The longer offcuts from the bath mat I kept for leg thingamajigs that I saw some of the vikings wearing in the movie. They look like legwarmers but it just doesn't sound butch enough to say viking legwarmers, does it? I grabbed some shoelaces from the supermarket for $1 to tie them on. Because vikings didn't have safety pins. I'm assured historical accuracy is fun.

Then it was on to the weapons. I was pointed in the direction of a tutorial to make viking hats (because historical accuracy can be thrown out the window if things are cute) and shields. Some late night cardboard cutting with the help of MapGuy who can trace his roots back to the vikings (which makes up for the whole viking hat thing, ya know), and some masking tape and gaffa tape produced awesome results:

All that was left was to put the whole ensemble together. It's a little rustic, but that is part of it's charm. Because I had the cardboard (a nappy box) and the two lots of tape, those parts were pretty much free, meaning my outlay for the whole project was a whopping $7.

He loved it. I loved it. People could recognize what it was meant to be, and it cost me almost nothing. That's winning in my books.

How to make Minion canvas shoes

A friend of Tricky's was having a Minion party (from the Despicable Me movie, if you're not familiar) for his birthday last weekend. Or "ming ming party" as he referred to it. His mum and I are close friends and with Tricky's birthday fast approaching we agreed to put a $5 limit on presents for each other.

I originally bought him a minifigure because he is just starting to get in to LEGO, but when I popped to the shops the night before the party I saw plain canvas shoes in his size... for $2... and was struck by what can only be described as creative inspiration. It felt not unlike a pinched nerve and initially I was going to call a doctor, but instead, I just went with it and thought I'd see how it panned out.

Now, the insoles are floral, but I'm confident that Tricky and his friend can both embrace their feminine side enough to get over it because MINION SHOES. For the record, neither of them even paid attention because MINION SHOES.

On a scale of one to OMG THESE ARE AMAZING (for an amateur who can't draw), these are totally right at the top according to the birthday boy and Tricky. They got a pair each and were the talk of the ming ming party.

They were super easy to make:

1. Lightly pencil in your design while staring at the movie poster on Google.
2. Grab some textas (I used a combination of Faber Castell, Micador and Sharpies) and work your way up, starting with yellow and then orange for shading. If you're feeling fancy, use acrylic paints.
3. Colour in the eyes (or eye), the goggles and the mouth.
4. With a thin, black marker, draw your outlines and don't forget to add some hair.
5. Coat with a waterproofing spray (check out a haberdashery type store) and let dry. DO NOT SKIP THIS STEP. If you do, they will have to be dry weather shoes only.
6. Accept copious amounts of praise and feign modesty while you think of more and more things to draw on shoes

Gonna try your hand at some Minion shoes? I'm trying LEGO next.

Homemade Holiday Fashion

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For full details please see my disclosure policy

Now I could sit here and tell you to wear the latest designer outfit on Christmas day. I could use words like ‘on trend’ and ‘arm party’ or whatever. But I am not on trend as my elastic waist banded pants will attest, and the closest thing to a party my arm gets is the Hokey Pokey. Because that’s what it’s all about.

So instead, I’m going to show you some homemade fashion using some inexpensive shoes we grabbed at BIG W this week. This would be a great activity for pre-schoolers through to tweens and some teens (depending if they’ve reached the grunty stage yet). It will work well for a one on one session with just your child, but if you gather some friends together and have a crafternoon party you can have a fashion parade at the end.

Tricky and I set ourselves up in the carport for a crafternoon with our stash of goodies from BIG W and got to work personalizing our footwear. We started with the big guns – the canvas shoes! A pair of these, already decorated, would make a sweet gift (gardening shoes for Nanna perhaps?) but how cool would it be to give a plain pair and a packet of stampers? It’s a great gift activity for less than $15.

As you can see we went to town with the stampers and the glitter glue then Tricks decided he’d like to think outside the square. And so it came to be that one shoe has a balloon and the other a button, stuck right on top. Ahhhh pre-schoolers. Love ‘em.

Things to use on your canvas shoes:

• Glitter glue
• Stamps
• Markers
• Puff paint
• Pens

 Then we whipped out the Wavezone thongs, which at less than $3.50 are a steal!

As you can see from the top image, I grabbed a handful of those impossible to blow up balloons, cut them in half and tied them on in a simple double knot. I was stoked with how they turned out and think it is actually really effective. I would totally rock these pool side for a bit of fun!

Tricks decided to make Monsters with his thongs and proceeded to glue googly eyes on… until he noticed the pom poms and changed tack. While he was doing that I glued some buttons on to another pair.

He was so proud of his canvas shoes and thongs and he proudly showed them off to Aunty Penny who had been jiggling Bobbin on her lap for most of the time.

“Wow, Tricky! Those shoes look fantastic! Where are you going to wear them?”

To which he replied “On my feet.”

Doesn’t get better than that.

Other ideas for your thongs:

• Tie on strips of scrap fabric – use an old shirt that doesn’t fit anymore.
• Wind wool around the straps
• Braid over some friendship bands
• Tie a scarf around the straps then around your ankles
• Glue on sparkly gems
• Use glitter pens to draw designs

So I'll be wearing my fab canvas shoes on Christmas Day for sure. I'm not sure what else I'll be wearing but I'm thinking maybe something from the exclusive Peter Morrissey range. I took some change room selfies to help me figure it out:

To win $100 tell me your top Christmas fashion tip?

A social experiment disguised as a Halloween Craft Party

The Trickster is totes in to Halloween. I have no idea where it has come from - well, actually, I do. It has come from all the displays at the shops. But prior to it popping up a few weeks ago he didn't even know what it was and somehow it is now all he talks about. Every day he asks "Is it Halloween today?". He even sat right up the front at kindy story time last week (he usually refuses to sit with the other kids and just hangs at the back) because it was a Halloween book - the awesome Meg and Mog.

Because we're going craft crazy right now in lieu of outdoor time thanks to living on a building site, I figured some activities that combined the two would be right up his alley. Voila, Halloween craft.

High off the success of kindy story time I thought the same Halloween magic might work at mothers group. So in a bid to get him to interact with the other kids I brought all our crafty stuff in for a Halloween Party. He is actually playing these days and will talk to the adults, but still refuses to talk to the kids! Prior to this he would sit next to me the whole time and occasionally warm up and play right at the end... you know, just as we were leaving. So the Halloween experiment was go!

I created three paper plate creatures as examples - a ghost, a jack o lantern and a monster - and since we had a limited time frame (and only one pair of safety scissors) I cut out shapes for mouths and eyes rather than turn it in to a scissors activity. We had multicoloured strips of cardboard for hair, googly eyes of all sizes, pom poms, paint, crayons, markers and pop sticks so all the kids had to do was create whatever they liked and unsurprisingly, most of them created monsters! Monsters are just super cool.

Kiddies in fancy dress is super cute

The result? A lot of fabulous creations and happy kids... but Tricky didn't participate. He did warm up a bit and play, he spoke to a few of the mums, plus he ate morning tea on the picnic rug with all the other kids and even posed for a group photo - massive leaps and strides for him. But the dude who is coo coo for craft didn't go anywhere near it. But that's OK. Baby steps for my shy guy as we ease him in to part time kindy next year.

Do you celebrate Halloween?

For those wanting to do their own super easy, cheap Halloween craft with toddlers and preschoolers, grab paper plates, paint, markers and crayons, glue and all sorts of materials for decorating such as string, paper, cardboard, googly eyes, gems, pom poms, crepe paper, pipe cleaners - whatever you have in your craft box - and go for it! You can't go wrong with these.

The finished product never looks anything like the sample, but that is my favourite bit - seeing how they interpret it and come up with their own unique pieces. We've been making a few of these every day and we'll be stringing them up together and hanging them out the front to let the neighbourhood kids know they can Trick or Treat at our place.

How to make a cardboard Christmas Tree

Since mid November, everywhere I look on the interwebs all I see is Christmas craft. I've had the insatiable urge to whip out the glue gun ever since and the only thing stopping me is that the glue now comes out an awful baby poo brown, the result of one of my earlier forays in to sucking at craft and burning off finger appendages.

I do have a bit of the craft bug this festive season. In fact it would seem I've got an entire infestation! Hand made presents, salt dough decorations, home made advent calendar, the whole shebang. Yet no amount of activities and crafts has kept the Trickster from pulling the decorations off the real Christmas tree. After seeing a felt Christmas tree on Dear Baby G and having a little fuck-this-I-don't-touch-fabric moment, I decided to make him his own eco-friendly recycled cardboard Christmas tree! Huzzah, it'll be a green Christmas this year!

What you'll need:

• A huge bloody box from that booster seat/bookcase/wardrobe you just bought 
• Pencil & ruler (or live life on the edge and freehand it)
• Cookie cutters
• Scissors/scalpel
• Paint & paintbrushes
• Blu-tak

How to make your own cardboard Christmas tree

• Grab your giant box, draw on a Christmas tree and cut it out
• Give it to your toddler to paint, set aside (both tree & toddler) to dry
• Clean up all the paint on the floor, walls and table top
• Draw around the cookie cutters to create decorations and cut them out
• Give them to your toddler to paint
• Clean up all the paint on the floor, walls and table top.
• Wonder why you ever let a two year old paint inside
• Stick the tree to the wall
• Put blu-tak on the back of each decoration and tell the kid to go for it

Short of unsheathing the wires for the twinkle lights, how do you stop your little ones pulling decorations off the tree??

How to make your own crayon shapes

I've been getting in to the whole arts and crafts thing a lot more lately as Tricks has shown he's quite a crafty little bugger. By that I mean he likes to scribble with crayons, make splodges with paint and stick things with glue. General toddler stuff here, as much as his grandparents think otherwise, he ain't no prodigy.

He has fun, does all that fine motor whatsits at the same time and I get some time in the day that isn't filled with car, truck and train noises. Win, win!

When I was mid-giant clean out and desperate for another form of procrastination project, I found a stack of left over crayons I'd used for an earlier crayon art project and decided to get busy and create Lego Crayons!

Tricky loves them but right now he prefers to play with them rather than draw and gets a bit cranky that they don't stack like normal Lego blocks.

I used Crayola crayons for this lot and cheaper crayons for a second batch I made and the difference was huge. It became really obvious that the cheaper variety had a lot of clear wax which all rose to the top leaving the pigmented wax at the bottom. The resulting ombre colour effect looked cool but the consistency was terrible.

These would be great as a stocking filler for that C-word day in December and even better as a goodie bag after a Lego themed party.

And before you ask, the moulds were from eBay.

Are you arty farty?

Kickin' it old school - toddler style

Tricky has been going to Jump 'n' Jive for half an hour most weeks for the last school term. It's the exact same thing as Laugh 'n' Learn, Romp 'n' Stomp, Wiggle 'n' Giggle and Dance 'n' Prance. In fact, in order to hold a successful toddler dance program it appears that all you need is alliteration, rhyming and a disproportionate number of apostrophes. Oh, and a Hi5 CD.

Every week I go along and every week I feel like the biggest dick in the world as I jump and/or jive along to the music pretending to be a rocket ship, a robot, a clown or whatever the hell it is this week.

As I fall over my own feet and almost crash in to people pretending to be pirates I look around the room and notice that all the other mums and grandmothers not only know all the dance moves, but all the bloody words to the songs, too. I mean it took me six whole weeks to realize the monster had six dirty ears not six thirty ears. I don't even know what six thirty ears means and yet I could swear that is what the song said.

If the class was split by skill level then then I'd be put in a group by myself. Maybe they'd put the nanna who has emphysema and can't shake her groove thing without knocking some kid out cold with her oxygen cylinder with me. You know, to bring down their liability insurance.

Now don't get me wrong, I can sing along to and do all the actions of the Flippy Floppy Scarecrow like nobody's business. Ditto for Miss Munchausens Miss Polly and the rest of the old school songs. But as soon as The Wiggles or Hi5 come on I'm lost and find myself muttering 'kids today' under my breath. I can't even have Hi5 on in the house without thinking that someone spiked the channel 9 water cooler with crack.

So Tricky and I prefer to kick it old school with our nursery rhymes. Plus some of our toys. Yes, I know, I know, it looks like I shoved a toaster on my kid's head but I promise you I didn't. He bloody loves his robot hat, and, just quietly, he does the best robot dance you've ever seen... along to a Hi5 song!

Are you old school with your kids? You know, when you put the iPad down?

How to make a kid's kitchen out of cardboard boxes

I'm of the firm belief that kids do not need expensive toys in order to have fun or learn.

The vast majority of Tricky's toys are second hand - they've been passed down from friends, found for a bargain price at an op shop or baby market, or picked up from the side of the road at bulk rubbish collection. Yes, I find my child's toys on the side of the road, call child services.

We do it partly to reduce the amount of new plastic that comes in to our house (and therefore the tonnes of non recyclable plastic shrink wrap packaging and twistie ties that end up in landfill), to keep our costs low on our single income budget and to encourage Tricky's imagination.

So last week, with that in mind, I decided to get my craft on and channel the guys on Play School and get creative with some boxes, some tape and a Sharpie. Just call me Noni Hazelhurst.

 

Grab any boxes you have, stick them together and get drawing - it's that easy. I used some bowls to get the shape of the hotplates, a ruler for the straight lines and a sandwich to distract Tricky while I did it. There's no right or wrong and it doesn't have to be perfect - I've left 'bench space' for him to use but you could draw in a sink. If you do it indoors make sure it's in a well ventilated area or you'll end up with a massive Sharpie induced headache after colouring in the hot plates!

I must say, I'm kinda happy with how it turned out. Actually who am I kidding? I freakin' love it and when people come over now I drag them towards it singing "Come look at the kitchen I made for Tricky!!!"

Kids don't need the most expensive, realistic looking toys with sound effects... how are they ever meant to develop their imaginations if we do it all for them? Plus how many times have you given your child a toy and they've played with it for a few minutes then turned the box it came in into a car, an aeroplane, a cave or a house?

Tricky thinks it rocks and has been cooking for me ever since using some plastic fruit and veg, a chopping board, 'knife' and a little saucepan. Each time he runs to his cardboard kitchen and does the same, then holds up his 'dish' sniffs it and declares "Mmm yum!". I melt every time!

Go away, Mama, I'm cooking you a special dinner

Do you have second hand or home made toys for your kids?

How to completely suck at being a craft blogger

1. Find craft rather annoying
I don't do craft. Which is strange because I've always been slightly quirky and creative (read: weird). I see things and somehow know how they're put together and can recreate them... if I could be bothered. Most of the time, I have no inclination to flex my creative muscles. I see crafty things and I immediately think it's a boring, energy sapping, messy, waste of time (do not get me started on scrapbooking, I just don't understand it). Time I could spend doing much more productive things like faffing around on Twitter for example.

2. Be confused by Pinterest
I also don't do Pinterest (unless I'm trying to keep tattoo ideas in one place) and have no idea what it means to follow someone on Pinterest or how on earth I have so many followers and how people say they could get lost for hours 'pinning'. I can't even link you to my page here because I HAVE NO IDEA which page is mine.

3. Don't own any craft supplies
Because I reserve the right to completely contradict myself, the other day I looked at Pinterest, saw an image and thought I MUST DO THAT! I was so inspired by the simplicity that I was just itching to give it a whirl so I ran out and bought some high quality supplies from the Reject Shop because if I screwed it up I didn't want to be out of pocket by much.

3. Burn yourself terribly and scream so loudly the neigbours hear
I'm now the proud owner of a glue gun and some serious welts to match - who knew that what goes in the chamber leaks out when you turn it upside down, hey? Gravity, you are a bitch! Also, when you spill melted wax all over yourself there is NOTHING you can do other than wait for it to cool down. On the upside, I can now go on a crime spree without fear of repercussions because I no longer have fingerprints.

4. Forget to take photos so there is no step by step instructions
I did have my camera next to me, I promise. But having hands dripping in melted wax meant there was bugger all chance of me picking it up.

So what the hell did I make??? Well I got these:

Ran them through this:

And got this:

 And this:

So, how do you make your own drippy, waxy, fingerprint destroying rainbow canvas? Easy: a) unwrap crayons, b) shove crayon in glue chamber, c) push through with your thumb and then the nearest pokey-thing you can grab such as a chopstick, d) burn the shit out of your hand, e) splatter wax on your kitchen bench, f) marvel at how freaking cool the finished product looks and how awesome you are, g) go and pin your own images!

Are you crafty? Or is the only craft you're interested in a movie with a whiney Neve Campbell?