Blog
DIY Kid-Designed Keychains
I love kid's drawings, and I have always found it fascinating to see how crafters and small companies make kid's drawings into personalized keychains or kid-designed stuffed toys. This year, for Mother's and Father's day gifts, we did it too! Our first experiment...
DIY Toy Wooden Barn
For our son's first birthday, we built him a toy wooden barn. Since then, it has gone through extensive play testing - indoors and outdoors, on both sides of the country. So we figured it's high time we showed it and offered some guidelines to...
DIY Balloon-Powered Wooden Toy Boat
Boats hold a special romantic appeal, for kids as well as grown-ups. Add to this a little scientific experiment, and we have a winner - a balloon-powered boat! In this post, you'll find a tutorial on how we made one. If you want to get one quickly, you can also get it...
DIY Simple Wooden Toy Boat: Woodworking for Kids
Looking for a toy project that a kid can make, then give to a sibling or a friend as gift? Or the first woodworking project to make with dad? Here is our idea on how to make a simple wooden toy boat from a scrap of wood. This post contains Amazon affiliate links for...
Magna-Tiles Uppercase Alphabet Printable Cards
A great addition to your literacy corner, these printable cards encourage kids to make letters with Magna-Tiles, Picasso Tiles, and other magnetic tiles. It is a fun hands-on way to teach the alphabet to preschoolers and kindergartners who like building. Also check:...
12 Spring Lego Projects for Easter Egg Hunt or Basket
A couple of days ago, I wrote about the LEGO Easter eggs we made to fill with small LEGO surprises for our Easter egg hunt. I haven't mentioned that in this case the chickens came before eggs - that is, we planned our LEGO surprises first. We have been working on the...
Lego Easter Egg Craft
Make Lego Easter eggs to give your hunt a fun brick-tastic twist! Everything is better with LEGO, or so it goes in our family. If you have kids in your house, you probably understand what I mean. Why, my husband has been a lifelong fan! I, regrettably, only had a...
Painting Easter Eggs with Watercolours
In the past, we have tried painting wooden eggs for Easter, but this year I saw blank plaster eggs in the store. Budster, with his fondness for birds, was immediately fascinated by them too. When I told him we could paint the plaster eggs, he was delighted, so we took...
Rainbow Pompom Drawing Prompt
From my own experience, I know that it can sometimes be tricky to start making a drawing. Especially if I don't have a solid concept - just feel in the mood to create something. That's when drawing prompts come handy. Not only do they give me an idea of what to draw,...
How to Build a Cardboard Spaceship
Moving into a new house was certainly an adventure, whether finding our way through the labyrinth of unpacked things or discovering that our bedroom was a nice spot for watching sunsets. You get lots of those in the land of living skies Saskatchewan! Our son also...
30 Clay Projects for Kids
In this post, you'll find enough inspiring clay projects for kids to last at least a year! Sculpting with plasticine was a staple of my childhood. Ironic since my kids have hardly touched it. Instead those lucky guys have been experimenting with beeswax modeling...
Button Heart Gift Wrap for Valentine’s Day
Feel like wrapping a gift creatively or maybe making some Valentine's Day art? My 3-year-old and I made a button heart gift wrap! When we wrap presents, most of them get wrapped quickly - between throwing together lunch and washing up after. But we like to choose a...
Penguin World: Build a Winter Sensory Bin
There are certain themes that seem inevitably popular among kids: dinosaurs, robots, and construction vehicles get a pretty universal love from the young generation. Boys are known for their adoration of vehicles, but there are plenty of girls who cannot walk past a...
Whimsical Nature Portrait Art
Turn stumps into canvases for creating whimsical nature portrait art of your family! Inspiration for making art can sometimes strike unexpectedly and in unusual places. Who would have thought that a stump could turn into a canvas for creating beautiful nature portrait...
Name Writing Nature Hunt
Sometimes, a new focus is all that is required to return the vibrancy to something that is beginning to pale. This is what this activity is about - making a familiar walk special by having a spontaneous nature hunt. But we weren't just hunting for pretty leaves and...
DIY Music Table from Household Materials
What kid doesn't like making noise? Throw a few old instruments their way and and you will soon have something approximating music! If your instruments haven't done anything to deserve being passed off on a toddler, or if you just don't have any, they can be easily...
DIY Wood Robot Toy
Do you want to make a wood robot toy? Or maybe looking for the first woodworking project for kids? Try this one! One morning, while our son was still sleeping, a surprise guest climbed onto his windowsill... "Wake up, Buddy! Look who's here!" The previous day, our son...
DIY Food Face Plate: for Nutritious & Beautiful Meals!
Make lunch fun - and pretty - by turning a plate into a food art prompt! It was some years ago: my friend and I were sitting in a coffee shop, and while she was still enjoying her dessert, I was already at the point of lamenting the demise of my chocolate cake. While...
Cave Art for Kids
While drawing on the walls is normally not allowed, this cardboard cave is an invitation to do just that. Become a caveman and make cave art! It all started with a book. I can recite Cave Baby by Julia Donaldson from memory, and truth to tell, I often do. There were a...
Craft Stick Art for Kids
It all started with a thump. I turned around and saw breadsticks scattering all over the kitchen floor and my son looking a little guilty with an empty plastic bag. We started collecting the breadsticks back. That is, I was doing that, and when I looked at Budster,...
Apple Drying Experiment for Kids
Budster and I have both been congratulating ourselves on our recent acquisitions. I have a new car, and he has a new skill - cranking! Unfortunately, Daddy's "new" car has crank-operated windows, and Budster's enthusiasm for slyly operating them has resulted in a car...
DIY Outdoor Play Kitchen from an Old Shelf
After a long and snowy winter, our backyard looked desolate, but we didn't feel discouraged. Instead, we embraced the chance to give it a makeover. In no time, dreaming and planning was in full swing. "Here we'll put a sandbox, and there'll be a waterwall! We'll...
Cardboard Box Dinosaur
"I'd like to make a dinosaur car!" my son exclaimed, bursting into the kitchen. For a moment, I was puzzled. But I thought I could solve the mystery of "a dinosaur car" pretty easily. A minute ago, Budster finished watching a cartoon about Stella and Sam, imaginative...
Flower Sensory Bin for Kids
They can pour it, mix it or even climb inside of their soup bins and wiggle bare toes around! A delightful spring activity for toddlers that addresses all the different senses. I never remember being so exuberantly happy over the coming of warm weather when I was a...
Underwater I Spy Jars
Yesterday we spent a wondeful day by the lake. When we got home, loaded with all the treasures a little boy can collect at the beach, Budster and I decided to create our own underwater world in a jar. About half an hour from where we live, there is a little provincial...
Seashell and Beach Glass Nature Collage
After a day on the beach, collecting rocks and seashells, make this keepsake craft with kids by putting all of their nature finds into a collage! Recently we spent a great day on the beach, collecting rocks and smooth beach glass. Most of the glass pieces were tiny,...
Cake Painting with My Family
It is not uncommon to see a lavishly decorated cake as a centre piece at a birthday or some other kind of party, and I always have some decorating ideas waiting for such occasions. But then, there are so many other things to do before guests come, and my plan for...
How to Make Dinosaur Eggs with a Surprise Inside
Learn how to make dinosaur eggs, then set up an egg treasure hunt and hatch them! When my husband proposed to me, I had to go on a wedding ring hunt. With such a promising start, treasure hunts have become a tradition in our family. During holidays, we sometimes...
Dinosaur Hobby Horse: DIY Project
Around a one-year-old boy, vehicles start multiplying in the house, as if appearing out of thin air. (Seriously! I only remember buying two myself, and all of a sudden we have several dozen.) With a two-year-old boy, the roars of...
Pioneer Dress-up Doll: Printable Inspired by Little House on the Prairie
Anne of Green Gables and Little Women have been my dear friends for many years. I even wrote my university thesis on them! So it is surprising that I have lived this long without getting acquainted with Laura Ingalls and her family from the Little House...