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DIY Adventure Frame

July 18, 2016 1 Comment

I was given products to review in exchange for this post. All opinions and ideas are 100% my own and I only share products and companies I really love.

Hello there and happy Monday friends! Our school year is getting ready to start up so I thought it would be fun if my daughter and I recapped all of the fun things we’ve done so far this summer. We’ve explored our state and have gone on new hikes and adventures, which is probably both of our favorites. To remember what a fun summer we’ve had, we made a DIY Adventure Frame and she picked out her favorite picture from our adventures to put inside.

This frame was a really fun craft and something that you can make with and for your kids. Please be advised that children under 14 should have adult supervision and assistance with this craft. You will need a few supplies to get started…

wooden frame
foam brush
paint
Mod Podge
scrapbook paper
Spellbinders Prizm Die Cutting & Embossing Machine and Adventure die cuts
Spellbinders Tool N One

Once you have gathered your supplies, lay some newspaper down and paint your frame.

Then, following the directions of the Prizm, get your plates, die cuts, and paper set up.

Stack them like a sandwich and feed the plates into the Prizm. Use the crank to carefully slide them through the machine. Pull the plates out on the opposite side.

Use the Tool N One to help poke out the paper from the die cuts. The Prizm cuts so nicely!

Once the paint on your wooden frame is dry, Mod Podge the paper pieces on to your frame and let dry. Then go over the entire frame with one coat of Mod Podge to seal it. Allow 10-12 hours of dry time.

Finally, pick out and print a picture to put inside of your frame.

Now you have a wonderful memory to look back on in a cute DIY Adventure Frame. I bet you have a couple of summer adventures worth framing!

I love the look of the aqua against the map scrapbook paper, don’t you? My daughter was super happy with how her frame turned out and rightfully so. It’s adorable.

What kinds of adventures have you gone on this summer and how do you record those memories?

Filed Under: crafts, DIY, frames, kid-friendly, tutorial

Tips for Sewing with Kids

July 15, 2016 Leave a Comment

Hello there and welcome to another week of Must Have Craft Tips- hosted by Michele of The Scrap Shoppe, Bev of Flamingo Toes, Allison of A Glimpse Inside, and me (Kara of Mine for the Making). Every week we share a fun and different tip or trick and this month it’s all about sewing! This week I am sharing Tips for Sewing with Kids… what a great summer activity to get your kids involved in!

Tip #1 Gather and use the correct sewing tools. Before setting your child down to learn to sew, be sure you have all the necessary sewing tools. It’s also a good idea to talk about the names of the tools and what they are used for. Here are 10 sewing tools/supplies you’ll need to get started.

Tip #2 Utilized hand sewing cards. There are so many of these free printables online and they are easy to make yourself too. This is a great hand-on activity that is also great for fine motor skills. You can even utilize this activity while on a road trip, airplane, or camping!

Tip #3 Learn the machine. If your child will be sewing using a sewing machine, it’s important to teach about the parts of the machine and how to safely use and operate it. This will eliminate future problems and create a much easier learning environment.

Tip #4 Sewing Camp! Create a sewing camp for your kid(s) or if you aren’t well versed in sewing, seek out and find a sewing camp or class that your kid(s) can take. They will be able to participate and get a hands-on learning experience with other kids who are learning the same skills.

Tip #5 Practice!! Practice makes progress. There are tons of beginner project ideas for sewing by hand and sewing with a machine. Utilize Pinterest and blogs for great ideas and free patterns.

I hope you find these tips for sewing with kids useful! Be sure to click on the links within the post to get further information, ideas, and freebies related to sewing with kids. Do you have any tips not mentioned?

Let us know if there’s any topics of interest you might have, and we’d love to gather up tips and tricks for you! Have a great weekend friends!

Filed Under: crafts, kid-friendly, sewing, tips

Personal Breakfast Pizzas

June 15, 2016 2 Comments

This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone. #LetsCheese #CollectiveBias

We all know that the most important meal of the day is breakfast. And lots of times I am lacking ideas for breakfast, so it results in cereal or protein bars because they are easy go-tos. Lately I’ve decided to up my breakfast game, especially during summer break. (Do kids get hungry during summer break, or is it just mine?) I love finding ways to get my daughter to try new things, and often times if I allow her to help prepare or make the food, she’s bound to try and often times like what she’s made. Enter in Personal Breakfast Pizzas.

Don’t they look deliciously cute?! We had so much fun making them the other day that I am certain this will be a regular occurrence for breakfast and afternoon snacks. You only need a few ingredients…

Weight Watchers Whipped Cream Cheese
Bagels
English Muffins
Fresh Fruit

First you want to clean and prep your fruit. We chose berries and kiwi for our personal breakfast pizzas. I had my daughter wash all of the fruit and I cut up the strawberries and kiwi in thin slices.

Next I had my daughter toast the bagels and the English muffins.

Then we smeared on the cream cheese. I love Weight Watchers Cream Cheese because it’s delicious and made with real, all natural cheese.

Then we got creative with our personal breakfast pizzas. We have a patriotic pizza, a ‘watermelon’ pizza, and two faces. We had so much fun making them and boy did they taste good…

The combination of the toasted bread, whipped cream cheese, and fruit was perfection. It was kid and mom approved, so I highly recommend that you try out personal breakfast pizzas in your home.

Find all of the ingredients, including Weight Watchers Whipped Cream Cheese, at your local Kroger store. Make sure you let us know what you think!

Filed Under: breakfast, kid-friendly, kitchen, recipe Tagged With: breakfast, recipe

Three Cheap Ways to Make Birthdays Special

April 5, 2016 1 Comment

Hi there makers! I cannot believe we are already into April! This year has been flying by so far. We’ve been busy with holidays, church events, traveling, work, and a very important birthday. My daughter turned 8 years old at the end of March and it was such a fun time. I love birthdays and I love making them special, so I thought I would share Three Cheap Ways to Make Birthdays Special for your kids. Don’t get me wrong… I love to go all out for birthday celebrations too. But there are a few things you can do that won’t break your bank and will still make the day super special for your kiddo.

So… what can you do to make the day a little more special than normal, but not spend a ton of money? It’s actually pretty easy!

Surprise bedroom decorating!

This is so fun and I usually do it right after the birthday kiddo falls asleep. I decorate the bedroom door with a handmade sign and blow up a bunch of balloons to put all over the bedroom floor. Sometimes I even hang streamers from the bedroom door. It’s the first thing your birthday babe will wake up to and they will LOVE it! It’s a tradition to do this every year now and it’s something my daughter always looks forward to.

2. Donut Cake!

We are more of a donut family than we are a cake family, so this works perfectly for us! Plus, turning it into a cake and singing ‘Happy Birthday’ in the morning before you start your day is just plain COOL! It’s so easy… just stack up the donuts and stick in some candles!

The candle is from Walmart and the cake bunting was on clearance at Target. Donuts are from a local donut shop!

3. Birthday meal at a restaurant.

Going out to eat together as a family is always a special occasion for us because it’s not something we do super often. Going out to a restaurant for a birthday celebration is always extra special when you go to restaurants or dining places that offer special deals and meals for the birthday person. Some offer free meals, free drinks, and even free dessert! Here’s a LIST of restaurants that offer freebies for birthdays.

We had so much fun with our birthday girl and making her day extra special. After the above festivities, we ventured to the dollar theater to find a good movie (Star Wars!) and then to the American Girl store so my girl could get her very first AG doll. Later on, her daddy gave her a special birthday photo shoot… perks to being a photographer’s kid! Here are a few pictures from her shoot that I just adore! I’m such a lucky momma.

What special things do you do for your kids on their birthdays? I’d love to hear about your traditions in the comments!

Filed Under: birthday, holidays, kid-friendly, motherhood, parenting, party, party planning Tagged With: celebration, special

Graveyard Pudding

October 26, 2015 1 Comment

This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone. #SnackPackMixIns #CollectiveBias

Hello and Happy Monday, makers! It’s the week of Halloween and we are busy getting our homeschool co-op party on, heading to the pumpkin patch, painting and carving pumpkins, and even making some fun Halloween treats! Today, I am sharing how my daughter and I made spooky Graveyard Pudding! It’s so easy and so fun for the kids to participate in.

Cute with a side of spooky, right? There’s only a few things you will need to make Graveyard Pudding and it all can be purchased at your local Walmart along with all of your other Halloween essentials.

Pick yourself up some Super Snack Packs (Chocolate, Vanilla, or Chocolate Vanilla combo), OREOS, HONEY MAID Graham Crackers, baking gel, and any other Halloween candy you’d like to add.

First, you want to smash one OREO per Super Snack Pack. You can do this in a baggie or right on your cutting board. The kids love this step.

Next, open your choice of Super Snack Pack and sprinkle the crushed OREO on top. This represents the soil in the graveyard.

Break off one rectangle of the HONEY MAID Graham Crackers and use the gel to carefully write RIP at the top. This will represent the tombstone.

Stick your edible tombstone into the pudding and place any other Halloween candy you’d like on your Graveyard Pudding.

For the finishing touch, we added a homemade cupcake liner to the bottom of the Super Snack Pack cups. I used a creepy looking fence download from the Silhouette online store and some black and white card stock and used my Silhouette Cameo to cut them out. Now it’s time to cue the spooky music and grab a spoon, don’t you think?!

We had so much fun making these fun snacks together. Snack Packs give you that childhood nostalgia, wouldn’t you agree? It’s definitely a recipe we will continue to use each year. Yay for fun family traditions!

Not only is this Halloween treat great for an after school snack, but this would be great to make on a play date, with a co-op group, or for a classroom or holiday party!

All you need to do to make your own Graveyard Pudding is head to your local Walmart to pick up the supplies. It is literally my Halloween go-to store…. from costumes to decor to treats, they have you covered. While you are there getting your Graveyard Pudding ingredients, be sure to keep an eye out for the “Buy 14.3oz OREOs get $1 off Super Snack Pack Pudding” coupon.

What are your favorite spooky treats to make for Halloween? Tell us in the comments!

Filed Under: dessert, fall, halloween, holidays, kid-friendly, recipe

Mini Monster Pies

October 20, 2015 6 Comments

This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone. #EffortlessPies #CollectiveBias

With Halloween around the corner, we have been busy in the kitchen making some fun holiday treats! Because I teach kids’ culinary classes, I often come up with fun and creative food ideas for the little ones to do and holiday themed recipes are the best! This past weekend we made these yummy Mini Monster Pies.

Would you believe there are only 3 easy ingredients in these pies?

To make the pies, you will need:

Dannon® Greek Yogurt Oikos® Pumpkin Pie (3 containers)
Keebler Ready Crust Mini Pie Crusts (6 count)
Reddi-wip® original

One container of yogurt will fill 2 of the mini pie crusts. So spoon in half of the container of yogurt into the pie crust and smooth with the back of the spoon.

Now all you need to do is add the Reddi-wip® original!

You’re ready to create your monster face! You can use whatever candy, cookies, nuts, etc that you like. You can even make these again after Halloween with your leftover Halloween candy!

These are so super easy for your little ones to make and they can be creative as they want with the monster faces.

Didn’t this Mini Monster Pie turn out so cute? Now just grab a spoon and dig in because these little pumpkin pies are so tasty. I love that this is a personal size, no bake recipe that kids can make on their own after school or for dessert after dinner.

You can find all 3 ingredients at your local Walmart. I can’t wait to see all of your Mini Monster Pies!

What do you like making in the kitchen with your kids?

Filed Under: dessert, fall, holidays, kid-friendly, pumpkin, recipe

Easy Spider-Girl Costume

October 9, 2015 1 Comment

This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone. #AvengersUnite #CollectiveBias

With Halloween around the corner, we have been busy watching all of our favorite Halloween movies this month! We were super excited to add Avengers: Age of Ultron Blu-Ray/DVD to our collection since it was released on October 2nd at Walmart. Our family is all about superheroes! Aside from popping popcorn and chocolate covered blueberries, I decided to make the movie viewing even more fun for my daughter by creating an Easy Spider-Girl Costume using a Spider-Man costume and adding a few girly touches.

How cute is this girl? I kid you not, after she put on the Spiderman part of the costume, she looked down at the faux muscles and said, “This is so sick.” LOL! She was totally digging the muscles!

To girly up the Spiderman costume a bit, we added sparkly sneakers, a handmade tutu (tutorial below) and a spider web mask.

To make the tutu you will need about 5 yards of tulle and a roll of 1-2 inch ribbon and scissors. First you want to cut your strips of tulle. To do that, keep the tulle folded long ways (it comes that way off the roll) and fold it two more times long ways. Then cut the tulle at every 4 inches until you run out of tulle (refer to the first photo above). Next measure the waist line of your child and add 40 inches to it and cut that length from the ribbon. For example, my daughter was 27 around the waist, so I cut off 67 inches of ribbon. Then you want to tie a knot 20 inches in on each side of the ribbon (refer to the second photo above). Go back to your strips of tulle that you previously cut and start cutting them all in half so that they are each about 13-14 inches long. Now take the strips of tulle and loop-n-pull them on in between the two knots on the ribbon (refer to photos 3-6 above) until the the entire ribbon between the two knots is full. You kind of have to slide the tulle down the ribbon as you go so that you get a full tutu.

Now just add the handmade tutu to the Spiderman costume and BAM! You have yourself an Easy Spider-Girl Costume.

In between the superhero/Spiderman stances, there was some definite ballet dancing in this costume. I love this girly tomboy of mine!

And you better believe she wore the entire costume while we watched Avengers: Age of Ultron and munched on our favorite snacks. Do your kids love dress up too? I love that we can use this costume year round…not just for Halloween!

Head to your local Walmart to pick up your copy of Avengers: Age of the Ultron Blu-Ray/DVD and any of the MARVEL Avengers and Spiderman costumes to make movie viewing and Halloween that much more fun!

Is your family into superheroes? Which MARVEL hero would your kiddo choose to dress up like?

Have a SUPER weekend friends!

Filed Under: costumes, halloween, kid-friendly, tutorial Tagged With: family movie night, Halloween movies, MARVEL, movie night, spiderman, superhero

Halloween BOO ‘Mores Bar

October 7, 2015 2 Comments

The weather is FINALLY starting to cool down around these parts, which means I can finally start thinking about fall! Hooray! I know most people associate pumpkin spiced everything with fall, but for me. . . I think about my unhealthy relationship with s’mores. I’ll eat them anyway I can get them. . . and now that the Peeps people have made adorable Peep marshmallows available for every holiday, you know I am all over this. So, I created this super simple Halloween BOO ‘Mores Bar, perfect for a Halloween Party, play date, or even trick-or-treaters!

I used a black plastic table cloth, and a tassel banner I already had from Mod Party to dress up a small table. Tassel banners are such a great way to decorate and they are super simple to make yourself.

Chalkboards are also great for party decorating. You can use them over and over again and write fun messages or sayings on them for different holidays and occasions.

I put ghost and tombstone Peeps on candy sticks and stuck them in black plastic planting pots from the Dollar Tree store to add some dimension to the table. I also use wire baskets to add to the table depth and just flipped them upside down on the table.

Finally, I displayed graham crackers and chocolate in cute cupcake liners on white platters, ready for kiddos and adults to make a delicious marshmallow sandwich. My intention is for these to be eaten “as-is,” but you could certainly toast the marshmallow Peeps first like a traditional S’more.

This inexpensive Boo ‘Mores Bar would be the perfect addition to your Halloween celebrations.

What kinds of Halloween traditions do you have with your kids?

For more celebration inspiration, check me out HERE.

Party On!

Mindy {Mindy Alyse Celebrations}

Filed Under: bar, fall, family, halloween, kid-friendly, party, party planning, recipe, s'mores Tagged With: dessert, smores

30 Family Friendly Halloween Movies

October 5, 2015 1 Comment

I am so happy that it’s October. I absolutely love this time of year… where I pretend like it’s cool out and that the leaves are changing colors. Lol! Luckily, this week we are looking at the 90s which is a huge relief. So I busted out the faux pumpkins and mini haystacks and started planning Halloween costumes and plugging in fall events on our calendar. One of our very favorite things to do is watch spooky, magical movies during October. So I rounded up 30 Family Friendly Halloween Movies that you might light to watch with the kids this year too!

*Disclaimer: As a parent, I recommend previewing the movies first and deciding on your own if the movie is appropriate for your children to view. Some of these movies are pretty spooky, some have mild adult language and they range in ratings (G, PG, or PG-13). For example, my daughter is only 7, so there are movies on this list that she isn’t allowed to watch just yet.

Hocus Pocus
Casper
E.T.
The Addams Family

The Goonies
Hotel Transylvania
Monster House

It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown
Nightmare Before Christmas
Ghost Busters
Halloween Town
The Witches

Disney’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
Ernest Scared Stupid
Little Monsters

Curious George: A Halloween Boo-Fest
Paranorman
Race to Witch Mountain
Monster Squad
Watcher in the Woods

Beetle Juice
Corpse Bride
Coraline
Scared Shrekless

The Haunted Mansion
Harry Potter series
Tower of Terror

Frankenweenie
The Munsters, Go Home!
Mr. Boogedy

Go pop that popcorn and make yourself some fun treats! It’s time to get your Halloween movie watching on! Some of these are even available on Netflix!

What’s your family’s favorite Halloween movie? We always watch Hocus Pocus and Casper every Halloween!

Filed Under: fall, family, halloween, kid-friendly, list Tagged With: family movie night, Halloween movies, movie night, netflix

Marvel Lunch Box Notes

September 16, 2015 3 Comments

This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone. #MARVELSnackBar #CollectiveBias

Are you back in the swing of things packing lunches for the kids? Although we homeschool, we are often on the go and therefore pack lunches and snacks to take along with us. Now that we are approaching fall, we love having picnic lunches outside in the cool weather too. I love sticking little surprises in my daughter’s lunch like handwritten love notes, jokes, fun facts, etc. Since she loves superheros, I decided to make Marvel Lunch Box Notes to attach to the new MARVEL Chewy Granola Bars.

So fun, right?! I was shopping the grocery section of Target the other day and spotted the new MARVEL Chewy Granola Bars. Since we are a superhero loving family, I thought it would be fun to add these to lunches or have as an afternoon snack. So I whipped up these fun lunch box notes to go with them. I love the way they turned out, so I thought I’d share them here on the blog with y’all.

Ready to make lunch a little more super? All you need is… a box of the new MARVEL Chewy Granola Bars, the free Marvel Lunch Box Notes printable, scissors, and washi tape or baker’s twine. You can print the lunch box notes HERE for personal use only.

After you print off the Marvel Lunch Box Notes, simply cut them out with your scissors and attach them to the MARVEL Chewy Granola Bars with washi tape or baker’s twine. You can even go a little further and grab a package of Marvel napkins from the party section at Target to include in the lunches too.

I totally get the Hulk, don’t you? You wouldn’t like me when I’m hangry. Just ask my husband. LOL!

I really love the graphics on the wrappers of the MARVEL Chewy Granola Bars. They remind me of the original illustrations from the comics.

My daughter noticed that there’s even Super Hero Trivia and collectible Super Hero Cards on the back of the MARVEL Chewy Granola Bars box. So far we have The Amazing Spider-Man card and my daughter can’t wait to collect the other 3. Next time you run into Target to buy all the things, be sure to snag the new MARVEL Chewy Granola Bars and print yourself off some lunch box notes to go with them.

Who is your favorite super hero and how do you make lunchtime SUPER for your kids?

Filed Under: kid-friendly, lunch, print, printable

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