Do It Your Freaking Self - activities for kids Archives - Page 2 of 3

How to Make Unicorn Bark

on April 19, 2016

I’ll admit I have a special affinity for unicorns. They’re mythical, magical, and they can stab you with their heads. Pretty awesome huh?

No, my house is not completely decorated in them. No, not everything I own has a unicorn on it, but I do love them. The term unicorn doesn’t always refer to the mythical white horse that bleeds silver (thank you Harry Potter) or poops glitter and marshmallows. It can also refer to something special, unique. In the start up world, a unicorn (in Canada they call them Narwhals and that makes me laugh) is astart up that is valued at over $1 Billion. Think about that! (with my pinky at my mouth) 1 Billion Dollars. I wouldn’t have to work at all with that kind of money… like ever… and still have some left over.

For me, I like to refer to people unicorns as those who freaking rock and are magical and not afraid to show it.

More Bark Recipes

Oh, and before you do anything else, Google Scotland’s national animal. DO IT!!!
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ByChelsea

How to Make Tissue Paper Seed Bombs

on April 17, 2016

Quick and easy steps to make your own colorful seed bombs to throw and grow wild flowers. Great Earth Day crafts for kids and wedding favors.

When I was in grade school, I remember celebrating Earth Day with soil lessons, making those super fun seed sprout bags, and eating worms an dirt. I’m sure there was more, but that’s whats going through my brain right now.

This post may contain affiliate links, that means that I make a few pennies if you purchase through my links… but the price for you stays the same!!

I promise this is going somewhere, so just bear with me. My friend Angie is also getting married soon with a science themed wedding. It’s awesome. I’m not gonna lie. We were talking about what she should do as favors, and the idea of seed bombs came up. To which my brain hearkened back to Earth Day activities and I thought it would be such a fun thing to do with the kiddos! See, I connected it! Be proud of me!

Anyhoo, for Angie’s wedding we wanted to create something that had a pop of color and you can’t really do that with soil…. I mean its brown. So! We had the idea to use tissue paper so we could control the colors. The kids really took to this… I mean, who doesn’t like tearing up paper? Fair warning, you’re going to need a blender for this. I LOVE using my Magic Bullet for these types of projects.

ByChelsea

Celery Rose Stamp Tea Towels

on April 12, 2016

Mothers day is coming up and I’ve been racking my brain trying to come up with a mothers day craft for the kiddos to do that is classy but not just a simple handprint.

So, the story is that I was babysitting the littles one night and they asked for some Ants on a Log. You know… celery and peanut butter topped with raisins? No? take a look.

Anyway, I cut the stalks off and said to myself “huh? You know that base looks a lot like a rose”. And so I’ve had that in my head the whole time for when I needed to stamp something.

The kiddos LOVED that their snack was also their craft and the towels ended up looking super cute and elegant.

ByChelsea

10 Must Have Items for the Creative Babysitting Bag

on March 30, 2016

As I learned from reading the Baby Sitters Club as a child, having a bag is VERY important. Like, life changing important. As a crafty nanny, its even more important to have things on hand to create an activity at a moments notice. It has become so (need a word for this) that a lot of my kiddos call it my “Mary Poppins” bag, and since I’m still convinced that Mary is a time lord, I take it as the highest compliment.

How does she fit it all in there? Seriously!
Photo (c) Disney

But really folks. Who here that babysits or nanny’s doesn’t try to roll up like Mary Poppins and just blow everyones minds? If only it were as easy and practically perfect as she makes it look. I mean… I want to jump into a chalk painting and hang out with my chimney sweep best friend while I’m playing with someone else’s kids…. moving on.

I want to be practically perfect in every way. © Disney

I want to be perfectly perfect in every way.
© Disney

Now, that being said, these are the craft staples of my nanny and babysitting bag. I buy most, if not all of these things at the dollar tree to cut down on costs. Other things change out from day to day and week to week, depending on what I’ve got going on. These items stay in there though because they’re great for a quick activity in any combination!

Want to survive the summer? Check out the Summer Survival Babysitting Bag too!

UPDATE: I’ve just added this adorable DIY Emoji Pillow Busy Bag to my babysitter bag staples!

ByChelsea

Coffee Filter Butterflies

on March 28, 2016

As a nanny, I’m always looking for a craft that is going to keep the kiddos engaged. Here’s my rule, if the set up and clean up take longer than the craft itself, I’m not doing it. Sorry, I’m sure they’re cute, but if it makes my life harder, its not worth my time when I can be spending it with the kiddos. These Coffee Filter Butterflies had one 5 year old busy for 1.5 hours. Yep… HOURS. Who doesn’t love that?

Recently I’ve been having a love affair with coffee filters. Seriously, I have a keurig, so I don’t really need them, but OMG they make great craft supplies! And just in time for spring, I have been making butterflies with the kids! They’re pretty amazing because they turn out great no matter what. Even if your child uses a million colors and scribbles in zero decipherable pattern.

ByChelsea

Easter Bunny Chow Recipe

on March 25, 2016

Holidays always involve a lot of tradition, whether its hot cocoa with your family on Christmas Eve, the fireworks on the 4th of July, or Church on Easter Morning. I for one love them.

But sometimes, you create your own traditions. When I moved to LA I didn’t really know many people. No one that I could say I was close to, so I had to sort of make my own. In making my own tribe/family, I also realized that I was making traditions with them as well. One of those for us is an Easter brunch. My friend Natalie always makes Ham Pies (her families’ tradition), we meet at a friends house after church, eat a bunch of casserole, ham, and sweets and really just enjoy spring and being together. Does anyone have a favorite Easter tradition? I’d love to know.

ByChelsea

Fabric Decoupage Easter Eggs

on March 24, 2016

Spring is in the air! Full of flowers and sunshine and allergies. Ugh.

I’ve been working on a lot lately and honestly, I feel like I’m spinning my wheels? Anyone else feel like they just overcommit without any really payoff? On top of that I haven’t really made time to craft. And non-crafting Chelsea = a stressed out Chelsea. Funny how that works.

So, in an effort to be festive, cause I LOVE Easter, get rid of some fabric scraps and work on a craft that I can really spend some time on I’ve been decoupaging like a mad woman. Go me!

ByChelsea

DIY Spin Art Easter Banner

on March 21, 2016

Does anyone remember spin art as a kid? I’m pretty sure we used everything the kit gave us and more on the first day, sorry mom! I just remember hours of fun experimenting with colors, patterns and the like to make some pretty awesome art work. However, I also remember the ridiculous amount of clean up that went with all the tiny parts… guess you win some, you lose some.

While those days may be gone, I still like to do my fair share DIY Spin Art and I adore doing it with the little ones. I come over an they ask for it! They can experiment with colors and using the salad spinner method helps the toddlers work on fine motor skills. Win Win! Honestly though, even though there is a some clean up with this (parts) it is relatively mess free when it comes to kids and hands.

ByChelsea

Marbled Shaving Cream Easter Eggs

on March 15, 2016

One of my favorite Easter memories is dying eggs with my family. We’d pick an evening, stay up late, get one of those old school tablet dye kits and have at it. Sometimes my mom would write little messages on them in a white crayon for us to discover while we dyed them later.

Well, times have certainly changed. There’s dye kits for everything. You want Sparkle Eggs? Find them here. Metallic eggs? Here. 3D eggs? Oh yeah, they have those too. But even though the egg kits are fun, I wanted to do something with the kiddos that could also double as sensory play, so we made these Marbled Shaving Cream Easter Eggs. This is best done outside or in the bottom of the bathtub (trust me). If you want to eat your eggs (I always HATED hard boiled eggs, but whatever) use Cool Whip instead.

ByChelsea

10 Fun and Easy Pi Day Pie Recipes

on March 13, 2016

Okay friends. Let me introduce you to the pi song.

Yeah, all I remember is that pi = 3.14159. You don’t really need to know more than that, unless you have an awesome memory and love math.

Anyway, I love Pi Day for a few reasons. For one, I love baking… duh. And two, I get a kick out of telling uninformed people that it is officially Pi Day and therefore we eat pi and celebrate math. They think I’m a dork, but whatever.

ByChelsea

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