Just Add Stickers

Here is some more minion fun. This is a card we made for my nephew's birthday that can be taken apart and used as a door hanger. We made the minion and name using perler beads and decorated the card with minion stickers. Material: Perler beads (multicoloured as well as separated colours yellow, black and white) and square frame Pipe cleaner Stickers Construction paper Markers Directions: Door hanger: Make a minion shape with the perler beads. When you're done place waxed paper over the minion and iron until the beads are melted. Remove the minion from the frame and set aside to cool. Write the name using the perler beads. Place waxed paper over the beads and melt with the iron. Remove the name and set aside to cool. Bend the pipe cleaner into a circle and twist the ends.  Using the glue gun, glue the pipe cleaner to the back of the minion. Glue the name under the minion. Card: Using the glue gun, glue the minion door hanger to the front of the

I love the idea of customising advent calendars to your family's interests. Last year I made a   DIY Lego Advent Calendar  and it was a big hit. This year I'm going with a favourite, stickers and using the versatile muffin tin for the calendar. The great thing about the muffin tin advent calendars is that almost anything will fit in there. You can fill the muffin cups with your family's favourite candy, Lego or beads, anything goes. Time : 30 minutes Cost: $6.00 gift tags and stickers (not including muffin tin) Material: Mini muffin tin for 24 muffins 28 Round gift tags (same size as the muffin cups) Surprises (stickers, candy etc.) Markers (red and green) Tape Glue gun Directions: Divide your surprises into 24 piles. Use the markers to number the gift tags 1 - 24. On the remaining gift tags write the year (one number per gift tag.) Place the surprises in the muffin cups. If you want the muffin tin to be upright tape the surprises to the bottom

My little man has never seen Despicable Me 1 or 2 but he loves the minions and with good reason who doesn't love minions? I got this idea from a teacher friend who had her class decorate minions with characteristics specific to each student. We printed out some minion colouring pages, decided what kind of minions we would make and then drew specific characteristics for each minion. It's a fun craft and helps develop vocabulary while having fun! Cost: Under $5.00 Time:  20 minutes Material: Black and white printouts of minions Markers, crayons or paints Popsicle sticks White glue Directions: Print out a stack of minion pictures (I printed out 3, full page minions and 6, half page minions)write what kind of minion it will be on the bottom of each paper. We did a combination of emotions (happy, sad) and characters (pirate, princess etc) For each minion talk about what characteristics would make that minion a happy minion or a princess minion etc. and

This year: tree ornament and Christmas plate For my birthday the last 2 years I've painted ceramics with my little man (and my mom this year.) It's a great way to make memories and have keepsakes from year to year. Since my birthday is at the start of the Christmas season we paint tree ornaments or decorations. Last year little man painted for 5 minutes then was off to play with the toys. This year he was excited to paint and lasted over 10 minutes and even made a pattern before heading off to play with the toys. It's a lot of fun to see the changes in his attention span and creativity. During the year I thought about going to paint ceramics again but never made time for it (and you get 15% off on your birthday!) I like having an activity set aside to do once a year, it makes it special. Last year: tree ornaments

Sometimes crafts don't turn out so well but they are salvageable and sometimes there's nothing to be done. I thought that I'd share some of my recent blunders. So these were supposed to be chocolate dipped apples shaped as footballs, not so much but no matter it was still chocolate! So this is supposed to be Olaf can you tell? But again, marshmallows and chocolate chips are tasty even if they don't look like Olaf. The great thing is that kids don't know blunders from Pintrest pictures, having fun and spending time together is really all that matters to them. Happy crafting and happy failing!

  My mom brought me back the book 50 Rainy Day Activities by Usborne  from her recent trip to England. There are a lot of fun crafts mostly involving paper and paint and other common craft material. Except for one craft that is making animals out of marzipan, I'm not sure about that one!  There are crafts specifically for boys and for girls and other crafts that appeal to both like these royal bookmarks.  There are crafts for specific seasons like this haunted castle with ghost stamps.  There are even ideas for 'magic' tricks like this putting the prisoner back in jail trick. There are some great ideas in this book I definitely recommend it, it's a great book for both crafters and those who are not so crafty!