Throw Me Something, Mister!

Mardi Gras is coming up soon and many of us are out buying masks for the occasion.  Instead of buying the same mask for your little one that every other child will be wearing, have them make one.  After the holiday is over you can put it away for for them or place in a Scrapbook for safe keeping with pictures for the occasion.

For this project you will need the following materials:
2 pieces of card stock paper; colors of Purple, Green, and/or Yellow (Gold)
Glue (stick glue, liquid school glue, or hot glue will be fine)
1 wooden dowel or pencil
Gems or Glitter glue

Have your child trace his or her hands onto the pieces of card stock and cut out. Draw and oval in the middle of the cut out palm around where their eye would go and help them cut it out.  Next, glue the two palms together as they have done in the photo above.   Allow the glue to dry and then place gems or glitter glue dots along the fingers and thumb.  You may also have them decorate with markers or other materials to make it even more of their own.  If you used glitter glue, allow it to dry before adding the pencil or dowel.

Suggestions:
To adhere the pencil or dowel use strong clear tape or hot glue.  I also suggest gems over glitter glue if you do not want a big mess.  Add ribbons to the top of the pencil using hot glue or a straight pin through the tip of the ribbons and eraser.  This makes it look even more authentic and CUTE!!

I hope you enjoy this project and I hope to see your pictures on my Facebook page.  https://www.facebook.com/pages/Jesstastic-Creations/153125974709984?ref=ts&fref=ts

"If your creations aren't Jesstastic, they aren't Fantastic!"

Mardi Gras in September

This month was my two oldest nieces birthday.  Every year they decide on a theme for their party and this year their theme was Mardi Gras!

I was not personally born in Louisiana, however, the majority of my family is or was born and raised in Louisiana.  Being from a family who was raised with the type of cultures and traditions that is shared among all of those who are from there, I was also taught many of their cultures and traditions, including one of the state favorites, Mardi Gras.

Mardi Gras facts and a slight history:
To read about the history click here.  This will open the East Jefferson Parrish: The History of Mardi Gras website and you can read it all.  

For the girls birthday party we made the majority of their decorations and activities.  Any of you who enjoy celebrating or are interested in celebrating would have loved our party.  We had games such as:  Pin the baby on the King Cake (our own version of pin the tail on the donkey), a doubloon hunt (our version of an Easter egg hunt), and Mardi Gras hot potato (hot potato with a Mardi Gras stuffed animal).  We were able to make everything from items caught at parades threw out the years.  Because it is Sepetember, we couldn't find any Mardi Gras items out for sale so instead we bought plain white t-shirts and "puffy" paint to make the girls Mardi Gras shirts to wear on their special day.  We also had lots of help from the girls grandpa who is a Mardi Gras fanatic and happened to have LOTS of decorations that we could use.

I am so happy that we were able to have a birthday party that everyone was able to interact with and the girls were able to celebrate their own traditions and learn more about them while having fun!

Crafts for School

School is starting up soon and you or the kids may be in lock down with homework during the week, but that doesn't mean the weekends have to be boring. Find some time between the hectic studying and work to do something fun with your kids. Kids love to do crafts and what a better way to spend the weekends then to help your kids learn how to enjoy school or learning.

I found a few creative ideas for kids to do on Family Fun. Everything from decorating those boring school supplies, staying organized with homemade calendars, and learning with new exciting homemade flash cards.

Magnetic Marker

The Colorful Coverup Notebook

Bookmark This!

Carton Wallet 

 

I hope you all have fun and learn lots throughout the school year. Your never to cool for school. Be safe and have a happy school year.

 

Sparkless Sparkler Experience

My nieces and I just finished with a set of Spark-less Sparklers.  It was a fairly easy craft to complete with my small group of 6 year olds.  They did need a little help but not much to not do the project ever again.  The only thing I did a little different than the original directions was used black electric tape.  I just used what I had around the house.  Also instead of chopstick I used the small dowels that are used to make shish kabobs.  They turned out really cute and the girls are so excited about the 4th of July so they can play with there "sparklers".  I'm really glad they enjoyed making them and I hope you enjoy looking at ours.

I hope you all have a safe and Happy 4th of July.

Independence Day

Okay 4th of July is coming up in just another 2 weeks. Yay!  Time to find more fun crafts to keep the kids busy on their summer break.  So today I was looking up fun crafts for the kids to decorate the house for the 4th of July and I found a few other projects that they might enjoy also.  Here is one that I thought was easy for children and I really liked.

This one is the Sparkles Sparkler.  I found this project on the Merriment Design website.  It can also be found on the Daily Candy Kids website.

Supplies Needed:
2 Chopsticks (or 2 thin dowels)
Red, White, Blue, and/or Silver Ribbon and Party Garland
White 3/4" electrical tape
Scissors
Optional:  Personalize with Wooden Letter

For full instructions on how to make and manipulate this project visit Merriment Design website by clicking on the link.

Change this project up a bit by making them for birthday party's, decor at showers, center pieces for gatherings of all sorts.  Merriment Design says "This project can be easily adapted to making fairy and wizard wands, birthday party shakers or pom poms in your school’s colors."  So you can make this design even when the kids are at school.  Sounds like a plan to me. 
 
I can't wait to try this with my nieces.  I'm gonna post my own pictures of this project after my nieces make a few. 

Cute Photo Magnets

Okay so I have been searching the internet for cute inexpensive Father's day crafts, since Father's day is this weekend, instead I came across some adorable photo magnets.  They look like Tiny Polaroid photos.  Now we all remember the days of the Polaroid camera's, right?  These look so cute and very unique.  Perfect for photos that you don't have any special frames for.  Make some magnets and stick them on the refregerator or on a metal door or mirror and look at them ever time you pass.  Then those pictures that you NEVER see (because they are always put up in the attic, basement, or other storage box) will become new conversation pieces to show family and friends when they come over. 

I found the information about these and the pictures on Ambrosia creative is Jennifer Kirk Graphic Designer's blog.  On Jennifer's blog you will find the full instructions on how to make these cute magnets and there is also a place to download the Polaroid layout that she used to make them.   

I hope you try these and let me know how they work for you. I am moving soon and I can't wait to put these cute little magnets up in my new home.

3D Father's Day Paper Craft from the Kids

Father's day is a very special day for all of our dads and sometimes can be quite expensive.  However, father's everywhere LOVE to get homemade gifts from their children.  Just like cards, kids can make other items too for there dad on this special day.  This item I'm talking about now is a craft that children ages 4+ will be able to make will adult supervision.

The Materials you will need for your child to make this are all very simple and inexpensive.

• printer
• paper
• scissors
• something to color with (if using the B&W version)
• hole punch
• string, thread, ribbon or wool
   
• Optional: thin cardboard

The full instructions are here at the DLTK's Growing Together website. Just click the link or go to http://www.dltk-holidays.com/dad/m3ddad.htm.  When finished, this would be a great project to hang up in dads favorite area to surprise him after he gets up from his breakfast in bed.  Ha, ha.  I hope you and all of your wonderful father's enjoy them too (I know they will).         : )

Spoil your Dad

Father's day is a special day to tell the most important man in your life to tell him that he is so very special to you. Instead of giving him that traditional shirt and tie gift for this day be creative. What better way to tell dad "I Love You" than with a homemade card from their child/children. The folded shirt card is creative, unique, easy, and fun to make. I found out about this shirt card on the Martha Stewart website.  Click on the link to go to the site and get full instructions on how to make this unique gift for dad. 

You can make these cards even more special and unique by adding extra special touches to them also. Adding real button with just a few threads in them will make these have a "real" look to them or adding a piece of material from dads favorite old shirt or tie that he can't or doesn't wear or doesn't want to wear anymore. Well I hope this will help with your card ideas for all of your dads. Enjoy!

Ribbon Flowers

WOW! I haven't been on here in a while. I'm still planning a wedding of my own as well as helping with one other one. Recently, I have been working on making some sort of hair clip for my sister-in-law (& brother-in-law's) wedding. So I started making ribbon flowers for all of the bridemaids hair.

This is one of the ribbon flowers that I made to use for our hair. I hope you enjoy it and I hope to have new ones posted soon.

Boutineer Roses

Okay, so I'm a little excited because I just found this new video. The video is about how to make rosebuds, but they really look like the boutineer roses. The roses that normally you would see on a guys tux at a wedding or something. I'm so excited to have found it that I couldn't wait to share it with you. For any of you creative people or planning people, this would be a great idea for you to try to make for your special event.



I think I have found what I am using in my wedding! Add a little bit of small white flowers and these will be perfect! I hope you like them.

How to make Ribbon Roses

As many of you know I am going to start planning a wedding soon so I have been looking for anything that can/will help me save money while planning it.  I have recently been looking for ways to make my bouqets for me and my bridesmaids.  I thought that maybe ribbon may be fairly cheap if I can find it at a good price so I went looking for videos on how to make ribbon roses/flowers.  I found this one and I really like how she does it.  I uploaded the video from youtube.com and here is the link if you want to look it up your self  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSafZ2Se6bM



I know its not the best video out there, but it's pretty good and serves it purpose. I hope you all enjoy it like I did!

Almost Easter

I'm so excited that Easter is just around the corner.  Fun with the family and lots of food!  :)  Also, this is a great time to find some crafts to do with the kids while they are on their Spring Break.  We all know that kids can't wait to get messy with the egg dye so after the dying of the eggs is over, find something new for them to dye.  Use some coffee filters, or tissue, and have them very lightly dye that and make beautiful Easter bouquets for a center piece for dinner or place as decor in you house on any table, in any vase and add some ribbons to make them really stand out.  Also make sure to have some colorful pipe cleaners on hand (I know that the picture shows straws, but pipe cleaners work better.)  There's no glue involved in making these just and imagination and fun!

Picture found at http://blog.teaching-tiny-tots.com/tag/coffee-filter-flowers/.  Enjoy!