Crafting Secrets

Every little girl wants to be a princess. So when her birthday comes around, smart Moms and Dads know the best way to make it really special, is to have a princess birthday party. Here are a few ideas to make it a fun and unique event:

1. Every princess needs a palace, so first we must decorate the house! You can get pink sparkle tulle rolls and garland the tulle along the walls and tables. Tie big bows on the back of the chairs. Remember, the more girly and frilly the better. Next, place some inflatable unicorns, frogs & butterflies around to give the house the feel of an enchanted palace. You can give these away as prizes during the party. Groups of pink and purple balloons add a lot of visual punch and create a party atmosphere. I love placing plastic “glass slippers” filled with candy or other treats at each girl’s place setting!

2. Now we need food and treats! No matter what you choose to serve, little girls especially love the special touches that reflect the princess theme. Sandwiches or other foods can be cut out with princess themed cookie cutters. A really fun idea is to place pink rock candy in little treasure chest shaped favor boxes. Now each princess has her jewels! Lollipops in the shape of roses, flowers, frogs, stars or tiaras will complement your theme as well. Bubble gum shaped coins can be used as treasure in a centerpiece or on a side table. Of course, the cake should be shaped like a palace. Make sure to ask the baker to tint the cake pink on the inside. Another unique touch is to serve pink hot chocolate as a special princess beverage.

3. Another important element for a good princess party is the costumes. Give each girl an inexpensive tiara and wand as a party favor. If you want to go all out, give them each a ribbon tutu, as well. The little girls will have great fun dressing themselves, each other and showing off their princess style. Don’t forget to take pictures!

4. Next we need favor bags for the princesses to take home and enjoy. Rather than the usual gift bags, how about cute little purses that say “Princess” on them? Inside you can add sparkle body glitter, cute beaded jewelry, oversized jeweled rings and sparkling body stickers.

5. Plan some great age-appropriate activities to entertain your little guests. Children love a simple treasure hunt; hide plastic jewelry around the party room or in the yard. Pin the crown on the princess games are available and are sure to make everyone laugh. Guests could make their own princess wands or crowns using craft store supplies or princess craft kits. Hang a piñata shaped as a castle, dragon or tiara! How cute and fun!

6. Don’t forget there may be a prince or two at this party, so you might want to have a few prince crowns, swords and shields to delight them. You might even want an inflatable dragon for a prince to conquer!

Now you know how to throw a GREAT princess party. Be creative and enjoy!!!

Easter is probably the second most popular creative time of year for children and parents following Halloween. This easter kids are involved with making Easter baskets, Easter Eggs and Easter projects. It is also a time for Easter invitations, cards, scrapbooks and more. What kind of fonts could you use that are very festive, fun and ideal for Easter? Here are some of our favorite Easter font recommendations that will help inspire your Easter font projects:

Desard – Desard™ is happy, sweet handwriting font.Ideal for a casual and fun look and feel.

Churros – Churros™ is a super chunky handwriting font with teeth. It kinda looks like it was drawn with a brick. It is chunky, tasty, and oh so fun. “The kids love it!”.

American Unical – A historic font with a Celtic air, American Uncial is a spirited choice for greeting cards, awards certificates, and Easter party invitations.

Chauncy Decaf – Chauncy Decaf™ is the first font Chank ever made out of his own kooky nutjob handwriting.

Barrista – Barrista™ is a casual, curly script, reminiscent of the swirling curls of steam from a hot cup of Joe.

Thor – Thor™ is rich in quirky character but retains an air of restrained elegance. This historically inspired font is exceptional for holiday cards, awards certificates, and celebrating Easter or other religious holidays.

Easter basket making is not only popular during Easter, but crafts like Easter Egg making, signs, posters, decorations and other projects that require Easter Fonts are also a hit as well. Our Easter fonts would not only be appropriate for Easter, but can be used all year round for cards, invitations, decorations, crafts, scrapbooks and other Easter font or kid related projects.

Here are more Easter font that would be ideal for the Easter or any fun font project:

EasterBuns
Tipsy Font
Hastings Font
American Text Font
Pastonchi Swash Caps Font
Wittenberger Fraktur Regular Font
Stanza Font
Silentia Movie Font
Mahavishnu Font
Old English Text Font
Crestwood Font

The Easter font suggestions mentioned above are just Easter font idea starters and a small sample of what FontMarketplace.com has to offer to create an Easter themed font project. The Easter font possibilities are endless!

Decorating is something I do with a passion. It gives me so much pleasure to play a big part in the way my home looks. With every one on a little tighter budget this year will be a good year to put the old things we already have to work for us. I have used things in a different room or paint them a different color and I start to believe they are new. One thing that I have found to be so rewarding is to let your children help with the project. It helps give them pride in there homes and a since of accomplishment. Try some of the cheap home decorating ideas below.

1. Try this to make a small space look larger and fell brighter. Cover a whole wall with mirrors. Shop flea markets,yard sales,dollar general and use some you already have. Use all different size mirrors and paint them the same color to bring unity to your collection. Hang the mirrors at random heights, Start about chest high and go almost to the ceiling.

2. Use picture frames to create a new focal point in a room. Gather up old frames at yard sales or buy cheap ones at your local shopping center. Use all different sizes and shapes for this project. Get enough to cover a six by six square section. It does not have to be square I am just giving you an idea of the space you can cover. Take the backs and the glass out of the frames and discard. Take your frames and hang them on the desired wall in no certain order. Now comes the fun part. Find some wall words at your local craft store and create the saying that you like. There does not have to be an order here either just place them where they will say your saying.What a great focal point for any room.

3. Have you priced flower arrangements lately? If you have you will know that they carry a high price tag. This is what I do and I get compliments all the time. Shop you local craft store for there discontinued ideas or sale items.Sometimes they mark stuff down as much as 80%. Find one that you like the size and style of. Now shop for stem flowers that are on sale and pick your color and ad them to your arrangement to make them personal to your home.I really like to do this because over time you can collect up sales flowers for every season. Keep them in a sealed tote and when the new season rolls around just take some out and ad the new seasons. Now you have a fresh flower for every season and reason.

4. Paint just one wall in a room to create a stunning effect. You should stay in the same paint family but you can go as many shades lighter or darker as you want.This can be done in one day and can change the look of the whole room. Rearrange the furniture and you are good to go.

5. Use an inexpensive large wall clocks as the focal point in any room. When you use a large clock it can usually be used alone. They are making so many styles of clocks now you can always find a unique one to fit your homes theme.

6. Use Inexpensive area rugs to ad a touch of beauty to any room. Not only will it ad beauty be it can be your focal point and ad warmth to any room.

Learn to get the most for your money and when decorating the interior of your home learn how to bring some of that old stuff back to life instead of buying new.Sometimes after we look at stuff a lot we see it as lease desirable but remember how it made you feel when you first bought. Change it a little with some paint or new flowers and bring it back to life. Or maybe just move it to another place in the room.

come join me at http://www.dimedecorating.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Gail_Richardso

I have a confession to make: Christmas presents for children make me nervous. It’s not because I don’t adore spoiling my own children, but so often other people get it wrong.

Do I sound like an ungrateful brat? Let me explain. Nine times out of ten, instead of a well-designed, age-appropriate kids’ toy, my children are inundated with junk.

Bead sets that are marked ‘for age 10-plus’ – my daughter is five – weapons that wouldn’t look out of place in the armed forces and soft-toys based on cartoon characters. Never mind the children, no wonder parents occasionally lose their minds over kids’ toys.

Call me old fashioned, but my ethos is simple. Source beautifully crafted kids’ toys that aren’t just one-hit wonders. Anyone can spend a tenner on the latest TV must-have, but wouldn’t it be nicer to invest in illustrated books or finger puppets that are unisex and great for a child’s imagination?

Even if you choose the cartoon they actually like, they probably already have the duvet/ lunch-box/ plastic figures. If not, they won’t care, or – gasp – will have cared, but six months ago and will now think you’re treating them like a baby. Believe me, in planet child there’s not much worse than that.

The most successful Christmas presents for children look gorgeous and come with guaranteed longevity. My daughter’s jewellery box with a wind-up dancing clown is played with every night before she goes to bed, unlike the plastic handbag that snapped in two the second she put her treasures inside it.

My son plays endlessly with his wooden fort, hiding everything from wooden knights to toy cars inside. Like the music box, it also looks good in his bedroom – and most mums will admit this is important too.

My advice is to go for the best example of the classic Christmas presents for children you can find, or dare to be different. Traditional blocks, a pull-along hand-painted animal, a china tea-set or play tent, wrapped simply in brown-paper and tied with a coloured ribbon will look far cooler than the army of flashing chunks of plastic kids’ toys given by almost everyone else. Wouldn’t you be happy if your birthday presents lasted a lifetime?

About the Author
Grace Saunders, author of the Fabulous Mum’s Handbook, was writing on behalf of The Handpicked Collection, a website and catalogue featuring a selection of unique gift ideas.

A kids party, whether a birthday or to celebrate a favorite holiday is an occasion that brings joy and excitement. These celebrations should not be stressful nor should they be a drain on your finances. Many people consider a kids party as an excuse to spend lavishly without taking into account the financial strain it can put on the family budget. We have all seen those ridiculous shows on TV about the Sweet 16 parties, right? To avoid such party overload you can follow certain guidelines which will help you keep your kids party simple and enjoyable. Hosting kids party at home with your friends and family is great fun. The size of your home will dictate the amount of people on your guest list. You will have to limit the number of people you invite to your party depending on how many guests will fit in your home. Almost all the activities have to be organized by you, but you can ask a relative or friend to help you unless they volunteer first. It is worth all the effort because of the satisfaction you will derive. When you see your own creativity being enjoyed by the children you will be proud of all your party planning efforts. And you managed to host this wonderful at home kids birthday party plus you are also within your party budget. If it is a preschool party you can expect parents to accompany their young kids so you will want to make sure you plan them into your party. You will need some adult snacks to serve them on top of all your kids party food ideas. If children are older make sure that their parents know whether the party is a ‘drop off’ event or you would like them to be around. Having adults around in a kid’s party is helpful, if there are activities that require adult supervision. Having a theme for a kids party makes the occasion easy for you to plan and kids love a themed birthday party. The theme can be your child’s favorite activity or character. This can be a cartoon character from TV, book character, favorite sport, games, country or any other thing that interests your child. Once you decide upon the theme, you can begin to plan all your decorations and party supplies to match your theme. These elements comprise the invitations, decorations, activities, food, party favors and the cake. As soon as the children arrive have a quiet activity to keep them busy and entertained. This could be a simple craft project or some indoor games to keep them occupied till all the guests arrive and the party officially begins. Have two or three active games or projects to entertain your party guests. When you are planning these activities keep the ages of the kids in mind. After, the children have enjoyed the activities and played all the fun party games you planned, it will be time to settle down and serve refreshments and snacks. Or if you like you can serve refreshments in between activities and after the events are over cut the birthday cake. To keep the fun coming at a kids parties, you can put on some music, have a dance contest, treasure hunt or a movie. Young kids attention span is limited and they get easily bored if an activity continues for long. So, have different activities lined up to keep them engaged. The kids will enjoy short activities or games. Instead of the perennial pizza at birthday parties, you can get creative with your party food ideas. Offer some other choices to your guests without spending much money. How about cutting turkey or cheese sandwiches, into interesting and fun shapes using some cookie cutters. To keep clean up simple use disposable cup and plates. You can find so many themed paper party supplies and party decorations. This is the quickest and easiest way to serve up your party food. It will also prevent any plates and glass breaking…you don’t want any broken glass at a kids party.

When you think of scrapbooking you usually think of making scrapbook albums. How you tried using your scrapbooking materials for other projects? These project ideas are great for scrapbooking with kids.

1. Decorate jars and use them as small storage items in your children’s bedrooms, like marble collections or collectible game cards. Look in your scrapbooking supplies for stickers and rub-ons to embellish any size jar. Baby food jars and Mason jars work well for this project.

2. Make greeting cards when scrapbooking with your children. Nearly any type of scrapbooking material can be used for making cards. Children will love creating their own Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day or birthday cards.

3. Holiday decorations are easy to make with scrapbooking materials. For example, Thanksgiving embellishments and cardstock can make name plates for the holiday table. Use your creativity and help your children make a centerpiece for the table out of paper and scrapbooking supplies.

4. Help your child keep a vacation journal. Before you go on vacation, create a scrapbook album to take along and have your child complete the album while traveling. Select a small album so it will be easy to pack in a child’s carry-on bag. Have pages pre-designed for some of the places you are planning to visit. You could even include some journaling prompts throughout the album. Some examples are “My Favorite Ride at Disneyland” or “The Best Thing about Staying in a Hotel.” Then attach a small plastic bag filled with colored pencils or markers, lots of vacation-themed stickers and some adhesive to attach memorabilia and photos from the trip. Let your child do the rest!

5. Scrapbooking for children is an opportunity to make gifts for your family. Flip through any scrapbooking magazine, and you are sure to see a gift project. Your child can use scrapbooking supplies to make picture frames, pencil holders, photo cubes, or note cards. Children also can design pre-made gift scrapbooks, like a recipe album for grandma or an ABC album for a new baby cousin.

6. Christmas ornaments make great scrapbooking projects for gifts. There is no limit to the kinds of ornaments you can make from scrapbooking supplies. Don’t be afraid to get messy and use glitter for this project.

7. Birthday parties and sleepovers are the perfect project for using your scrapbooking supplies with your children. Begin with crafting invitations out of paper and embellishments. Have enough materials to keep the same theme throughout the project. Take the time to create thank you notes at the same time. Then use your scrapbook materials to make napkin holders, name plates, centerpieces and party decorations. Finally, using the same theme, decorate goodie bags for your guests to take home.

You’ll find hours of fun in these scrapbooking for kids projects. In most cases, you have everything you need in your scrapbooking supplies right now. Scrapbooking for children is a chance to spend quality time with your kids and encourage their creativity and imaginations. Try one of these projects today with your child.

During Halloween, the best way to keep children engaged is through Halloween crafts and the ghost glove puppet is one such craft that is sure to be a hit with the kids. There are a number of ways one can make a ghost puppet. Here is a list of some ideas that we got from the internet that you might find interesting.

One of the ways in which you can make a ghost glove puppet is by taking a twelve square inch of a white handkerchief of any white fabric, a black marker and three rubber bands. Hold your hand with your thumb and little finger outstretched and your remaining middle fingers together. Drape your hand with the white cloth square with one diagonal running across the top of the fingers. Fix a rubber band over the three fingers in the middle around the knuckle region: this will form the ghost’s head. Wrap another rubber band over the thumb and one more over the little finger. These form the ghost’s arms. Then, draw a ghost face on the ghost and you have your ghost puppet ready.

You can even use a brown paper lunch bag to make your very own ghost glove puppet. First you need to color or spray paint the bag completely white. The bottom part of the bag that can fold over will form the ghost glove puppet’s face. You can shred the bottom of the bag in order to make it look like creepy tendrils. Put your hand into the bag and make your ghost come alive by folding your fingers over the bag’s bottom.

Once you are done with your very own ghost glove puppet, you can write a ghost story script and put up a play. There are a number of puppet plays available online but it is a lot more fun if you take your child’s help and write your own story. Write it from the ghost’s point of view. Give your ghost a character. You can make him a friendly ghost, or a ghost who learnt a lesson. There are endless possibilities.

When you put on your ghost puppet show using your own ghost glove puppet, ensure that the play sends out a moral message. This will be a great time to teach your kid right and wrong. In this way, not only are you having fun with them by making a Halloween craft but you are also teaching them how to use their creativity to write a play.

During the season of Kwanzaa, one way to demonstrate the principle of “Kuumba”, or the focus on creativity, is to develop craft projects for the holiday. Once finished, the crafts can be used year after year as part of the Kwanzaa theme in your home, creating great decorations as well as great memories.

If your Kwanzaa holiday includes planning a party in your home, this will be the perfect opportunity for craft projects. Invitations, place cards, place mats, and decorations are very easy craft projects for the entire family to create. The designs will be limited only to the imagination of the designer, with the only rule to be that they remain in the Kwanzaa theme. Using the traditional colors of the holiday, black, red and green, invitations and place cards can be stamped, inked, colored, or decorated with fabric or other materials. With corn as part of the seven symbols, incorporating unpopped kernels into the designs will add a realistic touch to your art. Place mats for the dinner table can be woven with colored construction paper, stiffened ribbons or strips of plastic canvas available in craft stores.

Your creative flow can run freely with decorations for the holiday. Kwanzaa is a celebration of many things: crops, family, community, creation, and African past and future. With the foundation roots of Kwanzaa springing from African harvest festivals of decades past, any African print, theme or idea can be utilized for decorations. Small natural clay pots, hand decorated in African theme with black acrylic paint can be connected with hemp and suspended upside down as wind chimes. Strips of cloth in black, red and green can be hand sewn to fashion a variety of African flags and displayed as a wall hanging; for children, this same craft can be created using colored construction paper and string.

Children love to create, and craft projects geared to their age groups will form wonderful memories for years to come. Their designs can serve double duty as Kwanzaa decorations around the house, as well. African native animal crafts are particularly appealing. Monkeys, lions, tigers, elephants, giraffes and brilliantly hued parrots can be cut from colored construction paper and glued to plastic straws or Popsicle (craft) sticks to form a jungle zoo. Animal and traditional African masks are also very decorative crafts that can be both displayed and played with by children. The masks can be as simple as cut out construction paper, or made more ornate by crafting with cardstock paper and including glued on decorations such as feathers, beads and hemp.

Fun surprises are always welcome by young and old, and you can create a few craft surprises to delight family members during Kwanzaa dinners. Using common household items, such as empty bathroom or paper towel rolls, crafting tissue paper, construction paper, string and glue, you can design Kwanzaa candles that hold sweet treats. Simply cut construction paper of black, red or green to wrap around the paper rolls and glue in place. Place on square of tissue paper on top of another, forming a star-like pattern, place your finger in the center and fold up the sides like an umbrella. Carefully stuff the folded tissue completely into the roll. Insert the sweet treats, and secure the end with string, leaving tufts of paper at the end to form a “flame”.

Creating beautiful and memorable crafts does not mean that you need to spend a lot of money on materials. There are certain to be plenty of materials around the home that can be put to use in craft making. Items such as paper grocery bags, cast off clothing, loose beads, food items like dried beans and popcorn and glue can be the foundation of many attractive and creative crafts. Throughout the year before the Kwanzaa holiday, discounted items can be purchased and stored to be brought out at the season of Kwanzaa.

Begin a family tradition for the Kwanzaa season that can be carried on for years to come. Creating crafts to decorate and delight through Kwanzaa will bring the family together in unity and creativity as well as providing lasting memories of happy times spent.

You’ve always wanted to get a children’s book published. You’ve scribbled and “dibbled” and now you have what you believe is a finished manuscript.

You are among the ranks of writers who dream of writing a children’s book and getting it published. You believe that if you just keep sending your story out, it’s only a matter of time until an editor recognizes your talent and your story is accepted for publication.

That’s before the rejections start to pile up. Getting a kid’s book published, it turns out, it far from easy. You keep asking yourself what factors led to those rejection letters.

Picture the following scenario: you are sitting in a restaurant and you hear the woman at the next table talking about the publishing industry. As the minutes tick by, your realize that this woman is a successful children’s author and you lean in, while trying to make it appear you aren’t eavesdropping. You learn that she’s published 76 children’s books. You sit riveted, all ears now.

What you hear grabs your attention and gets you thinking about book publishing in a whole new light. You grab a pen so you can take careful notes.

The author reflects that it’s easy to get a children’s book published. “It’s easy” she continues, “once . . . you . . .  know . . . how.”

She says that many people have good ideas for stories but they simply do not know how to craft those ideas into publishable stories. She relates that most children’s book manuscripts, are, in fact, unpublishable.

You start wondering if you wasted your time sending your stories out. Were they really that bad?

The author says says that people receive publishing contracts, once they know how to give publishers exactly what they want. She says there is no magic formula, simply this one key truth. “So many people spend years studying writing, investing in expensive courses, attending writer’s workshops . . .”

As you continue jotting down notes, you hear her concluding remarks: “When people give publishers exactly what they want, this shaves years off the pre-publication period.”

You leave the restaurant, determined to learn what it takes to make a saleable children’s book.

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Do you want to give some unique Christmas gifts this year, but don’t want to spend a lot of money?  You can find gifts that are both cheap and thoughtful.  Here are ten easy ideas for inexpensive holiday gifts that are sure to please.

1. Fun, trendy watch.  You can buy watches in all shapes and colors from around $8 to $20 at discount department stores and flea markets.  Include a note in the box that says something like, “I always enjoy our time together”.  If giving this to a teacher, you could thank them for all the “time” they’ve spent teaching your child.

2. Mini recipe book of your favorite recipes.  Buy a small, inexpensive photo album that holds one 4 x 6 photo per page (usually just a dollar or two at craft stores).  Print, type or write your recipes onto 4 x 6 recipe cards and insert in the sleeves meant for photos. After you’ve made the first set, make multiple photocopies of all the recipe cards.  That way you can easily make more personal recipe books for other people this year or anytime.

3. Gourmet chocolate pretzels.  These sell in specialty stores for $20 for around a dozen large pretzel rods.  But you can make your own homemade version for a fraction of the cost.  All you need is the pretzels, chocolate melts (most craft stores have these for under $2 a bag), and optional things like chopped nuts, mini chips or sprinkles.  Simply melt the chocolate, dip the pretzels rods until about half of the pretzel is covered, then roll in the toppings and let them set upside down in a cup.

4. Handmade framed name print.  Research the meaning of the person’s name from a baby naming website. Use your computer graphics or word processing program to type his or her name in large letters in a nice font.  Put the meaning of their name in smaller letters under the name. Print it on pretty background paper, such as 8 1/2 x 11 scrapbook paper from a craft store.  Trim to fit a small frame purchased from a discount department store or dollar store.

5. Night at the movies. You can make this inexpensive by just picking up a $5 gift card for a movie rental and a box of microwave popcorn.  Or you can make it a bigger gift by adding a large bowl for the popcorn, a gift card for multiple rentals, and perhaps some DVDs. 

6. Flashlight that doesn’t need batteries.  This is a very practical gift that almost anyone can use.  Depending on the model, you either shake the flashlight or wind it up.  They really work and you never have to worry about dead batteries. The price range is between $10 and $20.

7. Photo ornament.  You can find these in all kinds of stores, some are quite inexpensive and look like little holiday photo frames.  Just insert a photo of your friend, their pet or children and you’ve got a very personalized gift.

8. Custom gift card from you.  If you’re short on cash, but not on sentiment, you can print a gift card that promises babysitting, a car wash, running errands, lessons, etc.  If you love to bake, but don’t have time around the holidays, give a gift card redeemable for your specialty in January.

9. Personalized giant candy bar.  This one is so easy.  Buy a big Hershey bar and replace the outer wrapper with your custom wrapper.  You can print one of the many free Christmas chocolate bar wrappers found on the internet.  Some of them even have places for you to put a photo and your own words.  Or make it yourself by tracing the original wrapper and cutting it out from nice holiday paper.  Then just tape or glue in place.

10. Personalized magnet, button, key ring or pocket mirror. For just a couple of dollars, this one of a kind little gift can’t be beat.  There are companies on the internet that will put any funny or inspiration quote or your own message on one of their products.  Whatever the person’s hobby, interest, or job, there is a saying or quotation out there that would be perfect for them.

A thoughtful Christmas gift doesn’t have to cost a lot of money or require hours of searching through crowded malls.  All that is needed is your big heart and imagination.