My oldest (5yrs) and I really love candy canes. If I am being 100% honest with you (and I always am) I purchase boxes and boxes and boxes of candy canes every time this time of year comes around. I love to eat them and decorate with them (and he does too!) This year we made a fun and really easy festive vase for our table out of candy canes. Here is what you will need: a glass vase (either square, rectangle or circle- a vase with a neck doesn't really work for this) some holiday ribbon candy canes low-temp glue gun Gage how much space the candy canes will take up and use the remaining amount to fill in with ribbon. I used ribbon around the base of the vase. We kept our candy canes wrapped to avoid sticky fingers (and sneaky licks). Using a low temp glue gun apply a ribbon of glue to the candy cane (not the vase- it will harden before you have a chance to apply the candy cane). Once you have covered the vase with the desired candy canes attach a bow around … [Read more...]
Reindeer pops
Have you ever wondered how people made those adorable cake pops? (You know, the cupcake-like treats on a stick). Well here you go! Let me first preface this with "it is NOT like you thought." Both Jamie and I originally thought that somehow you baked the cake batter into ball shapes by using molds. NOPE! First thing you do is to bake a cake according to the box directions (or if you are a show off you can make a cake from scratch "insert eye roll here"). Once the cake has completely cooled you cut the cake into quarters and take each quarter and crumble it. Once you are done crumbling it, it should look like this: After crumbling the entire cake add 3/4 of a can of frosting to the cake and stir. Roll into 1inch diameter balls and place on a cookie sheet. Refrigerate the "balls" overnight. Cover them with wax paper to keep them from drying out. Once the cake balls are chilled insert some sticks into each ball. Carefully melt your chocolate in a double … [Read more...]
Make Your Own Snow
Wanna play with snow inside and not have it melt all over the place? Make your own fake snow! It's great for decorating , letting your kids drive their toy cars through or just plain playing in! You'll need: A few unused disposable diapers (It would be super gross to use dirty diapers.) Water A container to mix in silver glitter (optional) Ok, now this is so easy you are going to think you missed something! 1) Cut open the diaper and pull out the inside absorbent layer. 2) Put it in the container and slowly add water 3) Mix until it becomes snow consistency! For powdery snow use less water, for slushy snow use more water. 4) Add a bit of glitter for some sparkle. (optional) My girls had a TON of fun playing with the snow! We attempted to add more water and make a snowman but it wasn't really successful. My girls did however, enjoy adding more and more water to see how slushy they could make their snow. We are currently freezing the slush … [Read more...]
Decorating your staircase for the holidays
Blah! Look at that icky, blah, boring staircase. I kept thinking good golly (yes, I say good golly) that is one sad looking staircase. I pulled together some of the tips I had learned about decorating from my mom and a few that I came up with too and got straight to work. Alright, looking a little better, right? The pretty greens add some much needed color. I found these at Michael's Craft Store for $4.99. (They wanted $24.99 for the ones with colors, decor, and bulbs on them). These were plain old green garland bunches. Nothing snazzy at all. I walked through the store and found a package of red glittery balls in the dollar area. Yup, an additional dollar and a hot glue gun later and I have pretty red and green garland for my stair case. Now, you may be asking- I thought this blog was about fun things to do with your kid. It is- hold your horses! My 5 year old son helped me decorate the greens. I pulled out my LOW temp glue gun and let him slobber the glittery balls up … [Read more...]
Christmas Tree Handprints
This is one of my all time favorite projects I have done with my kids. It just so happens to be an all time favorite Christmas present too! It's really easy and turns out just adorably! Here is what you will need: 1 piece of white paper (large) (or a canvas-which is what I used- you can get them for pretty cheap) Green, yellow and brown paint 1 kid willing to get ooey and gooey Paint your child's hand with the green paint- make one row of 4 hand prints Next paint your child's hand again and make a row of 3 hand prints Then make a row of 2 hand prints on top of that Lastly, 1 hand print on the very top Use the brown paint to make a stump and the yellow to make a star on the top. (Have your child autograph the tree with the year to mark the date) These make GREAT presents and they are always adored by grandparents. While making the tree I thought to myself....hmmm, what if I traced a circle really lightly in pencil and did the same thing? Ta-da! A pretty and … [Read more...]
Festive pillows
I loved this idea so much that I had to share with our faithful Toys In The Dryer readers too (It was originally posted on my personal website). Yup! My crafty itch has been bad this year. Maybe I'm trying to drown myself in projects? Who knows? Want to know how I turned three BORING blah-zay pillows into cute Christmas pillows? Here is how! Step one: Take any blah pillow you have around the house, or go to the store and buy the ugliest one you can (believe me the uglier the cuter they turn out) I added the red zig zag stitching to each of my blah pillows for a little added flare. Next I made three rectangle swatches to attach to the pillows (notice I added the same red zig zag stitch to these to pull it all together) Then I dug through my Christmas cookie cutters to find three that I liked best and taped them using painters tape to each swatch...like sew (ha ha ha pardon the pun). I let my son pick them out. He helped attach the tape too! Easy peasy, right? Then … [Read more...]
