November 18, 2011

Five Fun Ideas for Turkey and Pilgrim Activities

With Thanksgiving right around the corner, 
I thought I'd share some fun ideas 
to make your "Turkey Day" extra special this year.  Check out these awesome Turkey and Pilgrim posts that were linked up to our Fall Fun Party.


1.  Eat or Be Eaten Turkey Toss
{ Dinosaurs and Octopuses }

You have to check out this adorable Turkey Toss game Joyce created!
I may not be able to make a turkey beanbag 
nearly as cute as this little fellow, 
but I definitely plan on letting the kids play a version 
of this game after dinner next Thursday.

( Kids always seem to still have energy even after a big meal, so they can have a fun beanbag toss while the grownups take a nap on the couch!)




2. Spin Art Turkeys
{ Dilly-Dali Art }

Wouldn't these turkeys be adorable place cards or centerpieces 
on your Thanksgiving table?
All you need are toilet paper tubes and paper plates!
 (And if you haven't tried doing spin art in an old salad spinner,
you have to let your kids give it a try.
They'll have a blast and you'll get some really fun designs.)




3. Bottle Cap Turkeys
{ Dilly-Dali Art }

Aleacia has another fun Turkey craft here.
My kids LOVE working with feathers, 
pipe cleaners and googly eyes.
If they just add some bottle caps, 
they can make these fun gobblers.





4. Chocolate Marshmallow Pilgrim Hats
 { Phaedra's Adventures }

I love serving fun little treats that look cute, 
but are simple to make.
Just dip marshmallows in chocolate, put it on a cookie 
and add a frosting buckle
to make some fantastic little Pilgrim's hats.
(In her post, Phaedra also shows how to make 
some turkey cupcakes and cookies that are a 
little more labor intensive, but super adorable!) 





5. Pilgrim Finger Puppets
 { Let Kids Create }

Save a few more toilet paper tubes 
and you can make these cute little Pilgrims
to go along with your Spin Art Turkeys.
The adults can sit back and relax while the kids 
put on a puppet show after dinner.
(Can you tell I like to relax after eating my turkey and pumpkin pie? ;)  ) 





Finally, here's one last bonus idea 
that I think is fantastic.

Thanksgiving Turkey Printable
{ Under the Big Moon }

Use this cute printable turkey and poem to spread 
Thanksgiving greetings throughout the neighborhood!






Thanks, ladies, for sharing your awesome ideas!
Our children give us a lot to be thankful for
and these cute activities and treats give us a fun way to 
come together this Thanksgiving!

Feel free to grab a featured button if you'd like


Come Together Kids

And don't forget to swing by our Fall Fun party! 
There are ton of other great ideas and it's ongoing, 
so more ideas are linked up all the time! 


Come Together Kids

November 14, 2011

Tonight I'm sharing at... Under the Table and Dreaming!

I'm thrilled to be participating 
in the STYROFOAM Brand Foam 
Handmade Holidays Series this week 
at Under the Table and Dreaming !   
I'm even more thrilled to be 
included in a list of 25 Talented Bloggers 
( I know, I really can't believe it either!)



UndertheTableandDreaming

My post is scheduled to be shared this evening, 
so click on the banner above to go check out 
the great ideas that have been shared already 
(by some seriously talented bloggers), 
then stop back later on tonight to check out mine.


Here's a tiny sneak peek of our project ...


HINT: It's a fun little way to help answer the question, "How many days until...?"


Check out our project HERE!

Kid-Sized Gingerbread House

Check out this incredible Gingerbread House 
the kids and I just finished making!!  
Yup, we totally worked together 
to make this awesomely sweet house ourselves. 
We really had a blast planning our design, 
painting it, and now playing in it. 
(well, they get in it, it's a little tight for me!)


 We didn't start completely from scratch, 
I got the cardboard house itself from
and it started out looking like this...

The plain white house, ready for our design talents!

 It was pretty much a blank slate for us to get to work on.  The four of us debated a bit about what would be the best design for it ~ a model of our own house, a gingerbread house, a haunted house, etc.  We quickly agreed that a kid-sized gingerbread house would be the most fun (and also appropriate for this time of year)

I made a couple of executive decisions about the project (as the mom, I can do that).  First, I'd help them by doing rough sketches of the design on the house.  They made all the choices about the candies, colors, etc., but by sketching out the elements for them, the house was a bit more unified and not totally haphazard.  Secondly, I decided to use paints instead of crayons or markers.  The colors were brighter and we could cover larger areas in a shorter amount of time.

You can see my pencil sketch of the roof design.

Then they got to work.  ( NOTE: My son (almost 8) wasn't really interested in the actual painting, but he did plan the design for his wall and then let his sisters do the painting while he played ball).  We used regular acrylic paints for the bright colors and I mixed a little bit of leftover interior house paint to get the gingerbread brown ( acrylic paints would have been fine for the brown too)


We did some painting outside ...



And then when it got too dark or chilly, we took the house apart and painted inside ...



Each kid got a wall of the house to design and paint.  I got to work on the roof and the front of the house (because Mommy likes to do fun painting too! ;)  ).  I also painted most of the brown while they worked on the fun colors.  We really had fun with it and worked on it every chance we had. 


It took a little less than a week, start to finish, for us to end up with this awesome new kid-sized gingerbread clubhouse!

The front of our house...




The side designed and painted by my six-year old, complete with gingerbread men and gumdrops!



My son designed this side with the candy canes and hershey kisses, but my daughters painted it for him.

Note: the roof really does attach all the way, I just didn't do it outside for the picture.

And finally, the back of the house, designed by my oldest daughter, with peppermints and lollipops.



A few notes:

Obviously, since the house is cardboard we're not keeping it outside, I just photographed it outside because the lighting in our playroom stinks.  (Also because no amount of cropping and photo-shopping could hide the playroom clutter that surrounds it in its spot in our basement!)

The dimensions of the assembled playhouse we used are about 43"x40"x54".  Toddlers and preschoolers would be a great size to easily go in and out.  My kids have to duck down a bit, but once inside, they have plenty of room to hide out to read a book or play their Nintendos. 

Definitely check out Crafty Kids Playhouses LLC if you'd be interested in making your own house.  (They would make an AWESOME gift).  I was really pleased with the quality and I LOVED that it was a blank slate.  You could make your house look like whatever you'd like and use crayons, markers, paint, etc. to decorate it however you and your kids want.  They even have a castle and a rocket ship cardboard house!! 



DISCLOSURE:  I am part of the Crafty Kids Playhouses LLC affiliate program and I actually received our playhouse for free so I could share our experience with you.  However, this post was not influenced in any way by that fact.  Without a doubt, we genuinely loved working on our gingerbread house and I wouldn't hesitate to buy more as gifts.


 Sharing this "sweet" house at:
Tip Junkie handmade projects

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