Foam Frames

This was an activity that my sister and I did with the kids in our family. It was super fun and easy. You just need foam frames, foam sheets, magnets, foam letter stickers and shapes. You could use anything you want to decorate the frames with. You could use glitter, paint, markers, pom pom balls... the list is endless. Then print off some pictures for the kids to choose from. Half of the fun for them was going through the pictures and picking the one they wanted for their frame.

You just glue the frame to a sheet of foam, then decorate the frame. We did this before adding the picture to keep the picture from getting messed up while we were decorating. Let the frame dry if necessary, especially if you attached your decorations with glue. Then attach magnets to the back of the frame. We found some really inexpensive magnet strips that were peel and stick. They worked perfectly. We attached a magnet to the top of the frame and one to the bottom as well. This will help the frame to stick to your metal surface better. Since we were putting ours on the refrigerator, we wanted to make sure they would stay put when the doors to the fridge would open and close, or people would walk past them, etc.

Some of the kids wanted to make more than one or two frames, and we didn't have enough foam frames. We found that gluing the picture directly to a foam sheet and decorating around the picture works well too.

This craft was anything but complicated, and it was a great way to keep the kids busy on a summer afternoon. Plus, even our youngest kiddo (age 3) made a super cute frame.

Book Purse Tutorial from Hungry Panda

I absolutely love this idea. I'm going to have to give it a try.

It's a purse made out of a book. I am a purse-addict. My family is always giving me a hard time because I buy a new one so often. Books are another one of my passions, so this project is perfect! I'll post pics. of my attempt to make my own book purse, in the near future. Hopefully I can pull it off! It looks so cute! Now to find the perfect book to use. Hmmm...

Check out the link below to try making your own book purse. I'd love to see pictures of how yours turn out.

http://www.hungrypanda.net/blog/2010/02/book-purse-tutorial/

Balloon People

This one was just a spur of the moment idea that I came up with because it's summer & the kids were bored and looking for a project. I looked around at what I had in the house & came up with this idea.

You just need a paper plate, a balloon, and some things to decorate the balloons with. We used googley eyes, yarn, markers, etc.

It was a lot of fun for the kids & the faces turned out pretty cute!