Share & remember has a fun way to play with your food. They'll show you how to paint your toast using just milk, food coloring and some paint brushes. A good after school activity and snack combined.
Check out these great ideas for creating the perfect mini pinata for a favor or gift.
Ruffled blog has the cutest idea for how to make individual pinatas using paper mache. Their idea is for wedding favors but they could easily be adapted for kids.
One charming party also has a mini pinata for kids tutorial using two white paper cones, tissue garland, ribbon and of course fun candy and prizes. She uses a hot glue gun but tape should work as well.
Refinery 29 shares very thorough instructions for 2 different pinatas and has a great idea for how to get the balloon to be a rounder shape - putting masking tape on the oblong end.
Bhoomplay has a video tutorial for how to make a jellyfish in a bottle and they look so real. All it takes is a plastic water bottle, a transparent plastic grocery bag (the thinner the better, like the ones used in the produce department) and some food coloring.
The amazing mess has the cutest idea for a game that brings the outdoors inside. Hide cotton balls (snowballs) throughout the house and then give each child an ice cube tray for collection, that way they'll know if they've found all of the snowballs.
Elizabeth Andree shows how to make a beautiful bowl out of colored yarn and paste. Your kids will love getting messy with the paste and love the pretty bowl they made as well. Unfortunately her site is no longer available.
Good for ages 3 and up.
Eighteen 25 has similar yarn bowl instructions as well.
about.com's chemistry guide has instructions for how to make a polymer bouncing ball. Once again, the main ingredient, as with most of the science projects is borax. Beyond that it's just cornstarch and glue and some food coloring to make it pretty.
Candy experiments shows yohow to see the colors that make up a candy cane. All you need is a shallow dish of water and a candy cane and the stripes of the candy cane will slowly melt into the water.
Design mom shares photo snowglobes. She "laminates" the photos by placing them between clear packing tape before inserting and adds grated pvc pipe for the "snow."
Kiboomu has details on how to create a paper lantern for the Chinese new year. It's tradition that the celebrations begin with a lantern festival. Each color means something different.
Red: Good fortune Pink: Romance Peach: Opportunities Orange: Money Yellow: Success White: Health Green: Growth
Blue: Hope
Purple: Idealism
Everyone chooses the color that shows their wishes and writes down a written message on the lantern itself.
A cute send off for a ballooned themed party is to make squishy balloon people. Simply fill a balloon with playdoh or sand and draw on some cute faces.
We made that gives a step by step account and adds googly eyes to her version.
Balloons make for a creative gift wrapping for a fun birthday present.
Choose craftiness has a really innovative idea for making balloons into a very special birthday gift. She recommends placing dollars and special notes into blown up balloons and then tying and mailing them. Kids will have so much fun receiving a box of balloons and even more fun popping them to find all of the gifts inside.
Turnstall times has a very cute way of turning a giant pixie stick into a balloon party favor by simply taping on a cutout balloon and writing a short note.
The dating divas has a fun and inexpensive and memorable gift idea for a balloon themed birthday party. Along with the invitation mail guests a balloon. Ask them to blow it up and write a message on it and either bring it to the party or send it back in the mail in time for the birthday. On the day of the birthday have the birthday boy or girl blow them up and read all of the messages.
One charming party has a very cute and easy idea for party favors - wrapping a lollipop in fabric and tying with string. The end result looks like a balloon. She used yellow gingham fabric and bakers twine, but you could use more festive color fabric and curling ribbon to emulate balloons instead.
Have the kids create balloon monsters using curling ribbon and precut eye, antennae, teeth and mouths. A very creative idea for a balloon party craft activity from Spoonful.
A little learning for two has a really great balloon game featuring a balloon, straw and piece of string for each participant. Each child blows up their balloon and tapes it to the straw and they let go.
Parents.com has a cute game using balloons, pool noodles and a laundry basket. Kids need to use only the noodles and see how many balloons they can get into the laundry basket in 5 minutes.
Michelle page has a great way to use balloons to make an easy bracelet, a perfect activity for a quieter and less messy option for a balloon birthday party.
Activity mom shares a great game for a balloon birthday party. Blow up 10 balloons and number them 1-10. Hide them around the house and have the kids search for them in order. When they find them have them pop it for the next clue.
Motherhood on a dime has a great idea for a balloon party game. Using chalk she created a target with points and circles and then gave kids water balloons to throw at the target and accumulate points.
Real dana gentry has an idea for how to use balloons for a slumber party. She puts written activities inside balloons and marks each with a time. When the time arrives the kids pop the balloon to see what they're next going to be doing.
Chasing cheerios has a similar idea but instead of using the countdown for a slumber party she uses it to count down the days until the child's birthday, letting them pop one everyday for a new surprise.
Another great way to use balloons for a summer birthday is a water balloon walkway or patch on the lawn. Kids will love stomping, throwing, slipping and sliding.
