DIY Trolls Valentine’s for Kids

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Justin Timberlake’s Can’t Stop the Feeling has been on repeat in our home, car and phone speakers since the beginning of summer. We dressed like Poppy and Branch for Halloween. We’ve seen the movie a hundred times. So, it should come as no surprise that our Valentine’s this year are colorful, bright, a little hairy and Trolls themed!

We just can’t get enough of our little colorful, tiny, song-loving friends.

Jenna made the adorable printables available here for a whopping $1.  Let your kids tell their friends, “I see your true colors, and that’s why I love you.”

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We opted for Trolls rings for the girls in the class, available at Michaels or Amazon. For the boys, they will have fun playing with finger laser rings available at Amazon. One printable for both girls and boys! YAY!

Print, cut, stuff the bags and staple the label on. It’s that easy…plus it’s a non-candy Valentine for the win!

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Happy Valentine’s Day!

 

DIY Marbled Snowmen

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This may be one of the easiest DIY Christmas projects ever. Do it with the kids. Do it last-minute. Just do it. You need these marbled snowmen in your life.

These DIY, black and white marbled snowmen can easily be made into ornaments, gift toppers, place cards and the list goes on and on.

How-to: Simply twist, twirl, fold, smash and then roll two colors of Crayola Model Magic foam into balls. Make three different sizes – small, medium and large – and stack them on top of each other. Add tiny sticks for arms and don’t forget mini santa hats from Oriental Trading.

Merry marbling to you.

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DIY Cardboard Box Entertainment for Kids: Indoor Golf

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When Christmas is less than one week away and it’s too cold to go outside, we like to transform a cardboard box into a DIY Holiday indoor golf game. It’s totally worth it because it entertains our kids for hours.

Cardboard boxes have always been, and will always be such a versatile toy, capable of endless hours of activity and creativity.

If you feel like bringing a little golf indoors like we did, see the full tutorial we shared at Momtastic.

For those of you that look at this and see way too much work like most people, you must know…you don’t have to paint a thing or make it fancy. A plain cardboard box with small openings gets the job done. And, if the kids want to be the lead artist, let them.

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DIY Stained Glass Ornament

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Last weekend we spent an afternoon crafting DIY stained glass ornaments with our kids. Check out the full tutorial at Momtastic.

This year, make your Christmas extra colorful and bright with this easy craft. Tissue paper scraps have never looked so pretty.

DIY Polar Advent Calendar

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The craziness of the season sometimes creeps up on us, and honestly we can feel our anxiety rise. Bake the cookies. Buy the gifts. Don’t just buy the gifts – find a good sale on the perfect gifts. Oh, and don’t buy every gift…make DIY homemade gifts. Host a holiday party. Mark the calendar for Christmas Pageants and office holiday parties, too. It’s all very magical, and we absolutely love it. But, wow, it’s exhausting.

Now that we are in Christmas mode, it’s only fitting that we kick it off with our official Advent calendar. Since Jessica is late with almost everything she ever does (and goes), it’s even more fitting this Advent Calendar comes on Dec. 4, 4 days after Advent officially started. Better late than ever. You still have time – make it this year, or pin it for next year.

We made a fun DIY Advent Calendar last year. This year, we shopped Oriental Trading {where the options are endless} and went with a snowy, polar scene topped off with our kid’s favorite toys – animals. Not just any animals, but animals with mini Santa hats. Ho Ho Ho.

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Materials:

Directions:

Step 1: Set the scene with snowflakes. Hang the snowflakes above the winter advent calendar with fishing wire or twine, and tape.

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Step 2: Use a hot glue gun to glue the cute Oriental Trading mini Santa hats to the toy polar animals.

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Step 3: Fold the cardboard boxes.

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Step 4: Glue, stick or pin the numbers to the front of the boxes.

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Step 5: Fill the boxes with goodies such as candy, and mini toys, or make it all about acts of kindness, a family activity or helping others.

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Step 6: Stack the boxes so the numbers make sense, and it looks good visually to the eye. Then, place the animals randomly.

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Step 7: Watch the kids open the mini boxes everyday with pure joy.

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Oriental Trading sent us some items of our choosing for this post, free of charge. We’re so happy they did! All opinions are honest, and our own. No other type of compensation was received. Thanks for supporting the companies that support j. sorelle. We love Oriental Trading, even before this post.