Fort Friday!

If you're new - here at All for the Boys we celebrate Fridays with some awesome fort inspiration from around the web. Whether made of sheets, cardboard, wood, or sticks, forts are a place we can go to transport our minds to wherever we want to go. You can play, dream, relax, or create in a fort. Everything is better in a fort!

Don't forget if you participate in Fort Friday (or make a fort any day of the week) and want to share email me at info@allfortheboys.com 

Let's start out this week with YOUR inspiration!

The boys over at Becoming Homegrown constructed a fort with lots of boxes and a vinyl shower curtain (which they personalized)

Some Fort Friday fans all the way from Ireland shared their awesome outdoor fort with us!

They have some great inspiration at Let the Children Play

Here's one from Peaceful Landscapes

A natural fort from Tree Inspired

Here's a hanging fort structure idea from ikatbag

Check out this amazing tent/fort in Norway from playscapes

Have a great weekend everyone! It's a long one for us!

Lawn Games

There's the usual lawn games - horshoes, mini golf, and croquet. If you spend a lot of time outdoors lawn games are a fun addition to your yard to keep little (and big) people busy and having fun. I found some fun DIY games and a few fun ones to buy if you'd like to add some fun to your backyard this summer.

DIY Shishkaball from This Old House

A DIY cornhole game from the DIY Network

Pipe ball also from This Old House

Ladderball from Lowes Creative Ideas

Giant bowling from Amazon

We are busy making our Summer Bucket List have you started yours yet?

The Wheels on the Box

I recently discovered The Cardboard Collective a beautiful blog filled with cardboard inspiration. I loved this smart idea so much I had to share.

You know those extra sturdy fruit and vegetable boxes? (we've gotten them at Costco here) Well attach some casters to the bottom of one of those + one of dad's old ties and you have lots of (cheap) fun!

Check out The Cardboard Collective for all the details and even more cardboard fun!

Summer Bucket List Challenge!

My friends over at the Happy Family Movement are hosting a big Summer Bucket List challenge!

The Summer Bucket List is free, fun for all ages challenge is based on a simple premise: time spent together as a family is time well spent. Participating is simple, too. All you have to do is sign up on their site!

We are going to be playing along too - there will be some fun giveaways on their blog (including one from us) and most important, inspiration to have fun as a family!

Families who sign up for the Summer Bucket List Challenge will get a set of fun tools and resources designed to help them along the way:

• a Summer Bucket List Challenge guide, complete with sample activities
• eligibility for weekly prize draws
• regular updates on the Happy Family Movement blog (yes, we’ve got our own Summer Bucket List!)
• access to a great community on Facebook

What are you waiting for? Go sign up!

We'll share our Summer Bucket List soon. I'd love to see yours!

Fort Friday!

Another week another Fort Friday! With kids at the end of their school year there should be lots of time for fort building and play. How about some inspiration?

The readers over at Little Homeschool Blessings had some night time fort fun recently

Does anyone see some Star Wars resemblence in this fort? from reddit

I'd love to explore this outdoor cabin/fort from pilze apfeli

I think we could make this while camping! from Shawnie Bawnie on Flickr

Forget the kids, I want to play in this backyard from HGTV Front Door

and for an indoor fort how about this gorgeous loft/fort space? from The Handmade Home

As always everyone loves seeing your inspiration as well so email me with your fort images if you would like them to be featured on Fort Friday.

Goop!

Want to know how to make one of our favorite messy goopy recipes?

Go check out our post at The Fort magazine today. It's SUPER easy and not bad to clean up either! If you haven't made this before - you must try it!

Blog Sponsors!

Are you interested in becoming a sponsor for All for the Boys? I will be opening up sponsor ads and am working on all the info involved. Shoot me an email if you're interested and I'll put you on the list to contact as soon as it's all ready! 

Travel Bags

We did a whole Roadtrip Roundup series last year around this time so definitely check it out if you're in need of some inspiration. We are heading to the Sandwich Islands soon (yeah I know I'm excited) and I've been preparing 6 hour airplane flight bags for the boys. They have always been excellent travelers but maybe it's partly because we always travel prepared? I personally don't like being bored when travelling I can't imagine it being easier as 7 and 9 year old boys.

I thought I'd share some things I've been collecting for the boys' bags as well as things they've picked out. At their ages it's mostly books with a few fun things thrown in.

They are both getting a small plastic box with a LEGO base plate - to help hold pieces down - and a small LEGO set (they know losing a piece or two is a possibility).

The LEGO Captain Americas Avenging Cycle 6865

and the LEGO Star Wars The Battle of Naboo 7929 were both requested recently

The Ultimate Sticker Collection: LEGO Star Wars: Minifigures 

and DUDE Diary #2 were some of the activity book requests

I got them Travel Tangoes - Animals. My brother and I liked playing with the original when we were about their age so I thought they might like it too!

They'll also each get a "professional" Sketchpad and colored pencils/crayons.

Something new for this vacation is journals! They'll each get a journal, small travel scissors, tape, and a glue stick so they can record their vacation in their own words and save bits and pieces that are important to them on their trip. They are both super excited about it.

They've been eyeing these Moleskine Lego Black Brick Ruled

They have fun messing around with silly Teeth

or Mustaches

We'll also have some electronic devices (ipods, Nintendo 3DS, laptop) but those only go so far! Here are some of the books that they wanted to add to their bags:

I think I may still get some Wikki Stix

I'm sure we'll get a couple new movies on the ipods, and maybe download a few new game apps before we leave. Has anyone else seen any great new books or activities lately that would work great for travel?

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