Water Bottle Prank

I got pranked this weekend and the boys thought it was the best thing ever. It's an easy one too - perfect for April Fool's Day.

You just need a water bottle and a pin. Fill the bottle pretty full with water. Over the sink poke holes all around the center of the bottle.

Wait until the water stops dripping, very gently wipe off and place on the counter somewhere you know it will get seen and picked up.

When someone finally picks it up (I did in frustration of the boys leaving things out everywhere)...

Yep, you get sprayed. It was pretty funny. This works best with the thinner plastic water bottles. Have fun!

(Obviously young kids should be supervised when using needles)

Spring / Easter Inspiration!

Some of you are starting Spring Break or getting ready to and some are gearing up for Easter. It's about time for a little inspiration round up! There are some awesome ideas from last year HERE / HERE / HERE

Peep jousting deserves a mention all it's own. It's a must in our house this time of year

I love the homemade "baskets" and shirts from Mer Mag last year

How cute is this printable egg delivery truck from Mr. Printables?!

Decorating eggs with Sharpies is a great idea! from Mom.Me

Here's a fun egg toss game from A Mom with a Lesson Plan

Get messy with cracked egg painting! From Growing a Jeweled Rose

Maybe instead of purchasing a basket this year - you could have your kids make theirs - out of LEGO bricks! from Logan Makes a Mess

St Patrick's Day Inspiration

St Patrick's Day is on Sunday and whether you do anything special or not - here are some fun ideas to add to your "I'm bored bank".

Fiskars made up some props for a St Patrick's themed photo booths. My boys love set up photos

Sassy girls shares how to make ShamROCK glowing glitter jars

Love this green pepper shamrock stamp from Family Fresh Meals

A Mickey themed St Patrick's day printable from Spoonful

A rainbow rice treasure box at Modern Parents Messy Kids

And I love seeing all the fun leprechaun traps!

from How Does She

from Tips N Tidbits

from Lovely Lovely Things

Do you do anything special for St. Patrick's Day?

See last year's inspiration HERE

Celebrate Spring with Crayola - Giveaway

Crayola is probably one of the first brands I ever loved. I STILL love the smell and usually have my own fresh box for coloring (don't tell the boys). They wanted to celebrate spring with you and get some Easter basket ideas from Crayola lovers.

They sent us some fun Crayola products and asked us to make up a fun Easter basket with them. Here's what we came up with

--------------> CLICK HERE TO READ MORE and enter to win your own Crayola goodies

We Go Together Valentine Printable

My youngest really wanted to do Cookies + Milk Valentine cards this year. We didn't find much in the way of printables and he wanted something very "grown up" looking (not babyish or "girlish") so I whipped up a quick printable for him and thought I'd share it here as well!

We have to do pre-packaged tag still on treats at our school so we still need to buy individual packs of cookies but I wanted to package one up so you could see how the printable came out. We got swirly straws at the party store - they had really cute heart ones but not enough for the whole class.

You could even pop a Valentine joke in there too!

CLICK HERE to download your own Cookies + Milk printable, they are 2 per page, just trim and staple.

Valentine's Ideas

It's that time of year when a lot of you have kids thinking about Valentine's Day parties at school, church, or play group. Last year we had a couple of good roundups HERE and HERE so instead of repeating those ideas (you should definitely check them out if you haven't) I am adding to the list!

You can use your LEGO candy mold to make treats for this one by mommypalooza

Not a printable (because of copyright and thank you for being honest ;) but a great idea if you want to make your own Star Wars light saber Valentines from Inchmark

Cute magnifying glass Valentine from Dandee

These Whoopee cushion Valentines may be my favorite of the year from Paging Supermom

Cute pixie stick arrows from Simple Simon & Company

A great idea to use with these erasers or your own small toy or trinket from Thirty Handmade Days

And these are high on my boys' list for this year - an arrow printable for pencils! from Sweet Muffin Suite

And another great non candy idea - You RULE Valentine from Thompson and Spring

Our friends over at Spaceships and Laserbeams have a great roundup as well!

(Disclosure: Affiliate link contained in this post)

Recently Pinned

I pinned a few thing recently that I wanted to share here!

This oragami heart page holder might be fun to make for the class or teachers! from How About Orange

And these printable Valentine Tic Tac Toe would be fun for class Valentines but also for printing out and keeping in the car for longer than usual car rides! from Sally J Shim

And these Lil Love Monsters from eighteen25 are too cute not to share! Maybe to go with your Love Bug?

and I love these shoe boxes houses for cute storage and/or play from The Gold Jellybean

Climbing Love Bug

The one thing I look for in a craft with my boys is interaction. If the craft is fairly mellow to put together (usually means no mess or loud noises) and just hangs on the wall they probably aren't too interested. However if they can play with it afterwards that increases the interest a bit. Today we're sharing a Climbing Love Bug - (a spider in this case) that can climb up it's string. Note: I am using the word "bug" here loosely I realize that spiders are arachnids not insects which most people refer to as bugs. Just wanted to get that out of the way. ;)

You'll need construction paper, pipe cleaners, googly eyes, a straw, string, scissors, and tape.

Our friends at CraftProjectIdeas were so awesome to send us some craft supplies in case we wanted to use them on a project in the future so we had the pipe cleaners and googly eye on hand from them but you can find the same ones at Walmart (they have a huge selection)

Cut out two circles for the body (or one or 5 - the fun part is making this your own)

Tape or glue the pieces together. I'm using washi tape so that you can see how we put it together but scotch tape will hold better for you.

Next you'll form some legs from the pipe cleaners

Turn him over and admire your work

Give him some eyes - I tried to give him more but my boy was having none of that.

Next we gave our spider a heart

You could add some antenna or decorate him/her however you like but at this point your bug is finished - now to make him mobile.

Cut 2 - 1" pieces of straw and place them about 1" apart on the back of your bug. If you have younger ones playing with this you may want to make sure these are on well so you don't have to keep fixing them while they are playing - a couple extra pieces of tape or hot glue maybe?

String a piece of string through the top of each straw so there is a loop at the top of your spider.

Tie off your string or add a button, paperclip etc to the bottom so they don't pull through the straw. I happened to have some wood veneer hearts on hand to use.

Hang the top of the string on a doornob or other secure spot

Have your child gently pull the strings apart and watch your bug/spider climb up the string!

Have fun!

Thanks to CraftProjectIdeas for sending us some supplies! We were not required to use them for anything in particular but we very much appreciate them for inspiring us to create!