DIY Archives - Working Mommy Journal

May 25, 2015

Create Your Own Minion Friends with Kinder Canada

Bee Do! Bee Do! Bee Do!

The famous minions are back and this time you can find them in Kinder chocolates!! Po ka?? (English translation from the Banana Language: What??).

Yes, you heard that right – in your favourite Kinder chocolates. Throughout this month, you can find these adorable little minions in store, in specially marked packages.

I was on the hunt for these packages for the last three weeks and I finally scored some at Walmart this past weekend. My boys and I decided to have a little bit of fun with our new minions by creating a league of minions out of all the spare Kinder capsules we keep in the home (they are the perfect storage for change!).

For this craft you will need:

Kinder capsules
blue and purple paint
black permanent marker
blue circular stickers

Directions:

Paint the bottom half of the capsules blue and leave upside down to dry. The ‘evil’ minions you will have to paint half of the capsule purple.

Once they are dry, use the permanent marker to add in the eyes, goggles and hair.

Add the stickers to the centre of their pants. We chose one of the minions to hold a heart and another to wear a flower in his hair (hence the sad face!).

And voila! A league of your own personal minions!

Our son set them up with his Minion toys in the living room and created his own ‘battle’ scenes. We had so much fun playing around with them.

Make sure you are following Kinder Canada on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to keep up to date with this newest collection, fun giveaways and more!

Have you found the Minion collection in store? Out of the eleven available characters, how many have you collected?

Poopaye! Goodbye!

Disclosure: I am a KinderMom and receive perks associated with this affiliation. All opinions expressed are my own.

March 25, 2015

Go Fish – Easter Style!

Do you love a fun game of Go Fish? We certainly do especially on game night!

Why not spice up your game of Go Fish and take it to a whole new level, Easter egg style!

Cathy, from Cathy Thinking Out Loud, has put together these fantastic templates to help create your own game of Go Fish – Easter Style.

To put the cards together you will need:

printer paper
scissors
pencil crayons/crayons

Directions

Print out the two templates below seven times each. This will give you a total of fifty-seven playing cards.

Have your child colour in the template including the card and egg. They can go with traditional Easter colours or choose to change it up a bit. Let their creativity shine through here.

Assist your child in cutting out the egg-shaped card. If they are too young you can do this for them.

After the cards are cut out, shuffle them up and get ready for an exciting new way of playing Go Fish!

As a refresher, the rules of the game are:

Minimum of two players
Five to seven (depending on how you play) cards are dealt to each player. The remainder of the cards are placed in one pile in the middle.
Choose a starting player (in our house it is always our youngest, hands down he wins each time!).
Each player should remove duplicates and place in their own pile (to keep track of how many cards they have).
The first player will choose another player and ask them “Do you have a <insert number>”. That player will either respond yes and give them the card or “no – go fish!” and they will have to pick up another card.
The game continues to the left and ends when all the cards have been used. The winner with the most amount of cards wins!

March 25, 2015

Easy DIY Easter Baskets

One of my favourite things to put together during the Easter season are children’s Easter baskets. I love designing, decorating and choosing chocolates that they will love. Creating our own baskets allow us to tailor the items in the basket to their likes and creates a personal gift for them.

For this basket you will need:

Easter basket (I picked up mine from the Dollar Store – two baskets for $1)
small chocolate eggs (I chose Hershey’s cookies and creme)
Kinder Surprise Eggs
foam
green filling for the basket
styrofoam eggs (these came attached to a stick so it was easy to insert)

Directions:

Using a knife or scissors trace the bottom of the container on the foam to ensure it will fit in the bottom of your basket. Using a knife cut out the foam and place it in the bottom of your basket.

Fill the basket with the green filling to cover up the foam.

Insert the styrofoam eggs and place the Kinder egg in the basket.

Fill the basket with chocolate eggs (or another favourite of your child’s).

And voila – your basket is complete!

These are perfect for the little ones that come over during the holidays or a friend’s child. I have stopped buying the store packaged Easter baskets due to the quality of items included so these are great alternatives to store-bought baskets!

Do you make your own Easter baskets? What do you like to include?

March 12, 2015

Handprint Tulips Canvas #DIY #Crafts

Easter is just around the corner and this is a perfect time to get your children ready by creating crafts and decorations to place around your home.

I stumbled upon this idea while on Pinterest (my favourite place to spend some time online!). I thought this would be the perfect craft to do with my children and it leaves a lasting memory of this time period to treasure later on.

For this project you will need:

large white canvas
yellow, blue and green paint
paint brushes

Directions:

Set up a clean area and lay your canvas on the table. Put out your paint and paint brushes. With a pencil roughly plan out where you would like to place your tulips.

Take your child’s hand and generously coat it with the desired paint.

Place your child’s hand on the canvas in the area you had set for the bloom of the tulip. You can alternate hands and paint colour to create a garden of tulips. In our case we alternated older/younger child’s hand. Wash up nicely!

Using the green paint, draw on a stem on each of the tulips.

You can create a garden bed or grass bed at the bottom of the canvas.

Allow your painting to dry. Once your painting is dry you can place the tulip canvas in a prominent place in your home. For us this was in our livingroom so that everyone could see their hands when they come to visit us.

This would also make a great gift for the Grandparents this Easter season!
What crafts have you started this season?

February 13, 2015

Homemade Vapour Rub

Homemade vapour rubs are the perfect solution for the many colds and infections we pick up during the long winter months.

For myself, I suffer with chronic sinus infections and this is the only thing that keeps me going during the day (especially since I do not want to reply on antibiotics all the time!). I have one jar at home and another at my desk at work.

The eucalyptus oil works well in opening up the nasal passages allowing you to breathe that much easier. The natural ingredients (two only!) gives you the confidence to use not only on yourself but your children as well.

Ingredients

2 tbsp of coconut oil
8 drops of eucalyptus essential oil

Warm up the coconut oil for roughly 30-45 seconds depending on how solid the coconut oil was when you started. You want it to not be a liquid but still able to mix to ensure the eucalyptus oil will be evenly spread through.

Add the eight drops of eucalyptus oil to the coconut oil and stir. I like to call this part the sniff test! Smell the mixture – does it smell strong enough? No? Add a few more drops in, stir and smell again. You don’t want the vapour rub to be so strong that you would not want to put it on your skin but strong enough to give you enough relief.

The mixture will form into a harder solid after you make it and is easy to apply. It also can turn into a liquid easily because of the coconut oil! You just need a small amount each time you put on an application so you can either chill the vapour rub to return it to a solid state or use it in it’s liquid form.

Do you make your own homemade vapour rub?