Our Elmer’s Spring Craft Creation {Giveaway}

by Christine - From Dates to Diapers on May 6, 2011

I’ve mentioned here before that I’m not the craftiest person around. In fact, I need step-by-step directions for anything I make. And, a picture.

BUT, I’d really like to change that, so I recently accepted Elmer’s challenge to let my inner crafty loose in a Spring DIY Creation Contest.

Elmer’s developed a Spring Creation Guide, with the step-by-step instructions that I need to create five simple home projects—from a wine rack to wall art—using the  multipurpose glue everyone should have around the house: Elmer’s Glue-All. They challenged me to make one of these creations uniquely mine or create something totally new using Elmer’s Glue-All.

To help with materials, Elmer’s sent me a Spring DIY Kit, which included all of the adhesives I may need, and a $50 VISA gift card to use for materials.

I chose to make something totally new. (I know – I surprised even myself with my decision!) Julia and I actually decided to decorate a photo box with scraps of paper, jewels and stickers. We didn’t have a picture, but how hard could it be?

We found our white photo box at Target and bought some stickers there, too. I already had a plethora of scrapbooking paper, so we picked out some of our favorites and got to work.

Julia enjoyed tearing apart the paper in big pieces to place over the box lid. We then sprayed each piece, as well as the box lid, with Elmer’s Multi-Purpose Spray Adhesive so the colorful pieces of paper overlapped, covering every bit of white on that lid.

We used our X-ACTO knife to trim the edges around the inside of the lid, then placed the jewels, stickers, and the letters in the word LOVE just so.

When everything was in it’s perfect place, we spread a thin layer of Elmer’s Glue All (diluted first with water) over the entire lid with a brush, sealing everything into place.

Voila!

Easy enough for even this non-crafty mama! Okay, I admit… Julia was really the creative genius for this one! But, now I have a picture, so I could certainly do it again!

Win it!

Elmer’s would like to send a special adhesive kit to THREE of you! Your kit will include:

  • Elmer’s Glue-All
  • CraftBond Tacky Glue
  • CraftBond Extra Strength Glue Stick
  • Elmer’s Multipurpose Spray Adhesive
  • X-ACTO Gripster Knife

To enter, check out Elmer’s Spring Creation Guide and let me know which project you would consider and how you would make it your own. Leave me a comment before 9pm (PT) on May 20th. (U.S. entrants only, please!)

For additional entries you may send out a tweet with a link to this giveaway and/or give it a thumbs up on Facebook by clicking the “Like” button in the top left corner of this post. Be sure you leave me a separate comment for each task.

Happy Spring Crafting!

Benefited Giveaway

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Prehistoric Diorama

by Christine - From Dates to Diapers on September 7, 2010

My lovely friend, Donna, kept my kiddos busy (and quiet) for quite some time yesterday evening. She had my kids and her kids assembling mini dinosaur and insect figures until our patio table was full of lizards, dragonflies, beetles, spiders and more.

Some of these little figures fell apart as soon as they were put together, but Donna had a solution for that, too… She helped my kiddos put together a prehistoric diorama!

Prehistoric Diorama 1

Prehistoric Diorama 2

Prehistoric Diorama 3

I’m thinking everyone needs a friend like Donna!

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Snowflakes

by Christine - From Dates to Diapers on February 10, 2010

As I travel across the country for the third time in the last week, I can only imagine what my babies are doing to keep busy under the watchful eye of Aunt Sara. It was cold and raining when I left this morning, so I envision many little ones – eight to exact, including my two nephews – running around indoors, shirtless and shoeless, as my boys often are.

I have many ideas running through my head, as I begin to plan out the next several weeks of school, with my notebook here in front of me. Lessons, field trips, and many more wintery weather activities will take place, before the sun decides to stay out from behind clouds and begins to shine again.

When my plane was preparing for departure on the tarmac of the Denver runway the other day, I noticed that it began to snow. A beautiful sight for this California girl, who doesn’t much witness snowfall, let alone study snowflakes. I sat in awe as I began to really see the flakes of frozen water drawn to my window like magnets. Beautiful white specks, displaying the individuality of their Creator.

Snowflake

Sitting there I began to notice that, although each flake was unique and beautiful, each had six points – something I had known to be true, but was now witnessing first-hand. Of course, I immediately googled snowflakes and began reading about these little flakes.

Now, I vaguely remember being taught all about snowflakes when I was of elementary school age, but I just sat in awe of God and the little flakes of frozen water. Flakes that can blow through as a blizzard, trapping families in their homes. Flakes that, when falling ever so slightly, can be one of the most beautiful natural occurances.

It was at that moment, sitting there in my seat, that I decided that my children needed to see the beauty of snowflakes. A perfect topic for a fun wintery weather activity! I recalled how, when I was little, I was shown pictures of the remarkably shaped flakes and proceeded to recreate images of snowflakes by cutting shapes in to a folded piece of paper. Seems simple enough, but not living near the snow, it never really occurred to me how fun this would be to do with my own kids.

So, I decided that next week, when I am home from my travels, the kids and I will study snowflakes. If not real ones, the idea of them.

Have you done any fun snowflake activities, made any fabulous snowflake crafts, or had snowflake unit studies with your kiddos? I’d love to hear about them!

This post is sponsored by Campbell’s Chicken Noodle Soup who wants you to know that 32 feet of fresh egg noodles go into every can. For lots of fresh ideas about how to keep your kids entertained and the chance to win $500, check out Wintery Weather Fun at DivineCaroline.

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Indoor Fun

by Christine - From Dates to Diapers on February 1, 2010

So, how did you do this last week? Were you able to be more intentional about fitting in a fun activity or creating a new craft with your kiddos each day?

This week we discovered some new games – Zingo and Super WHY! ABC Letter Game – and we played some of our old favorites, as well – Uno and Connect 4. We even made some sweet treats; the most favorite of which is the yummy and delicious Muddy Buddies. Josh also spent some time with Daddy digging up his dinosaur bones and piecing together a T-Rex!

Josh

I didn’t quite get in the special time with each of my kiddos every day this last week, as I had hoped, but we did create some great memories indoors. All while the weather was not so pleasant outside.

As you have already seen of my fabulous guests this last week, I have some pretty crafty friends, but in my efforts to find fun, unique crafts and activities for us to try, I have discovered some new lovely and creative blogs. (Thanks for your recommendations, Mindy!)

I hope you’ll check ‘em out, too!

  • The Crafty Crow is a craft collective, meaning that many great crafts are featured from around the blogosphere every day.
  • P is for Preschool is written by the director of a real Kansas preschool. Its kinda fun, because all posts are correlated with letters of the alphabet!
  • Little Food Junction is a delightful blog with terrific ideas to make food fun. I am loving the Valentine’s Day food art!
  • Today is Fun is a site that features entertaining, affordable activities that are meant to foster kids’ innate creative impulses and encourage a love of life.

Where do you get your inspiration?
Please share… I still need all the help I can get!

This post is sponsored by Campbell’s Chicken Noodle Soup who wants you to know that 32 feet of fresh egg noodles go into every can. For lots of fresh ideas about how to keep your kids entertained and the chance to win $500, check out Wintery Weather Fun at DivineCaroline.

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Winter Sun Catchers

January 28, 2010

Tweet In my quest for a craft-filled week, I have asked some of my friends to help me out with some fun ideas. Today my friend Amanda has agreed to share a wintery weather craft with us. Amanda is a happy stay-at-home mom to two. She blogs at ohAmanda and Impress Your Kids. She’s a [...]

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Snowy Winter Wonderland

January 26, 2010

Tweet We have a very special guest here at From Dates to Diapers today, to help us out with our challenge to be more purposeful about doing crafts and fun activities with our kids. Marie is a mother of 3 living in Utah. She’s the founder of Make and Takes, a top rated parenting blog [...]

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Baby, It’s Cold Outside!

January 25, 2010

Tweet I know, I know… Christmas is over. But, the cold and wet weather is sticking around for awhile. Which means our energetic family – much like yours, I’m sure, unless you live in Florida – must turn to indoor activities to keep us busy and active. This last week was the most wet week [...]

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Wintery Weather Fun

January 18, 2010

Tweet What words come to mind when you think of this time of the year? Maybe you live in Chicago and are snowed in, stuck at home with all your lovely and adorable kids. Cold. Bored. Or, perhaps you live in Southern California and your family still heads to the beach on any given day. [...]

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Nestle Holiday Gift Basket {Giveaway}

December 22, 2009

Tweet My mom always set us up with fun things to do and create, especially around Christmas, but there is one incredibly easy craft that I particularly remember – We pressed cloves into the skin of an orange, rolled them in spices, and hung them as decorations. The sweet aroma filled our home, and to [...]

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Decorate Your Clothes

September 29, 2009

Tweet Julia and I received a couple of cool clothing decorating kits from JAKKS Pacific recently, and let me say we had some fun! The Attaching Kit was easy to use, there was no mess, and it was a fun way to add some pizzazz to Julia’s clothes. "Style Six Attaching Kit" Create a free [...]

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Today on Mom-2-Mom

April 7, 2009

Tweet As Easter approaches and we prepare to celebrate the resurrection of our Savior, we see so many things around us that remind us of new life. Today on mom-2-Mom, I talked about some of the best ideas from around the blogosphere. From the Resurrection Egg and traditional hard-cooked and decorated Easter eggs to cute [...]

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Valentine’s Day with the Kiddos

February 3, 2009

Tweet Today on my BlogTalkRadio show, Monica and I talked about fun things to do with your kiddos for Valentine’s Day. You can listen to the episode to hear the secret word so you may enter my iPod Touch giveaway, or to discover what we are planning to do this Valentine’s Day. Are you looking [...]

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