Slimed DIY -- a Crafty Weekends Review & Link Party

Disclosure: Leisure Arts sent me a copy of this book in return for an honest review. All opinions in this post are my own. I did not receive any other compensation for this review.  The links are affiliate links where I will receive a small percentage of any purchases made through them at no cost to you. Thank you for supporting Crafty Moms Share!

Have your kids jumped into the slime wave? Hazel discovered slime a few weeks ago when one of her classmates was looking for some buyers of slime her older sister made. This was right after I had heard about the blisters and burns some kids experienced, so I decided the only way she was having slime was if we made it so I knew exactly what was in it. Enter Leisure Arts. They just published a new book called Slimed DIY.

Elmer's Glow in the Dark Glue -- a Crafty Weekends Review and Link Party

Disclosure: I was sent these bottle of glue in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own. 

So I was very excited to get this new Glow in the Dark Glue from Elmer's. I had many ideas on what to do with it. The obvious one being slime. But we are into Harry Potter right now. Hazel is reading all the books on her own constantly. I had seen an idea of making the Deathly Hallow Resurrection Stone with hot glue on a stone, but I thought how cool it would be to glow in the dark. I decided to use the yellow glue on black(ish) stones.

Sharing Saturday 18-19

It is time for Sharing Saturday!! This is a link party to share all of your child-oriented crafts, crafts made for kids, activities and lessons as well as your parenting and/or teaching posts. So glad you joined us!!

On Sunday night we also host Crafty Weekends for all your crafts (done by any age), patterns, and craft product reviews! It is the perfect place to share your creative side!! 

Autumn Pumpkin Crafts & More -- a Crafty Weekends Review & Link Party

Disclosure: Oriental Trading sent me these products in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Can you believe August is almost over and schools are starting up? Where did the summer go? To kick into the fall season, we are sharing some pumpkin themed crafts and products. And just in case you want to really skip ahead be sure to check out our Christmas card post yesterday! I know crafters will understand the need to start those crafts early!! We decided to focus our posts around pumpkins since they work for fall as well as Halloween and Thanksgiving. We have had a lot of fun with pumpkin crafts and with pumpkins. Last year I shared a tutorial to make a fabric pumpkin. I used this pumpkin in several of my pictures. We will start with our DIY Door Pumpkin. 

Sharing Saturday 17-35

Can you believe it is Labor Day weekend already? Where did this summer go? Well before you go off to the beach or barbeque be sure to share with us and check out this week's features!

It is time again for Sharing Saturday! This is a link party to share all of your child-oriented crafts, crafts made for kids, activities and lessons as well as your parenting and/or teaching posts. So glad you joined us!!

On Sunday night we also host Crafty Weekends for all your crafts (done by any age), patterns, and craft product reviews! It is the perfect place to share your creative side!! And for all of your cultural posts come share them at the monthly Creative Kids Culture Blog Hop.

Books for Earth Day

 

Disclosure: I was sent copies of these books in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

It is hard to believe Earth Day is next week! I feel like April is flying by and as a former teacher once April hits--well April vacation (next week)--I feel like the school year is basically over. Hazel's new school has a different vacation schedule so she had two weeks off in March, but I know the public schools are off next week so the feeling is still there. Today I am going to share an other set of books that are great for Earth Day. These books range for ages 4-7 and 7-12, so basically books perfect for elementary grades. We will start with Sunrise Summer by Matthew Swanson and illustrated by Robbi Behr. 

Kids' Craft Books -- a Crafty Weekends Review and Link Party

Disclosure: Leisure Arts sent me a copy of this book in return for an honest review. All opinions in this post are my own. I did not receive any other compensation for this review. The links are affiliate links where I will receive a small percentage of any purchases made through them at no cost to you. Thank you for supporting Crafty Moms Share!

Most schools are out for the summer now around here (or will be this week). I know people will be looking for things to do with kids especially on those rainy days. Today I am going to share two craft books for kids. Our first book is by one of my favorite bloggers: Rachel Nipper over at I Heart Crafty Things. The book is After-School Kids' Crafts. 

Unicorns & Other Mythical Creatures

 

Disclosure: I was sent copies of these books in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Unicorns, dragons, and other mythical beasts have been the center of attention for many people. I know most girls go through some unicorn phase and some never grow out of it. Today I am going to share with you a picture book based on the unicorn tapestries and a fun fact book about mythical beasts. I am also sharing a unicorn craft round-up to go with these fun books! We will start with The Lady and the Unicorn by Béatrice Fontanel and Vanessa Hié. It is recommended for ages 8 to 12.

Middle Grades Summer Reading with Environmental Themes

Disclosure: I was sent a copy of these books in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Is school out where you live? Hazel finished last week. Of course it wasn't a big celebration with the state just starting to re-open. But we have started to think about summer. Although I don't see too many trips to the beach this year even when we are at Cape Cod. But reading about them is always fun. Today I am sharing two books about life near water--a lake and the ocean. Do you go to any body of water every summer? Are you going this year?

Sharing Saturday 17-12

It is time for Sharing Saturday!! This is a link party to share all of your child-oriented crafts, crafts made for kids, activities and lessons as well as your parenting and/or teaching posts.

On Sunday night we also host Crafty Weekends for all your crafts (done by any age), patterns, and craft product reviews! It is the perfect place to share your creative side!! And for all of your cultural posts come share them at the monthly Creative Kids Culture Blog Hop.

Thank you to everyone who shared with us at our last party! It was another great party with many different ideas!!  Our features are just a sampling of them so if you haven't checked them all out, you should! This week we have three groups of features: Books, Lessons & More, and  Other Great Features.

Sharing Saturday 18-2

It is time again for Sharing Saturday! This is a link party to share all of your child-oriented crafts, crafts made for kids, activities and lessons as well as your parenting and/or teaching posts. So glad you joined us!!

On Sunday night we also host Crafty Weekends for all your crafts (done by any age), patterns, and craft product reviews! It is the perfect place to share your creative side!! 

Sharing Saturday 17-17

It is time for Sharing Saturday!! This is a link party to share all of your child-oriented crafts, crafts made for kids, activities and lessons as well as your parenting and/or teaching posts.

On Sunday night we also host Crafty Weekends for all your crafts (done by any age), patterns, and craft product reviews! It is the perfect place to share your creative side!! And for all of your cultural posts come share them at the monthly Creative Kids Culture Blog Hop.

Thank you to everyone who shared with us at our last party! It was a small party but full of great ideas!  Our features are just a sampling of them so if you haven't checked them all out, you should! This week we have one group of features.

Soccer Fun with Books and Craft Round-up

Disclosure: I was sent copies of these books in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Soccer season has started at schools around here. Is there really a soccer season anymore? I know kids that play it all year round with indoor soccer and soccer camps. What about you? 

What do you know about soccer? Do you have a soccer enthusiast in your house? I have two fun books focused around soccer for you today!! Plus I am sharing a round-up of crafts from some other bloggers as well. Our first book is Absolute Expert: Soccer by Eric Zweig and Mark Giger. It is from National Geographic Kids. 

Virtual Book Club for Kids: Dr. Seuss--Bartholomew and the Oobleck

If you are looking for Fairy Tales in Different Cultures, it is here.

This month the Virtual Book Club for Kids is featuring Dr. Seuss. Now I must admit, I was not too excited about Dr. Seuss. I feel like he is so well known and so over done, however I still visited the library and found some books I had not read by him. We have really enjoyed reading his books and have found some new favorites.  Here is a collage of all the books we own or took out of the library except one, My Many Colored Days, since it did not have a title on the cover. This however is one of my favorites since it hits so many lessons--colors, moods, etc.

For those of you who are new and do not know anything about the Virtual Book Club for Kids, I am joining a group of wonderful bloggers who each month pick an author for the month and then host a blog hop sharing one of the author's books and an activity, craft, etc. to go with the book. You are invited to join in the blog hop and link up all your Dr. Seuss (this month) book activities. It is a great way to find new books and new ideas to go with the books. The amazing blogs I am joining in hosting this book club are:

Toddler Approved - Rainy Day Mum - Adventures in Reading with Kids - 3 Dinosaurs - Royal Baloo - The Educators' Spin On It - Inspiration Laboratories - Pleasantest Thing - Edventures with Kids - Two Big Two Little - Playing With Words 365 - Kitchen Counter Chronicles - Outlaw Mom - Mommy and Me Book Club - Crafty Moms Share - No Twiddle Twaddle - The Good Long Road - Ready. Set. Read 2 Me - Reading Confetti - Mama Smiles - Juggling with Kids- Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas - Creekside Learning - Creative Family Fun - The Usual Mayhem - Teach Preschool - PlayDrMom - CraftoArt - Here Come the Girls - Being a Conscious Parent - Smiling like Sunshine - Crayon Freckles - Train Up a Child - Smile Play Learn - Enchanted Homeschooling Mom - Coffee Cups and Crayons - Having Fun at Chelle's House- Love, Play, Learn - Juggling With Kids - Motherhood on a Dime

If you have been following the Virtual Book Club for Kids for awhile you will notice we have some new hosts.

Now another exciting resource for Dr. Seuss is www.seussville.com. You can visit there and find games, activities, printables in the teacher and parent sections. Above are some of the printables we printed and have done. We have many more to try. This is also our first post of this month's author. We have done some activities for a couple more of his books which we will share later in the three week blog hop time. Plus Dr. Seuss's birthday is March 2nd, so expect to see a lot of Dr. Seuss on the web (which also corresponds to Read Across America).

Today I am going to share with you, our projects with Bartholomew and the Oobleck. Now this is one of the books we took out of the library. I had not read it or heard of it, but we enjoyed it. For those who do not know the story, the King of Didd gets angry with the sky since sunshine, rain, fog and snow are the only things that fall from it. He wants something different since he is a special king. He has his page boy, Bartholomew, call the magicians. Bartholomew tries to talk him out of calling them, but he is ordered to call them. The magicians go to their mountain to perform the magic and have promised to have oobleck fall from the sky. No one including the magicians know what oobleck is or will look like, but it is not sunshine, rain, fog or snow, so the king wants them to do it. The next morning oobleck starts falling and Bartholomew discovers it is green and sticky--think slime but stickier. Birds are getting stuck in their nests from it. He goes to warn the people of Didd to stay inside but runs into oobleck trouble everywhere he goes. Soon the oobleck is not staying outside, but starts to come into the palace. The king gets stuck to his throne. He orders Bartholomew to go get the magicians, but he cannot since they are locked in their mountain cave and which cannot be opened by him. They decide to come up with some magic words of their own and Bartholomew suggests the king say "I'm sorry." The king gets upset since he is king and should not have to apologize. But after getting frustrated and crying the king says, "I'm sorry. It's all my fault." and the oobleck stops and the sky clears. And all of the oobleck that has fallen melts away so all the people and animals become unstuck.

We of course did the oobleck coloring page of the king stuck in it found at Seussville. After reading the story for the first time, we happened to make popcorn (using a hot air popper) and noticed the popcorn flying everywhere. We commented on how popcorn would be better than oobleck to fall from the sky. It is less sticky and soft and edible. Then for an activity we decided to try to make oobleck. Ok, we really made goo, but we pretended it was oobleck. We followed the recipe/tutorial at Science Sparks for glow in the dark goo, but we did not add the glow in the dark paint. She happened to share it again on her Facebook page right when I was going to go look for a goo recipe. This was the first time we made goo, so we didn't really know what to expect. My daughter who does not like to get her hands dirty usually absolutely loved playing with it. She got upset when I told her we needed to clean it up. It definitely has a very strange/unique feel to it.

We used a cup of corn starch and then I took a cup of water and mixed a couple of drops of green food coloring into the water and added it slowly to the corn starch. Otherwise we followed the tutorial at Science Sparks. When I mentioned to my mother what we were doing she thought we should be using corn meal. We tried it and it did not make a good goo, so we went back to our corn starch.

Now it is your turn to share your Dr. Seuss book activities. I know in the past I have some posts about Dr. Seuss. Here is how we celebrated his birthday last year. Here is my Multicultural Monday post on The Sneetches and What Was I Afraid Of?

Sharing Saturday 16-44

Can you believe Halloween is on Monday? Where has the time gone? This fall is flying by. I hope you are enjoying it!! It is time for Sharing Saturday!! This is a link party to share all of your child-oriented crafts, crafts made for kids, activities and lessons as well as your parenting and/or teaching posts. On Sunday night we also host Crafty Weekends for all your crafts (done by any age), patterns, and craft product reviews! It is the perfect place to share your creative side!! And for all of your cultural posts come share them at the monthly Creative Kids Culture Blog Hop. 

Thank you to everyone who shared with us last week! We had a small party, but it was full of great ideas! I always love seeing what everyone has been up to and your creative ideas!! Our features are just a sampling of them so if you haven't checked them all out, you should! This week we have three groups of features: Fall Holidays, Lessons, and Bully Prevention Month Resources!

Sharing Saturday 18-12

Well Easter has passed. Did you get to see our Easter Round-Up last week? It included features from our last party as well as the last Crafty Weekends.  This is a link party to share all of your child-oriented crafts, crafts made for kids, activities and lessons as well as your parenting and/or teaching posts. So glad you joined us!!

On Sunday night we also host Crafty Weekends for all your crafts (done by any age), patterns, and craft product reviews! It is the perfect place to share your creative side!! And for all your diverse/cultural posts be sure to share them at Creative Kids Culture Blog Hop. 

Manolo and the Unicorn -- New Picture Book Review

 

Disclosure: I was sent a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Today we are sharing the third (of four) picture books that were released this week. It delves into the magic all around us and especially in the world of children. It also is about dreaming, believing in oneself and so much more! The book is Manolo and the Unicorn by Jackie Azua Kramer and Johnah Kramer and illustrated by Zach Manbeck. It is recommended for ages 5 to 7. To go along with the book there is a unicorn craft round-up as well!

Decorations, Giveaways and other things to check out!

Picture of Shadow--Taken from Little Elf Toy Shop

Natural Kids is giving away a needle felted black cat (see above) from Little Elf Toy Shop.

Tatertots and Jello summarizes 17 Halloween Countdown Calendars and Decorations.

Ghostie--Picture taken from We Bloom Here

We Bloom Here is giving away a Ghostie doll (see above) on Wednesday.

Autumn Cards--Taken from Creating a Family Home

Pouch Pattern & Yarn--Taken from Creating a Family Home

Yarn--Taken from Creating a Family Home

Fall Needle Felted Decorations--Taken from Creating a Family Home

      Creating a Family Home had a week's worth of giveaways. All are recapped on this post. See all four prizes (well actually five since the pouch is two different colors being given away) above.

R. Morales Mug--Taken from Earth Mama

Earth Mama is sponsoring a R. Morales Pottery Giveaway. See to the left.

Women Living Well

Check out Women Living Well's 31 Day Fall Challenge. Week 2's challenge just came out. What a nice way to refocus ourselves to what is important! Week 1's Challenge can be found here.


A craft we are definitely going to try soon from Living, Loving, Learning Naturally.

Toilet Paper Bat--Taken from Living, Loving, Learning Naturally

Toilet Paper Bats (with hand print wings)! 

Reading Confetti celebrates National Pizza Month--October--with a book and a craft.

Monster Pillows--Taken from One Artsy Mama

One Artsy Mama has a tutorial to make these adorable Monster Pillows.


The Idea Room has many, MANY neat oreo pop ideas for anyone having a fall party. (Bats, Frankenstein, turkeys, apples, eyeballs, Mickey Mouse and more!) Also a recipe for Homemade Slime! And a recipe and decoration ideas for Homemade Halloween Playdough--great for party favors!--By the way, Crissy's Crafts sent me to The Idea Room because she made some Mickey Ghost Oreo Pops for her Not So Scary Mickey Halloween Party.

I Heart Crafty Things has some great Halloween decoration ideas for kids to make--Haunted house displays, eyeball frames and more as well as a book to go along with the crafts.


Lil' Luna has a guest blogger with some great ideas for pumpkin decorating (the craft pumpkins)

Thanksgiving Wreath--Taken from Beneath the Rowan Tree

Beneath the Rowan Tree has a great tutorial for a Thanksgiving Wreath made up of scrap fabric. (Maybe I should send the link to my Mom since she is trying to figure out what to do with hers!)

Ok, I think I have caught up with all my blogging. Well now I have to go check all the linky parties I missed this weekend. Some of my favorite ones for kids' activities happen over the weekend.

Crafty Weekends Link Party

This has been one of those weeks where life has gotten in the way of what I want to do. Therefore I do not have a craft or craft product to review with you, so we are going straight to the party. However I am looking for some participants in a USA postcard swap.

Sharing Saturday 18-16

It is time for Sharing Saturday!! This is a link party to share all of your child-oriented crafts, crafts made for kids, activities and lessons as well as your parenting and/or teaching posts. So glad you joined us!!

On Sunday night we also host Crafty Weekends for all your crafts (done by any age), patterns, and craft product reviews! It is the perfect place to share your creative side!! And for all your diverse/cultural posts be sure to share them at Creative Kids Culture Blog Hop.