Pinned Lately

I love looking through Pinterest for ideas of things to make or do with the boys. Here are some recent pins from my "To Do" board!

Printable Jigsaw Puzzle

Ice Fishing Game

Kids Card Holder

DIY Car Garage

City Playmat

Ninjas

A DIY lightbox for tracing

LEGO playhouse

And a LEGO camera with your iPhone

Something for the Little Ones

I came across this great archive of activities to do with your kids ages 1-3 from Play Create Explore. It looks like a fun list to go through if you're looking for some ideas!

Like Clean Mush

Body Painting

Baked cotton balls

Dinosaur Sensory Bin

Or Styrofoam Sculptures

Find the full list HERE!

DIY Fun Bags!

I'm over at Modern Parents Messy Kids today with a DIY boredom buster that costs pretty much nothing! It's definitely something you want to keep in your "back pocket" with kids around!

See all the awesome things you can do with a bag of stuff HERE

Collapsible Cardboard Playhouse

My friend Jenn from Ambrosia Creative has done it again. In her post over on She Knows she gives a tutorial to create the perfect collapsible cardboard playhouse. Pretty it up and give one as a gift or make one any time for your kids. LOVE this!

View the great step by step HERE

Makedo makes forts easy

The awesome people over at Makedo sent us a FreePlay Kit for One to play with. I had originally intended on having someone help us make this extravagant fort structure (and I may still try) but I think the fun of this product is that KIDS can use it and I wanted my boys to create something of their own.

I know it's fun to see all the inspiration of the amazing things this product can do.

(all photos from Makedo's Inspiration Gallery be sure to check out the rest!)

I think this is a GREAT product for a gift for kids and wanted to show what the kids could do with it on their own. I helped a little to show them how the product worked and helped them brainstorm a bit on how to get what was in their mind to work. 

We just moved and had several boxes to choose from but they chose some large boxes to construct their walls. The Makedo kit comes with a safe saw and a hole poker (SO easy) to create holes for the "bolts". They attached their walls together with the "bolts and nuts".

The black thing you see there can be a moveable hinge (how cool would a door be?!) or you can lock it so it doesn't move. They put a couple of those on the flaps of their smaller boxes to give them some height.

Once the walls were up they wanted a sheet for the roof to allow some air in (it was 105F) so we added a sheet over the top. Taking a cue from our couch forts they added a broom for height and attached a few points of the sheet to the boxs so it wouldn't fly away. Then they decorated.

A good fort has a guard right?

Their fort even has a table perfect for playing UNO (our favorite card game). The broom is stuck inside the box with a couple of bricks to keep it from sliding around.

At night a fort with lights is usually requested. We scored these plastic outdoor bulbs on clearance at Target.

The score? 4 thumbs up from my boys. The fort was sturdy, easy to put together, and the parts can be used over and over. We have some other ideas up our sleeves for Makedo. But I'm glad our first project was something the boys did on their own!

There are all kinds of sets on Amazon or the Makedo site. We recommend them!

Secret Agent Scavenger Hunt

As soon as I saw this post on Design Dazzle I knew I had to share it here before we shared our Summer Bucket List because we are adding this to it for sure!

The post was a guest post from Frog Prince Paperie - go check out the post for the how to!

Do you have something you think we need to add to our bucket list before we share it? Leave a link in the comments or shoot me an email!

Real Life Fruit Ninja

I am addicted to Fruit Ninja. I love that game! I was so excited when Love Them Madly emailed me her blog post for Real Life Fruit Ninja! We've seen Angry Birds - now this! I love that we can take a favorite video game and turn it into something active!

Using water balloons of course - my kind of outdoor summer game!

Is that brilliant or what? See her post for the how to and inspiration.

DIY MAGNETIC TRAVEL ACTIVITY TRAY

While we are mourning the ending of our big summer vacation many of you are still preparing to leave on yours. Even if you aren't going on vacation this is a great activity to keep in the car.

A DIY Magnetic Travel Activity Tray from Craft, Interrupted.

When my boys were little we'd make little sticker scenes but with magnets and a cookie sheet for them to play with in the car and they loved it. I really love this more 3D version.

Go check out the post over at Craft, Interrupted for the how to, the other versions, AND printables!