When We Were Young

These were my favorite games to play growing up! Read on for more classic activities of a childhood without video games

Today I was watching an episode of the Brady Bunch whilst enjoying a steaming mug of hot cocoa during this lovely Winter Vacation from school. One of the scenes cut to Peter and Bobby having a contest of who could cast a fishing line and land the lure in the target (which was a bucket). I began to think to myself how innately creative children are, and yet in modern times, their minds are not exercised to use that creativity to its full potential. A conversation that I was having with a dear friend and colleague (yes, you, Theresa!) sprang into my mind: so often children have the thinking done for them in play, that they rarely get a chance to think for themselves. With the widespread use of batteries, electronics, screens, and buttons with very specific and very limited buttons in toys, playtime is becoming less and less developmentally helpful. I'll be the first to admit, I'm a tech junkie! I'm in front of a screen more than I should be during any given day...yet I wasn't brought up that way. My creativity and brain flexibility survived, and I believe it was because of my lack of video games throughout my childhood.

Wow, that was a long rant. Anyway, this is NOT supposed to be a scholarly post, but a fun one! That Brady Bunch episode inspired me to compile all the fun games I used to play when I was little into a list for a rainy day...or a power outage! :) I remember being entertained in the same game or dramatic play literally for hours as a child...whereas these days, kids are involved with an activity for a half hour and then they're bored. Actually, that reminded me of my last (or maybe not) scholarly point: I heard on the radio recently that the heavy use of technology actually lowers attention span! Think about it: Are you on your smartphone often? When are you most commonly on your phone? Waiting in line? Commercial breaks? Dare I ask, at a red light? We are so used to being occupied by something that we, as a society, are finding it harder and harder to just do nothing. Go ahead, try to do nothing for one minute, I bet you'll want to pick up that phone after about 20 seconds.

ANYWAY here is my list, broken into categories. No more tangents for me!...Yet... :)

Wait, one tiny side-note: worried your kids won't be into it? Make it into a mini Bucket List to complete over a power outage or school vacation! Do it with them! And while you're playing with them, don't forget to act as immaturely as you acted 30 years ago ;)

Artistic
*Draw
*Paint
*Clay- For the multi-talented artist, make some salt dough so their creation can bake and then be painted
*Design clothing- so fun for your little Fashionista or Fashionisto!
*Writing songs: Let me tell you. My 3 best friends from Middle School and I were in a band. It. Was. The. Sh!+. Kathryn, Molly, Sam, and I were the Ice Girlz (obviously inspired by the genius 90s band the Spice Girls). We would take popular songs and rewrite our own lyrics to them. We wrote them, practiced them, choreographed them, and preformed them. I am shocked that we are not sitting in our Ice Girlz mansion because we were fantastic. Just saying.
*Teach your kids to crochet or knit: This just leads to MORE hours of handmade, creative fun

Dramatic Play
--These are such great ways to practice social interactions!
*Trolls!! (Thanks Jen!) Or any other action figure/doll you can think of
*Play House
*Play School
*Play Store
*Play Doctor
*Playing Salon: I mean...the possibilities are endless. M, J, and I used to play this at the No-Electronics-Allowed Yacht Club they belong to. They would give each other manicures, pedicures, hair styles, massages, and they would have done make up, I'm sure, if we'd had it there. Who doesn't love free spa treatment?! I was always ready to play salon! ;)
*Raft Game: I have no idea where I got the idea for this game, but it's a Christie Millar Original. I would spread a blanket out on the floor, get all my beanie babies and a couple pillows. The blanket would be the raft, the beanie babies: the crew, and the pillows: the cabin. We would sail stormy seas, discover uncharted islands, and go weeks without eating anything but fish! Not sure why that was such a fun game for me because in real life it sounds almost dreadful, but it was my favorite!

Indoor Movement/Outside Games
*Water gun fight: I'm not talking, let's get in a line and spray water...I'm talking military tactic, hunt you down and soak you, water gun fight.
*Bike adventures
*Red Rover
*Capture the flag
*Manhunt (Thanks Niki, Molly, Tom, and Gerri!)
*Go for walks-I feel like this was our original chat room since it was more of a social event than an exercise event
*Host your own Olympics Games (Thanks Sarah!)
*Street Hockey (thanks Dad!) or any other organized sport...but probably not taking place in the street these days, depending on what kind of road you live on.

Indoor Games
*Slinky Races (provided you have a staircase)...need I say more?
*House- wide hide and seek (this would be REALLY fun in a power outage)
*Board games- any good ol' classic board games!
*Create your own game! For example, the first game I'll create will be to upcycle a Monopoly board to Harry Potter Monopoly!

Scientific/Nature
*Building a fort
*Building SOMETHING (Legos, blocks, LINCOLN LOGS!!) Architecture at its finest.
*Making fairy houses...No! Not the kits! I mean go into your back yard and scavenge for items like a REAL fairy would do ;) No manmade materials! You need something stuck together? Get some sap. You need to tie something? I hope you have long blades of grass in your yard.
*Climbing Trees: Thrilling and an immense feeling of accomplishment! Also, good exercise :)
*Scavenger hunt
*Experiments (just please don't harm any animals!)

There are millions of other things to do, I'm sure. And if you've read this blog and you would like to contribute I ENCOURAGE you to email me, leave a comment, or find me on Pinterest and comment there.

Thanks so much for reading, and may your New Year be filled with love, health, happiness, and a good dose of creativity!

xo Christie


**Disclaimer: I am not responsible for the safety or well-being of any people participating in any of these games in their personal lives. It is a sad truth that some of these games are not as safe to play as they once were, so please be smart and safe in every choice you make!**

"I'm thankful for..." Ornaments

About a month ago, I wrote a post about different Christmas Traditions you may want to start with your family or friends. My all-time favorite on the list was the "I'm thankful for..." ornaments. It's a dual-holiday tradition, so on Thanksgiving you all write why you're thankful for each other on a strip of paper. Before you decorate your tree, make ornaments our of the papers, and you can read them aloud while you adorn your tree with so much gratefulness!

I just HAD to start it this year. Before Thanksgiving, I made this image on Photoshop:

I opened a new file, set the paper size to US Letter, and used an image of ornaments from a Google search which I then reduced the opacity. Though I used Photoshop, I'm sure you could use Word just as easily. I printed and cut them out, and on Thanksgiving, we filled ours out together.

I went to one of the craft stores near me and bought:

A pack of glass ornaments (enough to have one ornament for each participant)

Some shredded glitter snow stuff, kind of like this

Opaque paint markers

I used a piece of paper as a funnel, stuffed some snow in, and shook it around to make it stick to the sides. Then I rolled the "I'm thankful for..." paper up and put it in the ornament. These were kind of a pain because the paper flopped around a lot. Next year, I think I'll leave extra room on the paper so I can make it wider...that might stop the rolling around. I've also thought about using fishing wire to "hang" it from the opening of the ornament. Not sure, I'll have to experiment. Last, I used the opaque markers to write the year on the bottom, very important! This is how they came out:

I'm in love with them! Can you imagine...in five years, we'll have 15 ornaments of why we're thankful for one another. Now THAT is what Christmas is all about.

If you're looking for a slightly less pain-in-the-ass approach, you could just Mod-Podge the pieces of paper on to little wooden shapes you find at the craft store, paint them, glue on a ribbon, and be done with it! That would make them so much easier to read. Get creative!

TIP: If you do the craft snow, make sure a hand-vac is close by. That gets everywhere!

Hope you liked my ornaments just as much as I do. To you and yours, have the most wonderful Christmas Season!

xoChristie

Crochet, and Tulle, and Ribbon, Oh my!

Hello Friends!

A few months ago, Tom and I were at the mall and I saw these AMAZING red glitter Converse shoes. Naturally, between my obsession with Converse and the Wizard of Oz, I had to have them.

I then decided that I would be "Awesome Dorothy" for Halloween, as in Dorothy in an updated, modern sort of style. I also decided that Tom could be the Scarecrow, and if I played my cards right, Molly could be the most precious "Princess Glinda!"

I had to think very carefully about how I was to propose this Princess costume to Molly. What if she was totally not into it? I was nervous. Here is how it went:

Me: Molls, what do you want to be for Halloween?
Molly: Umm...a butterfly!
Me: (Thank goodness, something girly) That's great! I have an idea. How about you can be a butterfly with your mom, and you can be a Princess with Daddy and me!
Molly: (To my great relief and with a smile on her face) Okay! (She so did not get her compliance from her dad. ;) Love you Tom!)

Thus begun my "Pinteresting" for ideas on how to make a Tutu costume. I saw many tutorials for how to make them, but my real inspiration came from this video. I didn't exactly copy it, but I did mostly everything they did. I'm so in love with this dress, and the whole time I was thinking, "I could make the flower girl dress at my wedding!"

One of my favorite things about this project was its price. I made sure to start with so much time ahead of me (I started it about a week and a half ago) that I could go to Michael's, AC Moore, or Joann Fabrics once a day to use a coupon! With the wonderful technology that is my smartphone, I can use a 40% or 50% off one item coupon EVERY DAY! I added everything up and it should have cost me $42 (which is still pretty good for a gorgeous [ if I don't say so myself ;) ] costume!) BUT since I used so many coupons for so many days, it only cost me $26! Mind you, I ended up having some leftover items that I never used AND one of the shopping trips, I was so excited, I bought more than one thing because I couldn't stand the wait ;)

Anyway, I hope you like the dress AND I hope it inspires you to make your own beautiful tutu costume, even if it's just for the dress-up bin. Remember, there are INFINITE possibilities of colors and styles so you can make it your own to meet your very specific and unique needs!

Close up of the front. The two pieces of ribbon will be the halter straps

The whole front, complete with silver glitter felt 4-point stars

Close-up of the back

The whole back

 

UPDATE: We have had the fitting of the costume!!! She looks too beautiful!!

As always, feel free to comment or email me any questions! Have a Happy Halloween!!

xo Christie

Freezer Paper Tutorial

This is my first video tutorial!! I really hope you guys like it. 

 

xoChristie

Harry Potter Club

Hello friends! Today was the last day of my Harry Potter Club at school. There were 6 weeks of Potter fun; I loved it so much, that I really want to share with you all the activities we did.

Before this session of After School Activities, I came up with a list of things I wanted to do. I was also lucky enough to get a bit of funding from the program to buy some supplies I needed. I knew I wanted to make wands, make HP tee shirts, play some Potter Pictionary, Jeopardy, Charades, and watch a movie. Read this post to see how I did it!

Timeline

Week 1: Begin making the wands (tutorial here!)
            Pictionary
Week 2: Paint the finished wands
            Charades
Week 3: Harry Potter tee shirt making with freezer paper stencil (tutorial here)
            Charades and Pictionary
Week 4: Tee-Shirt touch up/finish up
            Jeopardy
            Vote for movie
Week 5: First half of movie
Week 6: Second half of movie
            Special snack!

Pictionary and Charades

The Pictionary and Charades were SO easy to do. Ahead of time, I wrote out Harry Potter words on pieces of paper and put them in a little bin for the kids to pick from. Even if the same cards were chosen in both games, different things happened and it was very entertaining.

One of the cards said Fred and George Weasley and one of my kids asked me to help. She wanted to play the scene where the twins put their names in the Goblet of Fire, turn into old men, and start fighting. Of course, there was no real violence involved in our portrayal, and it was absolutely hysterical! The other kids guessed right away. I lucked out with some real HP experts for my first session!

Jeopardy

The Jeopardy Game lasted about 15 minutes, I was shocked! Next time I would do much harder questions but most of the kids were in 4th grade, so I didn't want to make them too difficult. I underestimated them for sure! HERE is the link for the game. Bear with me, this is the first time I've shared a PowerPoint, and I'm not sure how it will work. There SHOULD be links set up so you just have to click the box with the amount of points to go to that specific question for that category. PLEASE let me know if it is not working right, I want to fix it so you can use it. I believe if you just download it, all the slides should work the way I intended.

BE WARNED! One of the questions has the wrong answer because I forgot to edit it. (When I was making the game, it was easier to make one slide with the proper edits and animations, copy and paste the whole slide a bunch of times, and then just change the words in the questions and answers, but I missed one!)

Freezer Paper Stencils

Here are some of the awesome freezer paper stencil tee shirts!! *Note: Not everything was done as a stencil, as the kids were free to add to the shirt after they stenciled

An awesome Death Eater and Dark Mark shirt by one of my Slytherin kids

A blue Phoenix

Black Dementor

This girl is an amazing artist. The bottom right is the sweetest and most adorable cartoon dragon, but I didn't get a picture of the finished product

Harry Potter and a Lightening Bolt

The Harry Potter logo

The Movie

Most of my kids were in the 11-12 range, so I wanted to keep it as kid-friendly as possible. We all know that there is much more killing and violence as we progress through the series so I let them pick between the first three films. The majority voted for the Prisoner of Azkaban! It was all well and good until this line happened: Marge: "If there's something wrong with the *****, then there's something wrong with the pup!" WHOOPS! Forgot about that little tidbit. It was okay. I just reminded them that this is British language and the context wasn't intended as a swear (I explained this in Kid Words, of course). They were quite mature about it!

The Last Day

The last day was low-key. We watched the second half of PoA and we split this beauty:

I kept it simple; just a Stop and Shop brownie square that I decorated with pre-made Betty Crocker icing. The kids loved it, and of course they all fought over who got the Lightening Bolt!

All in All

I really loved this club. I would do it all three sessions a year if they let me! I had so much fun with the kids, and seeing a younger generation appreciate Harry like I always have gives me solid confidence that it will be around for years and years to come.

As always, thanks for reading!

xoChristie

Scratch Ticket Bouquet

Hello my friends! Today I'm going to show you how to make a Scratch Ticket Bouquet! My mom looooves her scratch tickets and I end up getting her some for almost every holiday or occasion. I wanted to spice it up a little bit this year and made this:

My inspiration from this project came from this post of a Nip Bouquet (I also have a picture of one I made that I will put up at the end of this tutorial)

Here are your materials: 

- 2 bags of craft sand

- Small tin bucket (found mine at Michael's for about $3

- BBQ Skewers

- Clothes pins from the dollar store

- Acrylic paint (works best on the skewers and clothes pins)

- Glue gun

- Paint brush

- Ribbon

- Scissors

Fill the tin with as much sand as you see fit. I wanted to make sure the "stems" of the "flowers" would stay up so I put about a bag and a half

Not Shown/Optional: Break the skewers...this depends on the size of the bucket and how many scratch tickets you are putting in the bouquet. Just use your judgement. You could break them so they stagger in length, but I just bought different sizes of tickets.

Anyway, whether you broke the skewers or not, you hot glue the non-broken end to the side of the clothes pin that you would pinch to open or close it.

After you've glued them, recruit your boyfriend who is SUCH a good sport ;-) and have him paint the stems. Nice job, Tom!

Now you get to put them in!

I started with the biggest ones and put them toward the back of the bucket

Voila! 

Don't forget the finishing touch!

There you have it. Your own little Scratch Ticket Bouquet! Definitely better than flowers ;-)

Don't worry, I didn't forget! As promised, here are a couple of pictures from my sister's 21st Birthday Nip Bouquet I made for her this week!

If you decide to make one of these instead of the Scratch Tickets, MAKE SURE you use extra skewers! I DID stagger the length this time and I used 3 on each nip. Don't be stingy or your nips will fall over and they will not look good.

Uhh, this apple pie liquor is delicious, just saying.

Did you notice I just re-used the tin and ribbon from my mom's? Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, people!!!

That's it for today! Thanks so much for stopping by and reading. I have a very special post coming within the next few days...and guess what? It is my long-awaited first post that has everything to do with Harry Potter! Very exciting stuff, folks, so stay tuned!!

xo Christie

Watercolor and Freezer Paper

Home is where the "heart" is

Materials: Tape, freezer paper, an image printed of your "home," mine is Cape Cod, an iron, Watercolor paper, watercolors, an exacto knife, a fine tip pen, and a white crayon. Also not shown are cotton swabs or paper towel, paint brushes, small stack of newspaper, and a cup of water.

1. Take your printed image and tape it to the PLASTIC side (very important) of the freezer paper.

2. Begin tracing with your fine tip pen the outline of your image. 

Side note: If I could do this again, I'd go on Google Maps, take an image from there, and pinpoint my actual address. 

3. Put your freezer paper tracing on the newspaper (to protect surfaces) and begin cutting out with your exacto knife. This took me about 20 minutes.

4. Cut out a little heart where you live. Like I said, I wish I'd printed an image from Google with an exact mark. This is just an estimation. Accurate, but still an estimation.

5. I'm sorry if this is hard to see, but I placed Cape Cod where I wanted it on the paper and ironed it down WITHOUT STEAM!!! The iron was set on cotton (just about the highest setting) and I made sure not to stay in one spot too long. You don't want to burn all your hard work!

6. I apologize, the next two steps are not shown because my phone started malfunctioning. Anyway, write out whatever you want, (I chose Home is where the heart is) in your white crayon. I made sure to make it a little thicker than the width of a regular crayon line. Do whatever you want, however you want! This is YOUR beautiful piece of art. I only hope to be mere inspiration :) 

7. Working fairly quickly, outline your cut-out with your watercolor(s) of choice. I noticed that the freezer paper didn't hold for very long and started to bubble in some spots. If this happens, just begin your brush strokes on the freezer paper going toward the watercolor paper. Hopefully, it won't get under the stencil. But hey, if it does, whatever. Handmade goodies are never perfect, and that's what gives them character! :)

8. With a cotton swab or piece of paper towel, wipe away the excess paint over the letters. 

9. I'd say wait a few minutes for it to dry, maybe you could try blotting it with a paper towel, all I know is, I think I took my freezer paper Cape Cod off a little too soon. But it's up to you. Take the freezer paper off and....

VOILÁ!

I hope my tutorial was sufficient, it was the first one I've ever made. I'd love to see your creations as well! Find me on Pinterest to show me your versions! Thanks for reading!