February 7

Rocket Man: DIY Jet Packs

jet pack by Kelly Crawford

Looking for a fun craft to help combat cabin fever? Kelly at Sewing in No Mans Land has you covered!

Just grab some empty water bottles, foil, electrical tape, streamers, and a few other materials and you too can create these awesome jet packs. (You/your kids must supply your own wooshing noises, but I’m guessing those won’t be in short supply.)

Be sure to hop over to her post for the how-to, plus adorable pics of her little man in action.

Links of Interest:

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March 9

Avengers Book Marks DIY

avengers-bookmarks5

If you’re stuck indoors with little ones this winter, I found this fun DIY that’s perfect.  Amanda Formaro on the blog Crafts by Amanda, has got this simple tutorial on making bookmarks out of popsicle sticks, craft paint, white out, and permanent markers.  They’re easier than they look, and you probably already have the supplies.  What’s even better is that for the super creative, it’d be really easy to take this project to the next level and create any of your favorite superheroes!

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January 26

Birthday Party Theme: Blanket Fort

Blanket Fort Birthday Party

In the coolest-mom-ever category, I present to you Marita of Stuff with Thing. For her daughter’s 9th birthday, she threw a Blanket Fort Birthday Party. In addition to party activity stations, party-goers got to assist in the creation of a massive blanket fort, complete with disco ball! It sounds like they rented out a hall for the party, allowing plenty of room for fort expansion, plus an impromptu track for cardboard box race cars!

How’s this for low-cost birthday party planning – provide tables, chairs, cardboard boxes and blankets that you probably already have and let the kids go at it. Kudos to Marita for encouraging kids to pool their brain power in a creative way that also acted as an activity for the party.

Additional hat tip to the Minecraft references at the beverage table and birthday girl attire.

What was your favorite birthday party theme or activity as a kid?

Links of Interest:

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March 22

Friday Round-Up: Give ’em STEAM

Some of you may have heard of the acronym STEM: Science Technology, Engineering and Math. A respectable, geeky term in it’s own right, but probably a little stuffy for us over here at GeekCraft.

Recently, however, there has been a lot of talk about STEAM, which takes the stuffiness of STEM and adds an “A” for arts, injecting all sorts of coolness and excitement. In all seriousness, advocates of STEAM argue that arts provide school-aged children with a lot of skills valued in the world like design, problem solving, creativity, stick-to-it-ivness, etc., It is in that spirit of STEAM that I wanted to take this Friday round-up to focus on activities that you can do with young people in your life that promote this important intersection of art, science, engineering, and craft:

First up, just in time for those of you celebrating Easter, we’ve got egg geodes from Tinkerlabs. It’s some good chemistry (my favorite) and can lead to a nice conversation about geology. AND..and…it is colorful and fun.

egg geodes

 

 

 

 

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September 5

Voom, Voom, Boing!

So say you have kids who love playing Star Wars, but you don’t want them to hurt themselves with whatever approximation of lightsabers they’ll create. Alternately, you might have fully grown friends or relatives who still like playing Star Wars, but, again, you still don’t want them to hurt themselves. Enter the pool noodle lightsaber. With nothing but pool noodles, a serrated knife, and three kinds of electrical/duct tape, Muddy Boots blogger Amy created safe-but-cool-as-hell lightsabers for her son and his birthday guests, then posted the handy-dandy tutorial so we can do the same. Additional photos and tutorials can be found around the interwebs, if Amy’s post isn’t enough for you.

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August 10

Do you have Post-Potter Depression?

I know not everyone is a Harry Potter fan, but boy, I am. I loved HP 7.2, and have the $17.25 (!) IMAX 3D ticket receipt to show for it! I’ve read and re-read all the books over the last ten years and yes, even knitted a teeny-tiny Gryffindor scarf (the one in the picture). To celebrate/commemorate the end of the movie series, Chronicle Books is giving away a copy of my book, World of Geekcraft! They posted some pretty cute ideas for fans who are trying to cope with a post-Harry world. If you comment there adding your own suggestions by 8/11, you can win a copy of the book, and craft your own HP baby or toddler costume to introduce the next generation to the series…

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