Monday, March 30, 2015

Decorating Easter Eggs for Every Age

My three year old absolutely loved decorating Easter eggs this year. She decorated a dozen at home, some more at Gammies and is going to playgroup on Monday to decorate even more. We bought some plastic eggs and I let her go to Walmart and pick out her own Egg dyeing kit which she also enjoyed.


She ended up picking out a sponge paint kit. Which I thought was great as it was a little more time consuming than simply dyeing them one single colour and it also had stickers which was great for her younger 19 month old brother. He put stickers on his eggs and decorated them with crayons.


My daughter sponged the paint onto her eggs then we added glitter onto the wet eggs...



I found these plastic decorating eggs this year and love them! You can dye them like a regular egg, and they don't have that horrible hard boiled egg smell which I am not a fan. Last year I poked a pin hole in our eggs and blew them all out - which took forever and was no fun .


http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00IYY9MT4/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B00IYY9MT4&linkCode=as2&tag=musofanavem00-20&linkId=YQGTERHIAZA5GUHS
 
 
Another fun idea would be these Minion Easter Egg Decorating Kit I found on Amazon

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00UDUCVUE/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B00UDUCVUE&linkCode=as2&tag=musofanavem00-20&linkId=TLY6WDR2R4GFTU7H
Or this Frozen Easter Egg Dying Kit

And older kids might enjoy decorating their eggs with Sharpies like these adorable ones I found at Mom.Me


And for more Easter ideas you can check out my Pinterest board here...


Follow Kristen @ Musings of An Average Mom's board Easter on Pinterest.

How will you and your kids be dyeing eggs this year? Would love to hear about it or leave a link to your own in the comments. =) And Happy Easter!

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Wednesday, March 25, 2015

Disney Easter Egg Decorating Round-Up

Disney Easter Eggs


Easter egg decorating is lots of fun (even if your an adult). My 3 year old daughter was so excited to make glitter Easter eggs this year so I thought we could try making a few more so I rounded up my absolute favourite Disney eggs with tutorials and free printable templates. Hopefully ours will at least somewhat resemble these...

Mickey Mouse Easter Egg

Get the tutorial to make this iconic Mickey Mouse from Disney Family

Minnie Mouse Easter Egg

You can download the free paper craft template for Minnie Mouse at PaperCraftSquare

Daisy Duck Easter Egg

Or you can grab the tutorial for this adorable Daisy Duck also from Disney Family

Donald Duck Easter Egg

I am loving this Donald Duck Easter egg! You can find the full tutorial on how to make it over at Arts & Crafts Collection.

Pluto Easter Egg

And you can't forget about Pluto - you can find the tutorial for this Pluto Easter Egg here.

Goofy Easter Egg

Here is the step by step tutorial on how to make this Goofy Easter Egg. Gawrsh!

Piglet Easter Egg

You can find the tutorial to make this cute little piglet from Disney Family

Winnie the Pooh Easter Egg

Or here is the tutorial to make a Winnie the Pooh Easter Egg.


Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland


Red Queen Easter egg from Alice in Wonderland


Get a tutorial to make these Ufufy Easter eggs from Disney Family


http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00IYY9MT4/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B00IYY9MT4&linkCode=as2&tag=musofanavem00-20&linkId=YQGTERHIAZA5GUHS

And if you are going to spend all that time making Easter Eggs you probably want to make sure they last.

I found these plastic decorating eggs this year and love them! You can dye them like a regular egg, and they don't have that horrible hard boiled egg smell which I am not a fan. Last year I poked a pin hole in our eggs and blew them all out - which was no fun .

You may also like over 100 free printable Easter Egg Costumes 


Monday, March 23, 2015

How to Align Images in Blogger

I like Blogger - for the fact that it is free - and it can also host ads unlike the free version of Wordpress however it can be quite frustrating at times - I am probably guilty of swearing under my breath as I try for the umpteenth time to align pictures in my post, or line up pictures beside text and it just does not go the way I want it to.

So how can you align everything up straightly and evenly in Blogger - without driving yourself mad?

how to align images in blogger


By using tables in html. You may be saying I have absolutely no idea how to use code, or the first thing about html - but it is simple and it's pretty much jut copying and pasting it and soon you will be a pro! Or at least get the basic understanding of it and actually accomplish what you were trying to do.

So there are only two main parts to a table the columns <td> and the rows <tr>

So to create a simple table you will need to open and close each aspect so for instance...

<table style="width: 100%;">
<tr>
<td> this is text </td>
<td> this is column 2 </td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>And this is row 2 </td>
<td> Row two column 2 </td>
</tr>

</table>

this is text this is column 2
And this is row 2 Row to column 2


Okay this might be confusing at first but it does get easier. You can try it out on a draft post and copy the above html - switch the compose button in the top left to html and paste it.

Now hopefully it worked. If all you want to do is line up text - then you are done you can add as many columns as you would like by adding <td> your text here and closing it </td>

Now if you want to add images and you probably do then instead of the text you will have to add the html code for the image source. You might be asking where do I find this? And the easiest way is to open up a blank draft post and simply insert the image as you normally would - switch it back to html and voila there is the code you wanted.

Now get rid of all the excess around the code and just get the image code which will look something like this:

<img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFEL2V4s2YrWUBwnlsQ6u8lBKkZ-5RtuYDRQzhQx2w0XE68pUlZ7x-5moPrFX6XPGdPIKLuwp2oa_4-3DmJ0uGXVYB6Ey0_UTtofgpRjQu2kcso68f1l_p6s20eB62B_v0oyC9UGYqGFiq/s1600/HowtogetNoticedatLinkParties.png" height="180" width="180"/>

It will start with <img ..... > and end with a closing tag -a sideways V - sorry don't know the actual lingo.

Now copy that image code where the texts was and you can align your images.

So the below code look like this:
<table style="width: 100%;">
<tr><td><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7lwx-YnjKn1PwwR2dBr95P2lG_tPFRRQlavc6I5jS8MFKZJSOuYnai_rtujNlHQydaE8Dukw0_I3UIT5_k-kFSOy5s_yFS2tnmyMfHy6CtqDkM0xmgZvOk5qWLzQH1pnM4duNfFkI4JB6/s320/Pinterest+for+new+bloggers.jpg" height="180" width="180" />
</td><td><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFEL2V4s2YrWUBwnlsQ6u8lBKkZ-5RtuYDRQzhQx2w0XE68pUlZ7x-5moPrFX6XPGdPIKLuwp2oa_4-3DmJ0uGXVYB6Ey0_UTtofgpRjQu2kcso68f1l_p6s20eB62B_v0oyC9UGYqGFiq/s1600/HowtogetNoticedatLinkParties.png" height="180" width="180" />
</td><td><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhx1HiqNKSdPj8F0nSTBOK1GenIh_1ru_zTm7RdhjXX9bHmjKTA1b1cgfQh8NWrYSucz6K39V_KH2eignxe46kVHxAeNVr_K5uH30dQlUED2JGzkGrxbli8VI1tKhHfzVF7VAbvnQ5Raiww/s1600/AffilliatesReview.png" height="180" width="180" /><br />
<table style="width: 100%;">
</table>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>

Which will look like this...

http://musingsofanaveragemom.blogspot.ca/2015/01/how-to-get-more-readers-as-newbie.html http://musingsofanaveragemom.blogspot.ca/2015/03/how-to-get-noticed-at-link-parties.html http://musingsofanaveragemom.blogspot.ca/2014/10/affiliates.html

You can change your image size by changing the width and height in pixels so...

<img src=http://blogspotyaddayada.com/123.png height="180" width="180">

You may need to play around with your sizes increase them by 10 or 20s until you get the right size the above images are 180 by 180 to give you some idea

And lastly you can adjust the table width:

The following is the same code as above the only exception is I changed
<table style="width: 100%;"> to <table style="width: 80%;">

http://musingsofanaveragemom.blogspot.ca/2015/01/how-to-get-more-readers-as-newbie.html http://musingsofanaveragemom.blogspot.ca/2015/03/how-to-get-noticed-at-link-parties.html http://musingsofanaveragemom.blogspot.ca/2014/10/affiliates.html

And if you want to have a blank link between your tables or text it's simply <br> no closing tag needed. This will probably come in handy...

So just text <br><br> and more text will look like this...

So just text

and more text will look like this...


Well hopefully you are not t confused after all of that, I know the first time I tried anything I was a little overwhelmed but soon it becomes second nature totally doable.

If you have any questions feel free to leave them in the comments although I am no programmer I took a class once twelve years ago in high school and am mostly self taught but will try my absolute best to answer your questions.

Good Luck!

Thursday, March 19, 2015

Simple Easter Crafts

Here are a few simple Easter crafts for preschoolers - although they would also probably be fun for older kids too.

Simple Easter Crafts for Kids


For this craft you just need to cut out a bunny pattern (there is a template below if you wanted) on computer or construction paper and rip up small pieces of construction paper roughly into squares- I used pastel colours because I thought they looked Easter-ish and a glue stick or Elmer's glue.


My three year old daughter absolutely loved this craft and asked me to cut her out 6 bunnies... Here is one she finished below. And to be honest my 19 month old son pretty much just glued the table. lol. Older kids may want to rip up their own pieces and use white and embellish it with black for eyes, pink for nose and ears, etc.



Kids Easter Craft

And I do not in any way claim to be an artist as my bunny may be a little lopsided but it did take several tries on my part so if you wanted to download my free bunny template here it is...

free bunny template

And another simple Easter craft my toddler loved was to colour in a paper Easter egg - just simply draw an oval on a white paper and have them colour it in, or you could use glitter or stickers to decorate it.

Easter Egg Art


You and you're little one might also like over 100 Free Easter Egg Costumes


Monday, March 16, 2015

Easter Minute to Win It

I love Minute - to Win It! Who doesn't? So I decided to think up a few simple Easter games my kids could play.

Easter Minute to Win It Games

Also I didn't want to buy a lot of supplies so I used what I had on hand - an abundance of those plastic Easter eggs, two baskets and paper and crayons is all you will need for the following 5 games suitable for toddlers or older children.

Colour Match Eggs


Color Match Eggs

This is a simple one - you will need about 20 plastic eggs and two baskets. Separate them all in one basket and have the child try to see how many they can put together in a minute.

Or you could also use a timer and see how long it takes them to match all of them.

Egg Toss

Plastic Egg Toss

Put all the plastic eggs in one basket and put the empty basket about four feet apart. And mark a line on the floor with painters or coloured tape - you can make the line farther away for older children to make it a little fairer.

And see how many eggs they can get in the empty basket in a minute. If they run out of eggs they can run around and collect all the eggs they missed.


Egg Stack

Plastic Egg Stack

For this game you will need about 20 plastic eggs. See how high you can stack the plastic egg halves in one minute (or until you run out of eggs) but it's harder than it looks.


Bunny Draw

Bunny Draw 


You will need crayons (or pencils and pens) and blank paper. And see how good of a bunny you can draw in one minute. Above is the bunny my 3 year old drew. Mine not pictured.

Egg Bounce

Egg Bounce

You will need plastic egg halves and a basket or container. See how many egg halves you can get in the basket with one bounce off the table (or floor) then into the basket in one minute.

And you might also like these Minute to Win It Games I created using recycled materials and things I found around the house for Earth Day...

http://musingsofanaveragemom.blogspot.ca/2015/04/earth-day-minute-to-win-it.html


Did you have any fun, quick Easter games for kids? Would love to hear them.

Thursday, March 12, 2015

Blog Planner

I have recently been trying to organize my blogging, and increase my daily views and revenue so I decided to create a planner - with free printables I have made (or found)



The first thing I needed was a calendar to schedule my posts. I have currently decided to post twice a week on Mondays and Thursday and slowly increase it as my schedule allows.

You can find a round-up of 2015 free printable calendars.

 And I want to try to get all my holiday and seasonal posts out a couple weeks before the holiday starts to get maximum exposure. So I have written all the major holidays down on my calendar in pink and schedules all my posts around them and fill in the rest as I go along or come up with ideas that I think will work.

I also wanted a title page - it's not exactly necessary but it is pretty and I couldn't really find any so I created a couple of my own:

You can download the free pink 2015 Blog Planner here.

Or there is also a 2015 Blue Blog Planner if you would prefer.



Next I wanted somewhere to track my page views - so I can see which efforts are working (and which are not)

I want to track my social media followers and increase them every month.

I need to keep track of which posts I have shared at all the link parties I attend.

I also need to track my revenue.

And somewhere to keep track of my passwords. I love the free printables from the Harmonized House Project - free for download at WorldLabel which has all the printables I wanted {excluding the link party tracker}

Blog Planner

And Katie over at Made to be a Momma offers 5 free blog printables including this contributor list so you can keep track of all your guest blog posts.

Contributor Posts
And I found a cute link party planner over at My May Sunshine so you can keep track of which posts you linked up to which parties.

Link Party Planner

Also I created a Pinterest Tracker because I like to share my posts throughout the week on all my various personal and group boards instead of pinning the same post 6 to 8 times in one night. You can download the Pinterest Tracker here - the lines are solid although they don't look like it in the image.

Pinterest Tracker

You can write your posts on the left and your boards across the top - you may need two or three copies if you have a ton of boards and then write the date you posted, a check mark or write the number of re-pins you received from each pin - whatever you prefer.

I also like this free printable from Thirty Handmade Days - available in vertical or horizontal views because it has a complete schedule of the week, month and future post ideas all on one sheet.




And you can buy a matching Blog Planner binder on Zazzle:
Also available in blue or with the current year - written in script.

 
Do you have any other printables you included in your blog planner??? Or did you have tips on organizing your blog planning - I would love to hear them.

Monday, March 9, 2015

St. Patrick's Day Kids Activities

Holidays are always fun - especially if you are a kid! So I created a round-up of my favourite St. Patrick's Day children's activities.

St. Patricks Day Kids Activities


Tara has created these adorable fruit loop crafts for pre-schoolers and you can grab them as free printable on Spot of Tea Designs.

fruit loop craft

Lindsay at Artsy Fartsy Mama has created this adorable Lucky St. Patrick's Day Bingo game - as a free printable with 8 bingo cards and calling pieces.

St. Patrick's Day bingo


Or check out the recipes to make St. Patrick's Day Slime from Little Bins for Little Hands

St. patricks Day slime

Tammy from CreativeKKids has come up with 8 St. Patrick's Day themed Minute to Win It Games

St. Patrick's Day Minute to Win It games

You can also print out this activity page from Disney Family

St. Patricks Day activity printable

A scavenger hunt is a super fun idea for St. Patrick's Day and you can find some adorable free printable clues (and treat bag toppers) from Crafting Chicks

St. Patricks Day scavenger hunt

Make your own leprechaun trap - and see what you catch. Tutorial from eHow.com

Leprechaun trap

Another cute game for St. Patrick's Day is pin the clover on the leprechaun with free printable from Over the Big Moon


And this Clover Leaf Lei kids craft from Simple as That - is super cute. Rebecca also offers the clover template for you to download.


Here is another fun coloring page from Disney Family with hidden images in it.


Another cute idea is to fill your kids shoes with small treats or chocolate gold coins when they wake up in the morning.

And find the tutorial to make these cute Leprechaun peg dolls from Molly Moo Crafts


Get this free printable easy leprechaun kids craft from twenty five things




Or have a little leprechaun reek a little havoc while the kids are sleeping - and re-arrange items, or leave little green foot prints, or a trail of skittles...

And for more St. Patrick's Day Inspiration...

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