Puzzle Superhero Craft

I have been rather absent here on the blog and to my regular readers, I do apologise. Life happens and honestly when you stop posting regularly, it's easy to just put it off longer and longer. So in the hope of getting back into the swing of things, this is a post of few words. 

Don't throw away old puzzles (especially those with missing pieces) - make some puzzle people or superheroes, like Big One did. :)

Chat soon...

Love this Book : Superhero ABC

Love this Book is just that...a post about a book we LOVE, but haven't done an activity or craft linked to it.  It's a book that has been loved for whatever reason and is too good not to share :).

I first found this book at the local library and it was loved and read so much, that I bought it for Big One as a gift. He recently took it to school and according to his teacher it managed to grab the attention of most of the boys in his class! What makes it extra cool though, is that the writing is all in capital letters. Here in South Africa, our children are first exposed to lower case letters and are only introduced to upper case at a later stage. This is a great first upper case reader for a young boy (or girl). It also has very interesting words in it, so is great for vocabulary enrichment too.

All in all, I think that this is a SUPER book. It has a comic book feel to it and there are plenty of heroines to entice girl readers too. Big One is 9 and it is certainly one of his favourite reads.

Author, Bob McLeod, has a website, which has some fun activities and printables linked to the book. Be sure to check it out here! Bob also kindly provided me with the picture that you see here. My photograph was not doing the wonderful art work justice :).

To see some other book suggestions that have inspired art, crafts or other activities, click here.

Batman Lego Party

A little short of a month ago Big One celebrated his 9th birthday with this special party. Unlike years past, we had a much smaller group and it was mostly family and a few friends that joined us for the afternoon. It was great fun and I really focused on the children and left the adults to chat and eat yummy cake. Deciding on a birthday theme seems to get more difficult as Big One gets older, but the inspiration behind this one was a Lego computer game he received for Christmas. (This Mommy needs a theme to work to!)

This year I opted for cupcakes rather than a cake and made the toppers myself. I used my favourite circle punch (can't live without it!), awesome Batman stickers care of Grandpa, and toothpicks. The party boxes were bought from a local party shop and decorated with plastic bats.  If you are very observant, you may have noticed that the party boxes do not look the same in the two photographs above. The table was all decorated, when Big One said to me "Mommy, there are no polka dots in Batman." I knew he was right and the boxes did look a bit babyish for his age, so with minutes to go, I pulled off the polka dot strips (they were simply cut from wrapping paper). Afterwards I had a giggle...here I am trying to slip in pretty blue polka dot paper into a 9 year old Batman theme! I should really have a girl :).

The games were a huge hit, with the children coming back for more and more.

  For some more super Batman inspiration, check out this party here. 

Till next time...

Adam's Art Spot : Superhero Softies

This is Adam's (a.k.a Big One) spot for sharing some of his creative ideas. He needed my help with this one, so the handiwork was done by me.

The request was for superhero soft toys, so the suitable candidates were picked and we set to work!  We decided on a design for the masks, drew it onto craft foam (after measuring our superhero's faces) and then cut them out. I then used elastic from some old birthday party hats to tie the masks on. (I used a toothpick to pierce the hole on the side of each mask.) String would also work just as well as elastic and would probably be easier to use. I found the elastic to be finicky.

For the capes, I cut out a very basic long triangular shape from felt and tied it around each toy's neck with string. Once again using a toothpick to make the hole in the felt. 

And there you go...Superhero Softies! I think they are so cute and it got me thinking about how easy it would be to revamp some old soft toys and give them a new look. Have you ever revamped a soft toy? If you have, please do share. I would love to hear about it.

If you enjoyed this post and would like to see more of Adam's super ideas, you can do so here.

PS. I'm linking this to two amazing blog parties, Show and Tell @ ABC and 123 and Tot Tuesdays at My Delicious Ambiguity.