Easter Weekend Crafternoon

We hear the bunny coming!  The Easter Bunny is right around the corner and it's the last weekend before Easter is upon us, therefore it's your last chance to get organized for your Easter Weekend activities, crafts, baking, games... and FUN!  So let us help you with our Pinterest Easter FAVES!  Find all the links to these and many more fun pins on our Easter Weekend Pinterest board HERE.

Have a wonderful crafternoon and feel free to share your creations with us!

** BONUS - download our printable Easter coloring page HERE for your beans (or yourself!)

Its more than just a box.

It's an exciting time for Peekaboo Beans as we have worked hard to change the way we package our shipped goodies to those "Bean in waiting VIPBs" with the good and important intention of becoming more "green". So a big KUDOS to us as our "PB green team" came up with some excellent playful ideas which has resulted in recently converting our packages from an excess of tissue, cellophane, ribbon, and branded boxes to a more simpler and earth friendly presentation.  Have a look see... 

No more branded boxes, no more ribbon, no more nasty cellophane and no more tissue!!  All you get now is a simple clean kraft box adorned with our new "We are Bean Green" sticker.  We came up with is concept of removing our branding from the box because we ended up seeing the box in a whole new light!  It's now just a box, it's a toy, it's a craft project, it's creativity awaiting to happen!! 

As we are all about PLAY here at Peekaboo Beans we couldn't be more than thrilled to not only offer your PB goodies to you in a new, sharp clean package but now there is a million possibilities for your little Beans awaiting to be created! 

Having your little Beans involved in creative activities is fun and absorbing for them. Evidence suggests that it helps children to have positive experiences and develop important characteristics and abilities such as:

	Appreciation of different ways of looking at the world
	Collaboration – being keen to work together as a team
	Communication – developing better communication through talking, listening, writing or pictures
	Concentration – focusing on what they are doing
	Developing good relationships – working together and making new friends
	Discipline – developing self-control through a requirement to practice (for example: some artistic activities, such as playing a musical instrument, need practice)
	Emotional intelligence – being able to express emotions
	Empathy – understanding what it can feel like being someone else (particularly through role play drama activities)
	Imagination – bringing ideas to life and adding excitement to their world
	Independence of thought – discovering things for themselves
	Interaction – being involved in a group and having peer support
	Intrinsic motivation – participating in something for pleasure rather than external reward, so wanting to do it for themselves
	Language – increasing vocabulary, reading and writing skills
	Open-mindedness – being open to new ideas
	Physical activity – participating in activities that encourage movement
	Positive emotion – having fun and enjoying what they are doing
	Problem-solving – being able to explore different solutions.

These characteristics and abilities have been shown to lead to: 

• A sense of purpose
• Achievement
• Confidence
• Development of strengths, talents and interest
• High aspirations
• Self-respect
• Sense of belonging

These outcomes are what flourishing is all about.  And not to mention how much FUN it is to be creative for both Beans and parents!! 

To get inspired we have included our FAVE creative picks from our Pinterest Cardboard Play board: 

Holiday Weekend Crafternoon

The official Christmas count down is on for our Beans! If your little ones at home have been counting down the "sleeps" until Santa arrives then I'm sure you know how much excitement there is in the air as each sleep passes. In order to get through the countdown until Christmas Day finally arrives, we have compiled our favourite holiday crafts that you and your Beans can create for some playful moments while the anticipation lingers. Happy Weekend Crafternoon! 

Visit our Christmas Fun Pinterest Board HERE for all the instructions and other playful activity ideas!

Another Weekend Play Challenge & Giveaway!

 

Be sure to email your photos to our Peekaboo Beans Social Butterfly Deana @ deana@peekaboobeans.com

 

Entries must be received no later than 8pm PST on Sunday, April 21st, 2013. Our winner will be announced on our blog and Facebook on Monday morning.

 

Don't forget to visit our Crafty Ideas Pinterest Board for many playful arts n crafts ideas! And that's also where you will find the links to the crafting projects shown above.

Have FUN getting those creative Beans growing!!

 

 

** This contest is not open to any Peekaboo Beans Staff or Play Stylists.

 

Easter Weekend Crafternoon

Did you spot that Bunny?  He's right around the corner and it's your last chance to organize your Easter Weekend activities, crafts, baking, games... FUN!  So let us help you with our Pinterest Easter FAVES!  Find all the links to these and many more fun pins on our Easter Weekend Pinterest board HERE.

 

Have a wonderful crafternoon and feel free to share your creations with us!

 

** BONUS - download our printable Easter coloring page HERE for your beans (or yourself!) 

 

 

 

Valentine's Day Crafternoon

Get out your hearts, glitter, construction paper, scissors, yarn and chocolates and get ready to have a weekend filled with Valentines crafting!!  We've chosen our Valentine Faves from our the Peekaboo Beans Pinterest board to make it easy for you to decide which crafts are the best ones to do with your Beans!  Find all the links to these on our Valentine's Day Pinterest board HERE.

 

Have a wonderful crafternoon and feel free to share your creations with us! 

 

 

 

 

A few of our holiday crafting faves...

At this moment, the shopping should be done, the Christmas gifts wrapped, the baking completed and half eaten, and the house clean and festive with Christmas morning anticipation.  So, there should now be plenty of time left to spend with you Beans making memories and enjoy the small moments (right?)  Here's a round up of our favorite Holiday craft ideas that are simple and fun and perfect for weekend afternoon crafting! 



Visit our Pinterest Holiday Board to get the instructions for these fun weekend projects.  Happy crafting!

Introducing our Winter PLAY Challenge reporter

 

It's the start of the Winter Play Challenge. And what way better to ease into it than crossing off one of the classics? Painting rocks to look like animals. Unfortunately we hit a speed bump right away when we realized we had no paints! But the little ones were quick to think of using felts instead. The two of them immediately dove right into the fun. And I was in complete awe of the way their creativity took over. They chatted about everything from dragons to princesses. And it wasn't long before they were running outside to get some more rocks. We ended up with quite the zoo! We had a crocodile, a snake, a cat, a bumblebee, a turtle, a lady bug and a beetle. And the jungle fever must have gone to their heads, because it wasn't long before they were showing off their scary animal faces.

 

Don't get left our of all the fun and join our Winter PLAY Challenge HERE!

 

Paper Dolls Printables

 

Free Printable for You!

 

The perfect rainy day activity.  From our Fall 2012 Collection, we bring you a printable coloring sheet of our favorite boys and girls Peekaboo Beans items.  Print them for your Beans and get creative!  Get out the glitter glue, the color crayons or markers, use sequence or fabric scraps, attach them to Popsicle sticks to make puppets... there are no rules, just have fun!  Feel free to show us your creations on our Facebook page.

 

Click HERE to print our Fall 1st Crop Collection Paper Dolls

Click HERE to print our Fall 2nd Crop Collection Paper Dolls

Colorful building blocks



Going into the winter season those days of outdoor play will become a bit less and less, even though we are still advocates for playing in the rain and not-so-nice weather, we still all need those back-up free play toys laying around the house for when we need them. So here's a great craft project you can do with the kids which will also be a perfect addition to that "indoor" toy bin. 

 

Why do we love this so much?  Because... the simplicity of these blocks give the child a chance to explore the beauty of color while still having fun and using their imagination to create games, activities and engage in important simple play. Doesn't get much better than this!

 

We stumbled upon this cool project at Handmade Charlotte, and we encourage you to visit and explore their many other beautiful play inspired projects. Just click here for the original post and full project instructions.

 

A popsicle stick craft for our boys

In honor of our wee little men, here is a great simple craft that would perfectly go hand in hand with our popular Aviation Tee.

 

Magnetic Airplane Clip

Add to your fridge's growing collection of homemade art by constructing this magnetic airplane clip. Use it to show off your child's latest artistic endeavors.

 

Make It:

1. Paint one spring-style clothespin, two craft sticks, and one mini craft stick in your child's favorite colors.
2. Once dry, glue a craft stick on top and bottom of the clothespin as wings, and the mini craft stick as the tail.
3. Cut a triangle from crafts foam and glue it upright atop the mini craft stick.
4. Once dry, glue strong magnets on the bottom of the clothespin. 

Birthday gift idea - in one package, pair a little box of the supplies needed for this craft along with our Peekaboo Beans Aviation Tee.  

This craft is courtesy of Parents.com

tp roll CROWNS

This craft is perfect we all have toilet paper rolls to recycle and this is much more fun than putting them in the recycling bin! It is also super simple and great inspiration for some make believe play.

SUPPLIES

Toilet paper rolls

Scissors

Hole punch

Elastic

DECORATIONS: Paints, felts, glitter glue, gems ect.

STEP 1

Cut out your toilet paper rolls into crowns. These can be as detailed as you like. I drew mine on first.

STEP 2

Decorate your crowns; I used paints, glitter glue, gems and pom-poms, the options are limitless!

STEP 3 

Punch a hole in each side of your crowns and put some elastic through to keep them on! 

TA-DA you’re done! Happy crafting!

Craft-A-Day

This week I came across a fantastic crafting book: Craft-A-Day by Sarah Goldshcadt which comes out on October 2^nd.  This book has a simple handmade project for everyday of the year, 365 days of ridiculously cute crafting. This book has weekly themes to spark your imagination offering easy projects with no need for fancy crafting tools. Below are some images of some of the activities in the book.

You can pre-order your copy today on amazon and be ready to craft for fall! These ideas look like a great way to keep your beans busy with indoor activities.

I am definitely going to be purchasing this gem myself for some rainy days! 

lolli stick bracelets

WHAT YOU NEED

• Popsicle sticks or the larger “craft sticks”
• Jars or cups to form the bracelets
• Paints + Brushes
• Decorations: glitter, sequins, rhinestones ect.

DIRECTIONS 

The first part of this craft is for mommy or daddy!

STEP 1

Boil a large pot of water. You need to be able to fit all your sticks in the pot and enough water to boil them for 20-30 minutes. Place sticks in the pot and boil for 25-35 minutes, stirring them around occasionally.  They will look waterlogged and quite soft when ready.

STEP 2

Using tongs remove sticks one at a time and form while still warm around the outside or inside of your glass or jar- they cool down enough to hold in 5-10 seconds. 

I found two ways that worked well:

*If the cups stack into each other form stick around the inside of cup and then place another cup inside to hold its shape.

*Form the stick around the outside of a smaller cup or jar and then placed it inside a larger cup.

TIP: Smaller cups make a rounder/smaller bracelet and the longer you boil them the longer they take to dry.

Let sticks form overnight and they will be ready for decorating the next day!

STEP 3

All that’s left next is to paint and decorate!  Boys can enjoy this activity too by creating a watch or perhaps a control bracelet for their robotic or super powers! 

Here's what I came up with, definitely a fun craft for adults as well. We’d love to see what you and your bean's came up with!

    Happy crafting!

lille huset houses

While perusing blogs for spring 2014 inspiration I came across a unique dollhouse company called lille huset, which I’ve grown a little obsessed with. This company crafts simplistic houses from paperboard and reclaimed Baltic birch wood that children can make their own. I can’t imagine how excited I would be if I had this house as a child, I kind of want my own now. The website has DIY ideas and downloads to decorate your house as well as inspirational houses to provide ideas for your house.

On the online store you can even purchase a set of 6 xs houses that are individually wrapped for party favors. I think this would be a wonderful keepsake and idea for a birthday party and a great craft activity to keep your little guests occupied.

lille birthday party!

These houses are not just for girls! They are a blank canvas so boys can have just as much fun personalizing their own house. With the various designs you can create a small town with roadways and various DIY projects.

I couldn't wait to share these houses with you! Such a great way to fuel your child’s imagination and provide them with a toy that will reflect themselves. Best part is, if the walls get full you can purchase replacement paperboard ones and keep your wood wall.

This post by guest blogger Rachel, our...

Stop drooling and start doing!

We all love Pinterest don't we? And if you are anything like me, you have all these good intentions of being inspired to actually follow through with some of the wonderful ideas of crafts and activities that you stumble upon.  So how excited was I when I came across this blog post from Mer Mag that actually shows us a great way of keeping track of all these wonderful ideas from Pinterest and with the help of the kids start putting them into actions:

(Read the full post here)

Originally posted by Mer Mag blog on June 28, 2012