Enter the wonderful line of Foamies Activity Buckets!  For these particular snowflakes, you’ll need:

• Foamies Glitter Baby Bucket of Stickers – Snowflake Shapes
• Foamies Activity Bucket – Glitter Snowflakes

I opened up both containers of these Foamies and literally just dumped them on the kitchen table, and let my three older children, along with a couple of my friend’s children, just go at it.  The larger Activity Bucket contains 24 circle bases, with holes punched in the top (so they can be hung from the included pre-cut fishing line), a large assortment of shapes and sizes of snowflakes (self-adhesive), several jewel-rhinestones, a small tube of white glue, a small tube of silver glitter glue, and a small package of white/iridescent glitter. All of the foam items and “jewels” in the Activity Bucket are in white or blue tones.   The smaller Baby Bucket contains a wonderful assortment of glittered snowflakes in smaller sizes, plus circles in two different sizes – all self adhesive as well.  There were two shades of pink, two shades of blue, and a beautiful glittery white.

Spread on table for kids to easily choose from pieces

The children were all quite creative in how they assembled their snowflakes, each taking different approaches.  I watched as one child even tore the balls off the tips of one snowflake to suit his liking, before sticking it down onto another snowflake.  One of my three-year old twins was content to just tear snowflakes apart – which is par for the course – she enjoys tearing almost anything apart…yet, it DID keep her occupied!  My 5-year old most enjoyed two different aspects – one, the silver glitter glue, and two, stacking as many layers as he possibly could – proudly telling me exactly how many layers he was able to add to each snowflake.

Kit includes rhinestones and glue to adhere them!

Layer upon layer upon layer!!

Even I couldn’t help but make a few snowflakes myself – the glitter just called out to me!  I tried removing the backing from one of the self-adhesive snowflakes, and dipping it in the glitter (much easier than spreading wet glue around and applying glitter that way).  My son watched and then had to try it himself, of course!

Dip adhesive side in provided glitter for alternative effect

I say you can’t go wrong with the Foamies Activity Buckets – and I’d definitely encourage you to stock up on a few to keep on hand for those days when you just may have some “bored” children at home!

Disclosure

Creative Soap Bar Kit from ConsumerCrafts.com

Like most Moms, I am always on the lookout for fun, creative and EASY crafts to do with my kids. I saw this cool Creative Soap Bar kit over at ConsumerCrafts, and thought I’d give it a try.

I heated the soap up in the microwave, and my helper added the soap and fragrance!

(I should start off by saying that I was going to try this out with my nine-year old; but as luck would have it, my 4 year old daughter saw it and INSISTED on crafting with Mommy. So, she was my test subject for this one!)

When I opened the kit, I found almost everything I needed to get started. The kit includes:

• White coconut soap base
• Clear glycerin soap base
• 3 soap colors- blue, red, yellow
• 2 soap fragrances (strawberry and melon)
• One mold that has 4 shapes

Following the included directions, we broke off some squares of white soap base (they are scored, so it’s easy to do) and melted the soap in the microwave for about 40 seconds. I

Mold includes 4 shapes. (Stars not included!)

removed it from the microwave and allowed my little one to choose her color and fragrance- and then I helped her pour it into the molds. (I found through the process that I needed 2 or 3 containers to melt the soap in the microwave, and some craft sticks for stirring.)

One batch, and we were hooked! Soon my little one was saying “the next time, I want it to smell like strawberries and be BLUE, and put it in the square mold!” Even though this is a pretty basic kit, there are plenty of options as far as shape, mixing secondary colors, and fragrance.

I have to admit, we got so excited I pulled out some silicon baking molds I purchased from a big-box store and used it to make heart and star shaped soap inclusions!

All in all, for the price point, this is a lot of fun! It wasn’t even particularly messy- after all, we were making soap so the cleanup was easy, just using water. Our hands did get a little stained with the red dye, I’ll admit. However, we were able to make over a dozen soaps and my daughter is excited for our next soapmaking day!

Making soap is good, clean fun!

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