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DIY Valentine’s Day Decor: Easy Instagram Art

February 4 by Alli

  Valentine's Day is just around the corner, and it's one of my favorite holidays for arts and crafts. Don't ask me why. Maybe it's the welcome diversion from everything Christmas. Maybe it's the idea that we're making gifts for the ones we love most. Regardless, I get giddy this time of year and love to come up with new things to make, especially decorations. Lately, I've been trying to make decorations that will last - things that I can keep and look back on, as the years fly by … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Alli, Holiday Projects, Photography & Memory Keeping, Seasonal Fun, The Make & Play Vault Tagged With: DIY Valentine Decor, Instagram art, Valentine art

Valentine Activity for Baby: Decorating (and Eating) Healthy Pancakes

February 3 by Kristin

Looking for a fun Valentine's Day activity for baby?  How about whipping up some healthy pancakes and letting your littles go wild decorating them with some equally nutritious toppers?   We're once again teaming up with Ella's Kitchen to share with you some ideas on how to build good eaters through sensory play and today it's all about the love. The idea is a simple one - let baby learn about and build an interest in food through all of his or her senses, including touch!  By encouraging your … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Holiday Projects, In the Kitchen, Kristin, Seasonal Fun, The Make & Play Vault Tagged With: 1 year old meal ideas, 1 year old meals, healthy kid snacks, healthy toddler snacks, toddler food, toddler food activities, toddler snacks, toddler valentine activity, valentine activity

Free Valentine Printables to Bring to Class

February 2 by Kristin

Free Valentine Printables can be a busy parent's best friend. If you're like me, you'd ideally plan out your child's Valentines weeks in advance. Thanks to pinterest and a world of creative bloggers, we are inspired to create Valentine masterpieces.  There are some years that I just can't pull my act together until a day or two before the classroom party and I end up scrambling.  If that's you, we've got ya covered. We've scoured the web and put together our 15 favorite free printable … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Kristin, Seasonal Fun Tagged With: creative valentine ideas, free valentine printables, homemade Valentines, last minute valentines, printable Valentines, valentine diy

Edible Homemade Peanut Butter Play Dough

January 29 by Steph (MPMK Founder)

Since our post on homemade play dough made of Jell-O remains one of our most popular posts of all time, I thought you guys might enjoy another food-based play dough recipe. Once again, this is a recipe that results in a silky soft and incredible sweet smelling dough. I'm over at eHow's craft channel with a completely edible peanut butter play dough recipe that your littles are sure to love.  Go check it out and make yourself a batch this weekend. P.S. Want some more sensory play ideas? … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Creating & Engaging, Sensory & Interactive Play, The Make & Play Vault Tagged With: diy play dough, home made playdough, homemade play doh, homemade play dough, homemade playdough, jello playdough, peanut butter play dough, play doh, play doh recipe, playdough recipe

How To Create a Reading Nook (The Forever Home Project)

January 27 by Julee

Interested in setting up a fabulous reading nook in your home? Julee's here today with a bunch of super useful tips for doing so - as well as a list of her favorite reading chairs for a range of budgets. I have to tell you, I'm totally in love with this post and, coincidentally, we have the blue West Elm chair she's featuring in her roundup.   I can't wait to use some of her tips to make it the center of a cozy reading nook of my very own - in fact the Target side table she features is on … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Julee, Style & Simplify, The Forever Home Project Tagged With: book nook, reading chairs, reading nook, setting up a reading nook

Red Velvet Pancakes for Valentine’s Day

January 26 by Janssen

I like making holidays special for my girls, but I don't necessarily want to do something terribly complicated. These red velvet pancakes are surprisingly simple and super festive. Also, they aren't loaded with sugar, which is important to me. With the cream cheese drizzle, you don't need gobs of sugar in the pancake themselves (although you can certainly eat the pancakes without the glaze - they're delicious either way). My little girls gobbled them up (and so did I!). I was really … [Read more...]

Filed Under: In the Kitchen, Janssen, Seasonal Fun Tagged With: recipes, red velvet pancakes, valentine's day

My Simple Plan for Saving Our Memories This Year

January 20 by Steph (MPMK Founder)

We're talking memories today as part of our month long mission to find ways to eat better, parent better, organize better and just generally live better this year.  Before S arrived, I was actually pretty good about recording memories for our little family.  At the end of each month I would use the photos we'd taken to create 2 - 4 new pages in an iphoto book, along with a few paragraphs with family anecdotes, accomplishments, etc.  The idea being that at the end of the year I would have a … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Organizing, Photography & Memory Keeping, Project Organize Your ENTIRE Life Tagged With: decluttering, favorite, getting organized, home organization, organization, organize, organizer, organizing, photo organization, Planner printables, printables, printing instagram photos, printing phone photos

16 Fresh Dinner Recipes for a Healthy New Year

January 19 by Natalie

16 Healthy Meals to Start your New Year Off Right!

January is always a time that I am searching for new recipes to spice up our dinner routine. I'm usually on the lookout for meals that are: full of vegetables full of color don't take too much effort to pull together These are a sampling of the recipes I'm looking forward to trying in the next few months. All the vibrant colors make me want to dig right in! … [Read more...]

Filed Under: In the Kitchen, Natalie Tagged With: healthy family meals, healthy food, quick dinners, quick recipes

How to Create an Upcycled Inventor’s Box for Hours of Open-Ended Play

January 14 by Kaley

Upcycled Inventor's box - awesome activity for teaching kids about recycling and creativity. Be sure to get the free printable idea cards!

Have you ever noticed that no matter how many toys your kids have, they are always drawn to things like cardboard boxes and paper towel rolls? It seems that a simple box will usually entertain them longer and promote more creativity than the fanciest of store bought toys. Rather than fight this phenomenon, just embrace it and marvel and what natural upcyclers your kids are. Furthermore, encourage even more of this open-ended creative play by … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Creating & Engaging, Kaley, Sensory & Interactive Play, The Make & Play Vault Tagged With: Earth Day activities for kids, kids' inventors box, open-ended play, recycled building blocks, recycling activities for kids, recycling with kids, REPREVE, turnitgreen, upcycling with kids

Happy Family Habit #10: Creating a Blessing Bag

January 13 by Kristin

Today we're focusing on giving back in our month long mission to eat better, parent better, organize better and just generally live better this year.  We've got another Happy Family Habit for you to start working on.  It's #10 on our list and I personally think you're gonna love this one... You know that feeling you get when you see a situation you wish you could fix?  It's a tugging of the heart strings when we see someone we want to help, but just don't know quite how.  I live in a … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Happy Family Habits, Kristin Tagged With: blessing bags, happy family habits, helping the homeless

Style & Simplify: Display Solutions for Tiny Treasures

January 12 by Julee

We're once again tackling organization today as part of our month long quest to eat better, parent better, organize better and just generally live better this year. I'm really quite smitten with this lovely little DIY project - the only problem is I couldn't decide where it fit better, in Project Organize Your ENTIRE Life or The Forever Home Project. In the end, I just decided to file it under both (I'm the boss around here - I can totally do that). Turns out I wasn't the only one with issues … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Julee, Organizing, Project Organize Your ENTIRE Life Tagged With: displaying toy collections, playroom organization, toy organization

Elsewhere: Top 10 Meal Planning & Kitchen Organization Ideas

January 8 by Steph (MPMK Founder)

We're soldiering on today with our goal of posting ideas for a better 2014 all throughout January... One of my big goals for this year is to re-address our family's meal planning strategy.  One of the things I talk about in my eBook, Project Organize Your ENTIRE Life: The Quick Start Guide, is the importance of continually re-evaluating your routines as your family (and it's schedule) changes. With baby #3 arriving in March, I know our family is going to be in need of an even more … [Read more...]

Filed Under: In the Kitchen Tagged With: kitchen organization, meal planning

Must-Reads: 8 Books for a Better 2014

January 7 by Janssen

Another January day, another post on how to make 2014 your best year ever.  I've been thrilled to see you guys snatching up our eBook, Project Organize Your ENTIRE Life: The Quick Start Guide, and the accompanying 38 page planner printable pack but that doesn't mean I don't appreciate some of the other great reads out there too. Today I've asked Janssen to stop by with her picks for the best books to help you achieve your 2014 goals - whatever those may be! As a life-long reader and … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Janssen, Mom Health, Beauty & Style Tagged With: eating well, financial management books, New Year's Resolutions, parenting books, self-help books

Sensory Play Must-Try: Rainbow Scented Glitter Slime

January 6 by Kaley

Here's something fun.  Continuing with our focus on tangible ways to eat better, parent better, organize better and just generally live better this year, we're partnering with Ella's Kitchen over the next two months to bring you a collection of our favorite sensory play ideas for babies and young kids.  We've covered our fair share of sensory play ideas here on MPMK, but I'm not sure I've ever really gone into why we love these activities so much.  For an excellent primer on the benefits of … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Creating & Engaging, Kaley, Sensory & Interactive Play, The Make & Play Vault Tagged With: at-home play, borax-free slime, DIY gak, DIY slime, homemade slime, kid crafts, sensory play, sponsored

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