Blog - Gluesticks Blog

Paper Bag Gingerbread Man Garland

December 22, 2010 By Brandy 4 Comments

Paper Bag Garland! I saw this on several different sites and it looked so cute! All you need is 1 paper bag, and a bunch of fun stuff to glue on! You can make the garland out of any Christmas cookie cutter you'd like. It'd be fun to use a Christmas tree one and decorate the trees. They suggested using a cookie cutter as a pattern, that's the route I took since I can't draw!

You'll need to cut the brown bag open and lay it flat. Then cut it in half so that you have two long strips of brown paper. Fold it like an accordian, the width of the cookie cutter, then trace the cookie cutter on the paper. Make sure that if the cookie cutter doesn't reach all the way to the sides to add length like I did below. Then cut it out! Don't cut around the hands, or else your gingerbread man won't all be attached together!

brown bag laid flat with gingerbread cookie cutter

folded paper bag with gingerbread outline

Then open the folded paper and decorate!!

toddler decorating brown bag gingerbread man

The boys named each of their little men. They had so much fun decorating them!

Let dry completely, tape the two sections back together and hang! garland hanging in window

Block Nativity Scene

December 21, 2010 By Brandy 1 Comment

Originally posted December 2009.

blocks of wood with nativity stickers on each block

My mom made this adorable nativity scene for my kids 4 years ago. They love it. Kaylee loves it because she likes knocking blocks over. She can't walk by a stack of blocks without practically sacrificing herself to scatter them.
toddler playing with nativity blocks

I taught a class on how to make these a few years ago in Kodiak. I couldn't find the stickers in the size that my mom used so I bought them a little smaller. Derrick cut out a couple hundred 2.5" blocks and smoothed the edges on each one. What a guy. At the class the ladies applied a sticker to each block of wood, added a coat of varnish, then a clear coat of spray.

The ones my mom made were first painted in a cream colored acrylic paint, the edges were lightly sanded, then stickers were applied. Finally, a light coat of varnish went over all of it. I liked the way hers turned out better than the other ones, so if I ever make more, I'd paint them first. But either way they are cute!

The stickers are made by "Me And My Big Ideas" (MAMBI). I found all of the ones I needed on a scrapbooking site online since I was living in Kodiak, but Joann's sells them too.

Advent Gum Packs!

December 20, 2010 By Brandy 6 Comments

2 packs of gum and 2 decorated packs of gum

I made these little gum advent books for my piano students. I have two right now, sisters, who are 13 and 11. They are so sweet and I wanted to make them something instead of just buying candy. Since I didn't have any Christmas card stock I used a girlie theme instead. I hope they like them!

Each day they can pop out a piece of gum! And what teen or pre-teen doesn't like gum? The foil gum pack slides back into the case. Each book holds 2 foil packs for a total of 24 pieces of gum.

The book is secured with 2 sets of velcro dots. Each foil pack was wrapped in a piece of cardstock and then glued on a larger piece of cardstock.

The inspiration for this came from this tutorial!

Dragon/Castle Birthday Party!

December 19, 2010 By Brandy 8 Comments

castle themed birthday cake on round platter

Another post on our little guy's special day. We had his party this weekend and it went great! We did a Dragon/Castle theme. We sent out invites on antique looking paper with wax seals. Aaron had fun helping with the wax stamp. They looked nice and "official" for the century we were going for 🙂 We invited the children to come in their best knight/princess attire, and they did! Super cute!

I was happy with how the fondant turned out on the cake. I've made probably 8 fondant cakes so far and am finally getting more comfortable with it. Practice, practice, practice....

Aaron made the poster for his "Pin the Dragon on the Castle" game. I love his castle, too cute! We also had a treasure hunt to find the princess who was locked in the deep dark dungeon (the home theater, in the basement).

I pulled out some castle toys for the younger children, which they loved!

Treat bags, and pixie swords & wands.

Graham cracker castles. The kids had a great time decorating these and I love how they turned out. Derrick and I glued these together one night. 12 of them. I couldn't do these parties without my sweet husband's help!

child blowing out candles on castle cake

A special day for a very special little guy!

Bakugan Cupcakes

December 16, 2010 By Brandy 2 Comments

:: Taking a break from Christmas posts to celebrate our little guy::

My son's birthday is right before Christmas. Poor kid. We actually "planned" his pregnancy around the fact that we did not want to have a child around Christmas. Well, I guess I'm not that great at figuring out dates because his due date was December 25th! Oh well! We just make sure that his party is completely separate from Christmas and that we don't downsize it at all with the big holiday that follows it. His party is this weekend and he is super excited. We are doing a Dragon/Castle themed party, but he wanted Bakugan cupcakes to share with his preschool class tomorrow. So that's what we made this afternoon.

chocolate bakugan cupcake with orange frosting

I don't know much about Bakugan except that it reminds me of Pokemon. Annoying, but harmless. I'm pretty sure that there aren't any black and yellow bakugans, but we worked with what we had on hand. I rolled fondant balls(fondant left over from this cake) and piped on some little designs, then printed out a little logo and attached it to some cardstock and a toothpick. He loved them.

Anything for our Christmas baby.

Our Favorite Nativity Set

December 13, 2010 By Brandy 7 Comments

I ordered this porcelain Nativity set from Oriental Trading 2 years ago. We didn't have a chance to paint them last year and I am so glad that we waited. Kaylee is old enough to help this year and so it was a project that they could all do together.

They used acrylic paint and after the paint had dried, I touched up any spots that weren't completely covered. A couple of coats of clear spray paint and they were finished.

They really got into the character that they chose to paint. Kaylee claimed the "baby" and "Momma" right away. They each painted a wise man since there were 3. Aaron wanted the camel, the cow (he painted the "milker" pink on it, lol), a sheep, and the shepherd, and Dallin wanted to paint the donkey and angel.

They've gathered around the set several times, showing eachother the pieces they painted. I look forward to pulling them out every year to enjoy and talk about this set that painted when they were "little".

Painted Fleece Blankets

December 8, 2010 By Brandy 10 Comments

The kids and I made ones of these personalized blankets for Derrick last year. You can see it here.

We decided to make a bunch more this year for grandparents.

All you need are acrylic paints and fleece! Acrylic paints are permanent. I know this because I have ruined several articles of clothing from previous projects 😉 You can wash it and dry it, the same as you would any other blanket.

child printing footprint with paint on blanket

We let the kids loose to paint whatever they wanted. We also helped them add their hand or foot prints. I went around, later, with puff paint and wrote quotes that the kids said about each grandmother. Things they remember doing with them, things they know about them.

After the blankets dried, I blanket stitched the edges. That took awhile and was a good activity to work on while waiting in the truck to pick up Dallin from school!

Grandma Candice loved hers when we gave it to her at our early Christmas celebration out in Utah.

Kaylee was excited to show her the area that she painted....the pink and purple artwork 🙂

Homemade Science Kits for Kids With Printable Instructions

December 5, 2010 By Brandy 28 Comments

These science kits for kids are easy to put together using household ingredients! They even come with printable instructions. Bobbing raisins, Invisible Ink, Wriggle Worms and more! Package them all up in baggies and put in a tote for a fun and educational gift or summer activity for kids.

collage of photos of chocolate angel food cake frosted

Â Today I'm sharing a homemade gift idea that we did for my sister's family. AÂ Science Kit for my nieces and nephews! Science kits for kids are always fun, and this one was fairly inexpensive since it was homemade and uses every day items!

plastic black cauldron filled with science kits

laminated science instructions and recipe cards

I went to this site and found a bunch of projects that I thought would be fun to try. They were all found under the "reactions" page. Then I made "recipe" cards, laminated them, and put them on a ring.

plastic bags filled with science experiment ingredients

Â Each card matches a ziploc bag with all of the supplies needed to do the experiment. There were 12 or so projects. I made a pdf version of the cards. They aren't anything special, but feel free to use them if you'd like. Just cut out the recipes and mount on cardstock.

Some of the ones we included were:

(click below to be linked to each experiment)

We spend an evening trying these out ourselves and had a great time!

3 pairs of safety goggles and bag of skittles

Goggles, and some fun candy! Have you seen the fizzy Skittles? They don't taste that great, but do fizz up in your mouth. My kids liked that.

Â I grabbed this Mystical Tree and Lakeshore Learning. We picked one out for ourself. The kids had a great time watching it grow and it made for some pretty fall decor.

This was such a fun gift to put together. A little time consuming, but so worth it. My sister's family is so creative and active. We couldn't think of a more perfect family to make this for.

How does one wrap a huge cauldron? This is all I could think of without using an entire roll of wrapping paper 😉

Homemade Wedding Gift Ideas

December 3, 2010 By Brandy 18 Comments

casserole dish with homemade hand towels inside

I put this gift together for my brother Cody, and his new wife, Brooke. I try to go the homemade route whenever possible and wanted to come up with a gift that was personal, yet very practical for this young couple.

Using the techniques in this post, I made an acid etched casserole dish as well as a large treat jar for their kitchen.

acid etched candy jar filled with Hershey kisses

Using the technique found in this post, I made a soap bottle for their kitchen as well.

clear bottle of soap with personalized front

Then I added some of my favorite fabric to some white kitchen towels by simple sewing a band across the bottom of each towel. I machine quilted along the white vertical design so that they didn't bunch up or look wrinkled after being washed many times.

Finally, a few boxes of cake mix and frosting and it was complete!