Easy DIY Heart Lollipops Made From Supermarket Candies

Easy DIY Heart Lollipops Made From Supermarket Candies

These pops, made by melting supermarket candies, are perfect party favors or school Valentines! You can even use up any leftover peppermints swirl candies you may have from Christmas!

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More Wintry Candy Crafts To Try With Your Kids!

More Wintry Candy Crafts To Try With Your Kids!

This little seal is a favorite from our book, Candy Aisle Crafts. That sweet face! In this shot, he is sliding around on some (aluminum foil) ice surrounded by sugar "snow". You can see him here atop a delicious chocolate cake along with some other arctic friends, along with the penguins below.

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Cute Marshmallow Arctic Animals for a Winter Birthday Cake

Cute Marshmallow Arctic Animals for a Winter Birthday Cake

When Amy and I were working on our book, Candy Aisle Crafts, her nephew was celebrating his first birthday with an arctic-themed party. We made him a cake topped with a marshmallow polar bears and penguin mommas and babies, and a couple of marshmallow seals. The cake itself is chocolate and we used this recipe, a longtime favorite!

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Easy, Cozy, No-Knit Yarn Crafts

Easy, Cozy, No-Knit Yarn Crafts

I just finished up a few finger puppet necklaces for a little friend who will be visiting this weekend. (Doesn't everyone need a finger puppet on their person?) These are a twist on some tube-knit and other no-knitting-needles-needed yarn crafts I made for Parents magazine a while ago. Instructions for the finger puppets are on the Parents website. To make these necklaces just start with some extra yarn hanging down the tube at the start and leave another length when you take it off the loom. (This will make sense once you start! Alternatively, you can simply thread a necklace length of yarn through the top of the finger puppet when you finish)

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Something to Make, Something to Bring, Something to Give...on Dinner: A Love Story

Something to Make, Something to Bring, Something to Give...on Dinner: A Love Story

I am thrilled to have contributed a few crafty holiday food ideas to one of my favorite blogs, Jenny Rosenstratch's Dinner: A Love Story ! I'm a longtime fan of both her blog and books. Have you seen her newest, How to Celebrate Everything? If I hadn't bought it the minute it came out it would be at the top of my holiday wish list! Anyway, these marshmallow tree-topped cupcakes, above, are "something to bring to a holiday party" and you can find instructions for them on DALS here.

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Easy Holiday Pop-Up Cards Made From Recycled Packaging

Easy Holiday Pop-Up Cards Made From Recycled Packaging

This card-making project is the perfect cold day kids craft. You don't need any special supplies, just some recycled packaging, glue, and scissors. (I'm always digging around in my recycle bin for materials!) Use colorful packaging like cereal or snack boxes or old Christmas cards. 

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Gumdrop Nutcracker Ladies to Top Your Cupcakes

Gumdrop Nutcracker Ladies to Top Your Cupcakes

These fancy lady cupcakes from our book, Candy Aisle Crafts, would be perfect for a Nutcracker party! I dip-dyed white cupcake papers into food coloring for skirts, but any solid or patterned cupcake paper would work (gold would be pretty too). There are so many fun prints available now online and in party stores—and yes, even at supermarkets!

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Glowing Winter Village Made From Recycled Cartons

Glowing Winter Village Made From Recycled Cartons

Several years ago, my boys and I made a village out of recycled cartons and we love unpacking it every year and setting it up on our mantle. I made the one pictured above, lit with battery-powered tea lights, for our book, Paper Good Projects. If you look closely you'll see some tiny conical trees and the how-to is in this post.

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Easiest Coffee Filter and Cupcake Paper Paper Snowflakes

Easiest Coffee Filter and Cupcake Paper Paper Snowflakes

We LOVE making paper snowflakes, lots and lots of them. Thin square paper, like origami paper, works best for folding and snipping but I don't like using up my stash. Printer paper is great, but I don't like having to precut the paper into squares. Coffee filters and cupcake papers, inexpensive, thin and easy to cut, are the perfect material for this fun craft!

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Colorful Thanksgiving Crafts for Family Fun!

Colorful Thanksgiving Crafts for Family Fun!

I did the crafts for this month's Family Fun magazine's "Kid-Made Thanksgiving". The story features fun crafts and yummy recipes that your kids will want to help out with, like these little pinecone-ear and twig antler animal pie toppers (and a yummy pie recipe to go with them).

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No-Bake Spooky Halloween Treats on the Today Show!

No-Bake Spooky Halloween Treats on the Today Show!

On Tuesday morning I had the pleasure of sharing some crafty Halloween treats with Al Roker on the Today Show. (We look very serious here but I promise we had fun!) They're all made using store-bought candy or donuts so no baking required.

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Spooky Sweet Halloween Skull Pops and Treat Toppers

Spooky Sweet Halloween Skull Pops and Treat Toppers

Here are a few spooky Halloween treats made from marshmallows. I love crafting with marshmallows (there is a whole chapter dedicated to marshmallow creations in our book, Candy Aisle Crafts) and I posted last week about some easy-to-make ghosts, great for cake and cupcake-topping. 
The skull pops above were inspired by some skulls I made years ago for Martha Stewart Living. For the pops above, I used jumbo and regular sized marshmallows, black M&M's, black shoestring licorice (snipped up as needed), and black large nonpariels (a.k.a. sugar pearls. The trick is cutting the marshmallow to expose it's inner stickiness and adhere cut sides to cut sides. To insert candy or sprinkles as for the facial features, poke a hole with a t

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Half-Homemade Halloween Box Costumes in Parents Magazine

Half-Homemade Halloween Box Costumes in Parents Magazine

If you're looking for a unique Halloween costume this year, and especially you'd like to make it yourself but not put tooooooo much time into it, check out this story I worked on for Parents magazine's October issue (on the newsstand now) or on their site here. I love working with the editors over there and the concept they came up with is brilliant: all the outfits utilize a store-bought costume base with a decorated cardboard box container. For example, this bird-in-a-birdhouse costume's wings are from The Land of Nod. Instructions are on the Parents site here.

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Friendly DIY Marshmallow Ghost Cake Toppers

Friendly DIY Marshmallow Ghost Cake Toppers

A marshmallow ghost I made many years ago forMartha Stewart Living magazine, which were twisted to get their peaked shape, inspired this simplified version. These get their shape from one diagonal cut, making them fast and easy treats to put together for a crowd of trick-or-treaters.

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Easy-to-Make Cupcake Paper Dollhouse Furniture

Easy-to-Make Cupcake Paper Dollhouse Furniture

At this point in the summer, we’re often looking for activities to entertain our kids, especially if we're presented with a rainy day. Making homemade dollhouse furniture is just the kind of project I would have LOVED as a kid! I was miniature-obsessed and always making tiny spool tables, matchbox beds, etc for my little dolls.  These cupcake paper dollhouse accessories are from our book, Paper Goods Projects . (Scroll down for some bonus ideas in the photo below, not found in our book)!

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Pretty Personalized Party Cups

Pretty Personalized Party Cups

One of my party pet peeves is setting a drink down and then losing track of which cup is mine. For a recent gathering I revisited a cup ID’ing idea I crafted a while ago for Martha Stewart Living. Set out markers, labels, paint, tape, stickers, or anything your guests can use to customize (and personalize) their cups. Bonus: the cups are a good conversation starter!

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Bubble Printing: Fun Summer Craft for Kids!

Bubble Printing: Fun Summer Craft for Kids!

The best kind of craft activities are those that you can throw together last minute and don't require any special materials. Bubble printing fits the bill! Added bonus: you can use the results for gift wrap, cards, tags and more! I made these with my two sons for Martha Stewart Living a few years ago and we had so much fun.

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