Kiwi Crate

We all know Daniel loves to do projects. He's always very excited to make something, whether it's in class or at home, or wherever. It's a lot of fun and suits the artist and kindergarten teacher in me! I love projects just as much! Can't wait until Annabel can do even more and join us!

Anyway, a while back I'd read on some blogs about these project kits that you can subscribe to monthly through a company called Kiwi Crate. I fell in love instantly and knew Daniel would love them just as much! I got an email a couple weeks ago about some Christmas craft kits they were offering and I immediately ordered one for Daniel. I knew he'd have a lot of fun with it since he's just as excited for Christmas as I am and I also thought it'd be a great way to sample something from Kiwi Crate and decide if we wanted to subscribe to it. Well, let me tell you this project kit was a HIT! Daniel LOVED it! And he has already asked if we could get more kits like this- I'll take that as a sign that this was a hit and he'd love a subscription! How does he know you can get more? How does he know I was already thinking about this? He reads my mind- I'm telling you.

Anyway, Daniel got a box with his name on it at the end of last week. He didn't even know what was in it, but he was already excited- who doesn't love mail?! Daniel then proceeded to carry that box around for two days- I kid you not- until I had time to sit down and open the box with him, he even napped with it! Daniel was even more excited that it was something for just the two of us to do- "and NOT Annabel. Daddy take her in the basement to play and Mommy lock the door!" (For the record that lasted all of two seconds, although of course I didn't lock the door- Annabel wanted in on the action- she did NOT want to be squirreled away downstairs!) Anyway, after I'd spent Friday afternoon and Saturday morning hitting craft shows with my mom and sister, Daniel was super excited to wake up Saturday afternoon and find me finally home and ready to open that box! I told him that inside the box were all the things we needed to do two projects. His excitement grew after hearing this and he ripped open the brown paper covering the box, then gently opened the box, and then began excitedly taking everything out of the box. It was all packaged so well, but I certainly didn't even get a second to survey everything. Daniel went full steam ahead.

So the two projects in this box were (1) three ornaments to swirl paint into and (2) a cardboard gingerbread house, tree, and gingerbread people to put together and decorate. And it came with everything we needed- I kid you not- the glue, a paintbrush to paint the glue on, a cup to put some glue into so you could dip the paintbrush in, tape circles, all the pom poms, ribbons, tissue paper, pipe cleaners to make a candy cane, felt shapes, snow white felt, three paint bottles, squirt tops for the paint bottles, three plastic flat-bottomed ornaments, corks to close the ornaments up, and super cute instruction cards for all the possible projects involved. All in this little green box. We loved it!

So that Saturday afternoon, Daniel chose to do the gingerbread house first and we got right to work. We put it together and Daniel got right to work on decorating it with pom poms and felt shapes. Annabel had come back up from downstairs already because she wanted to watch- and she really wanted a pom pom! But she was a good little watcher- she read a magazine, sat in Ben's lap, sat in my lap...she did really well just watching for the most part. Daniel put together the tree and the people, painted the glue on the house, stuck his decorations on, made "Santa's bag" with a pom pom wrapped in tissue paper which was so clever- he even put it on the roof, put snow on the house, added ribbon onto the roof, and so on. He had a great time and was at it for quite a while. We glued it to the base, he glued some snow on the ground, we let it all dry, and then he picked out a place in our house to display it- it's right by the TV where we can see it all the time! I love how it turned out! We had a great time doing that project. There were other mini projects Daniel could do, too, that he didn't want to do- like make "wrapped candy" with tissue paper and pom poms (that's when he just made a Santa's bag, he'd seen me make a candy and then decided to make his own things, which was great!), make candy canes with pipe cleaners...just a few different touches and things they gave you materials for just in case you wanted them. He did do the stained glass window they suggested- he was excited to make it all blue for "night time." And of course when we were all done, Daniel wanted to do the next project right away! I managed to save that for the next day, somehow...

So Sunday morning, Daniel woke up and started asking right away when we could make the ornaments. Ben had to run an errand that morning (our furnace had broken Saturday and my hero of a husband fixed it all on his own- he just had to go get the part Sunday morning! don't worry- we survived the night in our house all bundled up- luckily it was a warm weekend!) so he took Annabel with him and that's when Daniel and I grabbed the chance to make our ornaments. Again, it was all so well thought out, from squeezer tips for the paint bottles, to flat-bottomed ornaments so kids could squirt the paint in easily, and so on. Daniel eagerly squirted the paint into his ornament, invited me to make one (so sweet!), and then we set to work swirling the paint around all over the inside of our ornaments. We were even given cups to turn the ornaments upside down and let the excess paint drip out (there was a lot of excess in Daniel's, let me tell you! He went a little overboard adding more and more paint to his ornament- but it all worked out just fine and he had fun!). Now we're just letting them completely dry, waiting to put up our tree this weekend and then we'll finish putting the ornaments together and hang them up! Can't wait! So we had a great time with that project, too!

I think Daniel would love to do more of these and we just might become subscribers! I was so glad it was all so well received- we had so much fun together! Enjoy our pictures!