Quick! Hurry! Here's a Craft Kit Giveaway before Lent Begins

IMG_4488

IMG_4058
 Today it's my pleasure to introduce you to Kristin from Kristin's Crafts for Kids. She has a giveaway for you just in time for Lent. Visit her shop, look around, leave a comment telling us what you liked there and you will be entered to win a free lenten craft kit! "Like" Kristin's Crafts for Kids On Facebook, and you can enter yourself again. Since Ash Wednesday is only 8 days away, we'll announce the winner of this giveaway this Thursday evening. So hurry!

How did your business come to be?

Starting Kristin’s Crafts for Kids was not planned.  If fact, starting a business wasn’t  a consideration until the Holy Spirit dropped the opportunity in my lap.  In early November 2013, I was browsing a homeschooling forum and someone mentioned that she was looking for someone who sold pre-packaged craft kits.  After looking into what was available, I decided this was a niche that I could fill, so the day before Thanksgiving, I shipped my first orders out. 

IMG_4721
 

What is the product that you are most excited about?

I just finished the Lenten craft kit.  I am very excited to work through in with my own children.  There are 12 crafts with a couple that are to be done throughout Lent, one to go with each Sunday of Lent and several for Holy Week.  For my family, I think the activities will enrich our Lenten experience to make it something beyond what we have to “give up.”

 

Any plans for your business that you’d like to share?

Kristin’s Crafts for Kids is so new right now that I’m focusing on the kits for monthly holiday and fun days, quarterly saints and feast days and the liturgical year.  Once I get that established, I plan to add a wide variety of single purchase kits.  I hope to add kits that go with early childhood concepts, kits to help teach catechism related topics like the Beatitudes or the Holy Famiy, kits that would go along with various periods in history or fields of science.  My goal is to assist homeschooling families in teaching their children, and oftentimes that includes giving younger siblings something to do that is engaging, educational and feels like “real school” without taxing the parent.

  IMG_4688

.

DSC_0327

Is it a family endeavor? Do you kids help?

I’m dragging them along whether they like it or not! Seriously, my 11 year old and 6 year old do many of the crafts and give me suggestions for improvement.  My 13 year old has proofread the instructions and make sure that they make sense.  She also goes to the store with me to figure out the benefit of using one material over another and occasionally she finds something that is so much better that we change the craft entirely.  My husband is my constant supporter, running errands and he’s already promised to be my master kit assembler should I get more orders than I can easily do myself.

 

What inspires you?

I truly feel that this endeavor is guided by the Holy Spirit.  God lead me out of the classroom, into homeschooling and now I’ve been given this awesome opportunity to bless other families using my talents.  I hope that I will be able to build this business to a level that supports my family financially and eventually, I am able to quit my in-home daycare and devote more of my time to my own children and their education.

 

The winner is Heather, who wrote: I love the Lent and March kits. It's still cold and spring is still far enough away . . . So why not craft when you are stuck indoors ;)

What Happens When You Let Them Take Over the House

I've mentioned previously what a big deal the Olympics always are around here. I've told you about the map work, the "student newspapers", the timelines, the totally awesome lesson plans. 

But I may have never mentioned a few things, things mostly of Christian's creation, though Michael and Patrick certainly were creative consultants. There were endless games of hockey in our finished basement, boys fashioning pucks and sticks of masking tape and cardboard. There was "ski jumping" off my bed when I was too snowed under by all-day-and-night morning sickness to protest. And there was a luge contest using pillows down the back stairs. (You thought I didn't know about that one, didn't you, boys?)

There was something else. Night after night of family dinners that more often than not were like an evening in a comedy club. One boy after the other trying to one-up the previous joke. Dad leading the way...

Poor Nicholas was bereft yesterday. "This Olympics is no fun. There is no one to play basement hockey. Can I please try to sled down the front staircase? It used to be way more fun..."

He should have gone to work with Michael.

Back By Popular Demand: Valentine Dots!

  • Preheat the oven to 200 degrees
  • Unwrap all the Hershey Kisses
  • Place one Kiss on one pretzel (I used wagon wheel pretzels)
  • Heat the Kisses for 5-10 minutes (the white ones melt more quickly). You just want them shiny and a little soft.
  • Press the M & Ms into the Kisses.DON'T MOVE THEM OR TOUCH THEM!
  • I refrigerated them until they were hard.

These are beautiful and so little kid friendly! (Matching Dot Dress not included;-)

DSC_0570
DSC_0550
DSC_0554
DSC_0555
DSC_0565
DSC_0569
DSC_0570
DSC_0571
DSC_0573
DSC_0578
DSC_0580