Thanksgiving is almost here and before we have a house full of food, family and friends I wanted to take time with my kids to make cards to thank those that are in our lives.

My kids love quick crafts and I love easy clean up!  These DIY washi tape turkey Thanksgiving gratitude cards are definitely fast and so easy, not to mention the little turkey is adorable! My son is now learning to write sentences so this will be a great way to document his milestone this holiday.

To make these Easy DIY Thanksgiving Cards you will need:

• cardstock- brown and white
• glue spots — 3d or popup work best
• washi tape in festive colors
• scissors
• marker
• optional- circle punches in 2″ and 2.5″

Let’s get started!

If you have punches go ahead a punch out one of each, if not feel free to freehand your circles on the brown cardstock. You will need one for the body of your turkey and one for the head.

Using the body circle (the larger on) adhere the washi tape to the back. We used about 2 inches long and folded over 3/4 of the way leaving a sticky edge for adhering to the back of our turkey body.

Yours should look like the picture above. Add as many washi-tape feathers as you’d like!

At this time prepare your card. Take the white card stock, fold the long way, cut and fold again. This makes 2 cards. The crease of the card will be at the top.

Have the kids adhere the washi tape. Washi tape is forgivable and can be repositioned. No mistakes no hassles!

Once all your feathers are on, using a glue spot, adhere the head of your turkey.

Flip your turkey over and add some wash tape legs. We cut a stip in half and added them on just like the feathers.

Add three glue spots to the body part and adhere to your card towards the top. Set aside.

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Add a beak and some gobble! Cut a triangle out of washi tape turn it upside down. Crinkle some red washi tape for the gobble, adhere to the back of the upside down triangle and stick to the head circle.

Add a sentiment — follow this easy tutorial.  Decorate with some washi tape,  add to card with some glue spots and done!

Make a few more and don’t forget to have the kids write inside! Ready to be given to those you are most thankful for!

Looking for a last minute craft activity to celebrate Día de los Muertos with the family? Look no further!

The stores are swarming with DIY Christmas ornaments, but I thought it would be super fun to make personalized ornaments for those who passed on in our family. They are not only great for celebration but they are good for years to come. A great keepsake or gift for those in your family!

With just a few of supplies our ornaments were super easy to make and so fun!

To make these for Día de los Muertos Ornaments you will need:

• Glass or acrylic ornament
• Photo of a loved one who has passed
• mod podge
• scissors
• jewels
• glitter glue or paint/ acrylic paint (we used a combination of both)
• paint brush
• and string or twine!

Follow these easy steps to get started!

 Prepare your photo by cutting it to your preferred shape. Circles work best! Add one layer of Mod Podge evenly and adhere your photo face down. Seal it with another layer of Modge Podge and wait for it to dry.

TIP: Add another layer of paper to the photo the same size. I notice our pictures got a little fuzzy after we added details.

 Once your sealing is dry. Decorate this decor will show thru so if you add letters or certain shapes be sure they are mirrored to the correct view through the ornament.

Wait for it to dry.

 Add decor to the front of your ornament. We used jewels to make crosses and roses.  Swirls and flowers are also common designs for Día de los Muertos, or paint what your loved ones loved best!

Once the back and front of your ornament are dry add the last layer of paint to the back of the ornament on the picture side. Wait for the paint to dry and design a sugar skull!

Glitter glue looks amazing on these little ornaments! The kids loved creating dots all over our ornaments!

Get ready to hang your ornaments or give them away as gifts for others to enjoy!

 Happy Day of the Dead!  ¡Feliz Dia de los Muertos!

I recently attended an all-expenses paid meeting at The J. M. Smucker Company on behalf of SpanglishBaby to learn more about Smucker’s Brand Products and  helpful holiday tips. I want to share some of the fun and easy recipes I learned using Smucker’s Brand Products that will surely add some love to your holiday fiestas.

During my visit I learned how to make delicious tasting treats and dishes that would make family gatherings for the holidays extra special. My family is big and when we get together there are so many different foods to enjoy. It’s great to have our traditional dishes, but occasionally it’s fun to surprise the kids with some yummy treats.

I tried these recipes at Smucker’s Headquarters and they were delicious, so putting my kids to the test when I got home was a must — my kids enjoyed both! Here are the two recipes I will definitely be sharing and making with my family this holiday.

Caramel Apple Popcorn by Pillsbury

Yields 4 servings(refer to site recipe for larger servings)

Ingredients:

1/2 container of Pillsbury Creamy Supreme Caramel Apple Flavored Frosting

1 bag of microwave popcorn

1 cup of pecans

1/2 teaspoon of ground cinnamon

2 cups of apple chips (freezer dry works too)

pinch of salt

Directions:

•Preheat oven at 250°F and prepare a baking sheet. Either line with parchment paper or coat with Crisco cooking spray.

•Microwave frosting in separate bowl for approximately 20 seconds.  (If making large serving where a whole container is called for, remove all foil and lid before microwaving. Pour over popped popcorn.

•Add pecans and mix until fully coated. Bake for at least 2o minutes or until crunchy. Remove from oven and toss in cinnamon, salt, and apple chips.

Popcorn stores for up to a week in an airtight container.

Cran Raspberry Snowball Punch by Smuckers

Yields 6- 1 cup servings

Ingredients:

16oz or 2 cups of cranberry juice

6oz of Smucker’s Seedless Red Raspberry Jam

1 liter of lemon lime soda, chilled

at least 4 scoops of vanilla bean ice cream(you can add one to each cup to make it a super snowball punch!

Directions:

•In a pitcher or punch bowl, mix in cranberry juice, raspberry jam and lemon lime soda.

•Add scoops of ice cream and stir until frothy.

•Top with ice cream scoops forming snowballs.

Serve and enjoy! ¡Qué rico!

Many of the activities I take part in with my kids have an educational factor. I’ve turned to PBSKIDS.ORG many times to keep them entertained with activities and crafts that are age-appropriate, fun, and star their favorite characters!

PBS KIDS has an amazing new series coming October 7th named Peg+Cat! Peg + Cat is based off the books “The chicken problem” by  the show’s creators Jennifer Oxley and Billy Aronson.  It’s focused on preschool math and problem-solving skills. We were able to check out the series before its premiere and my kiddos had such a great time watching and helping Peg solve math problems. Peg has such a cute personality and her Cat is amazingly smart.

PBS KIDS also announced some pretty exciting news. They’ve partnered up with Whole Foods Markets to encourage a lifetime of healthy eating. Already they have recipes, tips, games and activities to promote healthy eating in our families.

We recreated Peg +Cat The Pirate’s “Great Banana” Fruit Salad Recipe and Craft Activity and the kids had loads of fun!

This activity gave me the opportunity to visit my local Whole Foods Market with my family to pick up fresh organic fruit for our salad.

Visiting Whole Foods was so much fun with the kids. We had our list and went on an adventure to find all the fruit for our salad. Everyone pitched in to make sure we had everything we needed. My kids even practiced the names of the fruits and counting in Spanish!

At home, we created our very own treasure chest thanks to the easy directions on pbskids.org/healthykids

 I had the kids finish up their craft and on to the kitchen we took our new treasure chest waiting to be filled with a healthy fruit salad.

Next, we followed directions to prepare our fruit salad. “Wash all the fruit going into the salad,” my daughter had the best time helping.

 We had the kids recite with us how many of each fruit we needed to cut. This was such a fun way to incorporate math skills.  We then had the kids scoop the fruit pieces into their treasure chest as directed: 5 bananas, 6 strawberries… and so on. The kids had it down perfect

The kids loved their salad. The fruit was fresh and sweet, the perfect combination of flavors. They were so proud to have been a part of creating our family snack. I was happy to incorporate  math into our activities. The best part was seeing the kids understand the basic math skills and to be able to also practice our Spanish with math and healthy eating! I look forward to our next PBS KIDS activity!

For more information on Peg+Cat and healthy eating activities visit pbskids.org

Be sure to check your local listing for Peg+Cat series premiere October 7th!

My son starts kindergarten this year! We received a letter from his teacher  excited to welcome him to class and his face lit up!

He immediately wanted to write back with a picture much like what he does with his snail mail pal but instead I told him how about we make her something super special.

We came up with these cute potato stamped bilingual art tea towels. Each stamp means something to my son. The apple is his favorite fruit. The ABC stamp shows he knows his alphabet and the Hola is to share with his teacher that he is bilingual.  He can’t wait to hand it over to his new teacher.

To make some bilingual Art Tea Towels too here is what you’ll need:

1-Brown paper bag- to cover your area and use for pain mixing

2-Fabric Medium to mix with paint

3-Acrylic paint in your favorite colors

4-potatoes you can carve 2 stamps out of 1 potato

5-a napkin or tea towel to use as your canvas

6-Knife, Carving tools* and paint brushes. (dull pencils, wooden craft sticks, craft knife, piercing tool, etc.)

* parents, please help children with the carving and always handle carving tools with caution.

Cut potato in half and start carving your shape. Use a dull pencil to trace or sketch your image on potato.

 Continue cutting potatoes and carving until you have created all the shapes you would like to use.

If you are carving words, there are two ways to do so — you can carve directly into the potato and not shave any thing surround letters or you can create actual letters be sure to shave down at least half an inch.

Also, all words must be spelled and written backwards.  It helps to write it out first, write out again backwards, and then carve.

 Mix your paints with medium. For every quarter size blob of pain add 3-4 drops of medium you want your paint to be thinner but not runny.

 Apply paint onto the potato stamp and have your kids go wild!

We only stamped once for every time we applied paint. If you want a washed look you can definitely get two stamps out of one application of paint.

 Let them dry. All done!

Fold and attach a cute note with some ribbon for your child’s teacher!

Greet this year’s teacher with a big ¡HOLA! May your kids have a great school year!

This is a sponsored post brought to you by Walmart. ¡Gracias!

The kids are so excited for our Fourth of July celebration. This year we will not be purchasing fireworks because our neighborhood has banned the use of fireworks. We are totally ok with that because we know we will be able to watch big fireworks in the sky put on our town.

To get started with the celebration I wanted to have the kids create something that would remind them of the years past.

I thought it would be really cool to do flameless DIY celebration sparklers. Now wouldn’t those be cool to celebrate our countries Independence Day? While they aren’t your typical sparklers, they are pretty cool and so easy to make!

Here is what you need to make your own Celebration Sparkelers:

1-Round dowels or wooden sticks. Walmart has a great price on 16 sticks for $.97

2-Scissors

3-Tape. Clear tape works best

4-Cellophane in your color of choice

5-Curling ribbon

6-Styrofoam balls. Walmart has a bag of 12pc for $4.97

Let’s get started!

1. Cut your cellophane to 4×4 squares and 3×3 squares. You will need about four of each so a total of eight cellophane squares.

2. Choose your foam ball. We used one of the smallest. Insert the stick and wrap with a larger square. Secure with tape.

3. Starting with the smaller squares first, make a slint in the center of the celephane squares. Slide stick thru from the bottom to the top at the base of the foam ball and wrap around and secure. See image above.

4. Continue adding all sqaures and securing each with tape at the base.

5. Lastly, decorate the stick with ribbon. Starting at the top, wrap around and secure with tape.

¡A celebrar se ha dicho! Let’s celebrate!!!

It’s officially Easter weekend! The kids and I have been busy preparing for our holiday. Recently my son asked me why not all bunnies had tails. Confused, I thought what he may have seen and where? I asked him why he asked. He didn’t have a straight answer — he’s only 4 years old. I decided to create a fun game just in time for Easter but great all year!

I explained to both my kids that we needed to help the conejito find his colita. I told him we had to toss these fuzzy tails into his bowl and if it landed then maybe it could be his. Our bunny was a boy because my son insisted the bunny was Peter Rabbit.

Here is what we used to create our Conejito sin Colita Game: 

• 2 foam sheets- 1 colored and 1 white
• A round lid- cardboard works best
• White Poms or Cotton Balls
• 2 Wiggly eyes
• Glue or glue dots
• A Marker
• Conejito Template -optional- (download below)

 DOWNLOAD TEMPLATE HERE

Let’s get started!

1- Cut a strip of foam sheet. Depending on your lid length will vary but we used a 2.5 inches wide strip. Having a gap is ok. It will get covered up with our bunny.

2-Glue around your lid. You may need to hold in place until it sticks.

3- Cut and trace your template onto the foam. Cut our the bunny shape in the colored foam and the ears in white. Glue them in place.

4- Add some wiggly eyes and a cute nose and smile. Glue to the back of your lid where the gap is. Hold in place until secure.

5-All done! Time to play!

We hope you are having a fantastic Spring season and Easter weekend. ¡Felices Pascuas!

Looking for a last-minute activity to do with your kids? How about a fun learning game? I created this Spanish conversation hearts memory game for the kids to learn some new Valentine-themed Spanish words. This game can be customized to your child’s needs too.

Here is what you’ll need to create your own:

• Scissors
• 8 card stock squares measuring 4×4
• Heart shape to trace
• Marker

Let’s get started!

• Trace and cut the heart on each square.
• Choose 4 Spanish words to use in your game.

Customizing your game:

Write each one of your words twice – one on each heart (you will have 2 matching hearts). Or write the word in Spanish on one heart and in English on the other heart

We used the following words: amistad, amor, beso, and amigo.

Arrange on a flat surface and let’s get ready to play!

It was the perfect activity to play while we waited for lunch to finish cooking. My kids enjoyed learning the words as we played. We pronounced them in Spanish and explained the meaning in English.

I hope this game encourages bilingual play and that a few new words are learned too.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

We are so excited to celebrate Reyes Magos. Since moving our family from West to East Coast, I have taken great efforts to show our kids the importance of cultural religious beliefs I grew up with.

This year we plan to write letters to los Reyes, stuff them in our stockings and await for their arrival with lots of treats

With that a celebration is in order so we decided to make a rosca for the first time this year and we will all be in style with our own Reyes Magos Crowns!

Today the kids and I created our own felt Reyes Magos crowns.  They chose the colors and decor. It is a really great activity to do as a family.

To make some crowns for your Reyes Magos celebration here is what you will need:

1-Felt sheet 8.5×11 works best

2-Tacky Glue

3-Decorations for your crown we used poms

4-A pen or marker in similar shade as felt

5-Scissors

Let’s get started!

1- Fold your felt in half  ”hot-dog style” With the opening to the top create your crown. We started in the middle by starting a triangle and zig-zag style until we liked our design.

2-Cutting on the markings you made  you should have your desired design. Cut along the bottom to make 2 equal parts.

3-Glue one flap over another wait for it to dry. Measure around the child’s  head and mark it.

4-Glue the flap and wait for it to dry.

5-Once dry, cut off any excess that may be uneven on design.

6-Decorate with your kids the more decoration the more magical they become!

 Now you are in style and ready for the celebration!!!

Ana’s note: The holidays are still going strong in our households as we await la llegada de los Reyes Magos! Last week we brought you a recipe for a yummy Rosca de Reyes and today we asked Ruby to share with us another cute Reyes Magos craft since the one she did for us last year was such a hit! She went to Walmart for all her supplies to create with her two kids this super cute, simple and affordable Reyes Magos Felt Board Finger Puppets. 

To create your own you will need:

1-Tacky Glue

2-Felt in at least 8 colors*

3-Template- download below

4-Markers that will stay on felt; usually all permanent markers work

5-Scissors

6-A frame(We got ours at Walmart for less than $5)

7- One or two felt pieces measuring the width of your frame for felt board background*

* We purchased a 12pk of multi-colored felt at Walmart for less than $3

Let’s get started!

1-Download, print and cut out the pieces to your template

2-Start with the body. You will need 6 pieces 2 for each king. Use 3 different felt colors one for each king.

3-Add glue to one part of the body only around the edge but not on the bottom leaving room to insert finger once dried.

4-Cut the face out using a skin colored felt. Glue face and add a face using your markers. Repeat two more times.

5-Cut a beard using the template and adhere around the face of your king. Repeat 2 more times.

6-Add a hair piece to 2 kings. 1 king will need a different colored hair piece that will become a turbin for his crown. Do the same for the crowns and adhere.

Wait for them to dry and Done!

Felt Board Frame:

We can’t take credit for this awesome idea we found on pinterest. Using an 8×10 frame from Walmart we used felt to create a scenery. We placed the felt pieces then the glass and the backing of the frame. It makes the perfect Felt Board !

Use your Reyes Mago Felt Board Finger Puppets to tell the story of the Tres Reyes Magos. Kids will be sure to enjoy this Reyes Magos craft!

Find more Día de los Reyes Magos inspiration on our Pinterest board!

Disclosure: We are thankful to Walmart for their sponsorship of SpanglishBaby.