DIY Bookplate - free download

As you are well aware, we are closing in quickly to Christmas. I have an extremely short list of presents left to buy. I will actually have to go to the stores for these last handful rather than purchasing online in my pjs. Online shopping has been wonderful this year!

One of the gifts the boys will get each Christmas and birthday without fail are books. So, I again made bookplate stickers to add to the books. I love knowing who gave each book to the boys and I think it will be really sweet when they are older. I have a feeling that there will be two things I save until I have grandkids- books (that aren't torn to pieces!) and their wooden train set. So I think it will be fun to look back at the books in 30 years with the stickers on them!

Here are a couple I have made for this year. Feel free to save these and print onto Avery name stickers to use in your own library. Enjoy!

Please be a fan of lil Mop Top on facebook!! I link up to these parties!

Hunger Games - Bingo game

Tomorrow is the big day! I am going to see Hunger Games with my sister and two friends. So, no, we didn't do the midnight premiere (I am too old for that!) but we are going opening weekend so that totally counts. We are going early to stand in line because we don't want to end up in the front row. To help pass the time in line, I made up this little people watching bingo game. Some items are specific to Hunger Games and other are generic people watching observations. Feel free to save the image and use in line while wait for the big show!



Also, comment later to tell me what you thought of the movie!

Please be a fan of lil Mop Top on facebook!! I link up to these parties!

Christmas Countdown Board

You probably didn't see this, but about a week or two ago I guest posted on Sugar Bee Crafts. (exciting!) So, I am reposted my project for all my favorite readers! and you get to know a little tidbit about me too...bonus!




Hey everyone! This is Jen from lil Mop Top. As you can assume, I am super excited to be guest posting today at Sugar Bee Crafts. {yay!!} So before I show you to make a Christmas Countdown Board for your own family, let me tell you a bit about myself.






I am lucky enough to be married to my best-friend, Brad, and we have two precious baby boys. (I can call them babies forever, right?!). John John turns 3 next month (be sure to check out his birthday party on my blog soon...so cute!) and Matty B is 16 months. They are both the sweetest and cutest boys EVER! I was a high school math teacher for 8 years and decided to stay home with the boys when Matthew was born...and I am LOVING it!

I am always gathering ideas around the internet to do activities and fun stuff with the boys, so my Christmas Countdown Board is perfect for our family. I used library card pockets and library cards to make a different activity each day for us to do in December as we countdown to Christmas. Here is how I made mine, but of course you can vary this in so many ways to fit you perfectly!

All of the supplies I had around the house so you could do this project for 'free' using things around your house.

First I took a thick black poster board and painted it white. I wanted it to look a little distressed so I painted it unevenly because I didn't know if I could sand poster board. (Hind sight, I wish I had painted this green or red, but too late now!)








While the paint was drying, I used Christmas scrapbook paper to cut out small pieces of paper to cover some card pockets I had in my stash. I cut each piece 3.5"x2.5" but you would have to cut yours to size.





Then glue a piece of cut paper to the front of each card pocket. My favorite helper (Brad) glued while I stuck the paper on which made this part of the project take about 1 minute.



Then I printed and cut the library cards.



Once the paint on the board was dry, I laid out the cards how I wanted them (eyeballing my spacing because I am too lazy to get out a ruler and do the math...but I COULD do the math if I wanted because, remember, I was a math teacher!) Then I stuck the card pockets on the board (they were the self-adhesive kind...awesome!).





This looked pretty plain the way it was and I didn't have an actual frame to put this in. So, I found a spot in the house where I had a mirror hanging above a painted dresser. (My sisters painted the dresser and I love it! Check out their blog, Refreshingly Chic).



I used tape to hang the the board on the mirror so it looked like it was being framed. Right now I don't have my holiday decorations out, but it will look super cute when I get all my junk out of the attic. :)








Like I said, this is very easy to vary to put your own creative spin on it. I thought about making it into a banner for the mantel, but since the boys are so young, I didn't want them pulling it down. If you have 25 Christmas books, it would be SO cute to put a card pocket in each book and the kids pick a new book each day and the card has the activity for the day after reading it. I bet you can come up with something really cute!

I have a document HERE with the library cards with my activities (I found most of them at various sites such as The Activity Mom) and I also have a blank library card HERE if you want to add in your own activities.

Thanks again to Mandy for letting me invade her space at Sugar Bee Crafts! Be sure to stop by my blog at lil Mop Top where you can find a variety of fun crafts such as...

Easy Fabric Roads:


Cozy Flannel Blanket:


and lots of ideas for learning activities/lessons for toddlers such a feeding Cookie Monster during our baking themed week:


Please be a fan of lil Mop Top on facebook!!

Meal Cards

I stumbled upon Lunch It, Punch It and loved the idea! So I created a card for our family for lunch and dinner instead of just our lunches. (Lunch It, Punch It offers free cards too!) The goal is that we have to eat 10 dinners before we can eat out for dinner and 10 lunches before we can eat out for lunch. Brad and I are counting up our lunches seperately since we usually don't eat lunch together. Here is the card I made up that of course I will lamanite so we can check off the boxes and reuse when it is filled up. Brad said the only reason I made this is so I can laminate something. He may be right.



Here is a blank one if you want to use it and add in your names!



I link up to these parties!

Reusable Crafty Idea Page - Printable!

If you are anything like me, you have lots and lots of ideas for crafts that you put into a list. or in an email to yourself. or on a random piece of paper in your diaper bag. Then I hardly do any of those ideas because I have a million never ending lists all over the place! So I thought maybe if I had a cute place to put my ideas, I would be a little more organized and get some of my crafts done. So, I whipped this up today while sweet Matthew was taking a nap. I am going to laminate it and hang it on the fridge so that way I can use an overhead marker to jot down ideas. {sidenote: I think I am obsessed with my laminator! pretty much if it isn't breathing, it is getting laminated around here. I think I might need an intervention...}

Feel free to save a copy if you want to use it for yourself! I am ready to add a couple crafty ideas that I hope to start on soon and I can post some tutorials! :)




I link up to these parties!

Thanksgiving Day @ 1+1+1=1

For those of you with little kiddos at home, I am sure you have heard of the blog 1+1+1=1. If not, you HAVE to check it out! It is awesome and I love doing all the activities with John John. Be sure to go by there to get your Thanksgiving Day Pack so you have time to do it before Thanksgiving. I saved mine tonight and you bet your sweet bottom I will be a laminating fool this week once I start printing the activities out. :)


I link up to these parties!

Menu Board - Printable!

I'm back! Best Buy surprised me by fixing my computer in just a few days rather than a couple weeks. Awesome!

I have seens lots of menu boards around and I love them! Unfortunately, I don't really have wall space for a big board. We have been writing down our weekly meals on Sunday so we could make sure we had everything planned out and food bought ahead of time. I always feel bad because it is wasting paper each week. So, I whipped this bad boy up tonight.



{yes, I even plan lunch because I feel like then I won't be tempted to give John the same thing every day and I won't skip lunch and just eat cookies all day long!} I am going to laminate it (with my $5 garage sale laminator!!!) and then use an overhead marker to write on it each week. I am also going to put magnets on the back of it so I can easily put it on the fridge. (love recycling those advertising magnets!) I love that is small enough to fit on the fridge and not take up extra space on the walls.

I didn't make a space for Saturday and Sunday because we are almost always busy on the weekends going out to visit family or friends so I am not picky about planning those meals. Plus, we only really needed to plan the weekday meals to alleviate the arguments of 'what's for dinner' when Brad got home and we needed dinner ready in the next 30 minutes because we are still in the phase of revolving everything around a nursing baby! :)

Feel free to grab a copy and use it at your house! Or, it would be a cute stocking stuffer for those dorky organized people (like me!)...just add some markers and maybe even attach the markers to the menu board with ribbon!

I link up to these parties!

Pumpkin Patch Game

I took the boys to a pumpkin patch today and on the way home I thought of an activity to do with my classes if I was still teaching math that deals with picking pumpkins off the board to work out problems. I figured you could use pumpkins for fall and not just Halloween. I am modifying the idea for John John! I made these pumpkins with letters on them:






Then I was thinking of how I could use them:

1.Make two copies of them. One set will be cut up and hung on the wall or maybe even outside on the fence. The other set will also be cut up and in a stack. When he draws a card from the stack, he would have to find the matching pumpkin and pick it off the wall. Would be cute if he had a little basket or wagon to put it in!

2. Make one copy, cut up, hang. Then I can just call out letters for John to find and pick.

3. Make one copy, cut up, hang up around the house and he has to go find all 26 pumpkins. Then we could practice putting them in alphabetical order.

That is all I have thought of so far but John is wanting lunch. Geez...I have to feed him AND teach him letters?!?! :)


I link up to these parties!

More Candy Corn Letters

I finished the rest of the candy corn letters! So, now you can save a copy of the full alphabet. Yeah! Here they are- take it if you want it! (and yes I realize the first page isn't in alphabetical order. sorry!) If you missed the posts where I talked about these candy corn letters, check back HERE and HERE. Enjoy!









I link up to these parties!

Cat Shapes - Printable!

Continuing with the Halloween theme this month, I made another card activity to practice shapes with John.


(right click on image to save!)

Here are a couple ways to use this set of cards:

1. Print two copies and have young children match up the shapes.
2. Print two copies and have older children play memory.
3. Print three copies and challenge older children to play memory where they have to find a set of three cards.
4. Print one copy and cut the cards vertically or horizontally to make puzzles.
5. Print several copies and have the child sort the cats by shapes.
6. Shrink and enlarge the images and have children sort by size.



I link up to these parties!