Wednesday, October 27, 2021

Minecraft Creeper: A no-brainer Halloween Costume idea!

If you have DIY-ed anything ever, this ones a no brainer! 


Just get a box, cut out green paper into ‘pixels’ and glue away to glory!


Here are my dimensions (for my 9 year old). Since I didn’t have a box, I made one out of black cardboard box


  • Cardboard sheet, to make a box with 9” sides.
  • 4 different shades of green, cut into ‘pixels’ of 1” each 
  • glue gun, scissors, cutter, ruler 

Practical Mom: Halloween Costume Ideas Minecraft Creeper

Friday, November 22, 2019

Asterix Themed Cake, Invites and Party Favors

My 5th year decorating a cake! It is same experience as always, days of planning ahead the theme and cake design,  and hours of tedious cutting colouring and pasting, ending with a triumphant ta da! In the end it is always worth it! 

Here are my past cakes:
 Minions | Ninjago | Paw Patrol | Harry Potter 


Asterix Themed Birthday Cake: DIY by Practical Mom



Wednesday, November 21, 2018

Hogwarts Themed Cake + Party Game



Every time we look back at birthday pictures from earlier years, we’re reminded of what our kids were into those days! From Minions to Ninjago to Paw Patrol to Harry Potter, this has been our journey so far! I think I’ve been getting better and better with fondant every  year! Mind you, my son just turned 7, so while he has been obsessed with the first three Harry Potter movies, he hasn't yet read the books (which explains the Ravenclaw colors!)

Hogwarts Cake + Party Game by Practical Mom


THE HOGWARTS THEME 

Since my son was turning 7, and there are a million things you can do with the Harry Potter theme, I decided to stick to the Houses. Not just the scarves on the cake, but I also made a sorting hat and ties from every house, and hula hoops to match every house!

The SORTING HAT went around every kid’s head sorting them into groups:

“You are brave! You belong to Gryffindor!”
“You are loyal! You belong to Hufflepuff!”
“You are clever! You belong to Slytherin!”
“You are creative! You belong to Ravenclaw!”


Hogwarts Cake + Party Game by Practical Mom


THE HOGWARTS HULA HOOP GAME:

  1. Divide all kids into 4 groups. Team members need to form a circle and hold hands.
  2. Each team gets one Hula Hoop, that they need to pass from one kid to another without leaving their teammates’ hands! Whichever team completes two rounds first gets 10 points, and so on and so forth.
  1. We gave them a practice round to figure it out and two rounds each. Two teams that made the finals had a round each to get to one winning team. Guess who won? Gryffindor!


Sunday, November 4, 2018

Halloween: DIY Guardians of the Galaxy Costumes



We are Groot! This Halloween, we dressed up as characters from the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2: Yondu, Gamora & Groot! (Why Yondo, not Star Lord? Cuz Yondu is easily the more well developed character with more depth!)

Apart from a whole lot of face & body paint and dramatic make up, here is how I went about the crafty DIY bits:



Practical Mom DIY Halloween Costume Guardians of the Galaxy: Gamora, Yondo & Groot

Groot:
For the Mask, I used this very helpful tutorial
  1. I cut out the mouth and eyes from a mask 
  2. Glued craft sticks over the forehead 
  3. Glued straws one by one vertically over the mask
  4. Glued some green mossy stuff (from pipe cleaners) on the top of the mask
  5. Finally, glued cheap brown glasses on the eyes of the mask
  6. For the Groot body, I simply hot glued a crap load of brown paper on one of his old, never to be used again track suit. 
Practical Mom Halloween Costume Guardians of the Galaxy: DIY Groot Mask & Body

Yondo’s headfin:
  1. I first make a rough one with rough paper to get the shape right (every head is different!) 
  2. then finally used a material that was something between a cardboard sheet (I couldn’t find one thick enough) and styrofoam (you can’t paint over). Needed a pen knife/exacto knife to carve the shape out. I glued 4 head fins together to get the required thickness.
  3. I cut out various shapes to glue on the sides to get the look
  4. Finally, I painted it all over with rich metallic red paint. 
  5. I used eyelash glue to keep it glued over my husbands head! 

Practical Mom Halloween Costume Guardians of the Galaxy: DIY Yondo Headfin

I did the DIY stuff ahead of time, only to leave the face & body painting to be done that evening. We felt like movie stars with everyone taking our pictures!! Yes all parents who'd come with their kids to trick or treat and random people on the street on our way to the Halloween party asking us to pose with them! 

All in all, good fun!

Practical Mom DIY Halloween Costume Guardians of the Galaxy: Gamora, Yondu & Groot

Click here for our previous Halloween Projects 

Stay Connected  Sign Up  |  Twitter  Pinterest | Facebook 

Wednesday, September 19, 2018

4 in a Row! {Printable Game}


Here are two fun games that are excellent for addition & subtraction practice!

4 in a Row: 
Roll Dice and the sum of the two numbers determines what number to cover. First player to get 4 numbers covered in a row wins!

3 in a Row:
Roll the dice and the sum of the two numbers determines the starting number. Spin the spinner and get the final number to be covered. First player to get 3 in a row wins!

You need:
  1. Print out of game: (Click here for PDF!)
  2. Coloured paper cut to fit the squares (each player gets one color)
  3. For 3 in a row: toothpick/straw to be used as a spinner

Practice Counting with Printable Board Games: 4 in a Row! by Practical Mom


Monday, December 18, 2017

THE STICKY NOTE WORD HUNT {Printable game!}


This game was born from my attempts to teach the Hindi alphabet! I taught him a bunch of them and before he got bored with all the coloring, I put sticky notes with letters written on them all over the house. everywhere! 

And handed him a sheet of little drawings. He excitedly looked for the ‘letter’ and posted it over the correct object. For e.g f for fish.

So here’s a little 2 part printable for all your little kindergarteners who have started learning four letter, i.e. the BIG words! 


Click for printable pdf:






INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE STICKY NOTE WORD HUNT:

  • Copy the words from page 2 onto sticky notes {Alternatively, you could cut out words directly from the sheet} and paste them all over the house. Over the glass windows, behind the couch if your kid gets frustrated easily and under the bed, on the top shelf if your kid loves to burn off energy! 
  • Your enthusiastic kiddo will need to hunt for the words, and re-paste/place it correctly on the respective picture on the sheet! Give him/her the page 1 and say “go!”


THE STICKY NOTE WORD HUNT, Printable Game by Practical Mom