Prima Princessa's TutuZone

NYC Ballet Pre-Performance Workshops for Kids

Start of spring for your child with a pre-performance movement workshop at the New York City Ballet! Your child will get to dance while meeting artist from the NYC Ballet! Visit this Children's Workshop link for more details and dates.

Family Dog Sledding Adventure in New Hampshire

This winter my family went dog sledding in New Hampshire with Muddy Paws Kennels. It was an unforgettable experience. The dogs at Muddy Paws Dog Kennel are all rescue dog sled racing dogs. Cast aside either because they were not fast enough or their crew disbanded, these  dogs find a new home at Muddy Paws. Muddy Paws houses around 150 dogs. Some get adopted, but many stay in the kennel where they get to pull the dog sleds.

You can catch a Muddy Paws sled at Bretton Woods Resort, but I recommend going to the kennel itself. You will be able to visit with the dogs. It is quite and experience to get to walk amongst 150 dogs. They are very friendly bunch. Make sure to wear rain boots as the kennel is very messy and muddy. Dress warm for your ride.

When there is snow the dogs pull a sled. When there is not enough snow the dogs pull rolling carts. They don't pull in the summer as it is too hot for them with their thick coats.  You need to make a reservation so make sure to check out the Muddy Paws website.

The dogs get very excited when they see their handlers getting the sled ready as they love to pull and start jumping and barking. Depending on the size of the sled 4-10 dogs will be harnessed up. Once the sled or cart takes off, the dogs left behind in the kennel start howling in unison. It is quite a thrill. My kids loved meeting the dogs just as much as they enjoyed the wonderful ride throught the woods.

Overall this was an amazing family adventure. I would highly recommend this family dog sledding adventure. It is pricey, but Muddy Paws is a non-profit operation that is rescuing dogs, so it does feel good to support them in their mission.

How To Make A Tutu from CraftyGuides

Prima Princessa's TutuZone is thrilled to host this amazing guest post from Mariana of  CraftyGuides on "How to Make A Tutu"

 

 Making a basic tutu is a fun and easy project! Even a child can help! This project is a great rainy day activity and/or a great little girl's party activity! What's even better is that making a non-sew tutu is cheap.

 When I first started making tutus, there weren't many tutu instructions out there to help me out. I learned by looking at tutus on the internet and figuring it out, with MANY mistakes along the way. Now I would like to pass my knowledge onto you. Avoid the mistakes I made when I started. Follow the steps below for a fast introduction to making non-sew tutus.

 Material Needed:

 Tulle From The Bolt (fabric stores sell tulle by the yard from a bolt, which are mostly 54" wide) or 6" by 25 yard rolls of tulle.

 If using tulle from the bolt, you will need to get at least 5-6 yards of tulle for a baby/toddler size. Ages four and up will need at least 8-10 yards of tulle.

 If using tulle from the roll, purchase 6" by 25-yard rolls/spools of tulle. You will need 2-3 rolls for a baby/toddler size and 3-4 rolls for ages four and up. I personally love using tulle ribbon from a roll/spool. It's mostly used for wedding decorations and gift-wrap. It's better to work with and quicker to cut.

 Rotary Cutter or Fabric Scissors

 A self healing cutting mat

 1/2" "-3/4" Width Roll of Non Roll Elastic (Amount needed, all depends on waist measurement) or elastic headband for waist

 Needle and Thread

 Optional: Paper Towel Roll and Paper Towel Roll Holder 

and A lip edge ruler

 BASIC INSTRUCTIONS ON CREATING A NON-SEW TUTU:

 Waistband Construction:

• Measure child's waist and cut elastic 2" inches smaller than initial measurement. 
• Stitch both ends of elastic together by hand or with a sewing machine.
• Make sure it's secure by pulling on the elastic.

 For a 100% non-sew tutu, use a simple stretchy headband for the waistband. If you want a more exact fit, it's best to use elastic and sew the ends together using a needle and thread. No sewing is involved in the skirt portion of the tutu. Most stretchy headbands come in one size so this option may not work for all waist sizes.

 Cutting Tulle:

 If using tulle from a bolt, cut it down into six inch strips. A fast and simple way to cut it, is to roll the tulle into a tube... It should look like a tube of gift-wrap paper.

One end of the tulle will have a folded edge (it should come folded from the fabric store). Starting on that edge, measure three inches and make your first cut with a sharp pair of fabric scissors. Then measure six inches over and cut again. Repeat every 5-6" until you have cut the whole length. You might have to adjust the strip width to make the strip widths as even as possible.

 If using 6" by 25-yard rolls of tulle, you won't need need to cut six inch strips, since the roll already comes in a six inch width. You will still have to cut each strip to your chosen length.

 Let's say you would like the tutu to be 14" inches long. Double that length to 28" and add 1" to compensate for the knot you will be tying at a later step. and Cut each strip to 29" long. The length is up to you.

• Once you have the length you want to cut the strips to, unroll up to 3 rolls of tulle on top of each other (this is to save some time).
• Make sure the ends meet at the 1" mark on your mat.
• Place the quilters lip edge on top of the cutting mat where you are going to be making your cut. The lip edge ruler works like a t-square against the edge of the mat for slip free cutting and measuring
• Roll the rotary cutter across the tulle layers. Continue cutting strips. A baby/toddler tutu will need between 40-60 strips of tulle.

Some strips might not come out entirely even, but it's okay if that happens. Most mistakes can be hidden once all the strips are tied on.

 Making the Skirt:

 Tying Tulle to Elastic Using Double Knot Technique:

• Then bring your elastic over the paper towel roll.
• Take one of your precut strips and then bring it behind the elastic. Make sure both the ends of your strip are even with each other.
• Utilizing the end that's on top, bring it behind and back up thru the loop so as to form your first knot. As you tighten the knot, confirm both ends of the strip are even. Make a second knot utilizing the same strip you made your first knot with. Again make sure the ends are even.

Tying Tulle to Elastic Using Slipknot Technique:

• An alternate way to tie your strips on is utilizing the slipknot method. Fold your strip in half and bring it behind the elastic waistband to create a "U" shape loop. Make sure the ends are even. Bring the ends thru the loop that you have made and pull down to tighten. Try not to pull it too tight.
• Continue tying strips until you achieve the desired fullness; between 40-60 strips for a baby/toddler tutu.
• A good rule is to fit in at least 3 knots per inch of your waistband measurement (minus the 2").

 After completing steps above, you will have a completed non-sew tutu!!

Visit Mariana's TutuGuides.com for great tutumaking e-books!

Description: Learn the Secret Techniques of Well Known Boutiques and Start To Make Your Very Own Tutus! Make Tutus for Friends, Family... or Start Your Own Business Selling Your Handmade Creations!

Title: Learn How To Make A Tutu

Mariana Patrick loves teaching others how to make tutus. She has written two top selling ebooks on how to make non-sew tutus and how to sew a tutu. Visit her website for more info at www.CraftyGuides.com. You can also visit her blog for other free craft tutorials at www.craftyguides.blogspot.com

 

 

 

Fancy Feather Hair Accessories Craft

Feather hair accessories are all the rage!  Feather hair accessories craft is fun and easy to do, not to mention lots cheaper than buying them. Great craft for girls. It is exciting for kids to suddenly be able to make something they have seen in the stores. 

Collect Materials: First you need to collect your materials. Shopping for the materials with your daughter is half the fun. Go to the fabric or craft store for feathers. At the hardware store you can purchase very thin and flexible brass wire for not a lot of money or bead stores often have colored wire. At the drug store pick up some cute clips. At the bead store or craft store get a handful of fun beads for the hair ornaments. Make sure to get beads whose holes are not too big or too small. You will be putting the beads onto silk or leather cording so you want to make sure the holes are just bit bigger than the cording. This cording can be found at bead or craft stores as well.

Material below:

Steps to Make Feather Hair Accessories:

1. Cut a piece of cord about 12''. Using the brass wire attach the cord to the feather. You will do so by wrapping the wire around top part of feather and about a 1 inch of cord. Keep wrapping and wrapping so brass is nice and thick and looks intentional and apart of design. When done cut with scissors and push end flat onto clump.

2. Next play with you beads. About 4-6 is a good number. Try and have ones with the tightest hole towards top and bottom. Tie a know on top of last bead.

3. Next you will attach hair clip. I leave about 3 inches of plain cord, but you can leave as much longer or shorter depending on how your daughter likes to wear her hair feather. Loop cord through hair clip at closed end and wrap about 1/4 inch of the overlapping cord to secure. Again wrap and wrap with brass so looks like an intentional part of design. When done trim excess. Now enjoy!

So cute!!!!

Fast & Festive (and affordable) Holiday Table Center Piece

Every year I like to fill crystal bowls with the standard colorful glass Christmas tree balls. They make great centerpieces and take about 1 minute to put together. Kids and adults love this sparkly decoration. You can get these Christmas balls all over the place, and they are not at all expensive.

I let my daughter very carefully place the ornaments in the bowl. She loves to help me decorate.

Enjoy this easy holiday centerpiece!

Little stock pickers

I just had a reader of our blog email a tip on guide she enjoys sharing with kids in her after school program. It is a listing of sites featuting info on learning about the stock market for kids. Enjoy!

Family Fun Zone - Bead Key-Chain Crafts for Girls

Crafts For Girls - Beaded Key Chains

Bead key-chains can be made in several different ways, using metal wire, waxed linen, leather cord or even a pipe-cleaner. It is a great craft for girls to spend lots of time on making several different key-chains.

 

1. Enjoy a trip to the bead store with your daughter to pick out large, distinctive beads. Try mixing beads from different countries as well of different materials and sizes. Make sure to pick beads with holes big enough for whatever material you choose to string on.

 

2. Take a long piece of waxed linen and bend in half. Hang key-ring in middle. Tip: you can also use metal wire from the hardware store, leather cord or even a pipe-cleaner. Pipe-cleaners are especially easy for young kids to work with and can also be easily undone if kids want to try out new designs.

3. String beads one by one on to the double strands of cord. For straight line of beads tie big knot at the end. For circle of beads tie knot onto top where started once you have made your loop. If adding charm, tie knot over top of charm.

4. Dab with clear fingernail polish to hold the knot tight. Wait until dries to trim extra cord off the knot.

5. These key-chains make great teacher gifts or gifts for relatives. Get some card stock and cut into 4 pieces. Describe all the distinctive beads used in the key-chain. This is will make the gift even more special as people will love learning about their key-chain.

 

Crafts for Girls - Key Coloring Book Pages

From Printable4Kids  Print out and color.

 
Visit Great Inventions Online Coloring Pages to actually color this fun Lock & Key drawing live right online!

 

Prima Princessa- fun dance along preschool activity DVDs for only $6.99  featuring a combination of ballet lessons, real ballets on stage and crafts for girls

Family Fun Zone - Apple Fun for Fall!

The Family Fun Zone from Prima Princessa's Tutuzone - Fall is here and apples are ready to be picked. Apple Cobbler, Apple Picking, Apple Press Stationary and much more family fun with Apples in today's ode to the Apple post! 

 APPLE PICKING - FAMILY FUN 

My kids love to go apple picking. Make sure to go early in the season before the apples are all picked off the trees. We went over Labor Day weekend in New Jersey.  

Chester, NJ is a great place to apple pick. We love Riamede Farms as they have a large variety of apples including lots of heirloom apples. They have a tractor filled with hay that will take you up the hill and back down. For some of the best cider donuts and freshest apple cider ever we like to head over to Hackelbarney Farms which is just 5 minutes away. They have a working cider mill making cider in the moring that they then sell in their shop. They also have cider hotdogs on the weekends and a fun corn maze. If you are looking for an apple picking orchard with more preschool activities like family fun days, corn maze, ect check out Alstede Farms also in Chester.

 

APPLE PRESCHOOL ACTIVITIES

Apple Tasting - Using the apples you picked at the orchard, cut up a nice selection and let your children vote on which is their favorite type of apple. This is one of my favorite preschool activities for promoting healthy snacking.

Apple Weigh Station -  Let your child fill up several grocery bags with different amounts of apples you picked. Have them try and guess which one is heaviest and how much each bag weighs. Then weigh the bags on the scale. This is a great science themed preschool activity.

 

APPLE CRAFT IDEAS FOR KIDS

Apple Press Stationary Craft 

1. Slice an apple in half. Let it dry out a bit. Try and keep slice surface as flat as possible as better for stamping.

2.  Fold 4 pieces of white 8 1/2" x 11" paper in half. 

3. Paint on several coats of acrylic paint onto the apple and then stamp onto the paper. Repeat with different colors.

4. After the papers dry, tie your set with a bow. This make a great gift for grandparents.

For fun crafts for girls  use pink and purple paint and stamp apples onto a tote bag or t-shirt. 

Apple & Worm Paper Plate Craft

Kids love to see everyday materials transformed into new things. I love this preschool craft because it takes an ordinary paper plate into a tasty home for a worm!  

Visit Kaboose for instructions. In the Kaboose version paint is used, but you can also have kids take the wrapper off of a crayon and roll it all over the plate. Kids love to roll and color.

 

 

COOKING WITH KIDS - APPLE COBBLER RECIPES

I made this cobbler from Land of Lakes  on the left yesterday for my kids, their playdates and my hubbie. They all came back for seconds. It is rich so serve with ice cream.

My son asked if we could have some more the next day for breakfast so I created a breakfast version (on right) using a lot less sugar than the first one I made.  The kids loved it as well.

       

Breakfast Cobbler Recipe 

8 large tart Macintosh or Green apples, peeled,  sliced into chunks (don't use cores)

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 cup  flour

1/2 cup sugar

1 egg

1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

3 T Butter chopped in small pieces

 Lay apples in a baking dish, mix together rest of the ingredients and place on top of apples.

 350 for 45 min

 

APPLE COLORING PAGES FOR KIDS- I love these cute apple printables from DLTK

                  

Apple Coloring Page 1            Apple Coloring Page 2

 

 Prima Princessa- fun dance along preschool activity DVDs for only $6.99  featuring a combination of ballet lessons, real ballets on stage and crafts for girls

Family Fun Zone - Totally Tiara - Crafts for Girls

The Family Fun Zone from Prima Princessa's Tutuzone: featuring craft ideas for kids such as fun tiara crafts including a pipecleaner tiara and tinfoil tiara plus links to tiara printables

PIPE-CLEANER TIARA CRAFT - easy kids craft

This is a great craft for girls as they can play dress up with it afterwards and it is simple enough to make that they can do it themselves with just a little help from mom. 

1. Join 2 pipe-cleaners together in a circle creating the headband base like in photo on right. Make sure it fits on top of your daughters head. 

2. Next take a pipe-cleaner and twist an oval a few inches long at the top like in photo on the right. Make 2 more. (Let your child make a bunch of these out of differnt color pipe-cleaners and she can have fun deciding which ones to put onto the base.)

3. Fasten these three pieces onto the circle band. This part may require help from mom.

 

TINFOIL & RIBBON TIARA CRAFT - easy kids craft

My daughter adores this tiara because she likes to pretend the long ribbon is her hair and that she is Rapunzel. It is a great craft for girls who love dress up.

1. Roll out a long piece of tinfoil.

2. Fold it over several times so it becomes a long, thick band.

3. Shape into a circle, making sure it is right size for your daughters head. Squish the ends together. If the headband is too small it is easy to add moe tinfoil to it to lenghten.

4. Lastly, tie on lots of long strands of curly ribbon, long strands of fabric or even better tulle.

 

JEWELED PAPER TIARA & BANGLES - princess dress up crafts for girls

These stick on jewels are absolutely amazing for creating tiaras. Cut out a long stip of paper and fit it to your child's head and tape. Make a few matching bangles for her while you are at it. Let your child stick away! If you want to get more elaborate cut out a triangle type shape and tape it on to the tiara.

You can find these sticker jewels at craft stores or online. They make a great gift for girls or fun for birthday party craft.

 

TIARA PRINTABLES - preschool activities  & craft ideas for kids

These tiara printables are sure to please any little princess!

Tiara Printable  from Kids' Castle- Color, Cut Out, Tape! 

Tiara Printable  from Lee Hansen- Super sparkly fun

 

Tiara Printable from First Pallate Pretty in Pink

Shop for tiaras and princess dress up at Prima Princessa. 

Prima Princessa- fun dance along preschool activity DVDs for only $6.99  featuring a combination of ballet lessons, real ballets on stage and crafts for girls

Family Fun Zone - Glitter Bookworm Bookmarks and more back to school activities

The Family Fun Zone from Prima Princessa's Tutuzone - Have some back to school fun with these super cool glitter bookworm bookmarks and more back to school crafts and back to school activities for preschool and elementary school age children. These are all great crafts for girls and boys as well.

 Glitter BOOKWORM BOOKMARKS  

Easy Kids Crafts - These cool back to school crafts also make cute teacher gifts. Cut the construction paper out in a long rectangle and then shape into a worm. Draw two eyes at the bottom and then decorate with glitter glue and markers.

Wooden Popsicle sticks decorated with googly eyes, glitter glue and markers markers are another fun way to make glitter bookworm bookmarks make great bookmarks. 

 

MANILA FOLDER MANIA - Crafts for Girls, Elementary & Preschool Activity 

Kids love back to school shopping. We don't only purchase what is on the list from the teacher, but we also like to get a few special things for home. A package of manila folders are great fun for decorating and playing school at home. Kids can play hours with these special folders filling them up with all sorts of papers and decorating the covers with stickers and markers. A fresh pack of these make a great play date activity.

 

MEMORY COMPOSITION BOOK 

Craft ideas for kids - Looking for more fun back to school activities and crafts for girls? Kids love composition books. They are sure to use them at school but why not have special one for at home. We do a Composition Memory Book for each new school year.

A composition books is great to have for reviewing things learned at school, keeping a list of books read, writing creative stories and pasting in special momentos. Kids love to flip through their memory composition book throughout the school year and over the summer. Looking at past books is a great way to get them back in the mood to start up school again in the fall. This is a wonderful preschool activity and elementary school activity.

 

BOOKMARK PRINTABLES - Bookmark COLORING PAGES from Crayola website- Crafts for Girls, Preschool Activities & Elementary School Activities  

Kimono Doll Bookmark   Graphic Bookmarks                    Bookworm Bookmark 

 

Let's Do Lunch - Great Gifts For Girls for Back To School Fun

      

 

TIPS FOR HEALTHY SNACKS FOR KIDS at School

1. Less is more. Too many packages in a lunch box with too many choices gets confusing. Additionally, kids don't often have that long for lunch or snack so having to choose and open up too many snacks wastes time they could be refueling.

2. Make sure to wash, dry and refrigerate fruit and veggies the night before. This give fruit a better chance of staying crisp and not getting slimy. Carrots, celery, blueberries, apples, clementines, honeydew melon, nectarines all hold up well.

3. Make sure to read ingredients on snack food. Just because the packaging is designed to look healthy does not mean it is not loaded up with tons of sugar and additives. Granola bars often can feature sugar as the main ingredient. Try healthy cereals instead and send them in a little single serving size tupperware.

4. Nalgene brand water bottles are great because they are BPA free. They often are sold with attached lids so kids can't lose the lid.

 

Prima Princessa- fun dance along preschool activity DVDs for only $6.99  featuring a combination of ballet lessons, real ballets on stage and crafts for girls