The Crafti Bug gets crafting

Straws no longer just for drinking

2012-01-09T21:11:00.000-08:00

Dear Blog

Who knew that a box full of plastic straws could keep kids busy for hours, and I'm talking hours on end!

With the weather being as it is over these holidays I upended the box in front of my two crafti testers one morning and left them to it. These straws come with lots of little connector points which join all the straws together. Before long they had built a jail big enough for them crawl into. It even had a flag on the top.

Dad ventured home around lunchtime, and immediately joined in the action. Not to be outdone by the jail his children had constructed, he proceeded to built a rather large tower with a triple helix as it's support structure, he had to climb to the top of the stairs to continue building the top of this tower. Spot the engineer!

My three testers then made a rocket, some large balls, and the next morning I came down to find the lounge being turned into a zoo!.... They had constructed a large zoo entrance which you could walk through, along with cubes containing animals (granted these were stuffed animals, but animals none the less) scattered around the room. I had to pay money to enter the zoo/lounge of course, it's lucky we had being playing Monopoly the night before, I managed to convince the kids that $1,000,000 note in Monopoly money was a fair enough entry fee. It was that or chocolate and I'm not one to share my chocolate!

If you were looking at the learning aspect of these straws and connectors, our kids spent hours using their imagination and creative thinking to build different shapes. They worked on their fine motor skills and hand eye co-ordination, which for our 4 year old, is something we're focusing on with him at the moment. Overall Blog, they are a lot of fun. The kids come back to them time and time again, creating new shapes to build.

We have Straws and Connectors kits now available at http://www.thecraftibug.co.nz/, they come in 230 pieces or 400 pieces. Until next time Blog..... keep on crafting.

The Great Box Rescue of 2012

2012-01-07T15:45:00.000-08:00

Dear Blog

As I write this to you, I'm sitting in a box. Now to some this may be quite a normal occurence, however for me it seems to have become an occupational hazard. It appears to have happened again, and I'm currently waiting on another rescue.

We're expanding our Craft Supplies range and had some rather large boxes arrive just before Christmas. You can imagine the level of excitement this caused in the Crafti Bug household. Diving into the closest box was a great idea in theory, however the execution of it wasn't as graceful as I'd hoped. Picture this folks, headfirst, closely followed by shoulders and waist, ending with feet poking out the top flayling madly.

A successful rescue attempt was made, and goodies were finally expelled safely with no harm done. Check some of these out!

Art Start Kits

Bouquet Paper

Coloured Alpha Noodles

We now have a great range of supplies to help with a multitude of projects, however at the current minute, as I repeated my swan dive into the 2nd big box, I'm still waiting on the Great Box Rescue of 2012.... can someone please send chocolate!

As always Dear Blog our goodies are available through http://www.thecraftibug.co.nz/, and until next time... keep on crafting.

Boys vs Girls - The Gender Wars

2012-01-04T20:19:00.000-08:00

Dear Blog

It's been brought to my attention, in rather a harsh way I might add, that what is severely wrong with this country (New Zealand) is that girls are persuaded to love all things pink and fairy related, while boys are persuaded to love all things blue and dinosaur related. I ask you dear blog world where is this written?

Without getting caught up in the whole mess of what is or isn't wrong with this country, I'd like to address the apparent issue (and this is one expressed opinion by one person), that the media are stereotyping our children into their genders, persuading girls down the pink road and boys down the blue road?

Interesting issue I hear you say, but what does this really have to do with The Crafti Bug? Well, apparently here at The Crafti Bug we are enabling this gender stereotyping by categorising our crafts into boys and girls rather than age related. Now I rapidly pointed out to this person that our crafts are in fact categorised in girls, boys and age related groups, simply for the ease of our shoppers.

But this got me to thinking, how could this possibly be considered a serious issue causing chaos in our country? Are our children in fact being persuaded to like certain things? Surely there are other serious things going on that are more worthy of our time.

Isn't this in our general make-up? Already embedded into our subconscious? Girls generally gravitate to pink and boys generally gravitate to blue, but nothing as far as I can tell stops our girls from venturing into the blue side or vice versa.

We have a pigeon pair in our Crafti household, and I can assure you that from no persuasion from us whatsoever, our daughter loves sitting down playing with trains with her brother, and our son will have no hesitation playing happy families or tea parties with the dolls and soft toys with his sister...

Honestly I was astounded that this was even raised as a contentious issue, but it was, and now I'm very interested to know if this is in fact a popular consensus?... are our media and large corporate conglomerates brainwashing our children into being a girlie girl and a rough and tumble boy? I don't really expect an answer, just putting it into the blog world.

On a personal note, our website will continue to be categorised into Boys and Girls along with the age appropriate groups, simply to make it easier for Nanna and Poppa, Mum and Dad, Aunts and Uncles, and all who seek our crafty goodies to find what they are looking for regardless of who it is for.

So dear Blog thanks for listening and until next time... keep on crafting.

New Year: Old Beginnings....

2012-01-03T15:10:00.000-08:00

It's the 4th of January and I'm sitting here wandering about New Year's Resolutions and all those sorts of things you think about when all the celebrations come to an end. I used to make lots of resolutions come the New Year, and I used vow that the new year would be a lot different from the last, however I've come to realise that things are going to happen regardless if you've made resolutions or not, and it's how we handle these things that make the year different from the last whether it be good or bad.

Anyway, the one Resolution we have made here at The Crafti Bug is to keep our blog updated more regularly so let's get stuck in. We've got lots to tell you about....

Hands up those that remember playing string games in school.... I do I do....

My 6yr old daughter came home from school one day with a piece of wool drapped around her neck. When I asked her what that was for she mentioned they were playing Cats Cradle, and she proceeded to make the Cup and Saucer (or so she thought it was the cup and saucer). She then ploughed through the internet looking for instructions on how to do some of the games.

That's when we came across this Cat's Cradle kit from Klutz.

Our daughter was going to be the very best person to test this for us, and when we handed her the book her eyes nearly popped out of her head. It comes with a very cool colourful and sturdy piece of string along with step by step illustrated instructions on how to make the Witch's Broom, the Cup and Saucer, the Eiffel Tower, Jacob's ladder and how to play the Cat's Cradle game (which is a two person game).

She sat down with the book and away she went, after reading through the instructions for each one she had them memorised and became very skilled at completing each one....let me show you what I mean...

I'm blowed if I could follow what she was doing, but I was very surprised how quickly she picked it up and has remembered them all. She's taken the string to school and having a lot of fun with her friends, especially as they attempt to go through the Cats Cradle game.

All these things that I used to play as a child apparently never died, maybe I just outgrew them, but I must say it's fun reliving my childhood through my children.

This book is available through our website of course, so head on over to http://www.thecraftibug.co.nz/ and check it out.

Once Upon a Time....

2011-07-31T16:50:00.000-07:00

Did you love building your own forts and castles out of mum's sheets and blankets when you were a kid? We did, but times have changed and we've just added the next best thing to our range from Villa Carton.

Now you can save your sheets and blankets, and replace them with this cardboard castle which children can decorate themselves any way they want to.

We just had to try this one out. Miss 6 chose to use paints on hers so into the garage we headed. It took us about 10 minutes to put the castle together, which was lots of fun as it took shape. Miss 6 scooted inside the castle and pulled through the tabs as we constructed it.

The inside of the castle is a life-size colouring page, with lines and pictures ready to colour in. This is were Miss 6 choose to start. About 2 hours later, she emerged with the biggest smile on her face, and a lot of paint I might add. But she had completed the inside to her liking and was ready to tackle the outside. The outside is one blank canvas and Miss 6 was soon joined by Master 3. They spent hours mixing colours and getting paint onto the castle.

Needless to say a painting war ensued and all pomp and ceremony was removed from the painting process. I couldn't really watch as they slapped paint on willy nilly, I think I would have painted pictures and windows, and bricks and real castle things, but after a while the colours and how they've painted it makes a bit of sense. Sure it's not attractive, but to a 6 and 3 year old it was a whole heap of fun.

The choices for decorating this castle are limitless, you can use paints, felts, pencils, crayons, you can even glue bits and pieces on. Once they've decorated it, their imagination runs wild as they make up all sorts of games revolving around, inside and outside the castle.

It's made of cardboard (recycled and European FSC certified) easily assembled and dismantled and guaranteed to provide hours and hours of fun and entertainment.

DIY Castle from Villa Carton - available now on our website.

How do you explain...?

2011-07-05T20:46:00.000-07:00

We've been a bit quiet on the blog front and feel it's time to get ourselves back into the Blog World.

It's been a challenging few months mainly from a personal aspect for our family. In May my dear father-in-law passed suddenly and unexpectedly, leaving us all reeling from his loss. One of the hardest things I've had to do is tell my two children that their grandfather had died. How do you even begin to explain to a 6 and 3 yr old that the Poppa they cherished and spent a lot of time with was gone forever? How do you explain death in terms that a child is going to understand?

Even now 2 months on, they still ask why? How do you explain something that us ourselves still don't understand.

To assist us in chatting to our children about this very subject we turned to craft. My father-in-law had a couple of weeks in hospital a few months before he passed, and this led us to discussing the role of a nurse with our 6 yr old daughter Nikita.

On one of her visits to the hospital she watched the nurses go about their daily tasks. She was fascinated with the blood pressure machine and the other implements nurses use during their day.

This coincided with a new range of craft kits we'd just got in. Our DIY costumes from Villa Carton.

These costumes come pre-printed and ready to colour in and it so happened that they have a nurses costume, just perfect for our daughter to test for us.

We had a few hours to fill in one day so we sat down with the nurses costume and the markers and away we went. The whole time discussing the job that a nurse does. Nikita chatted about wanting to become a nurse and working in the hospital so that she could look after her Poppa.

The costume even had a badge for Nikita to write her name on it. Nurse Nikita. The colouring in of this costume took a good hour to do, and it was one of the better hours I've spent with her having a chat about Poppa being sick, and being in the hospital.

On her future visits to the hospital Nikita chatted with her Poppa about becoming a nurse and she proudly showed off her completed costume.

Her Poppa was out of the hospital and on the road to recovery and when he passed it was sudden. Nikita is still a bit bewildered about it all, and hasn't spoken about becoming a nurse since. She's moved on to wanting to become a swim teacher, it's just unfortunate that there isn't a costume for that.

Our 3 yr old son Tyler is very matter of fact that Poppa isn't here anymore, and in time he won't remember much about Poppa, but dear blog world, I'm still left with the question, how do you explain..?

'Goodbye Poppa, we love you and we miss you'

We're going on a Dinosaur hunt and we're not scared...!

2011-02-02T16:34:00.000-08:00

Gosh, where oh where did those holidays go!

We were quite busy over these holidays, and one of the things we had a lot of fun doing was excavating a dinosaur skeleton.

Yep you read that right, we excavated a dinosaur skeleton right here in our own backyard. Okay so it wasn't a real life size dinosaur but we followed the same principals using our Dinosaur Excavation Kit - we excavated the Velociraptor.

This kit comes with everything you could possibly need for a successful dig. And a lot of digging you will need to do. The skeleton is embedded in a plaster block, and with the special digging tool provided, you slowly and painstakingly dig away the plaster to reveal each piece of the skeleton.

It took a wee while to dig up all the bones, my children were still a bit on the small side for the patience it needs for the dig, but they were very useful on the brush to brush away loose plaster to help reveal the bones. It took me a good 1-2 hours to complete the dig, so this is a great kit if you need to keep your children occupied for several hours at a time. They may even take a couple of days but well worth the effort.

A word to the wise, the dig is best completed outside, or on a large surface covered with newspaper or an old sheet or cloth. There will be a lot of dust around, and not a good look having it walked into your carpet.

Once we had excavated all the bones and cleaned them off, (checking on the instructions as to how many bones we should have), then came the part of assembling the skeleton. We found the diagram on the instructions easy to follow, and the bones had sockets and pins on them so they just clipped together. A bit of wax is provided in this kit to help seal the bones together, but we found they clipped together very easy and didn't need the wax.

We had the Velociraptor assembled and looking great. Thankfully this kit also comes with a cardboard display stand with which we could then display our skeleton.

This kit was lots of fun to test, and recommended for kids over 7yrs old. It's available now through our website http://www.thecraftibug.co.nz/.

Houston we have lift off...!

2010-11-26T23:05:00.001-08:00

Cosmic Rocket kit.... now we're talking some serious fun!

Our kids are a wee bit on the small side for this kit, which basically means I got to have all the fun while they watched from the sidelines, and made the appropriate sound effects.

To construct the rocket was very easy, you have a launch pad, the rocket itself, some plastic fins to slide onto the rocket, a small measuring spoon and that's it.

Raiding the pantry I dug out my bottle of vinegar, and tin of baking soda, as the instructions mentioned. After reading some very important safety instructions first, (which was really all about using some common sense), I was ready to load the rocket for our first launch.

Place 4gms of baking soda into the launch pad (4 spoonfuls of the little spoon included in the kit). Then you need to measure out 30 mls (2 tablespoons) of vinegar. I put the vinegar into a jug first, then carried everything outside. Important tip #1: don't launch this rocket inside, it will damage your ceiling.

Not really sure what to expect from our first launch I followed the instructions to the letter. Pour the vinegar into the rocket chamber, then with the rocket tilted on it's side so the vinegar doesn't run out, attach the launch pad to the rocket. Important tip #2: don't shake the rocket as the instructions say, as this sets off the reaction between the vinegar and baking soda too quickly and it explodes in your hands, and you get covered...

After several false starts, and dry offs, I attached the launch pad to the rocket, tipped it upside down then placed it right side up on the grass, then I backed away quickly..... a few seconds later and.... we had lift off!... Important tip #3: be prepared to dive into the shrubs on rocket retrieval missions... as you'll probably find your kids won't volunteer for that one!

This rocket launches to some surprising heights, our third launch I thought would land on the roof of our two story house, but luckily it didn't.

Each launch we did of this rocket sent our kids into raptures.... with gleeful shouts of "again, again, again..."...

All in all, this kit is very cool! Take a look at one of our successful launch missions..

Book-in-a-Box kits need I say more...

2010-11-12T23:09:00.000-08:00

'Be the author and illustrator of your own book and best of all, you don't need a degree in art to do it!' Well, that sold us right there...

My daughter instantly fell in love with this kit. It comes with everything you could possibly need to create fantastic books. We just had to try this one out straight away.

After admiring the can itself, and thinking of all it's other uses once we've made all the books, we got down to business.

This kit comes with 3 little boxes for the accordion books, a house-shaped fold-up paper to make a long book, which you could cut up to make several short books. The house shape even has a door on the first page and windows, so your little artist can draw all the rooms in your house.

Scissors are included, along with a glue stick, a black marker, and some great quality colouring pencils. You get enough paper to fold up into 3 books for the boxes, plus some plastic windows to put on the front of the box to help you decorate it. You can place all sorts of pictures, photos, or small trinkets and keepsakes in these plastic pockets to tie in with your book.

My daughter (5yrs) set right to work. I sat beside her and went through the idea sheet that comes along with the kit, and she decided to do a book on 'How My Family Celebrate'. She chose to base her book on her 5th birthday party we had for her earlier on this year.

I helped her fold the paper accordion style, showed her how it would eventually go into the box and she started with her creation. The first page gets glued onto the lid of the box, and the last page gets glued onto the bottom of the box. Lift the lid and the book folds out to reveal a wonderful keepsake to be treasured. It then folds nicely back into the box.

The idea sheet has some wonderful ideas to get the creative juices running. My daughter is so proud of this book, she is eager to continue with her next one.

These kits have been made in the US by Eye Can Art and have already won multiple toy awards. They come with full instructions, and we are so very excited to have them in New Zealand. They are available now exclusively through The Crafti Bug.

So lets get some fantastic books going out there, and I'd love to see some photos of finished products.

'Honey I Shrunk the Bugs...'

2010-11-03T00:24:00.000-07:00

Shrinkles are their name, and shrinking is their game. The box says they shrink down to 7 times their size, and 7 times their thickness, and they do! How it works, I've got no idea, but they are super cool to watch.

This bumper box comes with a large number of bugs to colour in. You even get the colouring in pencils to colour with, although normal colouring in pencils work just as well.

Simply colour in the bugs and cut around the dotted line, it's important to make sure you leave the required border around the bug, otherwise you may loose some of the picture upon shrinking. You can make these into lots of different things, from key rings, badges, magnets, pencil toppers, rings, and more. If you are wanting to make them into key rings, you must punch a hole (using a hole punch) into the design before shrinking, otherwise there is no way you'll get a hole in it afterwards.

This is where the adults come into it (if you haven't already picked up a coloured pencil and coloured some of the designs as well). You'll need to heat your oven to 175 degrees C. It doesn't really matter what function you have it on, I used fan bake. Once it is up to temp, lay the design onto a flat tray on top of a piece of tinfoil, and place it into the oven, watch the magic happen!

Within a minute it curls and folds in on itself, and then when it has flattened right out again, it's done. Take it out of the oven, it'll be really pliable at this point which is what it needs to be, lay it on a flat surface (kitchen bench), and place a book or a placemat on top of it. This will flatten it completely, and it'll set hard. With these wiggly eyed bugs, now is the time to add the eyes, they have adhesive backs so just peel the backing off and stick em on.

Viola!, they have shrunk to 7 times their original size, and 7 times as thick, it's magic!

The bumper boxes come with everything you need to make a variety of different shrinkles. It even comes with a blank sheet of shrinkles plastic to trace or draw your own pictures and designs, draw them on, colour them in, shrink them down.

The party packs come with one design, and only one accessory, ie: a key ring, magnet strip, bagde pin etc. The party packs also don't come with any colouring pencils, but we just used the ones my kids already have.

So have fun and get your kids shrinking this summer.

Whose for a cup of Tea?

2010-10-11T17:56:00.000-07:00

If you're like me, you'll be so pleased that the school holidays have been and gone. Although I found these holidays a lot easier to keep my daughter amused than previous ones. We tested a few kits over the holidays and had lots of fun.

One kit we had an absolute ball in trying out is our Paint Your Own Mini Tea Set kit.

This is a 13-piece set, with four cups and saucers, a milk jug, sugar bowl and tea pot. It also comes with a paint strip and paint brush plus full instructions.

Now when it comes to painting this set, let your imagination go wild, my daughter sure did. They don't take very long to paint up and dry so they'll be ready for that first tea party in no time.

One thing I will say is, make sure that the saucers are completely dry before placing the cups on them otherwise they have a tendancy to stick together.

One of my customers has purchased this kit for a Mad Hatter's Tea Party, now that sounds like a lot of fun. If you have some other fun ways this kit can be used, we'd love to hear from you.

Spread the Word....

2010-09-15T15:46:00.000-07:00

Well it's been an exciting few weeks since my last blog. The Crafti Bug website is now live and ready for business. That was the easy part I've since found out. Getting everyone to the site is where the hard work comes in.

Marketing, marketing, marketing... hmm... I thought about shouting it from the rooftops but it was pouring with rain outside so I needed to come up with a dryer option...

Let's see... social media, now that's a happening thing in today's climate.. so Facebook was my port of call. I created a page dedicated to the craftiness of The Crafti Bug. I created an ad through Facebook to bring the page to your computers and hey presto, 55 likers! Thank you so much to all my current likers for clicking that button and joining me on this journey.

Kiwi Families is a website that seemed right up my alley... parents, children and fun! Check out this website and keep an eye out for The Crafti Bug popping up on a variety of pages... I'm everywhere!!

Also watch out for me in the November issue of the Littlies Magazine (shopping directory), I'm popping up in there too.

Whew!! that should be a great start in spreading the word, so now I'm going to go and try out some more kits, because if you're like me, you need to know exactly what you're getting yourself into when you are embarking on a craft project, and it's fun to watch my kids faces as they see their creations take shape... I've noticed they appreciate it more if they are involved in the making process.

So off I go, I'll blog about some of the kits I've tried and let you know how I get on. But in the meantime, check out the kits we have available and give them a try, you're kids will appreciate the time you spend with them, and it'll help alleviate that boredom they all seem to suffer from.

From dream to reality....

2010-07-21T17:12:00.000-07:00

Have you ever thought to yourself, 'what am I doing here?'.. well I did..

Where was I at the time? I was sitting at a craft market watching people pass me by, my wares that I'd spent hours pain-stakingly making displayed on a table in front of me. I'd poured literally blood, sweat and tears into these crafts and there I was sitting, smiling, hoping someone would buy them.

Don't get me wrong, I did sell a few things but not enough for me to stand back and say, I'm proud of myself, and 'I did that!!'... I was sitting there instead of spending time with my children and family for very little reward.

My daughter then started having some bad dreams, these dreams were waking her up at night. I stumbled across a craft kit to make a dream catcher in a shop one day. I bought it thinking it might help convince her that a bad dream is just that. My daughter saw this kit, and decided that she'd love to help me make it for her, so the two of us sat down and away we went.

This sparked an idea, why reinvent the wheel when there are so many great craft kits already out there for parents and children to bond over and have fun with. Why not share this experience with others? I thought... this one thought moved me into the direction I now find myself. The birth if you like of The Crafti Bug, a website specialising in cool crafts for kids (young and old!!).

I've started this blog to share the projects available on my site with you, I'm going to have a go at making these kits as well, so would love to share comments and thoughts so invite you all to come on this journey with me, and let's have some fun!