I love this easy craft over at the SNAP! blog.  Make Thor’s hammer as an easy weekend project or a fun party activity!

Craft kits are easy on the parents and fun for the kids!   Our Marvel Super Hero interchangeable bottle cap necklace kits allow your child to sport a different super hero everyday of the week!

Kids love to get crafty in the kitchen, and this Captain America cake from Me and My Insanity would be the perfect desert to accompany any super hero themed party!

You can’t go wrong with free Avengers coloring pages from Disney Family.com.  Visit their site several different versions you can download and print!

Love this DIY super hero shield from Art School Dropout. You will never guess what she up cycled to make this craft!

Unleash your child’s inner super hero with this cute DIY cape tutorial from Georgia Leigh!

Happy Crafting!

2.  Use words of praise during crafting.  ”Wow!”, “Thant’s Awesome”, “Way to Go!”, and “You’re So Talented” are all encouraging to your child and make them feel great about the work they are doing!

3.  Get all of the materials for the craft organized ahead of time so your child does not lose interest while you are locating the glue gun or paint sets.

4.Display your child’s work of art when they are finished.  Let them show off and feel proud of their work!

5.  Don’t try to do the project for your kids.  Crafting isn’t perfect, and while it might not be the way you would do it, their way needs to be good enough!

6.  Get your child’s opinion on what they want to make, and give them some control over their creativity.  Your child will be more interested in making a craft they have chosen about a subject they are interested in.

7.  Create a project calendar to build excitement about the projects you will be making that month.  Build your calendar around holidays and create projects for a certain season like Christmas or Halloween.  Think beyond the holidays and build your calendar around themes such as animals, favorite books, science, etc!

8.  Go outside to craft! Don’t be limited by crafting at the kitchen or dining room table.  Set up a blanket under a shade tree and be inspired by nature!  It also makes cleanup a breeze!

9.  Make it a game!  Gather up all of your left over craft supplies from previous projects or craft kits and have a craft challenge!  Give awards for most creative, wackiest idea, and most supplies used in one project.  The possibilities are endless!

10.  Just have fun!  If your child sees you are having fun they will have fun, and craft time will become an amazing bonding experience for you both.

How do you encourage your child to craft?  Please feel free to share your tips in the comments section!  We would love to hear from you!

I hope all of you mom’s had an amazing Mother’s Day yesterday!  I was able to get out for the first time in a week, and I was absolutely giddy!  The day started off with breakfast in bed made by my two boys!  A cup of coffee and a peanut butter and banana tortilla!  Love that they came up with such a sweet breakfast especially since they can’t use the oven or the stove….or reach the microwave for that matter.  Ha!  The addition of homemade cards made it the perfect start to my day!

The rest of the day was spent walking around town, attending a farmers market, visiting our favorite ice cream shop, planting our vegetable garden and roasting s’mores over the fire pit!  Awesome day!

What did you do this weekend?  

I hope it was filled with family, friends, and lots of fun!

If you would like your child featured in a Freckles Crafty Kid post, please email a photo of your child with their Freckles Crafts project and a testimonial about your experience to info@frecklescrafts.com!

About uKnowKids:

The concept of uKnow.com was born in June of 2009. The team developed an online service that makes it easier for you to connect to your child’s digital world. Their technology helps protect kids from predators, bullies and sexting. Unlike parental control software, uKnow.com enables parents to “have their child’s back” without constantly looking over their shoulder. By giving parents the information they need to educate and engage their children about staying safe online and smarter tools to supervise their children in a digital world, uKnow.com helps make technology safer for kids and less intimidating for parents. And by supplementing this proactive approach to parenting social and mobile kids with a notification and reporting system to inform parents if their child becomes intertwined in a risky situation, uKnow.com provides parents with uniquely smart tools to help keep our kids safe.

Service Features:

• Identification of your child’s social network profiles, even if they are hidden
• Comprehensive social monitoring of Facebook, MySpace and Twitter
• Android and Blackberry call history and text message monitoring
• Location monitoring
• Detailed daily activity reports and much more.

How it works:

1. Register an account
2. Select your subscription.  You can chose from an always-free, Essential account, or the popular Premier service which includes advanced features for as little as $9.95 per month or a Premier + account which adds social media training and hands-on tech support.
3. Set up your child profiles.

Easy Peasy!  

As a special gift to Freckles Crafts readers I have been given a limited number of free access codes to allow you to get started using the uKnowKids service immediately! These access codes are on a first come first serve basis while supplies last so if you would like one please leave a comment below and I will send the special access code to you via email.

I am so happy there are companies like uKnowKids who are helping parents in the fight against cyber bullying and making technology safer for our children!  

disclaimer:
This is a sponsored post by uKnowKids.com.  I received a free service activation as part of my review.  100% of the opinions regarding this product are mine.  Information and images used to compile this post were taken from the uKnowKids.com website with their permission.   

I have been thinking a lot about my shop lately, and how I would like to shape the future of this business.  I have been projecting, planning, and keeping a journal of ideas but no direction will matter if you, the customer (and the reason for this business), are not on board!

I really want to hear from you.  I want to know what YOU WANT in a craft kit, from my blog, and from your overall Freckles Crafts experience!  I have put together a super quick survey (10 questions total) that would really help me to know you better and the best way I can serve your family in the future.

This survey is completely anonymous so don’t feel like you need to hold anything back.  Be completely honest!  Thank you in advance for taking the time to complete this survey.  I appreciate it!

Rebecca

Hosting a craft supply swap is a great way to give new life to materials that would otherwise be thrown out or collecting dust on a shelf.  It is also a great excuse for a fun night out, catching up with friends, and acquiring some new craft products to play with.

So let’s get planning!

Create a guest list-

Now this step will take some thought.  You might be tempted to call all of your closest girlfriends; however, I would urge you to only invite guests who actually CRAFT!  While your best friend or favorite co-worker might be the sweetest person ever, unless she crafts or has kids she may not have a lot to offer this party by way of craft supplies.  Just saying.  It may also be helpful to think about the type of crafting your guests participate in.  Are they mostly knitters, jewelry makers, sewers, or general crafters?  If you end up with ten knitters and only two jewelry makers there might not be enough variety in craft materials to satisfy your guests.

It is also important to take into consideration the number of invitees.  A good rule of thumb is to figure out the number of guests that would make an ideal party and add 20% to the guest list.  Just because someone RSVP’d does not mean they will actually show up.  Last minute situations may arise causing some guests to have to cancel, and having more guests on your invitation list will allow room for no shows.

Save the Date:

Pick a day and time that you anticipate working best with the schedules of your guests.  Do most of your guests work?  Then an evening party might be better.   Do a lot of your guests have school aged children?  Then why not plan a morning swap after school drop off?  Also make sure to plan around holidays, or times when school may be out of session to make sure you will not be competing with other events.  Send the invitation at least a month in advance to allow your guests enough time to purge their craft closets and prepare their swap items.

Set the Swap Rules:

Decide how your swap will work.  One idea is to go around the room having each guest take a turn picking an item until all of the items are gone.  This system is very simple and will require minimal effort to plan.

Another option, which requires a little bit more planning up front, is to create a ticket system for shopping. Prior to arriving at the party have your guests determine the retail value of each item they would like to swap.  Tickets will be given to guests based on the value of the items they bring.  For example, items with a value between $1.00-$5.00 will receive one ticket, $6-$10 two tickets, and so on.  So if a guest brings three items, each with a value of $8.00, that guest will receive 6 tickets to shop with.  This system will help alleviate any unfairness that may arise from some guests bringing more items to swap, or an item that is higher in retail price.

Make sure to include this information with your invitation so guests will know exactly what to expect when they arrive.   It is also a nice touch to provide your guests with an idea of items they could swap.  Included in this list may be: craft books or magazines, scrapbook materials, craft tools, kid’s crafts, yarn, fabric, beads, stamps, etc.  Anything goes that is craft related and in good condition.  Remind guests to bring their own bags to shop with so that they have something to take their new items home in!

Prepare your swap items:

Clean out your craft stash!  Be brutally honest with yourself here.  Yes the idea to learn how to knit may have been exciting, but have you even touched those knitting needles and 9 skeins of yarn in the past year?  Make sure all of the craft supplies that you will swap are in good shape and usable (no almost empty bottles of Aileen’s Tacky Glue please!)  If you do not have the original packaging for your items then place the materials in a clear zip lock storage bag.  Also if you are bringing tools make sure they are clean, in working order, and have any necessary owner’s manuals included.

Set Up Shop:

The day of the party tidy up your home, clear away clutter, and create shopping zones for guests.  Think about how you can arrange your home to look like a store.  Can you display items on shelves, bring out extra tables, and even use pretty bowls or baskets to display products? Can you cover the tables with pretty fabric or table cloths?  This step is not meant to be a stressful chore but it will be more fun for everyone to shop in a well organized and visually appealing “store”.

Once you have decided where everything will go, then make simple signs to designate each shopping zone.  The swap rules will determine this step.  If you are doing a ticket based swap you will need to designate areas based on the value of the items or tickets needed to “purchase” each item.  If you are having guests take turns choosing items and forgoing tickets then you can set up the shop by categories which may include: knitting, kids crafts, scrapbooking, card making, stamping, wood crafts, craft tools, etc.

Party Time:

Ask guests to arrive an hour before the swap will begin.  This will allow you enough time to set out the craft supplies, and this also gives your guests a chance to mingle and peruse the swap items.  Provide light appetizers or a simple desert and a drink such as coffee, wine, or bottled water.  Make sure to provide plenty of seating for guests while they await their time to shop.  Prior to shopping, remind guests of the general rules for the swap.

Wrap It Up:

At the end of the party give guests the option to take home any supplies they brought that were not swapped.  Consider donating all of the left over items to charity.  Homeless shelters, schools, and churches can always use craft materials, and your donation would be a welcomed one!

When I heard the Queen Bee Market was going to be a part of the SNAP! conference I was soooooooo excited!  I have been wanting to attend this event for three years now but unfortunately it usually takes place in California.  For some reason my husband doesn’t agree that I should buy a plane ticket to fly out there and shop for a weekend (I can’t understand why not, ha!)  Needless to say I was pretty pumped I would finally get to whiteness all of the greatness this market has to offer!

To say I have a soft spot for craft shows is an understatement, and attending this market could not have come at a better time for me.  I am preparing for my summer show schedule, and it was awesome to see all of the creative booth setups and ways to display merchandise!  If you have been reading this blog for a while now then you know that I am always looking for cute ways to display my products and design my show space (I talk about it here, here, and here!).  The vendors at the Queen Bee Market are known for their amazing booth setups, and I got so many great ideas that I plan to implement into my own show space!  Below are photos of just a few booths I was able to photograph before it got too crowded with shoppers.  Enjoy, and try not to be too jealous of the amazing shopping I got to do, ha!

Vintage Fern

The Pleated Poppy

Sweet Old Stuff

Salty Bison

Gussy Sews

Miss Plunkett

Knitty Bitties

Hoopla

Hope you enjoyed this recap! Have you been to a conference recently? If so which one? Did it meet all of your expectations and beyond? Feel free to share your experiences here!

Part 2 is all about the learning.  There were some incredible classes offered, and conference attendees had their choice of classes ranging from Basic SEO, to learning how to use power tools, and everything in between!  I mean look at these options, and this was only one day!

While I wanted to attend them all, I chose to stick with the business centered classes because I felt like I would get the most out of them. SNAP did an amazing job at recapping some of the classes for us so I will point you to their blog where you can read the class notes if applicable.  If you have further questions feel free to ask, and I will do my best to answer! Here are just a few highlights from my favorite classes!

Photo by Emilie

I attended an amazing four hour photography class taught by Emilie of Photo by Emilie!  I was so excited about this class because it has been one of my goals for this year to learn how to use my camera!  She did an amazing job showing us how to take our DSLR cameras from auto and to manual.  I was so lost at first but with a little practice I started getting the hang of things and ended up with some pretty nice shots over the weekend!  I also ended up with a LOT of blurry photos which just proves practice makes perfect! Thank goodness for all of the lovely ladies who are willing to share photos with me and for the SNAP Flikr group or my weekend would be a blur (pun intended, ha!)

Happy Chaos:  Turning Your Passion Into Business

The panel for this class was amazing!  Lindsey from The Pleated Poppy, Ashley from Little Blue Boo, Jessica from Allora Handmade, and Liz from Dear Lizzy led this class.  Who could ask for more inspiration in one room!  Seriously!  I was so excited about this class that I was one of the first people in the room which was good because it was a full house! People were standing, sitting on the floor, and some were even in the hallway trying to listen in.  It was awesome, and I learned so much listening to how these women grew their businesses, balance work and family, and also how they took their passion to the next steps!  One of the best parts of this class is speaking with Lindsey from the Pleated Poppy and Maggie from Gussy Sews (who was in the audience) after the scession.  Two of my biggest business role models in one place and I got to learn from them both.  Wooohooo!  It was awesome!  I am of course playing it really cool in the photo below (inside I was jumping up and down like a little school girl, hehehe!)

Inside a Thriving Business:  The Turning Point

This was another awesome class moderated by Jessica of Allora Handmade and lead by Becki of Whippy Cake, Maggie of Gussy Sews, Susan of Freshly Picked and Gina of The Shabby Creek Cottage.  (please excuse the awful iPhone photo!)

This class was amazing.  It was all about taking your business to the next level.  Knowing when to hire, how to expand, dealing with copyright issues, gaining exposure, and setting goals!  Each of these women brought a different perspective and strength to the panel which made for an amazing discussion and learning opportunity!

Everything You Wanted To Know About Facebook Applications

This class had my head spinning!  If you are having a difficult time adjusting to the new Facebook timeline then you HAVE to read the conference recap on the SNAP Blog.  I feel so much better after attending this scession and I am actually quite excited about all of the possibilities that the new timeline can offer my business.  Careful though, because with the new design has also come some new rules on content, what is allowed in a header design, and most importantly new rules on using Facebook for Giveaways!

Basics of SEO

Another class that made a huge impact on me.  There was so much information in this class and I feel like I really could have used even more.  This class was taught by Dennis Geodegebuure who really knows his stuff.  The class was also moderated by Mandi of Vintage Revivals (who by the way is awesome) and she swears after putting into practice what she learned from Dennis that traffic to her website tripled!!!  You can visit Dennis’ website to learn more about SEO and he is also supposed to be adding the slides from his lecture to his site soon.  I did not see them posted quite yet so check back soon.

These classes were just a small glimpse into all that was offered at SNAP! I also had the privilege of taking a morning light photography class with Kristen Duke, a craft workshop with Poppy Seed Projects, and a class on how to use power tools!  So much fun!

Stay tuned for part 3!  I have possibly saved the best for last–The Queen Bee Market!

Just Being Myself:

Last year was my first conference and I spent most of my time lost, a little lonely, and extremely intimidated by all of the amazing women in the room.  What changed for me this year, aside from having one conference notch on my belt, was my attitude. I decided to focus on observing, learning, and most importantly just being myself!  This was not easy given the amazingly talented women I was coming in contact with (and trust me there are some SUPER talented ladies at this conference.  The who’s who of the craft world if you will!)  But you know what, being myself worked!  I took that theme to heart by switching my attitude to one of learning and appreciation for the people around me, and not trying to be someone I wasn’t to impress others, I was less intimidated and got so much more out of this conference!  I was more relaxed, had more fun, and I think that opened me up to a richer conference experience that I would have had if I focused on my insecurities!

Photo Credit: amycornwell.com

I love that the SNAP team announced the conference theme as Just Be You based off of this beautiful necklace design by Amy Cornwell.  All 325 conference attendees were given a necklace as a token of the weekend. How lucky can you get!

The Power of Women (and twelve men!):

I loved being able to reconnect with friends, and meet so many new people that I can not wait to keep in touch with and learn from. The power of being surrounded by these amazing women (and twelve men whom I did not meet but am sure their positive energy added great things to the weekend, ha!) gives me strength to keep plugging away at my business, and uplifted me to continue to believe in myself and my abilities!

Loved hanging with these girls all weekend!  Natalie from Johnny In a Dress, Heather from A Couple of Craft Addicts, me and Jen from Scissors and Spatulas.  Thanks Jen for sharing your pics!

The best roommate ever!  She had me laughing at her stories until all hours of the night!  Heather from A Couple of Craft Addicts!

Loved getting to know Jess from Sparkle Pants Girl, Amy from Pink Bow Bath Boutique, (my roomie Heather) and Joanna from Baked by Joanna who disappeared just in time for me to take a photo!

I was terrible about taking photos of people this weekend but there were many, many more ladies that made my weekend so much fun!  Bev from Flamingo Toes, Sara from Mom Endeavors, Tara from Tara Dara Made It…the list goes on and on.  You know who you are and you all are awesome!

Why SNAP! totally Rocks!

SNAP was a gathering of 325 shop owners and bloggers from the handmade community.  I could really stop there and it would be enough said, ha!  But seriously, this conference went off without a hitch.  From the minute we arrived the scenery and accommodations at Thanksgiving Point were breathtaking.  The entire weekend we were surrounded by beautiful mountains, blankets of brightly colored tulips, and a creatively decorated event venue that would make Martha Stewart giddy!  Tauni and her team (the Snapettes as they are affectionately called) left no detail unattended and their hard work, creativity, and passion for the handmade community came shining through!  I am so honored to have been a part of the weekend and can not wait to see what the future holds for SNAP!

Photo Credit: Sweet Rose Studio

Photo Credit: My Insanity

Wow, see why I need to break this up into parts!  Stay tuned for Part 2- what I learned!

Photo Credits Where Noted: Sweet Rose Studio, Scissors and Spatulas, My Insanity