Pokemon Badge Stamps

I just thought I'd share a fun little stocking stuffer I made for L, who's still into all things Pokemon.

Hand carved Pokemon badge stamps.

I actually omitted a few of the more complicated designs, and I'm sure I'll hear about it later. LOL. What can I say, my arm got tired.

I think he'll like them anyhow.

Pokemon stamps. 

A Really Cute Craft Fail

I was browsing for gift ideas recently on Ravelry, and found a super cute Pokeball hat pattern for my Pokemon obsessed little boy.

Pokeball hat.

After he went to bed last night, I cranked out the hat in one sitting, only to realize that it was small. Very small. It barely fit V's teeny little 3 year old noggin. (The pattern was supposed to be for a teen/adult sized head. I must crochet way tighter than I thought.)

She called dibs on it, and is a happy little Pokemon trainer. I think I'm going to just to find a regular old men's hat pattern and alter it with the appropriate colors to fit L's man sized head...

T Shirt Week-Day 4: Who's That Pokemon? It's Charmander!

Not to be left out of all the t shirt making, L put in a request for a Charmander shirt. I traced the pattern through the shirt on this one, and then painted it, and touched up the outline with a sharpie after the fact.

DIY Charmander shirt.

(I promise I'll go back to making other stuff soon. Seriously...)

Pokemon Shrinky Dink Christmas Ornaments

Each year I try to make or buy the kids some ornaments that reflect whatever they're into that year. I'm hoping they'll end up with a fun collection to take with them when they're all grown up. (Although I can't bear to think of them actually growing up and moving out.)

Last year I ended up making the Yo Gabba Gabba cast, a couple of Transformers, and Max and Ruby.

You may remember these Spongebob ornaments I made recently. Both kids like Pokemon, so I decided to make another series of ornaments, with a few of their favorite characters.

As per my usual technique, these were traced from books. I've discovered through trial and error that I prefer the way these turn out when colored with colored pencils, instead of Sharpies.

DIY Clings for the Kids' Room

In a continued effort to appease my son's desire for all things Pokemon, without a) permanently altering everything in the house, and b) spending much money, I've come up with another Pokemon related project. I realize it's unlikely that many other kids are as into Pokemon as he is, but this is yet another project where you can just switch up the theme to match whatever your kiddo is into.
I actually made this project before his birthday, and used them as party decorations, before moving them to his room. I started with a package of printable window clings from the office supply store, found some clip art of characters he likes, and made high quality prints in various sizes. The resulting clings stick to glass, and other smooth surfaces, like the bookshelf and entertainment system. (They don't stick to our walls, though.) The great thing is that since they aren't stickers, when we're ready to take them off, we can, without leaving any sticky residue on the furniture.



This is one of those projects I really like. Maximum impact for minimum effort. My son is really impressed, and I didn't actually do much.

Pokemon Bath Toys

After making these Yo Gabba Gabba bath toys for V recently, I decided to try my hand at making some Pokemon toys for L. I started out freehand drawing them, and after having to scrap several versions, I moved toward tracing the characters. They're constructed of craft foam from the dollar store, and drawn with sharpies.

The kids have been happily playing with these for several weeks, in fact, I can't make them fast enough for L, who wants dozens of Pokemon characters.

Pokemon Table

Here's a little project I did last week for my son.
It was a bit of a learning experience for me. It's been years since I Mod Podged anything. I forgot that it dries VERY quickly. While I was working, I was talking on the phone to my mom, and ultimately, the glue dried before I had managed to smooth out all the wrinkles, and gotten the placement just right. Oh well, my son likes it, and the $12 Lack table from Ikea was destined for the trash anyway, as the kids had beaten it up pretty badly.
I scanned and printed some pictures for the table from one of L's Pokemon Magazines.
It's just the right size for my son to sit at and draw, or play Legos.



Added to the linky at Sew Can Do.

Pokemon Book Project

L has fallen in love with Pokemon magazines and comic books. He loves to pore over the pages, and investigate every detail of every picture.

A while back, he and I collaborated on his idea to make his own Pokemon magazines. We've been folding up large pieces of construction paper, booklet style, and drawing illustrations on the "pages." He occasionally dictates some narration to me, which I write for him.

We recently upgraded this idea by buying him a good quality, large spiral sketchpad to make his own Pokemon book. He's been diligently working on it, drawing a few pages at a time.

He's having so much fun, and as a side note, it's a good opportunity for him to work on his fine motor skills.

I figure this is one of those, "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" situations. Some of the doctors and his OT have suggested that we try to sway him away from his "narrow interests." (Obviously, right now it's Pokemon.) I've tried it before, with limited success. I figure as long as he's willing to try to meet me halfway, I'll try to work with what he's interested in, when possible. The whole "draw me a picture, and then tell me about it" thing is pretty standard pre-k/k fare. In this case, he just gets to choose his own topic, instead of me choosing for him.

(In case you're wondering, I'd be hard pressed to tell you what this picture is of. He carefully draws the Pokemon, and then draws their "attacks," aka, scribbles all over them. He knows what they are though, and can narrate a picture he drew several days before.)

Pokemon Psyduck Bag

As an afterthought, I realized I had previously forgotten to take pictures of this felt tote bag, which I made for L for his birthday. It's the right size to stash a couple of books and a snack in.

The Psyduck applique was machine stitched onto the bag.

I love the way this turned out, but I had a hard time getting a decent picture of it.






(By the way, most of my pictures have little fingers or toes in the way. Have you noticed?) :)

Pokemon Unit Study

Several months ago, I started scouring Ebay for Pokemon books for L. I ended up buying several lots, and they were part of his birthday gift. As I anticipated, he wanted to take a break from learning about bugs to focus on his new books. Why not, right?

In addition to the pile of picture books and chapter books we're reading, there are several other books we're using to flesh out this little unit.

Let's Find the Pokemon 2 is a Where's Waldo type book, but with Pokemon, of course. There are lots of things to find and investigate.



This Pokemon Diamond and Pearl Sticker Collection book by Dk is good fine motor practice, since you have to carefully place the stickers in the correct place. (L loves these sticker books.)



This Pokemon Spelling Workbook is really more of a handwriting book. It's somewhat above L's level, but we're going to work with it, because he wants to try.



The Pokemon Counting Book covers numbers up to twenty.



The Pokemon Write Your Own Adventures book, sort of reminds me of Mad Libs. The story is partially completed, and the child just fills in the blanks, and colors the pictures.

We've been trying our hand at drawing Pokemon, using the books How to Draw Pokemon, and How to Draw the Newest Pokemon.



Here's my attempt at a Beedrill:



And his version of Arbok:



There are several origami Pokemon books out there, but I wasn't able to get my hands on one. I think that would have been a neat addition.

We're also going to be doing some collage type pictures with some of the leftover stickers, and confetti, and streamers from his birthday party, since they fit theme, as well as trying to construct some pokemon from Play Doh or Model Magic.

I also made this Pokemon counting game, and this Pokemon letter sounds game.

Finally, there are TONS of coloring sheets and other crafts and printables at the DTLK Pokemon page.

Make a Counting Game, Personalized to Your Child's Interests

I whipped up a little counting game in print shop for L. Basically, it just consists of 3 rows of 4 squares. In the first row, are the written words for the numbers, in the second row is the numeral, and the third row of squares is left blank. After printing and cutting out the squares, the blank squares are filled with the appropriate amount of stickers.

The goal is to match the correct 3 cards together. I got the idea from a puzzle set L has, along the same lines.

Since I saved the basic template, when I want to make a new game, with different numbers, or a different type of stickers, it's no big deal to print a new game, I just have to fill in the new information. Easy right?

I made a set for our upcoming bug unit, and also a Pokemon set. When L gets proficient at these numbers, I'll print a new set, with higher numbers...

Pokemon Party

Saturday was L's Pokemon themed, fifth birthday party. He was surrounded by most of his favorite people, and had a great day.
Here are some pics of the event, including some of my crafty decorative endeavors.


The cupcakes, with little Pokemon figurines from Ebay.


L saw me making all kinds of things for the party, and drew this Pokemon poster.


The Pin the Tail on the Pikachu game ended up being pretty funny. The kids all cheated and peeked..


This was a Feed the Munchlax bean bag game. The Pokeball hanging on the wall held the apple shaped bean bags for the game.


This was supposed to be Professor Oak's laboratory, where you could "choose your Pokemon." The kids got to choose which colors of those little capsule encased sponge animals they wanted, and then we dropped them into jars of water, and watched to to see what they turned into.


Here were a few of our snacks. I came up with themed names for everything, "Magikarp crackers", (goldfish,) etc.


L saw this pinata at Target, and told me it looked like Cloyster, the Pokemon. I was happy to buy it, since it meant I wouldn't have to make the DIY Pokeball version I had been thinking about...


It was very hard to open, though, so eventally after everyone had several turns trying to crack it, I had to tear it open, as shown here. Hahaha.


Among the silliest gifts my son received was this enormous jar of Candy Corn, which is his favorite candy.


Both kids had fun, and went to bed last night exhausted, and full of candy. Good thing birthdays only come once a year...


(The kids are wearing the shirts I blogged about here.)

DIY T Shirts for the Kids

I got the bright idea a while back that the kids oughtta have some cool shirts to wear to L's party. I can't find any Pokemon clothes locally though, so I decided to make some.
(The original idea was to do some felt appliques, like the Yo Gabba Gabba ones I've posted about previously.)
The only thing is, I didn't. I never made them, and now my sewing machine is on the blink, and there isn't much time left. The shirts have been lying in the massive pile of junk on the desk for about a month.
Tonight I came up with a quicker idea. I printed out a large image of what I wanted on the shirt, and just traced it.



The result is sort of a DIY punk version of what I originally had in mind. I used fabric markers, but it actually looks like I drew them with Sharpies. (I suppose you could do that too.) The kids love them though. I made baby V a Foofa shirt, in the same manner, and she put it on before I could take a picture of it.

Make a Letter Sound Game, Personalized to Your Child's Interests

My son's chief interest right now is Pokemon. We've been taking a somewhat child led approach to unit studies lately, with me saying "What do you want to learn?" and then trying to accommodate L as much as possible. His first answer is always Pokemon, but we generally end up going with his second answer, since there are only so many things to learn about Pokemon. He's having a Pokemon birthday party in a couple of weeks, and I figured we'd do a fun little Pokemon unit afterwards, since we're getting him some new Pokemon books for his b-day.

I put together this little game for him, using cardstock, and Pokemon stickers. The gist of it is that I'll ask him to pick a card, tell me what the Pokemon's name is, and then have him try to find the letter that the name starts with, by sounding it out.

Now I know, your kids probably aren't obsessed with Pokemon. Maybe they like Thomas the Train, or Sesame Street characters, or zoo animals. This would be easy to adapt to nearly any theme, as long as you can find stickers that go with the theme.

Fun Foam Pokemon Party Decorations

I've said before that I can't draw or paint, and it's true, I can't. I really never progressed much past stick figures. I had a bit of a craft fail today, when I was trying to paint the features on some decorations for my son's party. They turned out pretty awful.
I trashed them, and started over using craft foam, which is somehow more forgiving. I ended up with these. (Jigglypuff and Oddish, for those of you who don't eat, sleep, and breathe Pokemon like we do...) L tried taking them away to play with them, so I took that as a thumbs up. You could adapt this to all kinds of characters, and an older kid, who was more adept with the scissors could make their own.


P.S. I'm planning on making a few more, and then positioning them in the backyard, as if they're in their own "habitat." The kids are going to be hunting for Pokemon cards and eggs, and I thought these would be cute in that area.)

P.P.S. Jigglypuff's feet are sort of out of scale. They're huge. Whatever. My kids are young enough to not notice the difference. :)