Flying with kids?

SuperME pink backpack, toddler backpack

SuperME heroes with their pink backpacks, the Bubblicious.

SuperME cool backpacks are great travel companions for toddlers to kindergartners, like these two girls with their pink backpacks, the Bubblicious.

Don’t forget to put some essentials in their own backpacks: an empty bottle of water to refill after the security control, some snacks and something to play with like crayons, coloring pages, play dough, little cars or small dolls are great options to keep them busy. Colorful post-it notes are a fun, multi-purpose toy. Young ones like peeling off the sheets and crumpling them. Slightly older ones like using them to draw, practice their letters and numbers.

They carry the traditional toys to play with while you carry the electronics. A laptop, iPad or iPod will grab their attention when they are done with their toys.

In addition to toys, we like to pack a spare clothes, including a sweatshirt and extra underwear in their backpacks.  Between flight delays and packed planes, its always better to be prepared.

What are the essentials you never forget to pack when you are going to fly with your little ones?

Shake your bones in Halloween.

A few days ago, we shared with our SuperME friends an easy craft idea for Halloween: cat ears. As we were playing with felt, we thought it would be great to do something more challenging. And Daphne came up with this idea: Bones, the skeleton!.

You need:

  • Black t-shirt and pants.
  • White soft felt.
  • Adhesive fabric like this one.

Process:

  • Draw the bones on paper. Cut the bones out of the paper and use them to draw the bones on the felt and the adhesive fabric.
  • Simplify the process by drawing a tibia for arms and legs, the rib cage and the pelvis.
  • Cut the bones out of the felt, and cut the silhouette out of the adhesive fabric slightly narrower than the felt silhouette.
  • Iron the white felt bones to the black fabric with the adhesive fabric in between following the instructions of the adhesive fabric.

And now, shake your bones!

Halloween cat ears

What are you going to be for Halloween this year? , If you ask this to a preschooler, they will give you more than one answer. Jump to this opportunity to involve them in an easy craft like these Cat ears. Aren’t they cute?.

You need:

  • A head band.
  • Black stiff felt.
  • Glue or hot glue.

Process.

  • Draw and cut a diamond shape on a paper. Later use this shape to draw the ears on the stiff felt.  The stiff felt is better than soft felt because the ears will stand up on their own.
  • Mark the places where you want the ears to be on the head band.
  • Glue the ears to the head band. Keep the ears in their place by folding them along a diagonal, and glue them to the head band.  Later, glue the two resulting triangles together.

Be creative and imagine other animal’s ears like…

Things we loved at ABC Kids Expo.

We just returned from the ABC Kids Expo, the largest show of new products for babies, children and mothers.  It was an eventful, and a bit tiring 4 days.  While we were there to exhibit SuperME, we did manage to find time to check out the cool new things from other companies.  Here are 6 of our favorite new things we found at the show.

Long Pond company and SuperME at ABC

Rena Stern, SuperME’s co-founder, with Carlo the frog from Long Pond Company.

  1. Long Pond Company, www.longpondcompany.com – Sweetest baby gifts and toys like blocks, books and step stools from the sweetest little old couple in upstate New York.  They HAND-MAKE everything.  She does the drawings, he builds them.  By Hand! All the pictures are based on their kids, pets, friends, neighbors.  Autographed alphabet books for our kiddos!  Amazing quality.  We fell in love with their character Carlo the Frog.

    Ogosport, a great line of fun lightweight toys

    Ogosport, a great line of fun lightweight toys.

  2. Ogosport, www.ogosport.com– A great line of fun lightweight toys with great design features making them super-easy to use, great for park, beach or backyard play and cool line of building toys called BILD.  They are all about designing products that encourage active play.  We had a great time playing with surprisingly lightweight OgoDisks during down times at the show.

    Girls look cute wearing a SuperME Bubblicious backpack and mask.

  3. Girls Look Cute, www.girlslookingcute.com – Life-sized paper doll, technically made of wood, but wood doll doesn’t sound as good.  They are promoting them as a way to help girls plan their outfits and get dressed in the morning. This pink backpack looks great!.

    Neon tiki tribe characters

    Neon Tiki Tribe characters.

  4. Neon Tiki Tribe, www.neontikitribe.com– A new line of super-positive superhero books. What we really love is that they use a dyslexic font that has been specially designed to make reading easier for dyslexic children, important because 1 in 10 children struggle from dyslexia.

    Mixie baby

    Mixie baby, first baby formula bottle that can be fixed now and mixed later.

  5. Mixie baby bottles, www.mixiebaby.com – Baby bottles that can be put together where the formula is mixed in later. We both loved this is wonderful for travel, taking to the park, whatever!  Wish they had these when our kids were younger.

    Easy play house.

    Easy play house.

  6. These are easy-to-assemble cardboard playhouses that kids can decorate. Even we could assemble in less than 5 minutes. Kids get to color on it. Double-sided.  We think it’s a great option to entertain the kids in bad weather days when they can’t go out and play.

Do you like these products?, which one is your favorite?.  Leave us a comment.

A Halloween recipe.

Less than three weeks to go until Halloween. It is time to share activities, ideas and decorations to get into the Halloween mood. Boooo!

This is a suggestion for a Halloween recipe, something without sugar, something creepy. Try this slime recipe. It is a borax free recipe which uses corn starch. The result of the recipe is a gooey substance which will creep on your kids hands, even toddlers can play with it. It is a bit messy, but don’t panic, some water wash out any rest of the slime on clothes, furniture or hands. So we recommend making the recipe and playing with it outdoors. And when they are done, just keep the slime in a container/bag to keep it moist.

Ingredients:
1 cup of warm water.
Food coloring.
2 cups of cornstarch.

Process:
Use warm water to better dissolve the cornstarch. Hot water from the tap is warm enough for this purpose.
Add the cornstarch a little at a time, and blend the mixture until smooth. You can use cooking utensils or your hands. And kids will be happy of giving you a hand.
Add the food coloring. Let your kids be creative choosing the color or stick to the orange for Halloween.
If you think the slime is too runny, just add a little more of cornstarch, or more warm water if the slime is too thick.

A special trick? add smell to the slime with some spice powder like cinnamon, clove or cardamom.

Enjoy this recipe and don’t forget to share your comments.

Birthday Party!

Birthday parties here and there, birthdays parties everywhere!! But this its time is your turn, we mean your little one’s turn and you want to make this event super special. It doesn’t matter if you are a crafty mom, a DIY mom or a working mom, you are probably super-busy and always on the lookout for easy birthday party ideas.

So here are some pictures and fun ideas we used recently for Superhero themed birthday parties.

 

Party banner to welcome all our friends:

Keep the kids busy with fun competitions like Superhero flight, aka ‘who can jump the farthest’.

SuperME birthday activity, jumping competition

Ask little Superheros to show, not tell, all about their latest exciting adventures.

SuperMe hero birthday activities, patches for cool backpack

Delight the guests with a raffle. Some prizes big, like this cool backpack, some prizes small, big smiles for all!

boys backpacks, preschool backpacks, kids backpack, cool backpack

Little Superhero flying high in the sky. Later use as a thank you note.

Its not a party without a Superhero cake!, want a slice?

Tell us what you think, what are your creative party ideas?