Kids Haus

My Mini Golf

How fun does this My Mini Golf set look?! When my brother and I were kids, we crafted a miniature golf course in our yard using various scraps of plastic and wood that we found in the garage - it's still one of my favorite childhood memories as we collaborated and schemed up fun ramps and roundabouts for the golf ball to follow. We literally played with miniature golf all summer long!

I find myself already thinking about how we're going to keep ourselves entertained this summer and this could quell a few of my quandaries. With an eight year old, the entertainment curve is substantially different than a three year old, so I've got to get creative. What I love about it is that I can envision throwing this set in the back of the car and heading anywhere with it and it's age appropriate for the whole family! Perhaps it's our modern day croquet?

Wooden Matching Memory Game

I was thrilled when I bumped into Lemon Tree Studio today and found that she hand-stamped forest imagery onto these wooden chips to make a Memory Game. I bought a bag of the same blank wooden chips over a year ago that I intended to screenprint for a personal project but I never got around to it. Instead, the girls' decorated a batch of them and pretended that they were coins (couldn't buy much with them though). So, to see that someone has actually taken these awesome wooden chips and made a really cute, creative game out of them is pretty inspiring and, seriously, what kid doesn't love a good Memory Game?

 

DIY: Lola's Butterfly Hairclips

Wendy emailed me back in January telling me about her adorable handmade Lola hairclips that she made for her son's friend who was having a Charlie & Lola themed birthday party. I think they're awfully sweet and the tutorial looks super easy...even for people who can barely sew...um, like me. I've been trying to figure out a good DIY project to do with the kids this week and I think this one could be just what we're looking for - especially since the girls' are all about decorating their hair these days! I'll let you know how it goes. Try it yourself by following Wendy's tutorial here...

 
 

Organic Cotton Finger Puppet Forest Friends by June Craft

Every once in a while I'll peek at who "hearts" my Etsy shop. Today, I found June Craft: Forest Friends Finger Puppets and am in love with them! I'm also a huge fan of her illustrations. These little finger puppets are printed using water-based inks and would make an easy on-the-go activity.

Blank Matryoshka Russia Nesting Dolls

I completely love the idea of painting and decorating my own set of Matryoshka Russia nesting dolls and I'm absolutely certain that the girls would love it too (hmmm, should I add it to the Christmas list?). The mini set has an incredibly mini doll buried deep inside and you know she would be the favorite! Traditional size and Mini size...

Smallabe Holiday Gift Guide

I feel fortunate to have been asked to participate in creating a holiday gift guide for one of my favorite online shops, Smallable. The challenge was to narrow down their incredible selection to only 8 gifts that would be fun for the little ones. I gravitated toward activity-driven gifts mostly because I really enjoyed watching my girls immerse themselves in their new projects or activities for several days or weeks after everything has wound down. Now for the best part: from December 7-21,  Smallable is offering 20% off of Kids Haus gift guide items using the code NOELKIDSHAUS at checkout. So, go ahead and take a closer look at a few of my favorite things and I hope you're enjoying the holiday season so far...

Jaq Jaq Bird Chalkmats

Grace from Jaq Jaq Bird kindly sent this awesome Damask Chalkmat over a couple weeks ago. As soon as I tore open the box, it was out of my hands within .05 seconds and in the clutches of my overanxious girls. After digging out a few pieces of our personal supply of broken chalk they scribbled away for about an hour - scribbling, wiping, scribbling, wiping. Then, when dinner came, we flipped it over and took advantage of it's placemat side. We don't typically use placemats at the dinner table but this quickly made me wonder why I don't because it made clean-up so much easier! One thing I would suggest is getting the Chalk Pens or Butter Chalk instead of the old-fashioned chalk since I found it to be a little temperamental on the plastic chalkmat surface. Coming up with a few creative eating games for the chalk side and I think I can keep my girls from jumping out of their chairs every 30 seconds!

 

Mibo Wise Guys

I found these little guys patiently waiting in my inbox this morning and had to share! From the company that brought us their bold and beautiful lamp shades, Mibo has just come up with this darling little family of Wise Guys as a downloadable/print-at-home-able kit for your very own. A fun DYI project when you have a little free time: simply print, cut and fold. You can bet that I'm putting these fellas in the "rainy day" category when my 7 year old experiences one of her "so bored" moments - this ought to perk things up a bit!

Flower & Herb Ice Cubes

C and I just returned from an incredible bike ride from our house into Old Ballard. It was a bike ride that always seemed daunting to me over the years - the hills that seemed so steep at one time were mere 5º inclines. What I had once thought would take me hours to ride into town and back home only took me 20 minutes each way. It was a great lesson in breaking down fears and now I can't wait to do it more often. I think we'll venture down to ride into the farmer's market this Sunday and have brunch at our new restaurant.

For a little refresher, we made some homemade lemonade with our flower & herb ice cubes that we made a couple of days ago. Our back yard has got several pots of deliciously scented herbs and plants that were perfect for our ice cube experiment. We plucked lemon verbena (if you don't have one in your yard, get one! It's a most amazing smell when you brush against it), rose geranium flowers & leaves and rosemary. We embedded our little bits of nature into our IKEA ice cube trays with a little water and, voila! we have beautiful ice cubes to drop into our fresh lemonade...hello summer!!

Summer!

Let me just announce that summer has made up for all of the whining that occurred during our tough winter months - she's been kind enough to give us a lovely dose of warmth and sun so that we can enjoy the greatness that summer has to offer. For starters, we planted a mini-garden (pictured below)! Our yard is fantastic but it doesn't have an ideal area for planting a garden at the moment. Next year, I hope to build a couple of big planter boxes so that we can have an abundance of fruits and veggies but I thought I'd start small and purchased a kiddie pool for a quick fix. A mere $7, I just drilled some holes in the bottom, filled it with dirt and transplanted our seedlings. We've got lettuce, kale, strawberries and a stalk of broccoli so far. The girls have been watering their little veggies but mostly have enjoyed digging around for pill bugs. I think this is the first year that I've begun to think that I could really get into this gardening stuff.

Here's C with her ice cream bar today - of course I made her take off her shirt to save it from a melted disaster. Summer! I hope you're enjoying yours...

Lotta Bruhn FREE downloadable stickers

Lately, I've been trying to stick to a semi-strict budget (just trying not to be frivolous) and have been on a major path to find creative things to keep my girls' engaged - summer is approaching after all. Lotta Bruhn has some sweet downloadable Space stickers and...the best part...they're free! These are going to be fun and I can already predict that they will be stuck on ceilings, mirrors...everything...thanks Lotta!

And while we're on the subject of Lotta, she's got a rather new addition to her alphabet animals: N is for Næsehorn (Rhinocerous) - isn't he fantastic?

Summer Play, Welcome May!

It's officially true, time literally flies! We'll be welcoming the month of May tomorrow which means that summer is on it's heels, which means that we can kick off our boots and slip on the flip-flops! I've learned that I can't dive into summers in Seattle without zeal because it will be over as quickly as you can say "SPF 60". I'm already feeling it. You know what I can't wait for? The beach! Taking the kids and the dog to the beach, having picnics and feeling the warm sun on my back. Letting the kids explore different things, playing without (much of) a time limit and going to bed feeling that satisfying type of exhaustion -- the kind that makes you realize that you probably just created some great memories. So, I couldn't help but pick a few things to inspire those thoughts...

Top left: Teak Swing, Top Right: Noted Matchstick Garden, Bottom Right: Beach Ball Sprinkler, Bottom Left: Terra Kids Key Ring Magnifying Glass

Miller Goodman ShapeMaker

This has got to be one of the coolest toys around and I honestly don't think I could have understood how imaginative the ShapeMaker was, had it not been for their excellent video. My girls have watched it a half dozen times already and found it completely entertaining -- I don't think we could get tired of the fabulous, organ grinder inspired music that goes along with it either, it's so fun. The Miller Goodman Shapemaker is essentially a set of 25 colorful, hand printed, environmentally friendly, rubber wood blocks with thousands of geometric possibilities. Enjoy!

Somethings Hiding In Here

I came across Something's Hiding In Here via Etsy about a month ago and added them to my favorites because I loved their You're home to me Gocco printed poplar house. Since I look at what seems like a million blogs and shops daily, they got lost in my shuffle but I was quickly reminded how much I loved their quirky, creative things when I peeked inside their Etsy shop today and adore everything they're producing -- like their Heart yo-yo and Faux bois blocks. For fun, you should also check out their video for their "You're home to me" wooden house -- it's bubbling with creativity too (of course).

Kidsonroof Totem Tree

Erika from Mikodesign mentioned that she had been at Kleine Fabriek in Amsterdam and saw Kidsonroof's newest cardboard creations. I'm such a fan of Kidsonroof's designs already and it's so great to see them really stretching their imagination. To explain the Totem Tree is a little tricky but it's essentially like building your own tree out of cardboard birds, birdhouses, leaves, mushrooms, apples and other pieces of printed plant and wood textures. It stands a bit over 2' high and seems like such a fun, creative way to spend an afternoon. Afterward, it becomes a work of art to display...

Villa Julia

A cross between a cardboard box and Fred Flinstone's house, the Villa Julia by Estudio Mariscal is my new favorite -- I could almost live in it if it had running water. I'm not sure where it would fit it in our house but the concept and design is extraordinary. It's somewhat of a game as it takes place in five phases: assembly, personalization, decoration, occupation and disassembly. The Villa Julia comes with a plan detailing the easy instructions for assembly; children set it up themselves (assisted by an adult) and make it their own by coloring the drawings found on the sides. I'm still trying to find out if it's available to purchase anywhere and will let you know what I find...

Update: The Villa Julia will be available in April, so I'll keep you posted and let you know when and where it will be available.