No, it’s not the name of my new romance novel. It’s this…Flying Wish Paper by Hux Creative! Write a wish on the special paper, ignite it, and watch your wish float away, granted. Does this kit actually work? Or will the fickle realities of wish-granting manifest themselves? Our brave yet tempestuous heroine, Katie, tempted cruel fate and tested the kit in her dining room. Take it away Katie!
I have to admit, I was skeptical. When I read the instructions for the Flying Wish Paper and it specifically says “best used as an indoor product,” I wasn’t sure how it was going to work and not burn my house down. Armed with my kitchen fire extinguisher, I pulled my son away from his homework to be the official tester, and we got started making wishes.
The kit contains 15 sheets of Flying Wish Paper, 5 paper platforms for your wishes, a special mini pencil, and a set of instructions. It retails for $12 at our local Paper Source. The first part of the kit is easy enough. You think of a special wish and write it on the Flying Wish Paper, which closely resembles tissue paper. If you choose, you can slide the Wish Platform (more on that shortly) under your Wish Paper to help you write more easily. Our Wish Platform had a gorgeous picture of blossoming cherry trees on it, but there are many other images in different kits to choose from.
Once you have written your wish, crumble the Wish Paper into a ball about the size of a marble. Next, carefully unwrap and smooth out the paper so it is flat, albeit crinkled from being smashed into a ball.
Once the paper is flat, roll it into a tube using the darkened circle on the Wish Platform as a guide. The tube needs to be open enough to allow the Wish Paper to easily burn, just like a chimney. Stand your Wish Paper upright on the Wish Platform and you are ready to send it to the heavens!
This is when I became a little nervous. I was going to light paper on fire inside of my home. Rather, I was going to let my son (who was thrilled to have full parental permission to strike a match indoors) LIGHT PAPER ON FIRE INSIDE OUR HOUSE! It took a few tries to stand the Wish Paper on the Wish Platform without it toppling over, which also made me nervous.
My son very carefully lit a match and touched it to the Wish Paper, which instantly started to burn. When it was nearly done burning, the Wish Paper suddenly lifted off the Wish Platform and flew up to the ceiling, still slightly smoldering. Just before it hit the ceiling, the flame extinguished and the ashy Wish Paper floated slowly down into my son’s waiting hands. It actually worked! Color me surprised!
But wish-granting has its ugly realities. One of the problems we instantly encountered was the charred remains of the Wish Paper, which caused quite a mess of black ash over our hands and dining room table. Our mess was easily cleaned up with some damp paper towels and by washing our hands, but if you aren’t careful, the ashes could get everywhere and leave a dirty black trail behind.
I was also fearful the burning Wish Paper would fall over, (or off!) the Wish Platform. Well, it did fall over during one of our tests. It left a small burn mark on the Wish Platform, but thankfully nothing else happened.
Flying Wish Paper is a fun activity that my son and I thoroughly enjoyed doing together. There are numerous fire concerns and it is definitely something parents can’t let their children do on their own, but I highly recommend it. It’s a whimsical and thoughtful activity for kids to really think about what their deepest wishes may be. It would be awesome for magic spells at a Harry Potter program too (and so would this)! Just keep paper towels handy to clean up the ash.
As far as my wish coming true, only time will tell. All I have to say is my Mega Millions ticket is purchased, and I’m ready for the next lottery drawing.
Q: What do I do with my kid’s art projects? They’ll be upset if I toss them out, but I’m being squeezed out of the house by an army of cardboard creations!
Last weekend, however, I came up with another solution! I created an Instagram account. Now, anytime a project needs recycling, I just upload a photo of it to my Instagram.
There the project remains, forever validating my kids’ imaginative musings. It’s a fun gallery documenting their tremendous creativity AND a digital representation of one less job for Mom the Recycling Cop. Bonus! Grandma and Grandpa can follow our Instagram to see what those clever grandkids are up to.
In the world of crafting, just about anything can be adjusted, changed, or redone according to your budget, staffing, and audience. In fact, adaptation is one of the things I love about developing craft projects for kids. Today, I’m going to show you how I took a simple project and made it even simpler and less expensive for a large-scale event. I’ll throw in a couple hints about running large-scale event tables to boot.
The project was already easy to assemble, but since we needed to produce 200 pairs of wings, the art supplies were a problem. We made 4 cost-saving changes:
Notice how we just did a rough cut of the wings (meaning we left each pair on a single strip of paper instead of cutting them out individually)? This is event pointer #1: Prep Up to a Point. Rather than cutting out 200 pairs of wings before the event, we let 200 event participants cut the wings themselves. This definitely saved us prep time, and spared us some wicked hand cramps. Another event pointer? Present the Project.
Always have an example of the finished project on the table, so matter how simple it is. That way, you can show kids (and their grown-ups) exactly what they’re aiming to create. If you’re lucky, they’ll be able to get started the project just by looking at the finished version (which will also save you having to explain it 200 times). Next event pointer: Set Up a Self-Cleaning Table.
Event tables get crowded quickly, and supplies fly everywhere. However, I find that when supplies are on paper or plastic plates, the plates actually encourage people to return the supplies to their proper places. I don’t know what is it – the plates are wide and flat? They’re super obvious? Impossible to toss something at and miss? Whatever the reason, with plates I spend 75% less time cleaning up the table. And that’s huge when you’re staffing a table for 4 or 5 hours. Pointer #4: Table Skirts are a Good Thing. 
Table skirts are an inexpensive way to make your event table look more finished. They also hide all the unattractive supply boxes you need to stash under your table, as well as your purse or backpack. OK. My final event pointer. Costumes are Awesome.
And speaking of adaptation, people made a couple project adjustments of their own at the event! A lack of straps on the backs of one’s sandals? Quickly remedied with tape:
Not into the paper clip part of the project? Tape, once again to the rescue:
Some skipped the shoe part and simply taped the wings to the backs of their shirts!
Do you see how the wings are attached to the back of the shirt with black masking tape? That’s another project modification we came up with. Kids without socks (or kids who might be bothered by the paper clips rubbing their feet) were offered masking tape to cover the section of paperclip inside their shoes. It worked great, and it gave the wings a little extra reinforcement too.
Looking for other event table projects that have worked for us? Check out these