Flames of Desire

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.

flying wish paper kit contentsThe 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.

writing the wishOnce 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.

wish paper crumbleOnce 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!

wish paper chimneyThis 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.

wish paper ashI 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.

wish paper burnFlying 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.

Welcome to the Jungle

welcome to the jungle

It’s a jungle out there, but we bet you can safely navigate your bouncy ball up ramps, over bridges, past drinking straw obstacles, and through pipe cleaner wickets to the goal!

We recommend reading The Zabajaba Jungle by William Steig (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1987). In a dreamy, dangerous journey through the Zabajaba jungle, young Leonard and his trusty bolo encounter a number of jungle creatures and treacherous obstacles. A Steig classic.

You’ll need:

  • 1 copy paper box lid
  • Construction paper
  • Drinking straws
  • Green pipe cleaners
  • Paper cups
  • Paper bowl
  • Poster board or tagboard
  • Scissors, tape and/or glue  for construction
  • Hot glue (optional)

Our jungle game is a copy paper box lid with as many (or as few) obstacles for you to navigate a ball through. We used bouncy balls – I bought a 6-pack for $1 at our local dollar store. Here’s our basic jungle:

just the obstacles As you can see, we had a paper bowl tunnel, a bumpy drinking straw “path,” green pipe cleaners acting as vine wickets, and a blue construction paper river. We used tagboard to make a bridge, as well as a ramp and an elevated pathway. At the bottom of the box lid are the “goals”…paper cup halves cut down to various heights. Want to fill things out a little? Add construction paper foliage:

with foliageYou can also add fabric (or construction paper) flowers for some pops of color!

with foliage and flowersTo play, drop a bouncy ball in anywhere, then navigate through the obstacles and foliage by tilting and turning your box top. The ball goes in a cup, you win! Bonus fun – use multiple balls at once, or play with one kid at each end of the box top!

It’s Tubing Time

it's tubing timeSwoosh down the plastic table slopes in your magnificent snow tube, then grab a delicious cup of hot chocolate (enhanced with chocolate scratch-and-sniff stickers) at the sweetest little snow station in the universe – the Cocoa Chalet!

cocoa chalet customer

We read Snow Day! written by Lester L. Laminack, and illustrated by Adam Gustavson (Peachtree, 2007). Did the weatherman just predict snow? Woo hoo! No school! A dad and his two kids run through the list of marvelous things they’re going to do on their snow day…hot chocolate, warm blankets, snow forts, sledding. Up the stairs to bed they go, anticipating all the fun. Except it doesn’t snow. Dang. Dad’s especially upset…because he’s the teacher!

You’ll need:

  • 2 small tissue boxes
  • 2 pieces of tagboard
  • 4 mini craft sticks (ours were 3″ long)
  • 2 large plastic buttons
  • 2 toilet paper tubes
  • A selection of construction paper
  • 1 snow tubing slope (more on this below)
  • Scissors and tape for construction
  • Markers for decorating
  • Hot glue

finished snow tubesSnow tubes first! Cut the bottom off a tissue box, leaving 1″ sides on the box. Cut a circular tube shape out of tagboard or poster board. Decorate it, then hot glue (or tape) it to the top of the box. Next, flip the snow tube box over and glue two mini craft stick runners to the bottom – this will allow the tube to slide most effectively. Finally, hot glue (or tape) a large plastic button to the inside bottom of the box. This provides the weight that will send your tube zipping down the hill rather than slow-poking to a halt.

snow tube steps The tube rider is a toilet paper tube decorated with construction paper and markers. We added a felt scarf and a pair of mini pom-pom earmuffs as well. Did you recognize the red-cloaked rider on the right? That’s Little Red Skating Hood from this magnetic ice rink story time! We had kids make 2 snow tubes and 2 riders so they can race them down the hill.

tp tubersYour snow tubes are done, now for the slope! These were two, 6′ plastic tables we secured on stools. We’ve done exactly the same thing for this sled run and this country-to-city truck run. For snow tubing purposes, however, we made 4 racing lanes:

testing the snow tubesWe took four, 60″ pieces of PVC pipe, and speared wads of polyester fill on them. Then, we used packing tape to secure the PVC pipes to the tables. We left 11″ of space at the bottom of the racing lanes to encourage exciting tube crashes. Important! Test the tube riders on your slope a couple times. If the poly fill is bulging out too much, the riders will get stuck and won’t slide down the slope.

The mini-craft stick runners, the plastic button weight, testing the poly fill snow bulges…it might seem like a lot of extra steps, but the project won’t work as well without these things. We believe snow tubes need to zip, slide, and careen off things. Check out the results!


After everyone had played in the slopes, we headed over to “The Cocoa Chalet” for a delicious drink. This blog has amply demonstrated how much we love crafting retail opportunities (exhibits a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, and i). So bring on the hot chocolate stands I say! I made the Cocoa Chalet with a box lid and a poster board roof. The snow is fabric batting someone donated:

the cocoa chaletHere’s the back of the chalet. As you can see, the whole thing is attached to a cake pad base. Oh, and the chimney is a bubble tea straw.

back of cocoa chaletThe hot chocolate was a little piece of brown construction paper curled into a 1oz plastic sample cup. I topped it off with some poly fill whipped cream, then added a chocolate scratch-and-sniff sticker so the cup would exude a chocolatey bouquet.

hot cocoaHey! Do you want to see the most amazing hot chocolate in the world that I consume far too much of? Right here, my friend. Right here.