Pop’s Top 10: Literary Baby Showers

Posted on June 21, 2019 by Dana Sheridan

Oh, this is going to be CUTE. Katie searched for some of the most adorable literary baby showers she could find, and these parties do not disappoint! Here are Katie’s Top 10, in no particular order…

#10 GOODNIGHT MOON
From Bump Smitten

Those are PILLOWS at the heads of the tables! And while there are no bowls of mush in sight, there ARE these adorable “Hush” cookies…

#9 THE PIGEON NEEDS A BATH
From Tonya Staab

The pigeon in the cotton ball bubble bath, the rubber duckie…and the DONUT TOPPERS on the milk bottles below!

#8 CURIOUS GEORGE
From Kojo Designs

The mural of pages! The yellow hats! The spotted ties around the glass treat jars! And this adorable sock monkey balloonist…

#7 IF YOU GIVE A DOG A DONUT
From Pizzazzerie

Technically, this shower wasn’t just If You Give A Dog A Donut. It featured several children’s books, as evidenced by their charming party menu:

#6 WINNIE THE POOH
From Hostess with the Mostess

I love the non-pastel colors, the big red balloon, the charming floral centerpieces, and the quotes on the plates!

#5 WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE
From Homeroad

The botanicals add such a fabulous wild feel to this table, and the little cookie packets and copy of the book for guests to sign are way cool. Plus…a cake with a crown and wooden platter!

#4 BABAR
From 100 Layer Cake-let

I think the photo of mom as a little girl reading says it all! Also love the lanterns/hot air balloons and the mini clothespin garland with prints from the books!

#3 PETER RABBIT
From Hello Brielle!

Awwww! The baby clothes Peter Rabbit scarecrow! And HUGE props for making vegetables so incredibly celebratory!

#2 GOLDEN BOOKS
From Aesthetic Nest

This bold, fabulous color palette is utterly fantastic. Definitely the winner of “Best Use of Yellow and Blue!” Also, the time and effort that went into these cupcake toppers alone. I’m impressed (and they provide the printables for them on their blog)!

#1 THE VERY HUNGRY CATERPILLAR
From Leigh Anne Wilkes

Fruit kabobs are PERFECT for hungry caterpillars! But check this out…one of the shower gifts was customized book chapter onesies for monthly baby photos!

The shower featured a number of books and treats (don’t miss the mouse sugar cookies!) but we thought we would end with something that applies to ALL literary parties. SO going to use this somewhere:

Love Grows Strong

Posted on February 19, 2019 by Dana Sheridan

Nurture your garden of family and friends’ names with heart confetti, sprinkled from a watering can. Katie designed this project, and she upped the “awwww!” factor to eleven, folks!

We read Plant a Kiss, written by Amy Krouse Rosenthal, and illustrated by Peter H. Reynolds (Harper Collins, 2012). Little Miss plants a smooch in the ground, and it grows into a sparkly, gorgeous feeling of love. And what does she do? Shares it, of course! Beautiful book.

You’ll need:

1 box (ours was 4.5” X 4.5” x 9” – a large tissue box works too)
Assorted construction paper (but definitely include green)
6 green pipe cleaners
1 name flowers template, printed on 8.5″ x 11″ white card stock
1 small oatmeal container
A box cutter
1 toilet paper tube
1 strip of poster board (ours was 1″ x 8″)
Red poster board
Scissors and tape for construction
Markers for decorating

To make your flower box, fringe green construction paper and attach it to the inside perimeter of the box. Color and cut the flowers from the template, and write the names of loved ones on them. Then tape each flower head to a green pipe cleaner and tape the stems inside the box. We added a crepe paper streamer and ribbon to the outside of the box as well, but this is optional.

The watering can is a small oatmeal container wrapped in construction paper. Use a box cutter to cut a hole for the “spout,” which is a toilet paper tube that has been cut down to 2.5″. Attach a poster board handle, and then decorate everything with (optional) color masking tape or markers. The final touch is heart confetti:

Our confetti was a blend of foam shapes, iridescent fabric hearts, and red poster board hearts (the construction paper versions were too light, and tended to jam in the spout). Drop your confetti in the watering can, and gently shake over your garden to share the love!

Mission: Hugs for All

Posted on October 12, 2018 by Dana Sheridan

It’s a big world out there. A world with lots of things in it. And those things need HUGS. The question is…are you up to the task? Are you a Hug Machine?

We recommend Hug Machine by Scott Campbell (Atheneum, 2014). Prepare yourself world. The Hug Machine (a little boy in a striped shirt and red rain boots) is on a mission to cheer people up, calm people down, and make things right. Tree? Hug! Park bench? Hug! Crying baby? Hug! Even a spiky porcupine gets a special padded hug. It’s impossible to read this book without smiling. Highly recommended!

Today’s simple project was designed by Jennifer Hyde, an ingenious teacher in Logan, Utah. Jennifer’s “Paper Hug” was featured in Family Fun magazine many years ago. I modified it only slightly for today’s post.

You’ll need:

Poster board
Scissors
Markers

Trace your left and right hands at each end of a 5.5″ x 27″ strip of poster board. Keep the hands connected as you cut them out of the poster board.The result is a long “hug.” Decorate the hug with markers (or use color masking tape like we did).

OK, you’re ready to start hugging – and by hugging we mean go forth and find things to wrap your poster board hug around! You can just use the paper hug, or get right in there and use your arms too. Always dedicated to seeing a project through, Katie and I hit the streets on a rainy afternoon to share the love with Princeton.

Hugging John Witherspoon, Founding Father and past President of Princeton University…

The classic tree hug. It was a little damp, but who cares?

A mailbox clearly in need of a hug.

Hugging a roaster and barista pal at our awesome local coffee shop, Small World.

A hug for House of Cupcakes, who sell me donuts and cupcakes. Like, everyday.

Hugging a rainbow narwhal at JaZams, our stupendous local toy store.

No park bench escapes me…

Nor jungle-like foliage…

A super-sweet hug from the folks at the Bent Spoon, best bakery in the world.

An attempted hug of one of Princeton’s famous black squirrels…yeah, no go.

Finally, a hug from a random person who totally rocked the love. Awwwww!

Sending hugs to those experiencing devastation and loss in Florida following Hurricane Michael. Our thoughts and prayers are with you.

A School of Sharing

Posted on January 12, 2016 by Dana Sheridan

Join this beautiful school of fish with their bright, sparkling scales! These easy-to-make fish were created with poster board and construction paper. Then we grabbed a set of sparkling rainbow scales and had a glittery share-fest. That’s right! You could only stick your scales on other peoples’ fish!

We read The Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister (North-South Books, 1992). With his sparkling silver scales, Rainbow Fish is the most beautiful fish in the ocean. He’s also the most stuck up, making it clear that he’s too beautiful to accept invitations to play. When a little fish dares to ask for a silver scale, Rainbow Fish rudely tells him to go away. That does it. The other fish decide to ignore the snobby Rainbow Fish. With no audience to admire him, Rainbow Fish grows lonely. Seeking the council of the wise octopus, she advises him to give his shining scales away to the other fish. Only then will he discover what happiness is. So Rainbow Fish gives away his silver scales, and as he sees them glittering and flashing around him on the other fish, he realizes that he finally feels at home among his new friends.

You’ll need:

Poster board
A piece of self-adhesive foam (mine was a 1.75″ x 3″ oval )
2 wiggle eyes
Hole punch
Construction paper
Small bits of cellophane
1 pipe cleaner
Rainbow scales (more on this below!)
Scissors, glue for construction
Markers for decorating

Cut a fish shape from poster boar (we offered a choice of dark blue, purple, and light blue poster board). Because we wanted to leave plenty of room for decoration, our fish was extra-large (16″ from nose to end of tail). Here’s the outline:

If you’d like a fish that fits on an 11″ x 17″ piece of paper, here’s the large fish template. Need something smaller? This small fish template fits on an 8.5″ x 11″ pieces of paper. I recommend cutting the fish shapes out in advance of story time. Another thing to cut in advance? Construction paper scales. We offered strips of purple, yellow, dark blue, and pink.

To create puffy lips for your fish, start with an oval of self-adhesive craft foam.

Peel and stick it over the fish’s mouth.

Finally, use scissors to cut a smiley face in the foam.

Glue (or hot glue) a wiggle eye on both sides of the fish, and punch a hole in the top fin.

Decorate both sides of your fish with the construction paper scales and pieces of cellophane to add some shimmer (we offered blue and iridescent cello to add some shimmer). Just make sure you don’t cover the hole you punched in the top fin! Use markers to add some designs if you’d like. The final step is to loop a pipe cleaner through the hole so you can carry your fish easily.

Now for the sharing game…and…duh duh DUH…an EPIC STORY TIME CRAFTING FAIL!

Look at these beautiful glittering scales! I found some sheets of self-adhesive hologram paper at Party City. Marissa painstakingly cut and peeled zillions of scales, and stuck each set on mylar. We tested peeling the scales off the mylar to make sure kids could do it quickly and easily.

It worked! Great. No problem.

To play the sharing game, we first gave kids a silver scale to start their fish off. Then we gave them a set of 4 scales (as seen above). The kids mingled around the gallery, sticking scales from their set onto other kids’ fish, making sure to share each color with a new person. At the same time, kids were accepting scales from other kids (the only rule was that you couldn’t accept a repeat color). Marissa, Joani and I circulated with extra sets of scales, to make sure no fish were going to be left out.

At least, that’s how we planned it.

Somehow, overnight, the hologram paper cooked onto the mylar. They were now impossible to peel off. Look at the scales again. Do you see how wrinkled the red one is at the top? That’s from me scrabbling at it with my fingernails, going “Nooo! No! NOOOO!”

No scale stickers meant no sharing game. Refusing to admit defeat, I sent Marissa and Joani over to quickly cut the strips of scales into individual scales. To buy them some cutting time, I whipped a roll of hologram smiley face stickers out of the cabinet.

I asked the kids to line up and, one at a time, tell me something nice that they had done for someone recently. Their good deed earned their fish a smiley face sticker AND a trip to see Marissa and Joani to get a set of scales hot glued onto their fish. Sure, it wasn’t the sharing game, but you still got a sparkly fish in the end.

If I was to do this again, I would definitely do the original sharing game. But I would use metallic dot stickers cut in half to replicate fish scales.

Because I’ve learned my lesson. Peel the stickers off the original paper they come on. Don’t stick them on anything except the final product. Oooooooh yes.Interested in some other sharing and cooperative story times? Try this flower pot exchange, or these awesome viking vs. pirate cooperative games.