Although I think mami should be celebrated every day, why not celebrate in an extra special way on that one day a year dedicated solely to her? How about making something just for her, something she can enjoy and admire for days, weeks even?!

I love flowers. I love to see them, grow them, cut them, receive them, and give them. So it should come to no surprise that flowers are what we plan to make this Mother’s Day for all the lovely mothers we know – tissue paper flowers to be exact. Tissue paper flowers are easy for little hands to make and lovely to look at. Besides, who doesn’t like to get flowers?

Would you like to learn how to make these tissue paper flowers?

DIY Tissue Paper Flowers Craft

Materials Needed:

• Tissue paper
• Pipe cleaners
• Washi tape
• Twigs
• Scissors

You can purchase all these materials (with the exception of the twigs) at Walmart.

How to Make Tissue Paper Flowers for Mother’s Day:

Begin by cutting your leaves. You can cut several at the same time (I cut 6 at the same time). Then, with the yellow tissue, cut a thin strip, about 3 inches in width, and whatever length you choose. Do the same with the pink tissue (or any other color you choose), but this time it should double in thickness (about 6 inches) and keep the same length.

Make the flower center and petals following the steps in the photo below:

Add the stem and leaves following the steps in the photo below:

Make one or make a bunch of tissue paper flowers and gift to that special mami you know!

Disclosure: As a participant in the Walmart Moms Program, modernmami™ received compensation for the time and effort in creating this post. All thoughts and opinions are our own.

All photos © Lisa Renata

I’m not sure there’s much about Easter that kids don’t love – fluffy bunnies, cute chicks, pretty flowers, and of course, Easter eggs! The true meaning of the holiday is not lost on me, either, but I know that kids really enjoy all the pretty colors and fun of Easter. Because of that, I wanted to make a fun, but easy Easter craft for kids. I would never consider myself a crafty person, but this Easter craft is simple enough and requires few materials. Plus, it makes a really cute table-top decoration or a fun puppet the kids can play with!

Hopping Easter Bunny {Kids Craft}

Using materials found at Walmart and our very own Easter bunny ears and feet template, you and the kids will have a blast creating these hopping bunnies!

Download Easter bunny template here. (PDF)

Materials needed:

• White paper, either construction or copy paper works
• Color construction paper, various pieces of your choice
• Toilet paper roll
• Cotton ball
• Scissors
• Glue stick
• Markers

Instuctions:

1. Cover the toilet paper roll with white paper.
2. Using the bunny ear and feet template, cut out your bunny ears, bunny feet, and bowtie (if desired). You can also draw your own bunny parts, if you prefer.
3. Trace your bunny ears, feet, and bowtie onto whichever color paper you would like for each. I chose to keep the inner ear white against a color outer ear, but that was just my preference.
4. Cut out your bunny parts and glue onto the toilet paper roll. Glue the ears onto the inner front side of the roll. You’ll also need to fold the bunny feet along the dotted line, and glue just the tab, so the leg folds out.
5. Draw a bunny face using markers.
6. Glue a cotton ball on the backside for a tail.
7. That’s it! Make a few bunnies to create a cute centerpiece for a table, decorate around the house, or for the kids to play with as puppets!

Have fun making this easy Easter bunny craft with the kids and check out more Easter items at Walmart.

Happy Easter!

Disclosure: As a participant in the Walmart Moms Program, I received compensation for my time and efforts in creating this post. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

All photos © Melanie Edwards/modernmami™

Today officially marks the beginning of the month of love, otherwise known as February. If you talk to my 7-year-old, though, you’d think Valentine’s Day is the only day in February. She loves celebrating everything about Valentine’s – love, friendship, pink, red, chocolates, flowers – you name it, this holiday was made for my girl! In past years, we’ve picked out Valentine’s cards so she could hand out to her classmates. This year, I thought we might try something a little different and test out Brach’s Create Your Own Conversation Hearts, a new product exclusive to Walmart.

Using the kit that we were sent by Walmart and Brach’s, my baby girl and I sat down to create some nice hearts for her friends and write encouraging messages using the food-safe pen that’s included. She decided to write her classmates cute messages such as ‘U are the best,’ ‘U R my BFF,’ and ‘U R #1′ – she also made her teacher a special heart, as you can see in the photo below.

I really like that the hearts are large and have ample room for kids to write their messages, since they typically write bigger than an adult. I also like that these Create Your Own Conversation Hearts take a long-standing fun Valentine’s tradition and adds an element of personalization. Now you can write whatever message you want for your Valentine instead of digging through the standard conversation hearts to find an appropriate message. No more awkward moments of handing your classmate a heart that says ‘Be mine’!

My girl decided to try a few of the extra hearts in a home-made ice cream sundae to see how they’d taste. While she didn’t think the conversation hearts mixed well with her ice cream, she did have a lot of fun writing her friends special messages for Valentine’s Day. In turn, I enjoyed spending a little one-on-one time with my girl and talking about each of her friends as we created the hearts. We even made a couple of extra special hearts to give to her daddy and baby brother!

How do your kids usually celebrate Valentine’s Day with their friends?

Disclosure: As a participant in the Walmart Moms Program, I received a sample and compensation for my time and efforts in creating this post. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

All photos © Melanie Edwards/modernmami™

We’ve been waiting for snow around our neck of the woods, but no luck. In fact, our winter so far has been a pretty mild one. The kids keep peeking out the window first thing in the morning in hopes of seeing a white covered yard. Nothing. So when I mentioned to them about creating a winter journal, where they could draw and write about anything they saw around this time of year, they were ecstatic. And why not make it a snowflake themed journal? After all, it seems those are the only snowflakes we’ll see around here for a while.

Would you like to make one with the kids? It’s pretty easy!

DIY Kid’s Craft: Winter Snowflake Journal

Materials needed:

• 1 marble composition book (any color, you’re going to cover it)
• 1 or 2 pieces of a wintery solid color cardstock (my girl used blue for her’s and my little guy used black)
• 2-3 empty toilet paper rolls
• Elmer’s glue
• Sharpie or pencil
• White washable tempera paint
• Paint brushes

I got all of my supplies at my local Walmart. (A little saving’s tip: During back to school sales, I like to pick up marble composition books by the bulk and have the kids use them throughout the year as different kinds of journals – school, travel, favorite quotes, seasonal, stamps, and sticker collections are just some ideas.)

How to make a kid’s winter journal:

1. Start by gluing the cardstock to the top of the marble composition book (see photo above). Make sure to flatten out all air bubbles. Then, open the notebook and follow the steps below. If you like, you can repeat the same steps for the back cover.

When you are done, it should look something like this:

2. Now, it’s time to prepare the snowflake stamps.

Using an empty toilet paper roll, draw lines (about an inch long) around one of the ends. Then cut and fold. Follow the steps below.

If you notice on the last photo above, we made two types of ends. The one on the left has a pointy end, and the one on the right, we left straight. Once you’ve completed these steps, make sure to also cut off every other strip. This will help the stamp look more like a snowflake and less like a flower.

3. Let’s decorate those journals!

Let your little ones have fun stamping away. It’s okay if the snowflakes aren’t perfect – what snowflake is? Then with the paint brush, have your kids paint some dots around the cover. Finally, add the word ‘Winter’ and the year.

DIY Winter Snowflake Journal for Mom

Materials needed:

• Moleskine journal
• White tempera paint or a white-out pen
• Thin-tip paint brush

How to make a winter journal for yourself:

As cute as the kids’ winter journals are, I wanted to make something a bit more sophisticated for me. I used a white-out pen to draw snowflakes of different sizes and shapes. I then wrote the word ‘Winter’ and the year. I love the contrast of the white and black. Don’t you?

Make sure to let the journals dry for about 24 hours before you head outdoors to explore your wintery surroundings and document it all.

Have fun!

Lisa Renata is a proud multicultural Latina of Mexican, German and Japanese descent. She and her husband of German, Scott-Irish descent are raising their two lovely kids bilingual and in a home full of diverse traditions. She holds a degree in Cultural Anthropology and is a certified Interpreter. She is also the creator of SaboraCajeta.com, where she shares her craft ideas, and her passion for sewing and photography. You can find Lisa occasionally sharing simple and fun crafts here on modernmami.com.

Disclosure: As a participant in the Walmart Moms Program, modernmami™ received compensation for the time and effort in creating this post. All thoughts and opinions are our own.

Source: Dinner Series/Flickr

Editor’s note: Our tuna fish week continues, with a look at some kid-friendly tuna fish recipes that I hope your kids will enjoy! Hopefully, my daughter will give them a try too!

As parents, we try to give our children a variety of foods and make sure they have a balanced diet as much as possible, but for those of us with picky eaters, things can get complicated. I know, because my seven-year-old baby girl is still a picky eater! So, how can you get your kids to eat a healthy food like tuna when on any particular week, they refuse everything but bananas and breakfast cereal?

The best way to convince your kids to try something new is to either hide a healthy food in something they love, or to make it as fun and colorful as possible. Would your daughter pick at the tuna sandwich you make her for lunch? Try using a cookie cutter to make it into the shape of a heart to increase the chances of her eating it or make a fun scene on their plate using cut vegetables and fruit. My daughter loves when I cut her sandwiches into hearts, dinosaurs, or trains!

Need ideas for some kid-friendly tuna recipes? Give these a try!

7 Kid-Friendly Tuna Fish Recipes

• Tuna Mac from SparkRecipes
• S.S. Tuna Schooner from KitchenDaily
• Tuna Boats from Can do Street
• Colorful Tuna “Sushi” for Kids from Super Healthy Kids
• Tuna Pizza from BumbleBee.com (Make this one more kid-friendly by making individual mini-sized pizzas and creating a smiley face out of vegetable toppings!)
• Tuna in a Pita Pocket from Guardian.co.uk
• Telly’s Tuna Triangles from Sesame Street (be sure to show them the website!)

Do you have a picky eater? What are some tricks you’ve learned to get them to eat new foods?

Disclosure: modernmami is a member of the Bumble Bee Squad through Bumble Bee Foods.

Crafts have never really been my thing. My mom used to create cute decorations for her house when I was younger, but I never joined her in doing so. It’s never been something I’ve had a talent for. Now that I have children, though, I wish I was more creative in that aspect and could come up with cute craft activities to do with the kids. Luckily, craft kits exist to help parents like me that come with all the necessary items and instructions to guide me in the creative process.

I take the opportunity to use craft kits together with my daughter, especially, since baby boy is typically too young for those types of crafts. She enjoys doing crafts together, so this way I’m able to enjoy such an activity with her, without becoming stressed that I don’t know what I’m doing. We recently had the chance to check out a few craft products sold at Walmart and test them out together; you can see them in the photo above.

My baby girl chose to complete the Made by Me Birdhouse first. We both enjoyed the ease of putting it together and she even commented it was cool we didn’t need any nails! All necessary items and tools came with the kit, which makes it so convenient for people like me that aren’t crafty. After quickly snapping the pieces in place, she began to paint her new birdhouse – don’t you love the vibrant colors she’s chosen so far?

We’re thinking of giving one of the items as a gift to one of her cousins because my daughter is sure she’ll love it. In fact, we often purchase craft or art kits when buying presents for birthdays and holidays – I love it because it’s so much better than accumulating big toys the kids will only play with for a bit! These particular kits are all really affordable too; the birdhouse we completed is only $9.97.

Have you ever tried a craft kit or do you typically create your own crafts?

Disclosure: modernmami.com and its owner, Melanie Edwards, is a member of the Walmart Moms program, resulting in compensation for this post.

Photos © modernmami

Every year when Halloween comes around, we go through the “what do you want to dress as?” debate. We normally tend to be last minute in purchasing Halloween costumes; it just seems to work out that way regardless of how early we start thinking about it. Fortunately this year we were provided with a couple of samples from Walmart’s Halloween costume selection. They came just in time too, since we’ll be heading out to SeaWorld Orlando this weekend for their Halloween Spooktacular event and baby girl and baby boy will be able to try out their new costumes.

Since we didn’t have any preferences for Halloween costumes this year, it was a complete surprise when we opened the box and found a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Toddler Costume for baby boy and a Scary Scarlet costume by Wonderland Costumes for baby girl. Baby boy looks adorable dressed as Raphael from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and the pretend muscles inside the costume make it ten times better! Of course, my dear baby girl looks great in her costume and it’s perfect for her since it’s a nice mix of girly, but funky. The costume is a purple dress with a tutu, but has a hood with monster eyes, ears, and teeth!

I have to admit that one of the biggest disappointments we face each year when buying Halloween costumes for the kids is the quality vs. price. It seems like you pay anywhere from $20-30 (and many times more!) for a simple costume and you don’t get good quality. Do you feel the same? Many costumes only focus on the front, leaving the back of the costume a plain solid color, which takes away from the fun of dressing up! It just looks incomplete.

So, both my husband and I were pleasantly surprised that the two costumes we received from Walmart were pretty good quality, considering their price points. The Ninja Turtles costume is priced at $15.27 and the Scary Scarlet costume is $19.97. We’ve paid more elsewhere in previous years and feel these costumes from Walmart are on par.

Feel free to check out the Walmart Halloween section on their site for lots of Halloween costume options and decor, something I never really get into, but love looking at on other houses!

What will your kids be dressed as this Halloween?

Disclosure: ModernMami.com and its owner, Melanie Edwards, is a member of the Walmart Moms program, resulting in compensation for this post.

My daughter was excited to learn that it’s time for Hispanic Heritage Month again! She enjoyed “officially” celebrating our Latino culture during the nationally recognized month last year and wondered if I’d be coming in to her class to share with her classmates, something I did last year. We celebrate our culture at home every day, whether she realizes it or not, but National Hispanic Heritage Month gives us an extra opportunity to learn.

To celebrate the start of Hispanic Heritage Month, which goes from September 15 until October 15, let me share some of our past Hispanic Heritage Month activities, resources, and articles.

Celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month and Latino Culture

• 29 Hispanic Heritage Month Articles with Activities, Recipes, and More!
• Hispanic Heritage Month Kid Activities
• Resources to Celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month with Your Kids

Will you be talking about Latino culture in your home this next month? How do you teach your children about your own culture or others’ cultures?

Image copyright ModernMami.com

As I mentioned in a recent post, my baby girl starts first grade next week! I cannot believe that in just a couple of days, summer will officially be over and school starts again. This school year, my daughter will experience something new – uniforms go into effect at her school for the first time.

Uniforms are welcome in our house, as my husband and I both feel it makes things easier, for the kids and us. I’m used to uniforms also, since I wore them myself from Kindergarten through third grade. Baby girl’s school’s uniform dress code is actually pretty flexible. We’re able to choose from navy, light blue, light yellow and white tops, accompanied by navy or khaki bottoms. Luckily, those colors are not hard to find and during this back to school shopping season, many stores, including Walmart, carry them.

My local Walmart doesn’t actually have uniforms in-store, but they do have a vast back to school apparel section. Though I wasn’t able to buy her uniforms locally, I was able to order uniforms on Walmart.comand take advantage of their free home shipping, which was super convenient!

The uniform selection on Walmart.com offers a variety of tops, pants, shorts, skirts, jumpers, and more. With the $100 budget Walmart gave me, and following the school’s dress code, I was able to purchase the following back to school clothes for my girl:

• 2 belted jumpers
• 2 skorts
• 2 bermuda shorts
• 2 pants
• 6 polo-style shirts

I came real close to the $100, going over by only $0.50 before taxes. Don’t forget that shipping was free and I don’t even have to go to the store, saving me tons of time and my sanity!

Something I really liked is that there were multi-packs available for all the pieces. For example, the shirts came in packs of 2, 3, and 4, and you could choose each shirt’s color to mix and match. That is, I bought one pack of 4 shirts and was able to get one in each required color, as opposed to a pack of all white shirts. The same was true for all the bottoms I purchased too.

I was happy to do our back to school clothes shopping online and had my girl help pick out some of her clothes. This turned out to be a good thing since she was feeling a bit apprehensive about having to wear a uniform. Once she saw the cute skirts and jumpers with pleats and belts, she realized there was nothing to worry about and even said she thought she’d look cute in them!

Have you already started back to school shopping for your kids’ clothing? Do they wear uniforms?

Disclosure: ModernMami.com is a member of the Walmart Moms program, resulting in compensation for this post.

Photos copyright ModernMami™.com

The new school year is almost here; my girl starts school in less than two weeks! She is moving on from Kindergarten to 1st grade and though she’s a little hesitant about it, I’m excited for her. I can already tell – just by looking at her school supply list – that 1st grade is going to mean more big-kid work along with some fun activities too.

I’m super relieved that I have her back to school shopping done and have already purchased all her school supplies! Last year I was one of the last-minute parents doing the back to school shopping days before school started. So, it’s definitely nice to know that we have her new backpack and school supplies out of the way.

Walmart provided us with the opportunity to purchase her school supplies as well as another set to donate. I thought this would be a great opportunity for baby girl to help a kid in need by picking out a backpack and school supplies for us to donate to a local school supply drive. The budget was set at $25 for each backpack, plus $25 for each set of supplies, for us to shop Walmart’s Back to School section.

With her 1st grade school supply list in-hand, we headed to our local Walmart and purchased the following items:

• 1 ream – white copy paper
• 1 box – Kleenex facial tissue
• 1 – spiral notebook, one subject, wide ruled
• 1 – plastic folder, 2 pocket w/prongs, blue
• 1 – plastic folder, 2 pocket w/prongs, red
• 4 – large pink erasers
• 1 – colored pencils, 24 ct.
• 2 – yellow highlighters
• 4 – dry erase markers, black
• 2 – Ticonderoga #2 pre-sharpened pencils
• 24 - #2 pencils
• 6 – Elmer’s glue sticks
• 1 – Elmer’s school glue, 4 oz.
• 3 – Marble composition books
• 1 – 5” blunt tip scissors
• 2 boxes – Crayola crayons, 24 ct.
• 1 box – Crayola markers, bold, wide tip, 8 ct.
• 1 – plastic pencil box, approx. 8”x5”

We also purchased a new backpack with a matching attachable lunchbox, and cost well under $25 – only $12.88! Baby girl thought this backpack was perfect because it comes with a mini stationary set and has butterflies. I thought it was perfect because it has a few compartments, plus side pockets for her water bottle. She picked out the same backpack in black to donate, thinking a boy would like it too. We also bought a second set of her school supplies to stuff in the backpack, making for a complete 1st grade supply donation. We donated these back-to-school supplies to HOPE, a local charity serving disadvantaged families. Supplies will be provided to families in need during their Kids of HOPE, Back to School Bash.

Are you ready for the new school year yet? Do you typically have the back-to-school shopping done ahead of time?

Disclosure: ModernMami.com is a member of the Walmart Moms program, resulting in compensation for this post.

Photos copyright ModernMami™.com