The last week of September has been nationally designated as “Keep Kids Creative Week”. While this week is often celebrated in schools with many fun activities to help stimulate kid’s creativeness, parents can also take advantage of this week to do some really fun things at home. Many parents struggle with finding time to fit creativity in but there are lots of products out there to help us with getting those creative juices flowing. Mama-Nibbles and Life With Two Boys created this event to help you find some fun products to keep your family creative not only during “Keep Kids Creative Week” but any time of the year!

Keeping Kids Creative begins on September 17th at 12:01am EST and ends on September 30th at 11:59pm EST.  Along with the awesome prizes that each of the participating blogs are offering we also have 3 Grand Prizes thanks to our sponsors BabbaCo, Green Kid Crafts, Kelly Kits, PowerCapes, Bannor Toys, We Can Too, and Kat and Company.

I decided to to kick off Keeping Kids Creative Week a bit early in my own home.  It seems that I missed Grandparents Day last week and decided that this was the perfect opportunity to make up for it with a fall themed craft.  I began to think back to all the fall crafts that I made when I was little, and couldn’t help but think of the wax paper and leaf placemats/picture windows.  But surely we’ve come a long way since then.  Plus, I really wanted something that represented the whole family.  So I decided to take a different approach and make these pumpkin handprint fall themed placemats.You will need:

Step 2 – Paint the palm of each family member and stamp them onto the center of the paper.  The hand prints won’t be perfect, it’s okay.

Step 6 – Empty your iron of any water and heat to medium-high.  Open the laminating pouch and insert your page.Step 7 – Close the laminating pouch and center your page.Step 8 – Cover with a bed sheet, and apply the medium-high heat.  Run the iron over the area several times, focusing on the edges.  Don’t keep the iron in one place too long!  Lift the sheet and check that all areas are laminated.  Re-do any areas that are not sealed.I’m sending these out to my mom tomorrow – she is going to love them!  You can see small bubbles on the far sides of the placemat, but but they aren’t visible from a distance.  The sides are completely sealed and they’ll be easy to wipe clean.  I love knowing that I can laminate at home with an iron!

While this craft was a bit over Greenleigh’s ability level, she was a huge help.  And while I put the finishing touches on this, she worked on her own masterpiece.  Never underestimate the power of some stickers, markers, and crayons!Now it’s time for you to be creative, because I’m giving away a $25 Gift Card to Michael’s Craft Store!  Just think of all the things that you and your kids can create…the possibilities are endless.  Fill out the rafflecopter form and it could be yours.

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