With this change comes many fun things, school, holidays, snow, but it also means the kids can play less and less outside. Cold temperatures mean more time inside.

This means more time for you to fill for them, which can sometimes be difficult.

So, what indoor activities can you do to keep them occupied and you sane?

Here are five fun indoor activities to do with your kids that will keep you all warm and entertained.

Let them help with interior design

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Having extra hands around can also mean having extra help around the house, but instead of having it be the same old chores, maybe use it as an opportunity to let them add their personal touch to decorating the house.

If you don’t want it to extend to the entire house you can just start off with their rooms, and adding such things as wooden letters for their walls, creating little paintings to hang up, and picking out some new bedding, whatever is easiest and fun for them.

Have a hot chocolate bar

CREATING THE PERFECT HOT CHOCOLATE BAR FOR KIDS

A fun idea to do with the kids and a good idea for dessert as well is to put together a hot chocolate bar.

The fun part about putting this together is you can have the kids pick out the things they wish to have in it, and you can let them use their imaginations.

Then set it up for them and let them get creative with it, all ending with some delicious concoctions and smiles on their faces.

Plus, you get never go wrong with hot chocolate when it’s chilly outside.

Everybody story time

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This is another activity that could possibly happen in the big, giant and comfy fort that you build if you want to lesson screen time and have more family interaction.

What you do is have someone start off by telling a story, and after whatever designated time you choose it will be time to switch to someone else who has to pick up the story wherever the other person left off and then continue on with their own story.

Laughs are sure to ensue and it’s a great way to be interactive and use their imaginations.

Movie fortnight

Indoor Winter Activities for Kids

Having a particularly cold, snowy night? Gather all the family together and get as many blankets, sheets, pillows and whatever else you want all together to build a giant fort.

Have fun with the kids putting the fort together however you like, and then when it is done, turn on a movie inside of it and all get comfy and cozy as you watch it.

The kids will think it is so much fun and may want it to become your new weekly or daily tradition.

Ultimate hide and seek

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One night you can have all the family come together and find all the flashlights you can, turn off all the lights and have the ultimate hide and seek.

It will be crazy but fun, and it will help get their energy out as well as creating a fun family time.

While setting up these exciting activities, you should also consider making your home more comfortable. For instance, your furnace is essential for keeping your space warm and cozy. Therefore, invest in furnace maintenance services to ensure that your heating systems operate safely and optimally. Understanding what happens during a furnace maintenance visit is vital for homeowners looking to improve their systems’ longevity and performance. Furnace maintenance professionals usually run detailed inspections and servicing of your heating systems when they visit your home. Now’s also the time to get lots of fuzzy blankets and throw pillows, so feel free to consider this.

The post 5 Fun Indoor Activities for Kids to Survive Winter appeared first on InstantELLA.

5 Changes to Make When Summer Turns to Fall

Of course, you want to gather together for a day of fun, but it’s not always easy to plan out and decide what kind of activities to include. If your harvest celebration needs a boost or just something new to get any returning guests excited, you’re sure to find something in these categories that’s perfect!

Food

There’s no better place to start than food, and it brings people together more than anything else. It can also potentially be the most expensive part of your celebration, so it’s definitely a time to invite those attending to bring something to contribute.

Your main meal should consist of good hot food that even the kids will eat. Things like potatoes, corn, and rolls will fit into your theme and everyone’s bellies with few complaints. You can go easy with hamburgers and hotdogs as your main portion or have some fun with barbecuing, too.

Don’t forget the snacks and sweets that everyone will be coming back through the line for all night long. Pie is a classic must have, but sneak in some cookies, brownies, and other neighborhood favorites so there’s something for everyone.

Contests & Prizes

Designing a Simple Rock Music Flyer in Photoshop

Depending on the length of your celebration, it’s a good idea to plan a few activities where your guests can get involved and bring out their competitive spirit. These can be spread out throughout the event or ongoing contests like those you would find at a carnival.

Also, keep in mind the age span you’re entertaining and what restrictions need to be put on certain games. A shooting contest may be exciting for everyone to watch, but you want to be clear about how old you have to be to participate, as well as designating spaces only competitors can enter.

But there are still plenty of fun games to choose from that everyone can take part in. Host a baking or an eating contest, set up relay races that incorporate silly items like blindfolds and pumpkins, plan a scavenger hunt, or invite everyone to dress up in costume for the chance of winning a special prize.

Crafts

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Plenty of your guests will love to watch these games going on, but they might prefer to keep it to that, so a few non-competitive activities will be a necessary complement to any contests. These craft areas will be especially attractive for any young children in attendance.

If this is something you’re really excited about, you can get creative with craft supplies like feathers, glue, and popsicle sticks for children to piece together in festive decorations they can take home. Looking for something a little more low-key? It’s easy to print out themed coloring pages from the internet and grab a few boxes of crayons and colored pencils.

You may want to do something a little more out of the ordinary, too, so hiring someone to paint faces next to your space for painting and carving pumpkins would be a fun addition that keeps the kids from making too much of a mess.

Entertainment

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With so many interactive activities to choose from, you may be feeling overwhelmed, but don’t worry. You can pick a few of your favorites and fill the bulk of your event with some classic entertainment.

Designate an area for music and dancing. You can hire a local music act or pull out the speakers and make your own playlist. Guests can get a breather with intermittent performances spotlighting their talents of singing, acting, or reciting poetry.

It’s also a great time to let people just talk amongst themselves admiring your harvest, discussing your new dome storage from https://www.dometechnology.com/applications/wheat-storage/, and catching up on one another’s families. It really doesn’t have to be overdone, but a few well-placed activities can make your harvest festival that much more memorable.

The post Ideas for Your Next Harvest Celebration appeared first on InstantELLA.

For folks like us, workspace becomes critical to our productivity. Both my husband and are very ordered and organized. We cannot work in clutter and need our space to be creative. More importantly our space has to bear our personality whether it be artsy, elegant yet minimalistic like me or hardcore, reflective and precise like him.

Keeping all of this in mind. We decided we needed to re-decorate the office. The clincher was to do it on a low budget, making use of what was already in the house as much as possible.  And that’s where creativity, resourcefulness and confidence comes in. Here are a few ideas we put into reality and which we hope will inspire you when you decide to re-decorate and re-organize your workspace. Remember to get all your electrical grounding checked if doing any proper DIY to prevent house fires and stop electrical faults happening. 

Utility is key!

Get rid of the clutter. Make sure you only have what you absolutely need taking up space in your home office. Utility means functionality to me, and that’s where I think a lot of us make trade-offs, having to sacrifice creativity and art to functionality. But I didn’t and here’s how:

• • Desk: For us, this meant having just one desk instead of 2. The way to get around seating issues is to find a desk that allows for leg space on at least 2 sides if not all the way around. (aha! Now you get it.)
  • Calendars: The world may have gone digital, but I still use the traditional calendar. It’s convenient and taking up wall space is always better than taking up desk space when you already have a small desk to begin with. It’s also artsy. What do I mean? Have you ever tried taking a Video Gamer’s calendar (in our case it was Halo that blended perfectly well with the rest of the office theme) and hanging it to look like a poster? Try it. High chance you’ll love it!

• Coasters: I get through my day with at least 3 caffeine breaks so instead of having dull boring coasters, I picked up a set of 4 Star Wars’ coasters at Target (on clearance) with a black and white Storm Trooper theme to match the black and white casing of my husband’s gaming PC in the office. Needless to say the coaster is theme appropriate, does it’s job and when it’s not, it still makes for an interesting piece of art!

Space & Color

Ours is a small workspace. I discovered however, that if you invest in white furniture and add some mirrors to the mix, it can do wonders. That’s why we chose an unused 3.5 ft X 2 ft vanity mirror to add a sense of space and depth to the room.

If you have to have color, stick to 1 or 2 only and play around with shades of the same color rather than use a third. For us this was red and blue and the theme runs through the posters and wall art in the office.

Be sure to pick up pieces from reputable places such as Weaver Furniture Barn. No matter what ideas you have floating around in your head you don’t want subpar pieces in your office. It should be a cozy space that fosters productivity, so when selecting pieces it is important to bear this in mind.

The biggest value add to the office however, has been this sturdy white storage cube organizer we recently purchased online at Walmart. It is not only useful, acting as a bookshelf, curio display shelf and storage (for all the ugly stuff in the office people don’t want you to see. Lol) but lends modernity to the room. Ours may look like one piece but is actually 2 single cubes (bought separately) and mounted on the lower 3- piece cube. I went a step further and added a white magazine/file holder (which had I lying around the house) to the ensemble which may not even be noticeable because it blends in so well. Here’s another tip: everything is art. Be attentive to odds and ends around the house , which if paired well with other items can turn into a beautiful utility and would definitely save you a trip to the store.

Lighting, like mirrors can add beauty and space to a room. A workspace definitely needs this. But ceiling lights can be harsh sometimes, kill the aesthetics of the room and be very unnerving for people trying to work. A soft light on the other hand can be relaxing, help your focus and give you that much needed break to meet deadlines. We added medium voltage contemporary, light-weight lamps to the room. I also put together a decorative light bowl, using a spare glass bowl, LED lights and some old potpourri fill ups I no longer need. If you don’t have potpourri, you can use candles, decorative stones or shells. Run with your imagination here

Reflect your personality

This is undoubtedly the most important part of decorating your home office. It’s your office and must reflect your personality. As a child, like most boys, my husband collected many action figures from Star Trek, Spawn, Pokemon, GI Joe, etc. So it was no surprise that when I came across a ton of them in the basement and began to organize his collection, he suggested we use a few to mount in the office. If action figures was his thing, the light bowls were mine and what goes better with light than greenery, so I added a few (fake) indoor table plants. It makes the room more aesthetics. And who doesn’t have stickers and cutouts, too interesting to get rid of, but also too small to do anything meaningful with? I just took a few interesting high quality curated stickers a client had given my husband to sample, mounted them on white paper (kind of like a collage) and framed them in a small desk frame. My husband loves it and says it motivates him to ‘do more’ and ‘keep it simple’ at work because that’s exactly what the stickers say.

My husband and I are proud of our new home office and the short time we took to get it done. It’s our space and one of the prettiest rooms in the house, decorated on a low-cost budget. Breathing new life into old space isn’t difficult to do and if we can do it, so could you!

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