Tag: jet pack

Boredom Buster Ideas for Kids Stuck at Home That Aren’t YouTube
“I’m bored!”, if I had a dollar for every-time my children said that during this pandemic. It can be hard to find fun activities but these boredom buster ideas for kids are a good start. We have scored the internet to find the best at-home activities that don’t require a screen!

This post contains affiliate links– thank you for supporting us.

Make a Fort

Forts make everything more fun! You could put a few chairs next to each other with a blanket over them. My kids love to bring a flashlight or headlamp and book into a homemade fort.

Or you can use Crazy Forts. Crazy Forts are a unique, award winning, building and creative toy. Crazy Forts come with 69 child- safe toggles and rods that join together to build any play space from your child’s imagination. Find it here on Amazon.

Or you can order an indoor tent and let your kids decorate their own little space for reading, playing and making art! Find this clubhouse tent here on Amazon.

Build Something

Don’t recycle those old Amazon boxes just yet! Build something with them like a dollhouse, home for their stuffed animals or even a jet pack. We put together a jet-pack DIY here a few years ago for a Halloween costume, see it here.

Build with Kinetic Sand or Slimygloop Sand – You can make a splash with moldable, stretchable, and expandable creations. Pack and layer different colored slimygloopslimysand into your molds, flip them onto your play area, gently lift, and dive into your own sea world — without the mess! Find Slimpygloop Sand at Amazon here or Kinetic Sand at Target here.

Build with a Marble Run Kit – My two kids received a marble run kit for Christmas a few years ago and they loved building with it! Find it on Amazon here.

Learn Something New

Explore a museum online,

Stop Motion Animation Kit or App – Stop Motion Animation allows your child to bring movies to life! We own this Klutz Lego Make Your Own Movie Activity Kit and love it! Find it here on Amazon. We also downloaded a stop motion animation app to our iPad. The app we use is

Learn to code with a coding robot! Botley helps your child learn early STEM skills while playing and having fun. He teaches kids to code with active, screen-free play that’s perfect for promoting critical thinking and problem solving skills. Find it on Amazon here.

Logic Puzzles and Books – Excercise your mental muscle with awesome challenges, wacky logic puzzles, optical illusions, and brain-busting riddles.

Brain Games Book: Find it here on Amazon
Logic Puzzles Book: Find at Target Here

Trying to find something art or board game related that kids can play by themselves

More Boredom Buster Ideas on Today I Need A…
February 19, 2021
DIY Light-Up Astronaut Jet Pack
Guys, something amazing happened in female history this past Friday! The FIRST all-female spacewalk took place! I kinda can’t believe it took this long, but it is still an amazing achievement nonetheless. 👏 GO GIRLS! 👏 As it just so happens, my younger daughter is going as an astronaut this Halloween! We saw the costume in the store last month and both instantly thought it looked amazing. In honor of this historic event, I wanted to share how I created a DIY Light-Up Astronaut Jet Pack for her costume. She wanted it to be big, have fire coming out of the jets and light up. Never one to back down from a challenge, I got to work. Here’s what I did:

Jet Pack Materials

I wanted the jet pack to be light. My daughter is 5 and it needed to be light enough that she wouldn’t hand it to me half-way through trick-or-treating. (You know, like she’s done in years past with various costume accessories.) I found an oatmeal box which was the perfect shape for the middle portion and super light when empty. It had angled corners instead of standard right edges that I thought would make it look more, I don’t know the word for it, space-like. I also used two plastic juice containers for the jets. Below is a list of the materials I used. *affiliate links

Cardboard box – this is a link to the actual box I used: https://amzn.to/2Sa6bCy
Ribbon for straps – similar to this, mine was from Michael’s and leftover from another project: https://amzn.to/2vCoAAt
Silver Spray Paint – https://amzn.to/2qzpTxP
Glue Gun – https://amzn.to/2tgXmPb
Felt – like this, again mine was from Michael’s and leftover from another project: https://amzn.to/2OhEMO1
LED Lights – Similar to these, these have more lights on each strand. Mine were from the Dollar Store: https://amzn.to/2tYnAX9

First, I added straps made of ribbon to the box by cutting two holes on the top and bottom of the box. Then, I tied the ribbon in knots inside the box. I tied the ribbon to the top two holes first, then measured the strap length on my daughter while she held it to her back. I then used hot glue to connect the juice containers to each side, this formed the basic jet pack shape.

Painting & Design

Once the glue cooled, I chose to paint the jet pack silver. To do this I used a silver spray paint + primer similar to this one (affiliate link). I covered the straps with paper before I sprayed anything. It took me two coats to completely cover the writing on the box.
For the flames coming out of the jet pack, I cut out yellow and red pieces of felt in a flame shape. I hot-glued them into the bottle openings. I printed out a NASA logo and glued it to the front of the jet pack and made a black stripe using electrical tape under that. Here is what it looked like before I added the lights.

How I made the Jet Pack light up!

I could have stopped there, the jet pack looked great and fit my daughter well. But, she really, really wanted it to light up in some way so I thought, why not. I got two sets, one red and one yellow, of the battery-powered LED Lights from the dollar store. Yes, they only cost me a dollar! I decided to make two rows of each color lights underneath the black stripe.

First, I measured out that a light would be placed every half-inch, based on the size of my LEDs. I marked a spot for each light with a ruler. Then I used an x-acto blade to cut x shapes on each spot. Once I had an x cut into the cardboard, I used a small screwdriver to push through the x. This made a hole the perfect size for each light. The holes were just about the exact size of my lights.
I pushed the lights through each hold, securing with hot glue as I went a light at a time. Then, I secured the battery pack on the inside of the box with hot glue as well.
I left the bottom of the jet pack open for now so I can access the lights and turn them on when needed. I just tape it shut with clear tape when she wears it. She is thrilled how it turned out and I am too!
Note: It’s hard to see the lights in the picture above because I took these pics when the sun was shining brightly. You can see in my other pictures at the top of the post that the lights are surprisingly bright! And there you have it, a DIY Light-Up Astronaut Jet Pack for a little one in your life! Have fun creating!

We have other DIY crafts, check them out here: DIY Harry Potter Dog Costume or our Harry Potter Howler Valentines!
October 21, 2019