The Discovery Channel Store Blog

DIY Spring Chick Cup

These adorable DIY Spring Chick Cups are great for Spring birthday parties when they can be filled with party favors, or for collecting candy on Easter.  All you need is the Giant Activity Box for kids and a medium-sized paper cup!

 Our tutorial will show you how to put these clever Spring Chick Cups together in a few easy steps.

Supplies you’ll need:

• A plain paper cup

• Giant Activity Box from the Discovery Store

Your first step will be prepping the crepe paper. You’ll be gluing it to the cup to create chick feathers. Cut your crepe paper in half horizontally so you’re left with two long, skinny strips with ruffles on one side.

 Your next step will be gluing the ruffled crepe paper to the cup. Start with coating the paper cup in glue by running a glue stick all over the cup.

 

Next, wrap the crepe paper around the cup. You’ll do this one strip at a time, beginning with the bottom strip.

 

Cut the crepe paper strip to just the right size, then press the strip into the glue gently. Repeat this process until you’ve glued strips all the way around the cup, covering it from bottom to top. You might want to reinforce the end of the crepe paper strip with one final dollop of glue.

 

This is how your Spring Chick Cup should look after gluing the crepe paper strips. You might want to ruffle the feathers of your cup to get this look!

 

Now you’ll be adding the distinctive characteristics of your Spring Chick! To make the beak, fold the orange squares from the Giant Activity Box in half, and then in half again.

 

Glue this triangle down below the first row of ruffled crepe paper. Hold your finger down on the triangle for a couple moments to set the glue.

 

Then, choose eyes from the Giant Activity Box, and stick them on the cup directly above the beak.

Next, you’ll add additional feathers to the baby chick by gluing them in place halfway down the cup on either side. You’ll want to angle the feather away from the face.

Finally, you’ll make the Spring Chick Cup handle.

Use a single-hole punch, or a sharp object like a pencil, to make holes on both sides of the cup, near the top. Poke your yellow pipe cleaner through the holes, leaving a little on the inside to twist up and around the handle to keep it in place.

Throw some brightly colored, shredded paper as stuffing into the cup and fill with candy.

Your Spring Chick Cup is done!

DIY Designer Cupcakes for Spring

We’ve created three adorable, yet easy DIY mini-cupcake designs that are perfect for corralling the kids into the kitchen for a new project. All it takes is the Babycakes Cupcake Maker from the Discovery Store, and creative topping ideas to fully engage their attention and get the family working together.

This tutorial will teach you how to make three cupcake designs: Baby Chick, Spring Grass and Little Lamb!

Supplies you’ll need:

• Chocolate chips

• Mini-marshmallows

• Shredded coconut

• Chocolate eggs and/or mini jelly beans like Jelly Belly brand

• Sticks of bubble gum

• Yellow and green food coloring

Use any batter you’d like in any flavor. We used a vanilla box mix. Spoon the batter into the Babycakes Cupcake Maker using a cookie scoop: it measures out the perfect amount. You want to be sure the batter does not overflow. If you don’t have a cookie scoop, a regular spoon will work. Parents: Be sure you don't let kids touch the Babycakes Cupcake Maker - it can get very hot. But little hands can help decorate!

Follow the directions on the Babycakes Cupcake Maker from Discovery and get cooking!

After your cupcakes are baked and cooling on a platter, you can get started preparing Baby Chick toppings. First, you’ll fill a baggie with shredded coconut and add a few drops of yellow food coloring. Mixing the food coloring into the coconut is a fun job for the kids. Hand them the baggie and ask them to mash it all up together. Every piece of coconut needs to be yellow!

Next, cut triangles out of the sticks of gum to make the Baby Chick’s mouth.

After spreading your favorite buttermilk frosting—or frosting from a can—place the yellow coconut on top of that. We recommend white frosting so you’ll have a basic background upon which to build your Baby Chick cupcake design.

Your final step for the Baby Chick cupcakes will be placing the chocolate chip eyes along with the bubble gum mouth! Push them into the frosting a bit so they stick.

CUTE!

Next up: Spring Grass Cupcake Design!

Make your green grass frosting by adding a couple drops of green food coloring to the frosting bag. Use the star tip for the desired effect. You’ll then squeeze out little grassy stars all over the surface of the  cupcake.

Place your chocolate eggs or jelly bellies on top!

Last but not least: Little Lamb Cupcake Design

First, cut the mini marshmallows in half horizontally. These will become the lamb's wooly face.

Then you’ll spread a thin layer of frosting across the surface. Place your cut mini-marshmallows on top—you’ll make two rings of marshmallows to create the face.

Leave a space for two chocolate chip eyes, and a bubble gum nose. Cut the marshmallows in half vertically to make little lamb ears!

NEXT WEEK’s DIY PROJECT:

Making Baby Chick Cups using the Discovery Kids Giant Activity Box!

Croco-Bloco takes the Cake!

The new infant toy from Discovery's Toy Store is very promising. It looks like it's gonna take my 9-month-old daughter a few months to explore every nook and cranny, and stick every mouth-able part in her mouth.(She adores that big white button!) This is good. She seems to burn through toys really quickly. One day we sit down to play and she's just bored. I look at her and think, I don't blame you, sweetheart. We need a toy refresh!

 
Today Croco-Bloco arrived and I just knew my day was going to be a lot easier by the size of the box. More toy=more playtime!! After unwrapping, upon first sight (and sound), my daughter was rapt. What is this? I could picture the wheels running in her tiny brain. What…what is this? What does it DO? 

I showed her each block and its special little noise-making functions first. She LOVES the corduroy blocks. She's very into texture and those don't disappoint—they've got crinkly paper underneath the corduroy! Genius. It's sound and texture in one move—she's hooked.

I have to admit, after I showed her the coolness of each block on its own, I started throwing them in the air. This really got her. We're talking GIGGLES. That's not actual Croco functionality, but, SHHHH, it works!

Little Miss has room to grow with Croco-bloco, that may be my favorite thing. She doesn't get all of his awesome tricks (cute baby dinosaur in a pouch!) YET, but she will and that is what I want in a toy. Croco is going to keep things easygoing during play time for quite a while. Ya-Hoo!

—North Bay Mom

 

Remote Control Toys at Discovery Kids Store

Remote control vehicles and helicopters top the hottest toys list this holiday season. It's no surprise that kids seek the fast action and fun movement of remote control cars, helicopters, airplanes and hovercrafts. Kids love having control over our wonderful assortment of these fast-moving, kid-directed vehicles and aircraft's.Watch them laugh as they explore how to move their toys with the power of a remote control. It's surprisingly entertaining!

Spread the joy this holiday season by getting your children remote control toys. Small or large, driving straight or in circles, remote control cars, helicopters and more lead to motorized mayhem!

Watch Discovery Channel's Megatech B3 2-Channel Electric RTF Airplane video first here!

Shop the entire assortment of remote control toys at the official Discovery Kids Store.

 

Discovery Store Features Gift Ideas on "The Balancing Act" on Lifetime

Discovery Communications, LLC creators of the Discovery Store, an online site offering award-winning toys and unique products for kids of all ages, recently featured holiday gift ideas on Lifetime Television's hit morning TV show “The Balancing Act.”

During the segment (which aired November 8, 2011), Christine Wacker from Discovery Communications, showed viewers a four children's toys that deliver excitement as well as skill building.  The featured products were; Macro Microscope, Illuminated Ant Farm Habitat, PhotoStory and the Polymer Chemistry Set.

“The Macro Microscope helps kids tap into their inner scientist by taking a close up look at the beauties and mysteries of the world with their very own microscope— and with the Discovery Illuminated Ant Farm Habitat, kids can experience a self-sustaining habitat while discovering the wonders of the ant world,” she adds.  “Photo Story teaches kids how create a hard cover photobook with stickers, drawing tools, and paintable backgrounds, while the Discovery Kids Polymer Chemistry Set offers quick, fun experiments that can be performed and then stored in a traditional Erlenmeyer flask.”

“The Balancing Act” viewers ‘discovered’ that the Discovery Store is a value oriented shopping destination.  They offer one of the largest selections of products for kids of all ages that are interactive, exciting, skill building, innovative, fun, unique and developmental.

About The Balancing Act
“The Balancing Act” TV show is produced by O2 Media, Inc. and airs daily on Lifetime Television at 7:00am (ET/PT).  “The Balancing Act” is America’s premier morning show that’s about women, for women and trusted by women.  For information or to view a show, visit http://www.TheBalancingAct.com.

Hot Gifts for Boys This Holiday Season

Unless you’re a mother, father, or a young boy yourself – you’ve probably realized it’s hard to know what to get boys. Trends and technologies are changing so quickly that it’s difficult for holiday shoppers to know what toys and games boys actually like these days.

Discovery Kids Toy Store has the hottest selection of toys and games for boys year after year, and this year is no different. We thought we’d share our top picks on the hottest 3 toys for boys by age group. Hopefully this short list will help you find the perfect gift for the boys on your shopping list.

Baby Boys and Toddler Boys:

Bubble Bouncer $59.95

DJ Discovery $29.95

Discovery Tech Set Trio $29.95

 

Pre-School Boys:

Kaledio Gears $26.95

Discovery Mighty Magnets Construction Kit $59.95

Martian House $59.95

 

Boys Ages 5-7:

Kaleidogears 3D $44.95

Discovery’ SmartBerry’ Text Messengers $29.95

Astronauts Dome $59.99

 

Boys Ages 8-12:

Laser Pegs 3-in-1 Build Kit $44.95

21cm 3 Channel with Gyroscope Helicopter $29.95

Discovery Illuminated Ant Gel Habitat $29.95

Teenage Boys:

Space Age Crystal Growing Kit $29.95

Discovery Kingmaster Chess Set $49.95

4-D Velociraptor Anatomy Model $49.95

Employee Sale: 50% off Toys

We're passing on our biggest toy discount of the year to our readers, which is an exclusive employee offer only! Here are the details:

Discovery Channel Store is offering employees 50% off all toys! 

Simply enter code EMPLOYEE50 at checkout for 50% off toys* to be applied.  Hurry, offer expires Wednesday, 12/16 at 11:59 PST.  Shop now at Discovery Toy Store and share this exclusive offer with friends, while supplies last.

Happy Holidays from the Discovery Channel Store

*Offer valid 12/15/2009 at 12:01am PST to 12/16 at 11:59pm PST on toys.  Offer excludes telescopes, telescope accessories, Razor™, select video games, Mattel, Stunt Psycho, Diggler, Dirt Dawg scooters, Oregon Scientific weather stations and non-toy merchandise.  Cannot be combined with any other offers.  Offer not valid on previous purchases.

 

Best Toys 2009: Remote Control Moon in My Room

Bring the night skies and full moon into your child's room with the Remote Control Moon in My Room. It has a built-in light sensor that turns on automatically when the lights go out. Teach your child about the major phases of the moon which include:

New Moon	Waxing Crescent	First Quarter	Waxing Gibbous
Waning Gibbous	Last Quarter	Waning Crescent

The best part is that this toy is remote controlled so they can determine if tonight will be a full moon or Last Quarter moon. Click here for more product detail, prices and where to purchase.

Best Toys 2009: Discovery Dinosaur Ball Pit

This morning as I entered the office, I didn't expect this:

 

Here at the Discovery Store, we just can't get enough of our toys. For those of you that would love to see your hyper 3 year-old snuggle comfortably like this, check out the Exclusive Discovery Dinosaur Ball Pit:

The toy comes completely with a pool of plastic balls. The plush dino also has peek-a-boo holes, mirrors, bells and other small gadgets that encourage small children to practice their motor skills. This toy is recommended for children 6 months and older. For a great price at $89.99, your child will love exploring this soft and plush dinosaur!

Cyber Monday: Lowest Prices Ever!

It's our ONE DAY Cyber Monday Blowout Sale and quite frankly this HAS to be the best sale of the year for us! We have marked down our top three products to the lowest prices ever. Did I mention ever? The deals end tonight at 11:59 pm PST on the dot folks. Check it out:



Planet Earth Box Set on sale for $19.99 and Planet Earth Blu-Ray conveniently priced at $24.99, a whopping 75% Off!

The perfect gift this holiday for that working man and what makes it perfect is that it's 30% off! Save yourself $15 on the Discovery Floating Desktop Globe.

By far the coolest toy this year, give your child the gift of discovery! The Discovery Metal Detector is on sale today only for 40% off, nicely priced at $39.95!

Act fast because the sale ends tonight at 11:59 pm PST and not a minute later!