• Recycled toy Christmas decorations
    Christmas - Crafts for kids - Kids crafts - Recycled crafts - tutorial - upcycling

    Recycled toy Christmas decorations

    December 16, 2014 - By 

    This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone. #CollectiveBias I think I’ve mentioned before about the beautiful wooden storage shelves my husband built for my son. They normally house his collection of small plastic toys but over the weekend my son took them all down so he could display his toy cars. I thought it would be fun to incorporate some of them into our Christmas decorations so, with my son’s permission, I recycled them. Let me tell you how. First of all we went through his toys and took out…

  • Christmas

    Monday happy things

    December 15, 2014 - By 

    Monday again and only 9 days til Christmas. Hope you’re all feeling super organised! Although I haven’t made as many handmade gifts as I wanted to there has been lots of Christmas crafting. Our house is very twinkly and pretty and the tree is beginning to lean with the weight of decorations. Over the last week we’ve made wreaths, a styrofoam snowman ornament, gingerbread sun catchers, Liberty baubles, apple and cinnamon muffins, upcycled toy ornaments and personalised baubles. We’re all enjoying wearing Christmas jumpers this year. I have a sparkly gingerbread man, the 4 year old has a beautiful Fair…

  • Christmas - Kids crafts - tutorial

    Personalised bauble decorations

    December 15, 2014 - By 

    For the final time this year I’ve teamed up with some European children’s activities bloggers to co-host a Countdown to Christmas organised by Rainy Day Mum. Every Monday we have a different prompt to inspire our festive crafting – this week’s theme is family fun. Don’t forget to add your crafty post to the linky at the end of this post! This time of year is all about family fun – we’ve been wearing our festive jumpers, listening to brass bands play carols on the High Street, attend parties and festive lunches whilst the excitement builds up to Christmas Day.…

  • Christmas

    Decorating Santa’s Grotto

    December 14, 2014 - By 

    One of the things I love about this time of year is the opportunity to be really creative. Mobile Mini challenged us to help out Santa by designing a portable grotto that can fit within a storage container. Now my 4 year old loves his Playmobil cargo truck and cargo ship as it comes with a couple of shipping containers. He loves these toys and can often be found using them to ‘ship’ other toys around the house. I immediately knew this was the challenge for me. Of course my first thought was to create a gingerbread-inspired portable grotto for Santa.…

  • Gingerbread men sun catcher tutorial
    Crafts for kids - gingerbread - Kids crafts - tutorial

    Gingerbread men sun catcher tutorial

    December 14, 2014 - By 

    We love sun catchers and have made quite a few this year. They are fun to make and easy to set up as they use everyday items from our crafty cupboard. We were recently reading The Gingerbread Boy which inspired our latest craft. Here’s our gingerbread boy sun catcher tutorial! Equipment needed to make gingerbread men sun catcher: black card scissors cellophane squares contact paper hole punch ribbon How to make gingerbread men sun catcher: Draw around a gingerbread cookie cutter or draw a gingerbread man freestyle on a piece of black card. I made a gingerbread girl and boy…

  • Christmas - homestyle

    On my mantle – December

    December 13, 2014 - By 

    Greetings and welcome to the festive edition of what’s on my mantle. My house is looking quite pretty. We have strings of lights everywhere to protect us from the gloom that seems to descend by the time we get back from the school run. As well as sharing my mantle I thought I would also write about some of our Christmas decorations. For the first time we are experimenting with a large light feature. Yes. We have our very own reindeer. We’ve managed to position it between our wooden shutters and our huge bay window in our lounge. The children…

  • baby - baby products - competition - Lindam Munchkin blogger panel

    Win a Latch Newborn Starter Set from Munchkin worth £29.99

    December 12, 2014 - By 

    I have a sweet competition for any new parents out there today. As part of my role on the Lindam Munchkin blogger panel I have been given a Latch Newborn Starter Set from Munchkin worth £29.99 to giveaway. With the goal of helping new mums reach their breastfeeding goals, the revolutionary Munchkin LATCH™ bottle feeding system is designed to offer mum everything she needs to make the transition from breast to bottle feeding as natural and comfortable as possible, for mum and baby. Launching in June 2014, and the result of a 3 year programme of in-depth research, and testing,…

  • easy snowman ornament tutorial
    Bostik Family Craft Bloggers Network - Christmas - Kids crafts - tutorial - Winter

    How to make a Styrofoam snowman ornament

    December 12, 2014 - By 

    Our Christmas tree is looking amazing this year. It’s full of decorations, some traditional ones we’ve had for years and lots made by the children. One of my favourite is our Styrofoam snowman so I thought I would share how we made it with you. Equipment needed to make a Styrofoam snowman ornament: two styrofoam balls (one small, one medium sized) Bostik Glu Dots Ribbon Pipe cleaner Pom poms Foam stickers Beads How to make a Styrofoam snowman ornament: Glue the two styrofoam balls together using a Bostik Glu Dot, place the smaller ball on top of the larger one.…

  • book review - Kids crafts - sewing

    Looking back over 2014

    December 12, 2014 - By 

    Is it too early to be feeling a tiny bit fed up about Christmas? I’m beginning to feel the strain of two excited children, a very cluttered house, presents to wrap and quite a few meals to plan and cook too. So I thought I would take a break from reality and instead look forward to 2015 with a little look back at this year. For me this has been the year of books as I’ve really got back into reading. Some of my favourites have been The Teashop on the Corner by Milly Johnson and A Single Breath by…