Have you crafted anything for Father’s Day? This year it falls upon June 15th and we’ve been busy making some little gifts. Recently we received a small package of craft materials as we’re members of the Bostik Craft Club. One of the products was a Blu Tack blu stick which my 4 year old immediately claimed as his own. We were also given coloured tissue paper and card. He’s been badgering me for a while about using it so today we did and made a cut out Father’s Day card. Materials you will need: paper template craft knife self-healing cutting mat…
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A couple of weeks ago I read those words that strike fear into a parents heart. My 4 year old was taking part in a Minibeast concert at nursery and needed to dress up as a minibeast. I pride myself on being an organised parent but I only found out about the dress up a week before the event! When I asked my son what he wanted to wear he said a worm, a snail and also a butterfly. We had a chat and compromised on a ladybird cape that could be worn with black trousers and a black long-sleeved…
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The past couple of days we’ve had a lot of rain so we’ve been trying lots of crafts to keep us busy. Today we thought we would show you how to dye some pasta shapes as we’ve been having lots of fun with dried pasta, it’s surprisingly quick and easy too. To dye your own pasta you will need: pasta shapes white wine vinegar food colouring cocktail sticks plastic bags tray How to dye pasta Measure 1 teaspoon of white wine vinegar into a small bowl. Add a generous amount of food colouring and mix with a cocktail stick. Place…
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I love the idea of making my own stamps. I’ve already tried a couple of things, such as shaping the rubber on the end of a pencil to make a bunting stamp. I also made stamps from craft foam and old bottle tops. This weeks’ effort involved recycling styrofoam sheets, we used the ones from ready-made pizzas, and printing hearts with styrofoam. Equipment needed to make hearts with Styrofoam: pointed end of a ballpoint pen lid wooden heart styrofoam sheet (we used one from a pizza box) red paint white paper I pressed quite heavily and made sure I went…
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On Sunday we spent a lovely day exploring Kew Gardens. I love watching how curious my children are about the things they see and there was plenty to see and do at Kew. Having children has definitely made me more aware of the changing seasons and over the last couple of weeks we’ve enjoyed watching the garden spring to life. Whilst we were at Kew the children collected pocketfuls of pine cones. They’ve been sitting on our nature table but I thought we should make something with them and decided on pine cone spiders. This is a great craft as…
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I promised myself I would spend more time on my hobbies and am trying to finish off lots of sewing projects before I start any more. However when a copy of Little Quilts by Sarah Fielke & Amy Lobsiger landed on my doorstep there was a project I just had to make straight away. Craft books are a major weakness and indulgence and Little Quilts is my kind of book. I love making little quilts for Little Sis to play with and I’ve already made a couple. Little Quilts features 15 step-by-step projects for small quilts using traditional and contemporary…
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If you’re a regular reader of my blog you’ll know I am constantly on the look out for old Scrabble sets to stock in my Etsy shop. The letter tiles are perfect for crafting with, such as this fun Scrabble bathroom sign I made. Well last week I found a couple of sets, but they weren’t the sets I am used to seeing. The first was an Australian version, published and distributed by T.R. Urban & Co., Sydney under licence from Production & Marketing Company USA. There aren’t many differences from my English versions, except obviously where it was made,…
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Voting closes today at midnight for the Brilliance in Blogging awards or the BiBs. This is the second year I’ve been shortlisted in the Crafts category and I would really appreciate your vote (just click on the image to go to the nomination form). I started blogging back in 2005 about my life in London and the things I made. I still write about this but also life with two children and much more. Every night my son asks me what we’re going to make the next day but my blog is more than just children’s crafts. I also love…
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A few weeks ago we were reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar and made a caterpillar from bottle tops. He’s been sitting in a jar ever since and my 4 year old keeps looking at the jar and telling me how disappointed he is that the caterpillar hasn’t changed into a butterfly. I thought we would make a colourful butterfly and hopefully make my son happy. You will need: cardboard tube bubble wrap double sided sticky tape paint and paint brush tray or large lid paper I covered the cardboard tube with a layer of bubble wrap which was held in…
