• gruffalo story stones - the gingerbread house
    crafts - Kids crafts - playing - tutorial

    Gruffalo Story Stones

    June 15, 2014 - By 

    You may have noticed we’ve been a little obsessed with the Gruffalo lately. We recently spent a lovely time in the deep dark wood hunting for the Gruffalo and friends on a Gruffalo activity trail. My children also enjoyed a fun Gruffalo-themed bento box for their lunch. I thought I would keep the theme going with some Gruffalo Story Stones. Gruffalo Story Stone materials: Smooth stones Decopatch glue Colour images of the Gruffalo, Snake, Owl, Fox and Mouse How to make Gruffalo Story Stones: First I chose some smooth stones from our stash, every time we visit the beach we…

  • competition - crafts - Kids crafts - Recycled crafts

    Win a copy of Reloved magazine

    June 13, 2014 - By 

    Regular readers will know that I love to craft and upcycle. So it’s probably no surprise that I adore Reloved magazine. It’s a brilliant magazine for people who want a little creativity in their lives and upcycling is a great way to make beautiful, practical things for a fraction of the cost of buying them in the shops. The latest issue of Reloved magazine is a Summer Special with 29 fun new craft projects. As usual there are Midweek Makes, Fashion Fixes, Home Refurbs, 3 Ways With… and a Furniture Revamp. There’s a great mix of projects for upcycling furniture,…

  • crafts - Kids crafts - Lego - Recycled crafts - tutorial - upcycling

    How to transform an Ikea table into a Lego Duplo table

    June 12, 2014 - By 

    One of my favourite upcycled crafts has been transforming our old Ikea coffee table into a Lego Duplo table for the children. It’s probably the piece of furniture we’ve had the longest as I think we bought it 8 years ago when we first moved in together. It’s served us well. A couple of years ago it got its first transformation. It was given a coat or two of blackboard paint so the toddler could do his mark making on it. He quickly got bored of that idea (walls were much more appealing) so it was pretty un-used and even…

  • book review - crafts - Kids crafts - tutorial

    Herman’s Letter by Tom Percival

    June 11, 2014 - By 

    This week we sent off a parcel to the Reading Residence as part of the 2014 Love Books Summer Exchange. We took part last year and had a lot of fun with it. Basically you send a book and related craft suitable for the age of your child and receive the same. My son eagerly awaits the Postman knocking on the door as he often receives packages with things to review. You can imagine his expression when he opened the door to a large cardboard box! It contained a copy of Herman’s Letter by Tom Percival, and everything needed to…

  • Bostik Family Craft Bloggers Network - crafts - Father's Day - handmade - Kids crafts - tutorial

    Cut out Father’s Day card

    June 3, 2014 - By 

    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…

  • How to dye pasta for kids to play with
    crafts - Kids crafts - screen-free activities - tutorial

    How to dye pasta

    May 28, 2014 - By 

    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…

  • crafts - Kids crafts - Recycled crafts - tutorial

    Printing hearts with Styrofoam

    May 26, 2014 - By 

    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…

  • pine cone spiders
    crafts - handmade - Kids crafts - tutorial

    Pine cone spider

    May 22, 2014 - By 

    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…

  • gingerbread playdough recipe
    crafts - gingerbread - handmade - Kids crafts - tutorial

    Gingerbread playdough recipe

    May 9, 2014 - By 

    It’s pretty obvious from the name of my blog that I love gingerbread. Mmmm, so many happy memories are associated with the very smell! My children adore playdough, it’s probably one of their top 3 favourite activities, so I thought I would make them some gingerbread playdough. We often make our own playdough as it’s cheap and lasts a long time. If you’re looking for ideas on how to play with playdough, take a look at our free printable gingerbread playdough mats. This is my tried and tested no-cook playdough recipe: 150g plain flour 100g salt 2 tsp. cream of…