We love making sun catchers. Our sitting room faces south which means we get a lot of lovely sun light on the window – perfect for handmade sun catchers! After the success of the ones we made last year we thought we’d make some for Valentines Day too. Easy Valentine sun catchers You will need: card, scissors, coloured pieces of cellophane (we used sweetie wrappers), sticky tape and bakers twine. We drew round cookie cutters to make heart and circles shapes. This meant they were all the same shape and size. Then we carefully cut out the middle of each…
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If you are looking for a fun craft for toddlers, look no further. We’ve been busy making festive baubles from sweetie wrappers! I’m sad to say I’ve been saving colourful sweetie wrappers for a rainy day and then I thought of a great activity for the toddler. Equipment you will need to make recycled sweet wrapper decorations: card scissors double sided sticky tape ribbon I cut 6 circles from black card and then cut smaller circles out of them (using baby food jars as a template). The toddler adores sticky tape so I gave him small pieces of tape and…
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We’re not big on celebrating Halloween but I can’t resist making some Halloween treats. I received a box of Ghostbusters Stay Puft Quality Marshmallows from my favourite sweetshop Cybercandy and thought I would turn them into spooky marshmallows. The marshmallows were tightly squeezed in the box, so I emptied them out and let them breathe and regain their shape. I then sorted out the best, evenly shaped ones (size-ist, I know) and got to work with my edible marker pen. What do you think of my spooky Halloween marshmallows? A great quick craft for kids big and small! Ghostbusters Stay…
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As a home baker with a *very* sweet tooth I was happy to receive a copy of Marshmallow Madness by Shauna Sever to review. It may be summer but with the wet weather it’s also pretty good to hide indoors from the rain drinking hot chocolate with whipped cream and marshmallows. I didn’t ever think of making my own marshmallows but Marshmallow Madness gives you all the information you need to make them at home. The book is well set out with a helpful introduction and a list of key ingredients as well as marshmallow-making tips and techniques. The book…
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My piles of vintage board games have inspired me to make Scrabble tile biscuits! The children are too young for Scrabble but I thought we could make something special for Father’s Day. Today I’m showing you how to make Scrabble tile biscuits! How to make Scrabble tile biscuits I followed the recipe for simple plain biscuits from the Biscuiteer Book of Iced Biscuits and cut them all the same size. They cooked quickly and had a lovely colour. I sampled the less-than-perfect ones which tasted pretty yummy. After they had cooled I prepared the royal icing, drawing a line…
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You may remember last year I attended the Knitting and Stitching Show at Ally Pally where I picked up some lovely fabric to make a crawling blanket for my second child. I didn’t know if the bump would be a boy or girl so I tried to pick neutral fabrics. I couldn’t resist london scene by etsuko furuya which literally leaped at me as I passed a stand selling fabric. As well as the main fabric I bought a lime fabric to back the blanket and purple to bind it together. The fabric is gorgeous! It features well-known London landmarks…
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I often blog about painting as the toddler absolutely loves getting messy. He knows where the craft cupboard is and will point and say ‘paint’ over and over again until I give in. We always start off by aiming to do a ‘proper’ piece of art with a theme, like handprints or painting with corks (his current favourite). It often descends into total chaos where he forgets about the piece of paper and just uses the tablecloth. We usually have plenty of corks lying around and I now have extended family giving me bags of them as they know how…
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As we passed the 100 day milestone to the Olympic Games last week my thoughts turned crafty! What could we make? We applied for tickets for three events and we know we’ve got some tickets, we’re just not sure for what events or if we’re able to take Little Sis as we applied when I was pregnant. We have less than 100 days to find out. Olympic cupcakes We haven’t been baking in a while so thought we would make the basic fairy cake recipe from Mary Berry’s Baking Bible, a recent birthday present which I am enjoying working my…
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You know how much we love getting messy with the paints so Easter seemed like a great opportunity to break out the paints for some more fun. I saw a great Easter card on Pinterest based on Ed Emberley’s fingerprint animals. I instantly bought a copy of one of his books (Ed Emberley’s Fingerprint Drawing Book) as I know we’ll have lots of fun with it. Big Brother is a bit young for it as the moment but I love it – lots of crafty inspiration for fingerprint animals, vehicles, seasons and holidays. The fingerprint Easter bunny and chicks were…
