• crafts - Crafts for adults - subscription box - Winter

    Mistletoe embroidery and a felt winter fox

    I try to make time to craft but I have to be honest, working outside of the home leaves me with little energy for it at the moment. I’ve been enjoying the quarterly Craftpod subscription though and always seem to make time to craft the contents. I ordered the Winter Craftpod box as a little treat to myself. It arrived just before Christmas so I packed it to take away with us over Christmas. This was a colourful winter-themed box with two crafts – a soft sculpture of a woodland fox and a mistletoe embroidery hoop. There were extras too,…

  • Crafts for adults - mindfulness - subscription box - Winter

    Mindful stitching with the Winter Craftpod box

    Before Christmas I received the Winter Craftpod box. This is my favourite subscription box at the moment. It comes quarterly which means I actually have time to make what’s inside and enjoy it! What was inside the Winter Craftpod box? There were two Winter crafts – a sweet stitching project to embroider Winterberries in a small hoop, and a stamp making kit. There was also a postcard by Jamilla Beukema, a sheet of stickers by Nastia Sleptsova, a Black Chai teabag and Vivani chocolate. I love receiving my Craftpod box, it really is something I look forward to opening. The first thing…

  • baking - Crafts for kids - Winter - Winter crafts

    How to make shortbread reindeer biscuits

    There has been quite a lot of baking this Winter. Who doesn’t love baking? My kids love it too and it always results in some tasty tea-time treats. When we were food shopping one day, one of the children spotted a kit to make your own shortbread reindeer biscuits. We’ve wanted to make these for a while because we all know that reindeer are just gingerbread men upside down! I don’t have much experience of making shortbread as the whole family love gingerbread. But I was pretty happy to try this kit at home as we never have all the…

  • Kids crafts - Winter - Winter crafts

    Sun catcher mittens using recycled paper crowns

    I don’t know about you but we went through a lot of Christmas crackers this year. My children just loved them so we had them on Christmas Eve with our North Pole breakfast, Christmas Day and Boxing Day too. My 7 year old decided only he could read out the jokes and my little magpie 6 year old pocketed all the little toys. I was happy to collect the paper crowns as I knew they would be perfect for a craft I’ve been meaning to try for a while. I love recycling little things and paper crowns are perfect. They…

  • Crafts for kids - Winter

    Handprint robin for winter

    It doesn’t feel like we’ve made too many winter crafts this year. With a few days before Christmas though the children just want to make things which suits me. Everything is done and ready so that’s pretty much all I want to do too. We all love to watch the birds in our garden, especially a very friendly little robin, who inspired our handprint robins. Handprint robin for winter My daughter loves using her hands to make art. Handprint art is fun and I love watching her cover herself in paint every time! for this craft activity we used brown…

  • Pancake Day crafts - recipe - Winter

    How do you like your pancakes? {Hob Pride Pancake Challenge}

    I love the first few months of the new year. There is so much going on with birthdays and special days that it’s difficult to be bored for a minute. Next week we will be celebrating Pancake Day here in the UK. My husband *always* makes the pancakes in our house so I have been practising so I can make them for a change. Everyone seems to like them served a different way but we’re all agreed that flat pancakes are the way forward. A basic pancakes recipe is cheap and cheerful, it’s what you serve them with that makes…

  • Fairy garden crafts - parenting - playing - Winter

    Winter fairy garden play

    We’ve had a run of beautiful but cold days recently. These are my favourite winter days and we’ve all wanted to be outside before coming back in to warm up with a hot chocolate! Over the weekend we spent a bit of time cleaning out our mud kitchen which was looking so sad and neglected. All the pots were full of muddy, frozen water and it needed a good clean up. The children helped clear out the old pinecones and acorns we had collected and sweep away the sand and dust. We left it looking so much cleaner, all ready…

  • Christmas - crafts - Handmade gifts - Winter

    How to make a winter pomander

    I had forgotten how much I love January. We are still in deepest, darkest winter and we’ve had some beautiful blue skies recently. We’ve never made many Winter crafts but this year we are fully embracing it! So far we’ve made a really fun winter ice lamp, mistletoe and holly and berries sun catchers. Today we’re sharing how to make a winter pomander. We bought a large orange and used the ribbon and cloves which came in our recent hygge-in-a-box box. I also found a metal skewer which helped with the cloves. How to make a winter pomander A pomander…

  • Christmas - crafts - Winter

    Holly and berries winter sun catcher

    My 6 year old has been off school for the past few days with chicken pox. He’s been quite poorly and Minecraft has been the only thing to cheer him up. To scrape him away from it we re-used our cellophane sweet wrappers to make this fun holly and berries winter sun catcher. We used: white card, green and red cellophane pieces, contact paper, scissors Holly and berries winter sun catcher First I drew some holly leaves and berries on a sheet of card. Then I cut them out using my Swann-Morton scalpel. If I made this again I would only…