• Valentine calm down jar
    Kids crafts - tutorial - Valentines Day crafts

    Valentine calm down jar

    January 14, 2015 - By 

    My 3 year old has a tendency to stamp her foot and shout “I’m not happy” when she’s not getting her own way. Sometimes both my children need to take a step back. My Pinterest boards are full of calm down jars and I thought they looked fun to make and worth a try. This is kid-friendly, a great activity for re-using old glass jars and the other art supplies for kids are easily available. Materials needed to make a Valentine calm down jar: Red glitter glue Empty jar with the label removed Warm water Selection of heart shaped buttons…

  • Chinese lantern sun catcher
    Chinese New Year crafts - Kids crafts - tutorial

    Chinese lantern sun catcher

    January 13, 2015 - By 

    My children love to make sun catchers. They are so quick and easy to set up and they are my go to craft if one of them asks to make something and I don’t want to think about it too much. With Chinese New Year around the corner I set up a sweet Chinese lantern sun catcher activity for my 3 year old daughter yesterday. Material needed to make a Chinese lantern sun catcher: Paper Scissors Cellophane squares Contact paper How to make a Chinese lantern sun catcher: First draw your Chinese lantern. I drew mine with a black Sharpie…

  • Orla Kiely

    Monday happy things

    January 12, 2015 - By 

    The weather has been a little wet and wild lately which means I’m thankful I write this weekly post to remind myself of the good things that have happened. I bought the latest copy of Pretty Patches. Although I resolved to buy less magazines in 2015 and stop my expensive subscriptions I saw a few projects I would like to try in this issue. I’ve added a new limited edition Orla Kiely print jute shopper from Tesco to my collection. Now, I definitely didn’t need another shopping bag but I really like this print. The bags are strong, I have…

  • book review - parenting

    What I’m reading: The Playful Parent by Julia Deering

    January 11, 2015 - By 

    I’m not a huge fan of parenting manuals. You can probably tell from the books I share here that I love my craft books and the odd piece of fiction. At the end of last year HarperCollins asked if I wanted to take part in in their 31 days of inspiration and ‘live a book’ in January. This month they are bringing 31 of their inspiring books together covering areas such as; professional development, parenting tips, health, exercise and general well-being. Some of the ideas in these books involve a complete overhaul, whilst others require small changes to effect positive…

  • baking - Orla Kiely

    Lemon meringue cupcakes

    January 10, 2015 - By 

    Every week I try to bake at least one new recipe, something to fill the cake tin. This weeks’ effort was lemon meringue cupcakes. I love this combination but had never made meringue before – it wasn’t as hard as I thought. I made cupcakes using Kerrygold butter, you may remember I mentioned they’d been given a little Orla Kiely makeover. I used my fancy corer (one of those Lakeland purchases you buy and never use until this recipe) to remove a small amount of the cupcake and added in a teaspoon of lemon curd. Then I added a twirl…

  • Kids crafts - playing - tutorial

    Simple noughts and crosses with toys

    January 9, 2015 - By 

    The weather has take a turn for the worst recently so we’ve been stuck indoors more than we’d like. Over the Christmas holidays the children really started to enjoy playing family games. They don’t always grasp the rules and sometimes there’s a little cheating going on but it’s great to see them having fun with indoor games and learning new skills. Yesterday we had fun with simple noughts and crosses but we made it a little different by using the children’s toys and making a large washi tape grid on the floor! Noughts and crosses, or tic-tac-toe, is usually played…

  • Dolls quilts - handmade - Patchwork & Quilting - sewing

    Decorating our home with quilts

    January 8, 2015 - By 

    Two new quilts have been added to my quilt gallery wall. Over the Christmas holiday I re-arranged some of the pieces to include my Wild Olive Winter Stitching Club piece which was a snowflake shaped quilted mat. I love the colours and unusual shape. I have also added my finished ticker tape quilt. Last year I wrote about the Hand Quilting workshop with Charlotte Newland I attended. We had to bring an unfinished quilt to work on and this little quilt was stuffed in my sewing box. Since I messed up the binding I just didn’t wanted to finish it off…

  • paper wreath tutorial - the gingerbread house
    Paper craft - Recycled crafts - tutorial

    Recycled wrapping paper wreath tutorial

    January 7, 2015 - By 

    I’m pretty astounded by the amount of rubbish we recycling this Christmas holiday. Although we had our extended family at our house we still had an embarrassing amount of bags to put out, not helped by the fact we skipped a collection due to the Bank Holidays. I try to re-use items from the recycling as much as possible and made some sweet paper wreaths from recycled wrapping paper. Today I am going to share my recycled wrapping paper origami wreath tutorial with you. A while ago I was sent one of these as part of a craft swap and…

  • Twelfth Night biscuits for Three Kings Day
    baking - Crafts for adults - gingerbread - Winter crafts

    Gingerbread crowns for Three Kings Day

    January 6, 2015 - By 

    You know that I love to celebrate the seasons which is why I had to mark Twelfth Night in some way. We took the Christmas decorations down over the weekend (not a job I wanted to do on my own) so the house has been looking a little empty. With everyone back at work and school I made some yummy gingerbread crowns for Three Kings Day, also known as Twelfth Night. So I made a large batch of yummy gingerbread dough. I rolled it out and cut out my shapes – three Russian-inspired crowns for the Three Kings. I used…