an award-winning craft and family lifestyle blog sharing fun crafts for kids and adults, days out and more
St Patrick’s Day is a while away but that didn’t stop us from making some salt dough Leprechaun gold coins. I’ve wanted to try making our own salt dough for ages and I found a great recipe for it over on RainyDayMum which I have adapted slightly. How to make salt dough coins: 100g salt 200g plain flour 100ml water Put all the ingredients in a bowl and mix together to form a dough. I turned it out on to a lightly floured board and let my son roll it out and cut out about 20 coins using a cookie…
Are you excited about the Winter Olympic Games which start in Sochi this week? I love watching all the different sports so I’m hoping to catch some of the action, can’t wait to see what my 3 year old makes of it all. We were talking about it this morning and he wanted to take part, think he’ll be waiting a couple more years for that! When London hosted the Olympics we were lucky enough to watch the synchronised swimming at the Aquatics Centre. We had an amazing day out and found it all really child-friendly. We also enjoyed making…
Something came over me the other evening, the desire to make delicious things to eat. Before Christmas I had bought a block of marzipan to make some marzipan fruits for Christmas, but I ran out of time. Instead I made some pretty marzipan hearts and dipped them in white chocolate for a naughty treat. They were really simple to make as you can probably see from the photographs above. First I added a little red food colouring to half a block of marzipan and mixed it well, I rolled it out quite thin and cut out my shapes with a…
Last week an exciting packet of craft supplies landed on my doormat from Bostik. I didn’t know they made glue and sticky foam pads but they do, and I was sent some to try out. They also sent some sparkly red felt, red and white card, and asked me to make something for Valentines Day. I thought I would make a fun little treat for my children so whipped up some easy Valentine crackers. Here’s how I did it: First of all I bought some tubes of Love Hearts, and cut a piece of the red felt long enough to…
Over the weekend we tried out a Weekend Box, it’s a clever little box which fits neatly through your letter box and contains four activities: Something to Cook Something to Make Something to Explore and Something Green Each activity is designed to build sensory exploration skills within little ones aged 3-8 as well as help teach them about different life skills in a fun and engaging way. Our box contained 4 instruction cards to make potato boats, DIY 3D glasses, Sand Art Explorers and a Lolly Stick Bird Feeder as well as 4 paper packets with the equipment needed. I’m…
A while ago I pinned a pretty picture of wool hearts. I wanted to try them with my son but the metal heart (made from floral wire) was too fiddly for him to hold and wrap at the same time. Instead we tried using some chunky heart-shaped cookie cutters which were much easier for him to hold. Toddler-friendly Valentine craft – wrapped wool hearts I covered the outside of the cookie cutter in double-sided sticky tape, then he had fun wrapping each one with red wool. When he had finished I tied a knot in the wool at the top…
My son is really enjoying being a part of his new nursery. I’m enjoying the routine (and a 3 hour break from my son every day, what’s not to love?) and he’s learning more than I could have imagined. This term has been all about nursery rhymes and he came home with a booklet for me which listed all the nursery rhymes they would be learning and some home learning suggestions. I was more than happy to receive the suggestions as, despite my Pinterest addiction, I do occasionally run short on ideas. He’s a busy little soul who’s constantly asking…
Before I bombard you with Valentine crafts (and there’s a lot!) I wanted to share one last Chinese New Year craft. 2014 is the Chinese New Year of the Horse and although Chinese New Year is celebrated on Friday January 31st, celebrations will take place on Sunday 2nd February across venues including Trafalgar Square, Leicester Square, Shaftesbury Avenue and of course Chinatown itself. I’m not sure I’m ready to take the children to the celebrations just yet so instead we’ve been having fun at home. We’ve already tried our hand at Chinese New Year lanterns and our latest activity involved paint. Like…
We’ve been thinking about Chinese New Year lately. 2014 is all about the Chinese New Year of the Horse but animal crafts don’t seem to be our speciality, so far. Instead we opted for some simple Chinese New Year tea light holders. We collected some old (clean!) glass jars from the recycling bin, a bottle of PVA glue, paint brush and red tissue paper which I cut into small squares. I had to google why red is associated with Chinese New Year, apparently the colour red, which corresponds with fire, symbolizes good fortune and joy. Then my son got to…