• Three Kings Epiphany craft for kids
    crafts - handmade

    Three Kings, a craft for Epiphany

    January 6, 2014 - By 

    We took our tree and Christmas decorations down yesterday. It took hours but I’m quite pleased our house has now returned to normal. My son is very sad though as he adored turning off the big light “to see how pretty the tree looks”. He really ‘got’ Christmas this year and enjoyed every minute. Three Kings craft to celebrate Epiphany To cheer him up I thought we would make one last Christmas craft. January 6th is celebrated as the Epiphany, or the day the three Wise Men (or Kings) visited the infant Jesus. Our Three Kings or Epiphany craft, is…

  • crafts - handmade

    A crafty sort of year.

    December 31, 2013 - By 

    2013 was a busy year for our family. We sold our lovely house and bought an even lovelier house in a much nicer part of London. The 3 year started his new nursery and has learned so many new things it’s difficult to keep up with him. He performed in his first Christmas play, sang on his first Christmas album and had a pretty good time. The 2 year old started nursery for the first time and has become a lot more confident around other people, she eats better too 🙂 I attended 3 blogging conferences but didn’t feel like…

  • easy handmade flower pot snowpeople
    Christmas - crafts - garden crafts - handmade - tutorial - upcycling

    Winter activities for small people

    December 27, 2013 - By 

    I hope you’ve all had a lovely Christmas. Not that our winter holiday is over but I have let out a small sigh of relief that presents have been opened and enjoyed and several big meals have been cooked and eaten. My two little people have not let Christmas get in their way and have been wanting to be crafty regardless of their piles of presents. We’ve had playdough, practising our writing, colouring and stamping as well as outdoor family activities including a couple of walks, a trip to the park with their scooters and taking my son’s model boat…

  • Christmas - crafts - handmade

    Making handmade gifts for Christmas

    December 19, 2013 - By 

    I had big ambitions for making lots of handmade gifts this year. Time seems to have run out on me though and although I made a couple of hand stencilled gifts, I have made far fewer than I would have liked. We’re giving lots of gift cards this year so I have come up with a great way of making them a little more interesting to open. By placing them in lovely hand decorated boxes! I enjoy decopatch and have been spending my evenings covering stars and hearts for our Christmas tree. It’s nice and simple which ticks all my…

  • Christmas - crafts - gingerbread - handmade - Recycled crafts - tutorial

    Crafting with lightbulbs

    December 17, 2013 - By 

    Have you ever crafted with a light bulb before? I was set a challenge from LightBulbs-Direct to redecorate an old and plain light bulb into an exciting new Christmas ‘light bulble’ bauble! Easy. I turned to Pinterest and found tons of inspiration, so much in fact it took me a while to decide exactly what to make. Lightbulbs are always burning out in our house so there was actually a couple by the back door waiting to go out with the recycling. I chose the largest one I could and gave it a light spray with a white acrylic primer to…

  • Christmas - crafts - gingerbread house - handmade

    Hand stencilled gifts for Christmas

    December 13, 2013 - By 

    A couple of weeks ago I bought a lovely book called Winter Wonderland Stencils which contains 20 reuseable festive stencils. I had grand plans of using them on the windows to make our house look really festive. The only fail was that I’ve been unable to find any cans of fake snow. Instead I started Plan B – homemade gifts! The stencils are really fun with a great vintage vibe, perfect for making a wintry wonderland with sparkly snowflakes, a smiling Santa, snowy trees, reindeer and more (window space permitting!). Whoever designed the book has been clever as each stencil…

  • Toilet roll angels
    Christmas - crafts - handmade - Kids crafts - Toilet roll crafts - tutorial - upcycling

    Toilet roll angels

    December 2, 2013 - By 

    Have a plethora of toilet rolls in your house? We seem to go through lots so are always on the look out for some crafts to help use them up. Our latest one is very seasonal – toilet roll angels! Toilet roll angels craft for kids What you will need: cardboard tubes white paper silver paint scissors sticky tape yellow pipe cleaner The great thing about toilet roll crafts is  that they come together really easily. The first step was to paint them silver and when they were dry we added a face. Then we drew around both children’s hands…

  • homemade slippers
    crafts - Crafts for adults - handmade

    Handmade slippers

    November 24, 2013 - By 

    You all know how much I love making things for the children or our home but it’s not often I make any thing for myself. I was contacted by Amanda who owns Joe’s Toes, selling felt slipper kits, slippers and felt accessories, and asked if I would like to try a kit out. I chose a gorgeous slipper kit in seasonal red. I’d love to say I slaved over the slippers but I really didn’t. The kit contained everything I needed to make a pair of slippers – outsole, midsole, insole, upper, wool and needle. Last night I sat down…

  • Christmas - crafts - handmade

    Polymer clay garland

    November 20, 2013 - By 

    I’ve had a small pack of oven baked clay for ages and really wanted to use it to make something for Christmas. As I’d never experimented with it before I just decided to play around with it, so set out some greaseproof paper, a small rolling pin and some cookie cutters and stamps. I divided the clay in two and warmed it up by rolling it in my hands for a couple of minutes. Then I rolled it out between two sheets of greaseproof paper until it was 2-3mm thick and cut out some shapes. I thought a little garland…