• Felt peppermint Christmas ornaments
    Christmas - crafts - handmade - sewing - swap - tutorial

    Felt peppermint Christmas ornaments

    November 11, 2013 - By 

    Last week I signed up for my first Christmas craft swap organised by Laura at Dropstitch. It was the first one I’d seen and swapping parcels of crafty goodness always gets me in the mood for the festive season. The swap was simple – make four oops five (so glad I re-read the instructions!) handmade Christmas ornaments. Felt peppermint Christmas ornaments I had a good look through my craft books and Pinterest boards and found some very cute felt peppermint Christmas ornaments which I knew would be perfect. I love working with felt and the felt version of any Christmas…

  • Remembrance Day Poppy craft for children
    crafts - handmade - Remembrance Day crafts

    Remembrance Day Poppy craft for children

    November 5, 2013 - By 

    There is lots to inspire us with our crafting lately. Everywhere we go we see poppies. Although the children are too young to understand the significance of Remembrance Sunday I don’t think they are too young to make their own contribution. Remembrance Day Poppy craft for children We thought we’d make our own poppies from paper plates. We painted them with red paint which my children loved. Little Sis loves to paint as much as her brother and makes *quite* a mess! We left them to dry overnight. The next day we cut out two circles from black paper and…

  • HOW TO MAKE EDIBLE SPARKLERS
    Bonfire Night crafts - crafts - handmade - Kids crafts - tutorial

    How to make edible sparklers

    November 3, 2013 - By 

    I love this time of year as there’s so much going on – Halloween, Bonfire Night, Remembrance Sunday and of course Christmas. We were out shopping yesterday and Toys R Us were playing Christmas music and John Lewis had their decorations up! I felt a little festive but it does seem to start earlier each year. Anyway, the children really enjoyed Halloween this year; they dressed up, insisted on our pumpkin being lit every evening for a week and especially loved seeing the local children knock on our door whilst they were out trick or treating. I’m not sure if…

  • baking - book review - competition - crafts - gingerbread - handmade - holidays

    Things that go bump in the night!

    October 31, 2013 - By 

    Today is Halloween and we’ll be celebrating by having a small party, with some ghostly treats. For one day only we’re calling ourselves the gingerdead house! We’ve had loads of fun making decorations so I thought I’d share some of them with you. We’ve been really busy over the last month and some of our favourites are: no carve pumpkins, pinecone spider, mummy candle, ghost ice cubes, Halloween sun catchers and toilet roll mummies. As well as crafting we’ve made some spooky snacks, from gingerdead men with black treacle to wriggly jelly worms. We’ve also tasted some yummy pickled onion…

  • book review - crafts - handmade

    New Wings for Old Things

    October 22, 2013 - By 

    You all know that I love to visit charity shops and upcycle the things I find in them. When I heard about a new book produced by The Children’s Air Ambulance it sounded absolutely written for me and I had to share it with you. The book is called New Wings for Old Things: Sew, Stick, Splatter and Salvage and includes over 20 projects to change preloved pieces into vintage visions for your wardrobe, home and garden. The ethos behind it is encouraging people of all levels of crafting experience to upcycle preloved (or just unloved!) items knocking about at home or in…

  • easy washi tape pumpkin for kids
    crafts - Crafts for adults - Halloween crafts - handmade - Kids crafts - tutorial

    No-Carve Pumpkin ideas

    October 21, 2013 - By 

    As much as I love Halloween I never actually want to spend my time pumpkin carving. This year we’ve done things a little differently. We purchased our pumpkin from Waitrose along with a couple of cute munchkins (mini pumpkins) and they make a great display on our dining room table. The toddler has been going on and on about carving the pumpkin but instead of reaching for the knife I grabbed my washi tape collection instead. Easy No-Carve Pumpkin ideas How about using washi tape for a no carve pumpkin? No mess and you can change the expression as often…

  • crafts - Halloween crafts - handmade - Kids crafts - tutorial

    Spooky Halloween sun catchers

    October 16, 2013 - By 

    We like to make sun catchers for our windows so thought we’d make something fun for Halloween. We already have munchkins on the mantlepiece and a Happy Halloween banner. The toddler has made Lego pumpkins and ghosts but there are still so many things to make and do! I cut out some spooky houses from black paper using a self healing mat and scalpel. I did this the evening before as I didn’t fancy using a scalpel with the children around. The children tore out pieces of coloured tissue paper and stuck them to the houses with glue. The tissue…

  • crafts - Crafts for kids - handmade

    Feed the birds, tuppence a bag

    October 14, 2013 - By 

    Did you know it’s Feed the Birds Day on October 24th? How about making a simple bird feeder and giving them a tasty treat? All you need is a cardboard tube, bird feed, peanut butter and string. Spread peanut butter all over the cardboard tube and roll it in the bird feed. We poured the bird feed into a plastic container so the seed didn’t go everywhere. Then we cut a length of string and threaded it through the tube and tied a knot in the two ends. Then we headed out to the garden and  hung it on a…

  • simple toilet roll pumpkins
    crafts - Halloween crafts - Kids crafts - Recycled crafts - Toilet roll crafts - tutorial

    Crafty Halloween pumpkins

    September 16, 2013 - By 

    We still have a plethora of toilet rolls in our recycling drawer so I thought it was about time we used them. Halloween is fast approaching so what better than a Halloween pumpkin. Yes, it is possible! Simple toilet roll pumpkins First of all my 3 year old painted a couple of toilet rolls with orange paint. We left them to dry and I cut out leaves from coloured paper. We used our fab Ralph the Dog to stick the leaves to the tube. Ralph is the new fun Scotch Magic Tape Dispenser Dog from Scotch 3M. My son loves…