• felt busy bag gingerbread house
    Christmas - gingerbread house - Handmade gifts - Kids crafts

    Felt busy bag gingerbread house

    November 20, 2014 - By 

    I’m sure you’ve noticed my obsession with gingerbread house but it really comes to life at this time of year. In the last week we’ve made a gingerbread tree, gingerbread biscuits, the gingerbread man story stones and today I wanted to share our felt busy bag gingerbread house. The gingerbread house appears in the well-known fairy tale, Hansel and Gretel. Hansel and Gretel are a young brother and sister threatened by a witch living in the deep dark forest in a house constructed of gingerbread and sweets. The two children survive by outwitting her. Aspects of the story are a…

  • gingerbread story stones - the gingerbread house
    book review - gingerbread - Kids crafts - tutorial

    How to make The Gingerbread Man story stones

    November 18, 2014 - By 

    The story of The Gingerbread Man is a perfect book for reading at this time of year. It’s a classic fairy tale about a Gingerbread Man’s escape from various pursuers and his eventual demise between the jaws of a fox. The Gingerbread Man There are variations in the characters but our favourite features an old couple, a chicken, a dog, a cow, a horse and a fox. The story is great for it’s rhythm and repetition with the lines Run, run as fast as you can! You can’t catch me, I’m the Gingerbread Man! We love crafting around books, they…

  • Vintage Scrabble tile decorations
    crafts - Recycled crafts - tutorial - upcycling - vintage

    Vintage Scrabble tile decorations

    November 13, 2014 - By 

    I picked up a couple of vintage Scrabble sets at the weekend and thought I would upcycle the tiles and stands into Christmas decorations. They are so simple to make and work out quite cheaply. I’ve signed up for a couple of Christmas swaps so have been making some as gifts too. Today I’m going to share my simple way of upcycling vintage Scrabble tile decorations. Equipment you will need to make vintage Scrabble tile decorations: Vintage Scrabble tiles Vintage Scrabble tile holders (the wooden ones work best) Glue gun How to make vintage Scrabble tile decorations: Lay out your…

  • How to bleach bottle brush trees
    Christmas - Christmas - Crafts for adults - tutorial

    How to bleach bottle brush trees

    November 11, 2014 - By 

    This year’s obsession is house-shaped tea light holders. We recently put up two long shelves in our living room. They’re really long and high up enough so they can’t be taken over by my 4 year old and his obsession with making displays of his toys. I’ve accumulated a small collection of tea light holders and I’ve made them into a little village, complete with sweet little bottle brush trees. I was aiming for a green and white theme but a few red houses have slipped in so I thought I would mix up the colour even more by bleaching…

  • Kids crafts - tutorial

    Constellation lacing cards for Firework Night

    November 4, 2014 - By 

    Halloween might be over for another year but we are eagerly looking forward to Bonfire Night on Thursday. We’ll be attending our local firework display (weather permitting!) There are some really colourful crafts around to celebrate fireworks and the failure of Guy Fawkes. Last year we made edible sparklers which I can thoroughly recommend! This year we made constellation lacing cards for Firework Night using a really fun Galaxy-X Duck Tape which is totally out of this world. Equipment needed to make constellation lacing cards Roll of Galaxy-X Duck Tape A4 card center punch laces How to make constellation lacing cards I…

  • clothes peg bats
    Halloween crafts - Kids crafts - tutorial

    How to make clothes peg bats

    October 26, 2014 - By 

    Halloween crafts and fun and can be really simple. My children are itching to decorate the house so we made some simple clothes peg bats to hang up. Equipment needed to make clothes peg bats: wooden clothes pegs black acrylic paint black paper scissors sticky tape and glue dots How to make clothes peg bats: Paint the clothes pegs with black acrylic paint and leave to dry. Draw around your child’s hands on black paper and cut out. Tape the two hand shapes together at the wrists and glue the clothes peg in place. Add eyes or ears, we used…

  • play dough acorns - the gingerbread house
    Autumn - Crafts for kids - Kids crafts - tutorial

    Easy play dough acorns

    October 17, 2014 - By 

    I set up an Autumnal invitation to play for my 4 year old when he got home from school yesterday. He’s play dough crazy so I thought I would combine some Autumnal coloured play dough with some of the acorns we collected at the woods over the weekend. Equipment needed for easy play dough acorns: Autumnal coloured play dough – red, orange, yellow, green and brown Acorns and acorn caps (I placed them in a bag in the freezer over night to make sure there were no nasties in them) How to make easy play dough acorns: I set out…

  • Bostik Family Craft Bloggers Network - Halloween crafts - Kids crafts - tutorial

    Styrofoam pumpkin and pumpkin patch

    October 16, 2014 - By 

    Last week I showed you the styrofoam ball spider we made with our Bostik Craft Club supplies. We were sent so many lovely items we decided to make more – a styrofoam pumpkin! My 4 year old cut the orange tissue paper into small piece and together we used the glue pen to stick the tissue paper on the styrofoam ball. We left it to dry whilst we worked on our pumpkin patch. I found a small styrofoam wreath in my craft stash and my 4 year old wrapped the coloured wool round it (which was great for his fine…

  • Bostik Family Craft Bloggers Network - crafts - Halloween crafts - tutorial

    How to make a styrofoam ball spider

    October 10, 2014 - By 

    Every couple of weeks I receive a mystery parcel of craft supplies and the latest Bostik glue product. The idea is to make something fun with the children. Our latest box was full of amazing goodies in autumnal colours and we all enjoyed looking at the felt, wool, coloured paper and styrofoam balls and dreaming of what we could make. We thought we would make a styrofoam ball pet for Halloween and it was fun and easy to do. Equipment needed to make a stryofoam ball spider: styrofoam ball black tissue paper googly eyes pipe cleaners ric rac to hang How…