Wednesday 24 December 2014

Christmas Tree Craft

Cut out two tree shapes using thick card. We had already painted ours green on one side. (The end of a drawing pad or sketchbook is useful for things like this). Cut a slit from the base of one of the trees 3/4 of the way up. Cut a slit in the other tree 3/4 of the way down starting at the top this time.

Then smother the trees with pva glue.


 sprinkle on plenty of glitter

Stick on decorations of your choice. - we used mini pom poms...

...and added a silver star. Slot the tree shapes together and voila!

Looks like Santa's been. Happy Christmas everyone xxx

Thursday 27 November 2014

My First Sketchbook

Sometimes the tidying up is just as fun as the mess making!

Tuesday 25 November 2014

A Christmas Gift for a Lover of Dressing Up


I just discovered these beautiful animal headdresses by Sara Lowes at Animalesque via the Petit & Small blog. They come in kids and adult sizes and each one is beautifully hand made. Wouldn't they make an incredibly special gift for a lover of dressing up... I'll put one on your Christmas list Tess! 



Friday 21 November 2014

Thursday 20 November 2014

Homemade Stickies


The nesting instinct has well and truly kicked in round our house and friends and charity shops have been striking lucky thanks to my current obsession with space and tidiness.  There are so many things I've hung onto but not looked at for an age including stacks of old magazines (which are now completely neglected thanks to pinterest). I was just about to chuck them in the recycling when I noticed all the cute images inside. A surprisingly cathartic evening in front of the TV with a pair of scissors later and Stevie had a big pile of pretty pictures to stick.  Her smile when I showed her what I'd done the next day was easily worth the time and she loved picking out her favorites to stick.






Tuesday 18 November 2014

Easy Peasy Mark Making

Tip - Use a serving plate for the paint palette and add one colour at a time so it doesn't all go a lovely brown straight away!
Enjoy x

Tuesday 17 June 2014

Healthy Ice Cream... Whats not to love!



In our house ice-cream whether right or wrong is our biggest bargaining tool. It solves a million disputes and gets a lot of dinners eaten!

Luckily I have discovered a clever way to make healthy ice-cream. It's so easy to make and delicious too. The funny thing is after devouring bananas when small neither of my kids will eat them and Zeph is also funny about berries but when frozen and made into ice-cream all of a sudden they are fine!



All you need for a couple of ice creams is...

1 frozen banana
1 handful of another frozen fruit of your choice
some rice/almond/normal/soya milk
ice-cream cones

Chuck it all in the blender, whizz until smooth, pop into cones and hey presto silent happy children!

Some combinations we have tried

Banana and raspberry, aka the pink one
Banana and mixed berries, aka the purple one
Banana and pineapple, aka the yellow one
Banana, mango and almond (we put in a handfull of almonds) aka the nutty one

Happy ice-cream making xxx

Thursday 29 May 2014

Watercolours For Toddlers


I had to think twice before posting this little tip - it's just so simple that it hardly seems worth it, but it is pretty handy, so for anyone who hasn't thought about it before here it is...

If you have a two year old like me who loves to paint then the quickest way is to set them up with a watercolour set. However, as I found, watercolour paints need LOTS of water, and my little one couldn't quite grasp the concept of putting water on the paint each and every time she went back for more, which led to a frustrated child asking for the 'big paint' - not always an option if you're in the middle of cooking dinner. So to get round this I poured a little pool of water on each pan of colour and voila, constant, vibrant paint with no chance of a water cup tipping, no mess and minimum cleaning up. Painting smock still firmly hanging in the cupboard, child amused for at least 20 mins and dinner on the table. It's a small victory but a good one! 

I picked up our watercolour set for a couple of pounds from Tiger