Creepy Crawly Crafting Fun

Nestle recently carried out some interesting research, revealing the kind of challenges that parents like myself face when trying to make sure that their children are receiving the vitamins and minerals that they need. There were some weird and wonderful findings :

71 % of kids refuse to eat a plate of greens (you know the good stuff!)

47% of children have had a chew on some sort of bug from the garden. Some of the creepy crawlies included were worms, caterpillars and snails.

This gave nestle the idea to build a caterpillar of their own made from cereal. So they worked alongside food artist Prudence Staite to create a huge 10ft one to showcase just how nutritious cereal can be…..

We Heart Cheerios

It is no secret that we love Nestle cereal in this house, especially those cheery little o's. Did you know that Cheerios recently released a new low sugar oat version that has just 1.4g of sugar per serving, great news for all those families who are trying to follow a balanced and nutritional diet.

Anyway, to show the love, my girls and I were asked if we'd like to first try the cereal and then get creative. I've made cakes with cheerios before but never any art so I thought this could be a fun task.

I can firstly confirm that these O's are certainly just as tasty as normal cheerios, the pack that we were sent has already been devoured.

We were sent a pretty impressive crafting pack along with our Cheerios which contained all the materials we would need to get creative including ribbon, wire, pipe cleaners paper, scissors and glue.

10 Spooktacular Halloween Activities

Tis the season for trick or treating. Yes Halloween is upon us. I've asked a few other lovely bloggers for some wonderful Halloween activities to share with you all, ideas of things that you can be doing with your kids whilst they're off on half term. So below are 10 spooktacular craft and baking activities for you to try.

1. First up are some amazing Halloween candles over on In The Playroom. An activity that might sound complicated but is infact easy to do with spooktacular results.

Get Thrifty And Make Your Own Wrapping Paper

Wrapping paper.

Something we use a lot but also something that tends to just get thrown in the bin after usage, so why do we all spend so much money on it??

The fact that we are in the process of buying a house and that Christmas is just round the corner (yes I did just say the C word), I'm thinking of ways that I can save myself money.

One idea, making my own wrapping paper.

We're Going On A Treasure Hunt

I love the fact that my girls are so creative and that their imaginations are always working on over drive. This means that even when I can't think of things for us to do, they manage to come up with ideas all by themselves.

Last week my eldest two daughters, after watching another episode of Jake and The Never Land Pirates with their sister's, decided to make a treasure map and go on a treasure hunt around the house to find buried treasure.

You will need :

Making a Simple Father's Day Card

Quick reminder, Father's day is this Sunday, the 15th of June. If you haven't managed to buy anything yet or if funds are running low, here is a simple idea for a Father's day card that you and your kids can do together.

You will need :

A4 plain paper

Scissors

Ruler

Pencil

Colouring Pencils

Printing Pictures

One of the subjects I took at school was art, it is surprising how much I have forgotten since leaving school though. My kids are constantly reminding me of things that I did when I was younger. The other day Elise was on about printing pictures and at first I didn't quite understand what she meant, so of course she had to show me. A piece of polystyrene and a pencil later and it all became clear.

You will need :

* Pieces of polystyrene

* A pencil

* An assortment of paints

* A paint brush

* Plain paper

To make :

Take a piece of polystyrene and using a pencil draw out the picture you would like to create, then using that same pencil, you need to push into the polystyrene and follow what you have drawn, creating a type of stencil.

Time to Get Crafty

My children love making things, whether it is drawing, sticking, colouring, cutting, they are always creating new things for me to look at and keep in that massive box I have upstairs that is already full to the brim of their brilliant creations. The thing I can sometimes struggle with is keeping them stocked up on supplies to carry on using those little imaginations of theirs. This is where One Stop Craft Shop have come in handy.

I was given the opportunity to take a good look around their site and I was also sent a little package of goodies from the wide range of items that they stock.

One Stop Craft Shop stock everything from card making materials, baking, craft essentials like glues, glitters and paints, as well as lovely craft kits for those younger crafters. I really love that the site is extremely easy to navigate with drop down menus at the top and all categories listed in alphabetical order down the side of the homepage for you to browse.

Each category when clicked leads you to a page of sub categories which are all clearly labelled and with images above the writing I think it would be difficult to click on the wrong one.

Each item that you click on states the price and gives a full product description so you know exactly what you are buying. What I love is that it tells you whether the chosen item is in stock or not, no need to chase for out of stock items after ordering.

My girls and I were kindly sent some acrylic paints in various colours and some lovely shape cutters.

We decided to make use out of the acrylic paints first. One Stop Craft Shop stock all purpose acrylic paint from purpose in numerous amounts of colours, each bottle cost just £1.15. The girls decided that they would like to do some potato stamping, so I gave them the cardboard that is left over once a roll of wrapping paper runs out and I let them stamp away.

The girls had loads of fun and soon decided that the potatoes weren't the only thing they wanted to stamp with and proceeded to paint their hands to create finger prints and hand prints. Just take a look at Gracie below.

What was great about these paints was that they washed right off, not even soap was needed just good old water and this meant no pesky stains left on the clothes either, I will definitely be using these paints from now on. 

And I bet your wondering just what their finished creation looked like once finished :

I think you will agree that is lovely and vibrant, a real work of art. We even used the paints after to finish painting our homemade Christmas tree.

One Stop Craft have a great giveaway running throughout December too. If you place an order this month you will have a chance of winning a free gift, one winner will be chosen each day. I was more than impressed with their site and what they had to offer so why not take a look yourselves.

Keep up to date with all their news and goings on facebook and twitter.

We will be using the shape cutters to make some scrummy layered cookies soon so look out for that post!!

xxxx

Disclaimer : The paints and shape cutters were sent to me free of charge for reviewing purposes however all thoughts and opinions are my own.

Toilet Roll Christmas Tree

I recently guest posted over on BusyBeeMummyBex showing how we were making some homemade Christmas decorations, we started with paper chains. Well over the past few weeks we have been saving up the empty toilet rolls, what could we possibly make with these, well a Christmas tree of course.

You will need :

* 16 toilets rolls

* double sided sticky tape

* glue stick

* paint brush

* green paint to paint the tree

* decorations to stick on

* other colour paints 

The first thing you need to do is stick all the toilet rolls together. I used double sided sticky tape to stick each of them to one another. I then stuck the tree to a cardboard base.

You then need to paint all of the toilet rolls green, making sure to paint in all the little gaps and any showing sticky tape too.

Once the paint has dried it is time to stick on all of the sparkly decorations on to the tree.

Finally paint present boxes on the cardboard base because no Christmas tree is complete without presents underneath it.

Have you made any homemade decorations this year?

xxxx

Hobbycraft Halloween Goodies Review

I associate the month of October with Halloween, this includes dressing up in scary costumes, trick or treating and of course spooky arts and crafts.

Hobbycraft are the largest arts and crafts retailer in the UK. With 78 stores nationwide, they provide all the things you need to get craft including : art materials, craft kits, cookware and baking supplies, papercraft, knit, stitch and haberdashery.

Hobbycraft are also celebrating Halloween, stocking decorations, party supplies and craft kits. I was kindly sent a selection of their Halloween range to try out and review.

I was sent : Pom Pom Kit Pumpkins £2.50, Pumpkin Witch Foam Activity Kit £1.50, Amscan Halloween Decoration Tape Banners £3.00, Amscan Resealable Bags 12pc £1.50, 75 Cupcake Cases £2.00 and there was even a couple of bugs and bats thrown in too.

The girls were eager to  get to work with their craft kits. I left them at the dining room table to get creative. 

After lots of cutting, gluing, glittering and stickiness, they were finally ready to reveal their creations. 

Next week we will be making the most of our Halloween cake cases making some pumpkin themed cakes, keep an eye out for that post!!!

We are saving the decorations and the bags for the actual day of Halloween, I'm planning on doing a spooky treasure hunt around the house. 

As for the bugs and bats. Well the girls have been trying to scare me the past couple of days, putting them down in places when I'm not looking!!

All of these items are available on Hobbycraft right now and they even have a spooktacular 3 for 2 offer on all Halloween goodies while stocks last and at already bargain prices, it is well worth the money!!!

Do you have anything planned for Halloween this year?

xxxx

Disclaimer : These items were sent to me free of charge for reviewing purposes however all thoughts and opinions are my own.

Father's Day Card Making

Father's day is fast approaching. I always find it hard to know what to get Daddy Hazelden on this day because is birthday happens to fall only a couple of days after this!!

This year we have a distinct lack of money, which I am sure is the same for a lot of you, so we have decided to not bother with the presents (especially because poor old mum didn't get anything on Mother's day!!).

Instead we are made a nice card and the girls will be helping me to make his favourite dinner (paella) on the day.

Now we didn't want any old card, I find it is always nice to have something a bit personal, means more I think. By chance I happened to find the lovely Bella-Doodle on facebook. She makes beautiful handmade crayons and chalks and when I found her she was selling small pots of her crayons along with different Father's day cards that your children could colur in using said crayons.

It must have been fate because Daddy Hazelden is carpenter and she was selling a set with a card that had carpenters tools on, I had to buy it right??

When they arrived, I was really pleased. We had a mixture of shapes and colours, including hello kitty, stars, peppa pig, lego and a cupcake.  So the kids set to work on colouring in the card. They each chose a different tool and letter to colour, taking it in turns, for once there was no arguments!!

That was until the time to write in the card came. Both Elise and Freya can write their own names and their sister's names, so both wanted to do it, neither one could agree on who wrote what, that's when the tantrums started (joys of being a mum). After a good 20 minutes we finally had the card written and sealed. It is now in hiding somewhere, I don't know where, let's hope the girls can still find it when Sunday arrives. 

What are you doing for Father's day??

xxxx

Easter Crafts

Here we are, it is Good Friday and we are settling in for a day of arts & crafts.

I signed up for a secret Easter Bunny in one of groups on facebook, we were allowed to spend £5 and it was just buying for the children. My lovely Easter bunny was very thoughtful and sent lots of bits for us to make.

We were very lucky to receive :

*Easter Masks

* Easter Basket Making Kit

* Easter Finger Puppets

* A hat and apron for Easter baking

* Some little Easter eggs to give us the energy for all this creating!!

Gracie decided that the first thing we were going to do today was make the Easter finger puppets.

As with most craft kits there were a few bits missing and the sticky bits they gave us weren't quite sticky enough so we had to improvise a little.

We did manage to create four little finger puppets, two chicks, a bunny and a lamb.

Gracie informed me that this was one for her and each of her sisters, although I don't think Layla is quite old enough for finger puppets.

It was Freya's turn to pick the next activity. She decided on masks.

Again there were bits missing, naughty naughty, it meant that there were only two masks instead of three.

Elise very kindly let her little sisters make them.

Mummy came in handy, threading the string through the holes.


We now have Easter baskets left to make but the kids have taken a little break to eat a couple of easter eggs and refuel :)

What is everyone else up to this weekend? I hope snow isn't ruining peoples plans.

xxxx

Baby it's cold outside

So the end of half term is nearing but it's freezing outside so what to do with the kids.

We get crafty

Then we get comfy with a bowl of popcorn and have a movie afternoon.

And the best thing about it all is that the kids were happy and had fun and it didn't cost us a penny.!!

xxxx