Getting Prepared For Going Back to School With Duck Tape (GiveawayIncluded)

If you are anything like me then you will already be trying to get prepared for your kids going back to school. I have already bought all of the uniform although I'll admit that I've been putting off labelling it all. The one thing I've got left to sort is stationery but of course Duck Tape are around to lend a hand.

Making #DelightfulMovies With Angel Delight

I'm a big fan of food and honestly I'm not bothered about all these fancy recipes and meals that seem to be available nowadays, don't get me wrong I can be quite the fan of the finer things in life but when it comes to what I eat I prefer to keep things simple. Beans on toast, chip butties and when it comes to pudding nothing could ever beat a bowl of Angel Delight.

The Cardboard Box Book Review and Giveaway

You can't beat a cardboard box, doesn't matter how many expensive presents you buy, your kids will always gravitate towards the packaging that you intend to throw away. So what goes well with a cardboard box? The Cardboard Box book of course.

Make a plane, an oven, a car or even your own city inside this imaginative craft book where a cardboard box is not just a box.

Easter Card Designs

Happy Good Friday. Who's off for the Easter weekend? Are you looking forward to lots of Easter egg hunts and plenty of chocolate eating?

Easter is yet another time where we like to give gifts to others and I find it is another excuse to make some wonderful homemade cards, so here are a couple of quick and easy ideas for making those last minute Easter cards with your kids.

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.

My #PILOTMUM Portraits

I happened to stumble across a fab competition over on Mummy's Little Monkey yesterday, I liked it because it was one that the kids could get involved in.

The My #PILOTMUM competition involves a simple task, my children needed to draw a picture of me using whatever materials they liked, well was always going to be interesting.

Mine opted to draw me using colouring pencils.

First up is Gracie (5) picture. Apparently I look a bit like an old granny with purple hair and for some reason my head is an awful lot bigger than my body?

The Polar Pack Book Review

Books are brilliant because not only can you read them again and again, getting lost in the story but you can also build on them, expand and extend the tales by creating activities to explore more about what they've read. Madeleine Rogers, founder of the Hove based children's designer Mibo has written a series of books which saves you some time and effort on the creative side. Included in the set is The Polar Pack, The Jungle Crew and The Safari Set.

I was kindly sent The Polar Pack for my girls to read and enjoy.

Getting Creative When Playing

I've always said that for a child playing is important, getting creative and having fun is how they learn new skills.

And creativity can stem from many places.

Using clothes, towels and blankets to create designer dresses and secret dens.

Pots, pans and kitchen utensils make the loudest of instruments.

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.

Hanging Snowflakes

You may have seen that we have been making alot of our own Christmas decorations this year including a toilet roll Christmas tree. Today I am going to show you how to make hanging snowflakes, perfect for adding a touch of Christmas to your windows.

You will need :

* plain white paper
* coloured wool
* pen
* scissors
* sewing needle

1. Take one corner of your paper and fold it over until it reaches the other side of the paper as shown below :

2. Cut along the verticle line you have created and you will be left with what looks like a triangle. Then take your pen and draw whatver shapes you like around the triangle.

3. Open out your triangle to reveal your snowflake. Repeat these steps to create as many snowflakes as you would like, for the purpose of this post I have made three snowflakes.

4. You will now need the wool you have picked out, I suggest the length you need is 1 and a half times the length of the snowflakes when all put together in a row. Tie a not at one end of the wool and then using a large sewing needle, thread the wool through one corner of the first snowflake.

5. Continue to thread the wool through the bottom and top of each subsequent snowflake, making sure to double sew on each corner so that the snowflake won't slip down the wool. You can then tie a loop at the top of the final snowflake for hanging.

6. Hang your snowflakes up and show them off.

To make your hanging snowflakes really stick out you can use different coloured papers or even create your own designs on them.

xxxx

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

A 5 Year Old Tells the Nativity Story

I've previously had a couple of pieces of work that my 8 year old has created posted on my blog before. Well today I wanted to show you something my lovely 5 year old Freya has been working on. The pictures below are her way of telling you the Nativity story of how Jesus came to be born.

I have posted them in the order that I was told to by my daughter so here goes

Here we have Mary meeting Joseph.

Then the angel Gabriel pays Mary a visit.

Of course they then have to travel to Bethlehem on their (not so little) donkey.

Baby Jesus is born.

Surrounded by sheep,

Camels and elephants?

And they all lived happily ever after, the end.

xxxx

Draw With Me - Halloween

For those of you that don't know, the lovely Sonia over at This Mummy Loves has been running a monthly linky called Draw With Me.

Each month Sonia and her daughter Maisie set a theme and your child has to draw a picture based on this theme. As an added incentive, at the end of the month a random winner is chosen to receive a fab 'creative' prize.

My girls are all little artists and love any excuse to draw some pictures. This months theme is very fitting, Halloween. My three eldest girls all wanted to join in so I am posting a picture for each of them.

FIrst up we have my 7 year old Elise's entry,

She has described this picture as a Halloween fashion show

Next we have mmy 5 year old Freya's entry

This is one scary vampire ready for a fight

Lastly we have my 3 year Gracie's entry,

She said she was drawing flying witches, Elise did help her draw a witches hat on one of them.

The girls have had so much fun coming up with different ideas, we had to narrow it down to these three, when infact they had drawn quite a few each. Can't wait to see next months theme!!

xxxx