Get Crafty with These Oddbods-Inspired Accessories for School is a collaborative post with Oddbods in celebration of their fab back to school contest. I love crafting with children and I also love stationery, so I have developed some fun accessories that you can make with your kids to get ready for school.
These simple Olympic crafts for Kids are perfect for getting in to the spirit of the games. There is something magical about the Olympic Games and when they were in the UK in 2012 it really captured everyone’s imagination. These simple crafts are a great way to capitalised on your children’s interest in the Olympic games and have some fun with crafts.
Simple January activities for Primary aged children is a great resource for the month with ideas of simple activities to do with kids aged 4-10. With a delayed start to schooling in parts of England and some other parts of the UK, I thought it would be a good idea to gather together some simple to pull together activities for the first couple of weeks of January or any other time.
We usually make salt dough ornaments at this timeof the year, but spurred on my Chris at Thinly Spread I decided to give cornflour dough a try. However, typically I didn’t have the ingredients on hand to make her recipes so made up my own. Ingredients 2 cups salt two thirds of a cup of water 2 cups cornflour Half cup water Method Mix 2 cups of salt with two thirds of a cup of water in a pan and stir constantly over medium heat for 2-3 minutes until bubbles appear. Remove from heat and immediately add to 2 cups cornflour and half a cold water and mix quickly to more »
I am a great lover of nativity scenes and grew up with the lower image in my mums house. When Maxi was born she gifted me it. I love it, so do the boys, but as it is china they can not play with it and make up their own story, so we made our own version out of loo rolls. We had so much fun, but no images of us making them, as I was far too involved with the boys, glue, ribbon, scissors and lots and lots of fabric scraps! Oh and I went to Maxi’s Nativity yesterday and Mini’s is today, so I will be back with more »
With the weather getting colder, now is the time to make some plans about activities and crafts you can do on the darker evenings to keep your children occupied and keep. My friend Becky at Baby Budgeting has produced her first ebook which is jam packed full of 50 ideas of things to do with under 5’s in Autumn on a budget. I have a copy and it is a great resource for when you are struggling for ideas. Click here to get your copy best of all it is only £1.50. You could also do some marble painting, which doesn’t have to be messy. Why not have a go at more »
It has been a wet, wild and windy week in TheMadHouse and what with the dark nights and dark mornings we need something to look forward to, so we are going to start on our Halloween Preparations. Last year we did lots of things and I thought I would do a nice review post for you here to get you in the mood for the spooky festivities. I will also be holding a special Halloween Children’s Craft Showcase on the Monday 25 October (start of half term) to collate everyone’s ideas and to give you some more for the half term week. Balloon Scary Faces Paper Pumpkins Salt Dough Decorations Spooky more »
Materials Permenant markers Surgical Spirit (from the chemist) Jam Jars Plain Fabric Elastic Band Syringe Method Put your fabric over the jam jar and secure with the elastic band. Using your pen draw a pattern on the fabric. Circles work best, but any pattern will do. Leave a gap between the lines for the colour to bleed. Take a syringe and fill with surgical spirit and then drop in to the centre of the fabric. Move the fabric to a blank area and repeat as required. I washed the fabric after we dyed it and some of the colour did come out, but not much and then I heat set it more »
The Gallery this week is extra speical as it is linked with Cathy my friend over at Nuturestore and her Play Accadamy, so I thought that I would use a new Childrens Craft Showcase for this week, as it really seemed to fit the bill. I think that this craft is pretty self explanatory, we all have bubble wrap and using it to pain on and create texture is so much fun for children. We used our bubble wrap to make a sea on cards and on some paper. We painted the wrap blue and green. Then pressed it down on the card and paper. To make a funky pattern. more »
Heart petal flowers are a really simple way to make flowers for someone special, not for any reason, just to say I love you. They would also make a really great gift to say thank you to any teacher at this time of the year. Materials Tissue Paper Heart Punch or template and scissors Paper Straws (Art straws – 99p from The Works) Paper brads Method This is such a simple piece of craft, that Maxi actually made all of our flowers (roses) which we took with us to see The Wiggles and give to Dorothy. Use the punch to make heart shapes out of tissue paper With a single hole more »
The end of the school year is very nearly upon us here in England, so I have started to think about teacher appreciation gifts for MaxiMads wonderful Reception teacher and her assistance and for Mini’s Preschool Teacher. I am a firm believer in child made is best, I don’t want my gifts to be expensive, just used and made with love. So I have a selection of things that we have made previously for people that would make great gifts to say thank you to a teacher. Handpainted Cups This is what Maxi made for his teachers last year and will be doing again for his current teacher. Click on the more »
I am delighted to welcome Maggie from Red Ted Art to TheMadHouse and to present this weeks Children’s Craft Showcase. Over at Red Ted Art, my son (Red Ted (2)) and I (Maggy (old)) do lots of crafts projects. Sometimes Pip Squeak (0) joins us. Usually we are inspired by books that we read – the tagline from another crafty mum being – story + art = great stART. I love the idea of bring books and crafts together. And some days, when I really don’t know what to make, picking up one of Red Ted’s books really does inspire! So. Today, I brought out one of Red Ted’s older books: more »
Fathers day will soon be upon us, it is Sunday 20th June this year and I have been busy thinking about cards and gifts for MadDad. If you are anything like me then you would prefer to give a home made card every time.I have a couple of very simple ideas for you.
Sometimes painting with children can seem such a daunting task, it can take on a uncontrollable pace all of its own, which is why it is often great to use paint with an end in mind. So I set up the painting tings on the dining table yesterday for when I collected the minimads from school and decided we would do blow painting with a straw and then do some marble rolling. Materials Paint Water Paper Straws Marbles Tray (A bowl would be better from smaller children) Method You need to water down your paint for this to make sure that it blows and rolls easily. I tend to drop blobs more »
I dont know about your children, but my two are now obsessed with volannco’s thanks to the icelandic one. We caught them making thier own volancic ash cloud with dust and mud from the pavement and then water on Friday evening and decided that we would have a go a making our own active volcano. Materials Bicarbinate of soda Vinigar Bottles Hot water Food colouring Funnel Salt dough is optional, mine wanted their bottles to look like mountains! Method Fill the bottles 2 thirds full with hot water and add a drop of washing up liquid and food colouring (to make your lava authentic!). Add two table spoons of bicard to more »
The boys have been busy making again, the above one is made by stamping with half a potato and mini made this all by him. This one is Maxi’s, his writing is getting to be excellant and he did the spelling all by himself. Maxi did the cutting out on this one and it has become a classic in this house! This is Maxi’s Easter Bunny Basket. This was maxi’s Easter Bunny Egg, which he made all by himself at school. He didnt win the competation, but them some of the eggs were pretty perfect a nd I am sure the parents had more of a hand in them than more »
This one goes out to all of you with little ones, ones that scribble and just love free art. Materials Paper Masking tape, as low tack as possible crayons, pens, pencils, glitter, paint I know that I keep going on about not passing your perfectionism on to your children and letting them express themselves, but it is so true. I also know that there are lots of people out there who don’t craft with their children because they fear the mess, well this is one for you. By using masking tape, you can tape the paper on to the table, which is great for smaller children and stopped the paper moving. more »
I have been wanting to show you a couple more of the things I have been doing with the mini’s this week, but it is so dark, photo’s are not the best. I don’t know about you, but it seems once Johnnie Boden gets a hold of your address, he sends you a million and one catalogues, STOP Johnnie, you must be single handed responsible for the decimation of the rain forest. Plus the models are so smug with their little snippets of their lives. I don’t want to know that Verity loves chocolate cake, especially when she looks about a size 2! I can not bear to throw them in more »
Well this week, we are going with a valentines theme. Yep seasonal over here at TheMadHouse. Again, I am hoping to inspire you out there with children to craft and play with them. To get over your need for perfectionism and fear of mess and just go with the flow and enjoy. If we do inspire you, then please use the McLinky below and link to any post that you do about crafting with children. I would love to see and hear about your time crafting with your children. One of the best things I bought in the sales was a large paper punch in a heart shape (mine is 3inch), more »
Lets start the year with an oldie but a goodie and this is something that you can take out when you are lacking in motivation or just need a little break. Once you have made it you will never again buy it and trust me adding essential oils makes it so nice. Materials/Ingredients 1 and half cups (1 cup is 250ml) of salt 3 cups of warm water 3 cups of plain flour 3 tablespoons of oil 6 teaspoons of cream of tartar Food colouring Essential oils, I use lavender, neroli, geranium, camomile Air tight containers Method add the salt and water to a large pan and wait for the salt more »
