Potato print wrapping paper
I am delighted to host a guest post from Wendy at Daisies and Pie today, who is standing in for me whilst I am sunning myself in Florida with the family! So over to Wendy.
craft
Make your own Christmas cards
While it is very easy to just head down to the high street and purchase a bulk of Christmas cards to send out to all your friends and family, you are losing out on a quick-fire way to get into the festive spirit. Creating your own Christmas cards will not take much time –
Make a newspaper wig
Inspired by fabulous children’s book Oliver and the Seawigs by Philip Reeve and Sarah McIntyre. So this post is an entry into the #Tots100Seawigs competition in association with jabberworks.co.uk. we decided to make our own newspaper wig, which is our seawig.
A home made dream catcher made my Mini
Not only did two years classrooms flood, but the library and ICT area also flooded. The dining hall has been turned in to a storage area and the school has been unable to serve warm meals. All this uncertainty has resulted in a very anxious Mini. This partly shows by him being filled with bravado and the other side with issues sleeping.
So in addition to working on stopping him being a reluctant sleeper and doing things to prevent nightmares, we also made a dream catcher together. When I say we, what I mean is I held the tape and chatted to him whist he made his own dream catcher.
We used, some wood from a plant in the garden with tape to make into a circle (ish) and then mini used rope to tie round it. He then strung some pretty beads on to string and attached them.
Whilst he concentrated on making the dreamcatcher we talked about their history and all the things that have been worrying him.
Encouraging boys to write – Comic Strips
Even though we have been having a #’freerangesummer, I have been trying to make sure the boys still do some writing and record what we have been doing this summer and I was delighted to see this fab video that the Etherington Brothers made where they give Scottish Friendly some of their top-tips for creating a comic.
In fact it inspired some comic strip making in The Mad House. Firstly I printed off some blank comic strip layouts and we discussed what we wanted to make a comic about and the boys and their friends they were going to do ones about their day at Lightwater Valley.
Crafting our Dream Car #DreamCarCraft
Carcraft are challenging people to craft their dream car to be in with the chance to win £50 worth of Amazon vouchers.
It is really simple to enter all you have to do is:
1. Help your child (or children) craft their dream car.
2. Take a photo – there is room for more creativity here!
3. Finally, tweet us your photo at @Carcraft with the hashtag #DreamCarCraft.
But get your skates on as it ends on Friday. To find our more take a look at the craft your dream car terms and conditions.
Today has been one of those days where we have all played hokey cokey with the weather (in, out, in, out, in, out) so we took the opportunity to work on our car drawing when it was raining.
Crafting with Post-it notes
The boys really enjoyed being allowed to stick the post-it notes to the wall and I felt safe in the knowledge knowing that they would not mark the paintwork or stick permanently.
We used Super Sticky fully adhesive Post-it notes which are in fab vibrant colours. 3M have just launched Post-It Notes Colour Cubes which have many more bright and lovely colours. Why not check out Post-It UK Facebook Page for more information on the new range of Post-It Notes and see other peoples pictures too.
Encouraging individualism in children
Both the boys really enjoyed personalising their hats from Next and took a lot of time in picking the colours they wanted and it was the perfect quiet time activity. We sat at the table after bath time and discussed why it is OPK to wear what you want and that it is what is on the inside that matters not the outside.
How do you encourage your children to be unique?
How to make a Pinecone Owl and other pinecone crafts
Maggie at Red Ted Art (who has a new craft book out) hosts a weekly Google + Hangout and this weeks was all about Pine cone crafts. Mini has been studying nocturnal animals this week, so we decided to make a pine-cone owl.
This is one of those crafts that you can adjust dependent on the age of your child bu cutting out all the felt (or foam) and allowing them to glue it or they can cut it out and glue it too. I made templates for the boys to draw around on the felt with a soft pencil and they cut out the felt themselves.
Materials
Pine-cones
Felt (or craft foam) in yellow, brown and orange
googly eyes
Glue gun or glue (Maxi uses a glue gun, but mini uses craft PVA)
Method
Cut out in yellow a figure of eight shape for the base of the eyes larger than your googly eyes and stick the eyes to it.
Then using orange felt or foam cut out a small triangle for the beak and curves with points which are the owls feet.
You cut out a square in brown for the owls hat – approximately 2 inches in size, but this depends on your pine cone.
Cut two triangles for the owls wings
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