Shiny paint!

Normal poster paints are fine but shiny paint is even better!
This was super easy to make meaning the girls could get involved and practically make it themselves!

To make this paint you need only a few simple things.
A can of condensed milk (any supermarket cheapy brand will do). Food colourings and some pots or something to mix the paint in. I used a muffin tin as you can have multiple colours together and the holes are a good size.
Divide the condensed milk evenly into the tubs/holes then just add a few drops of food colouring. You may to add more drops for a deeper more vivid colour. Give it a good mix then your ready to paint.
Couldn't get much simpler than that :)

When the paint dries its all shiney. It can take a while, especially if your budding artist has covered the paper in big blobs of paint!

I will warn you though that the condensed milk is very sticky!! Make sure you have wipes/damp cloth on hand ready for when they have finished and ensure you cover your table/floor with something you don't mind getting sticky/messy!
Getting sticky was all part of the fun for the girls and it would make a great sensory activity for younger ones too.

Birthday cakes

When my eldest turned One I though id have a go at making her birthday cake. Having never really down much baking before this was quite a daunting task!
The girls are now 5 and 3 and I have made all their birthday cakes over the years. Most have been a reasonable success. The girls have loved them which is the main thing.
My only trouble now is that as they are getting older they are asking for more and more elaborate requests!

Abigail -
1st

2nd

3rd

4th

5th

Lucy

1st

2nd 

3rd

Ive now even been roped in to making cakes for friends children! 

This is one I made for my friends sons 2nd Birthday :)

Paper cup Jellyfish

This activity started off as a general art and craft session with a table filled with craft accessories and 4 girls dressed as princesses! Even princesses like craft you know! 

They made numerous things from bags to flags but we kind of stumble apon the idea of jelly fish whilst being creative with some paper cups.

Again its another simple craft... Most things we do are! 

Paper cups are another craft staple for us and we always have a stash to hand. Again this are super cheap and very versatile.

The girls started by decorating the cups. Someone found the googly eyes and added them to their cups which gave the idea of the jelly fish.

I cut long strips of coloured tissue paper for the tenticles and added a loop of string to the top for hanging. I made a hole in the top of the cup and threaded a knotted piece of sting through. The girls all loved these and they are now hanging in their rooms.

End of year teacher gifts.

I cant quite believe that A has just finished her first year at school! That year has just flown by! 

How did my little first born baby get to be so grown up! 

As term neared the end it was time to think of gifts to give to her teacher and teaching assistants.

For her teacher we gave a flower bulb to grow. She was leaving to retire to guessed she'd have more time to tend the garden. I came across the idea on Pinterest and used the free printout supplied by pluckymomo's blog. The labels says 'A teacher plants a seed that never stops growing'. I added the printable to a medium craft bag and A wrote her Thanks you's on the reverse.

I then took inspiration from another post from a friend and fellow blogger shazronniemakesstuff.  She had made a fantastic gift tag using cookies. The label saying "Thank you for making me One smart cookie!' I used her free printables here and A coloured them in. I then cut them out and added them to front of the small craft bags. Again A wrote her thank you's on the back of the bag. Into the bag we added a box of luxury cookies.

The cards were very simple to do but very effective. 

They are basically prints from half and apple. Then a green thumb print for the leaf.

Heart Crowns.

 I always have a stash of paper plates in the art and craft cupboard as its such a versatile item that can be used in some many different ways and in so many different crafts. They are super cheap too! You can easily find them in the local supermarket and cost pennies!
Today we decided to make heart crowns. These are super easy but great fun. The girls enjoyed wearing their crowns all afternoon. Simply fold a paper plate in half draw a heart shape inside. Remember to leave a bit at the bottom to keep the heart attached to the rim of the plate! Cut out the heart shape and unfold the paper plate.

Now its time to decorate your crown. You could decorate it in many different ways. You could paint it, stick tissue paper on it, draw on it,colour it in, cover it in glitter and sequins. The choice is yours! 

The girls choose to decorate theirs with sequins so the covered it in glue and got sticking.

Once they were finished and it was dry you simply need to bed the heart up and forwards to it sticks up. Pop it on your head and you now have a beautiful simple, easy crown.

 Im pretty sure this would be easy enough to do with a star shape too if a heart is too girly!

Gardening.

Being a keen gardener myself, its no surprise that the girls enjoy helping me in the garden.
Admittedly they flick mud, dig holes where they aren't meant to be and freak out if they see a worm but non the less its a good experience for them.

As the girls have grown they have become more and more interested in the plants names, and about how they grow. The love helping me water the plants and understand about them needing water to grow.

Since starting school A has now joined the school gardening club where they have been growing tomato's, sweet peas, sunflowers and a selection of flowers. She really enjoys taking care of them and the teacher has said she has been surprised by her garden knowledge.

Easter hats/bonnets

Every year at Nursery they have an Easter hat competition.  The girls enjoy this and together we come up with a creation.
Last year A was still small at 3 so I made the hat. It was simply a wide strip of card fixed to fit her head, then a flower shape cut out that was larger than the diameter of her head. I then cut small rectangles of card and used them to attach the the flower to the inside of the card band.
After that was done I left A to decorate it.  She used straw on the top and added small little fluffy chicks picked up from the local pound shop, then cut out ovals and decorated them to resemble easter eggs and flower shapes.

My proudness went she won and received a chocolate egg for her efforts!

This years she was adamant that she wanted to include her bunny teddy. It took abit of working out of how we could attach teddy to a hat so that we wouldn't fall off. In the end we came up with the idea of Bunny popping out of a flower pot.
I found a plastic flower pot that was about the same size of her head and cut off the bottom. My thought was to use this as the hat but it wouldnt stay on so I attached the flower pot to a straw hat we had. If you did use the pot as the hat then add some black duct tape round the cut edges to stop any sharp edges and give a more comfortable fit.

I attached the pot by making small holes round the edges and using thread sewed the hat to the pot. We covered this with 'grass' ie crunched up tissue paper. We used Sellotape to attach the bunny to the pot then again used more grass!  It was someone else's turn to win this year but everyone was very impressed.

Fathers Day cards

I stumbled across this idea whilst asking the children what they love about daddy. I was hoping their responses would give me some inspiration for this years fathers day cards. I wasn't disappointed!

What better thing than to just simply tell daddy why he's the best. L dictated hers but A wrote her own.
I used the blackboard we have thats usually hung in the playhouse and a blackboard pen for a neater finish.

There responses were really cute! A's first answer for 'I love Daddy because' was "he makes my lovely dinners". Sounds great but I make the dinners so im not letting Daddy take the claim for that one!! :)

              

 

Childs eye view!

This is fantastic activity and the results can be quite funny and really give  you a child's eye view.

If you have an old digital camera, dig it out and give it to your child. I appreciate this isnt for everyone and not everyone is that brave! But if you can then do, Your child will love the feeling of being grown up and given the responsibility of looking after the camera. This in itself is a good learning tool.

Then let your child take photos of whatever/ whoever they want.

Its very interesting as a parent to see things from their level.

A few snaps from L's latest photo shoot! 

large scale painting

Why restrict painting to a small piece of paper?  The girls love 'big painting'
I buy cheap rolls of lining paper from decorating stores and use this to roll out on the floor. I would suggest NOT doing this activity on a carpeted floor! Try moving this activity into the kitchen on the lino/tiled floor or even outside on the patio.
Pour out some paints and let your children use their imaginations! My girls usually end up hand and feet painting and walking along the paper.
Welly boots are great to wear to walk along the paper too. Step in trays of paint in your boots and see the sole print as you walk.
This also works well if you have alot of children to occupy as theres plenty of space for all. You may if your really lucky get them all working together to make one large collage!

The girls like to extend this activity with a bowl of soapy water. They wash their hands and also enjoy cleaning/washing out the brushes/sponges that they have used.

Gingerbread house

This was the completed masterpiece made my myself and my eldest (4yrs). 

We bought a kit from the supermarket that included the ingredients to make the gingerbread and cardboard templates for the house. 

We made up the mixture and baked the gingerbread. When it was baked (smelt soo yummy!) 

we used the templates to cut out the house structure. It was alittle tricky to get to stick together with the royal icing but we found alittle extra is ok as it can be disguised as snow anyway :) 

Doing this kept A's attention for ages and it was lovely to spent quality time, working together.

She loved decorating the house and we made the trees from some leftover gingerbread from the house template. Getting them to stay upright was even trickier!! 

This house was admired for many days before we finally reluctantly dismantled it. Eating the yummy Gingerbread numbed the pain though :)

Biscuit Christmas decorations.

A simple activity decorating star shaped biscuits proved very popular. We added a hole to the top of the biscuits with a straw so that when cooked we could add some ribbon to hang them on the tree.
We actually made quite a few but some got nibbled during the decorating!
These could make fab gifts for people too.

Snowman soup

Every year it gets harder thinking of things to make for teacher gifts. This Christmas I stumbled across the idea of Snowman Soup on Pinterest. You are basically giving the ingredients for a lovely hot chocolate drink.
We started by making our own marshmallows. These were relatively easy to do - And VERY yummy! :)

This is the recipe I used : http://www.rivercottage.net/recipes/home-made-marshmallows/

In our packets we added our marshmallows, a sachet of hot chocolate, Chocolate spoons (here) and a stencil for sprinkling coco powder on the top.

I made up the little labels on the top and added them to the top of the bag. 

The nursery staff seemed to really like their gifts and appreciated the thought and effort that had gone into making them. 

If your not feeling creative in making the labels then their are quite a few freebie templates online if you search for Snowman soup.

Elf on the shelf

I thought id share the girls favourite thing in the lead up to Christmas. For those of you who haven't heard of this before ill explain it in a nutshsell.
The little elf is sent from Father Christmas at the beginning of December. He comes to watch over the children to make sure they are behaving and staying on the nice list. He's no ordinary elf though! He has magical powers and can come alive at night. He flies back to Father Christmas every night to report back on their behaviour. He's a little cheeky though and gets into all sorts of mischief on his return. He can often be found in the morning hiding or doing something a little mischievous!

Ive been blogging his actions here
http://elfyescapades.blogspot.co.uk/2011/12/elf-on-shelf.html

Take a look and see what he's been up to! The girls get so excited to find him in the mornings! :)

Halloween crafts and party.

The girls and some friends really enjoyed these halloween crafts.
We started with Spider handprints. Very simply its two hand prints together (wrists touching). Only attempt both hands at the same on older children or it gets very messy! :)
We then added some googly eyes to finish off our friendly spiders.

Next we attempted ghost leaves. These had limited success with these as the leaves soon started to curl up at the edges. They were still enjoyable to make and looked super cute. An ideal craft for young trick or treaters as they arent scary.

Take a trip to the woods/park or even just along the side of the road. We actually collected these leaves during the walk home from Nursery. 

Then simply paint them white and with a black pen draw on your ghouls eyes and mouth. I used very fine sewing thread to hang them up as its not so easy to see making your ghosts really seem to fly.

These crafts made fab decorations for our Halloween party! I also make bunting from black craft paper and simply painting the letters on with white paint, and spooky ghosts from large white sheets of craft paper and gluing them to the windows. The looked very effective... especially as it got dark.

The girls invited some friends round for some halloween crafts and games.
They all dressed up and had a fab time! All the children enjoyed the craft activity of paper plate ghosts. This was my proto-type to show the children an example.

These were simple to make, although require abit of pre planning if theres a few children. Your ghost will need a paper plate, some arms cut from white card, white crepe paper cut into long strips and pens to draw your ghosts features.

 

As you can see the children loved their ghosts and many drew nice smiley, happy ghosts.

For our party we also had halloween food. This cake was made from a bundt tin. I split the batter into smaller pots and added food colouring to make a marble effect inside. Sadly the cake went too quickly and before I got chance to take a photo of the inside! The topping is  different coloured icing, microwaved for a few seconds to make it runny and then drizzled over the top. Simple but effective.

 These marshmallows were very popular too. I bought a black edible icing pen (which is as it sounds! A pen using edible ink) and used it to draw little ghost faces.