How to.. make felt donuts! More felt food!

 

I am on a mission to make a whole grocery bag full of Felt Food for Pip Squeak’s 1st Birthday – so far I have one Gingerbread Man, 8 gorgeous Strawberries and 3 donuts (or doughnuts, depending from which side of the pond you are visiting)! I am yet to make some Cream!!! Here I will show you How To Make Felt Donuts – 2 with sprinkles and 1 with icing.

The basic donut is always the same, the only thing that differs, is the decor! I am also pretty certain you can follow my steps below and use a sewing machine, I chose to hand sew!

Here we go:

Materials: 2 circles of donut colour (cream or brown), 1 circle of icing (blue, pink, brown), thread to match circles of felt, beads or embroidery thread for sprinkles, extra thin strips of felt for icing donut, stuffing (I used plastic shopping bags), stencil of sort – cut out of card, or I used a lid slightly smaller than a CD and the thread bobbin

Step 1) Cut out three circles the same size. Cut out three whole in centre. I used once a tupperware lid for the circle and a thread bobbin for the centre. Make sure centres are aligned. You may find it easier to make a card stencil first to make sure they all match perfectly

Step 2) Fold single colour (i.e. icing) into a quarter and cut a wiggle line. Open, trim a little if needed, but don’t cut away too much.

Step 3) For sprinkles sew on beads/ “nuts” first,then attach the icing onto one of the donut pieces (cream felt) with a running stitch. For the Choc& Nuts: Do French Knots – shown how to here. I LOVE the French Knot Donut the most as it is VERY tactile and safe for my one year old (better than the beads, which are dangerous, she will not be allowed it at first). For the swirly icing, I found it easier to sew on the pink first and then add the swhirly bit: A very thing strip of felt sew on with a running stitch. The felt may break, so be very gentle.

Step 4) Put the wrong sides together. I found it helpful to use pins to hold the central hole into place – avoiding any skewing/ misalignment. Sew all around the edge, leaving a 1-2inch gap

Step 5) Turn inside out

Step 6) Sew centre, I used a blanket stitch, but I am sure any stitch will do

Step 7) Stuff

Step 8- Sew gap shut. Again, I used a blanket stitch

Like I said, my favourite is the “Choc & Nut” Donut, as the French Knots are very tactile and safe for 1yrs olds!

Enjoy playing!

Previous How Tos:

- Delicious No Sew Lavender Bags

-Make Scented Playdough

- From T to Halterneck (Guest Post)

- Felt Strawberries & Gingerbread Men (Guest Post)

- How to make a No Sew Tea Towel Kid’s Apron

- Easy & effective Fish Pinata

- Simple but effective paper frames (vlog) 

- How to make a Flower Pom Pom (guest post) – simply gorgeous – use as wedding decor! 

- How to make a Paper Envelope  

- How to make a No Sew Bib (out of an old shirt)  

- How to make a Fabric Mâché Bowl (from old scraps of fabric!)  

- How to make a Paper Flower (from newspapers)  (guest post)  

- How to make a Paper Boat (vlog)  

- How to make a Paper Cup (vlog)  

- How to make Swedish Hearts (Paper Baskets) (Guest vlog)  

- How to make No Sew Bunting   

- How to make a Balloon Poodle (vlog)  

- How to make Seedling Pots (out of newspapers) (vlog)  

- Funky comic party bags   (Guest vlog)

story + Art = great stART – Shapes That Roll & Monster Cards

 

We recently received our “Shapes That Roll” book. One of the other wonderful mummy blogs reviewed it in one of their stART projects, but I have to confess – I cannot remember quite who it was! Sorry. Would have loved to have linked back to you.

Anyway.

Shapes that Roll

Shapes that Roll

Shapes that Roll

 Shapes That Roll, by Karen Nagel & Steve Wilson. Reading age 4 yrs- 8 yrs. Read together age 1.5yrs – 3.5yrs. The book is ADORABLE! At first I thought it would be nice “shapes” book to have, but it is much more than that. It is lovingly illustrated and printed in the most high quality manner, which makes all the difference. It even arrived with tissue paper between every page (which will come in handy in one of our craft sessions). We are guided through the book by Square, Circle and Triangle, who show us all about “Up” and “Down”, “Here” and “there”. About how some “slant” and “some don’t”. Which you can “roll” and which you can  “stack” and where we find shapes in every day life (a house or a fruit or a star). And this only the beginning… so lots of fun. Lots of colours. Lots to discuss. Nice shiny bits too. We love this book. And much more than I expected!

To our craft activity. Another simple one and easy one to do at home in small spaces:

Monster Greeting Cards.

Shapes: I cut out lots of shape – I let Red Ted choose which colours and shapes. I had some different textures – corrugated card and foam to make it a little different.

Sticking: Red Ted then did lots of sticking. On the last one he discovered it was fun to stick shapes on top of each other. We then added google eyes. Whilst doing the sticking we talked about the shapes and it’s colours.

Drying: Red Ted insisted that we dry it on our “art washing line”. It did mean that everything shifted a bit, but I let him, as he was “so proud” of his work and he apparently really enjoys his washing line. So on they went.

Making up the card: I cut out monster shapes, using Red Ted’s google eye placements as a rough idea for a head and then we stuck them on some re-used card (We cut down some old ring binder dividers with my guillotine – Red Ted’s favourite bit).

Now Granny is going to get another card through the post! Hurray!

Previous Craft Projects:

- stART: Loo Roll & Leaf Bird Marionettes – great Autumn project

Craft: Cork Boats

stART:Piep Piep Piep, Loo Roll Watches

stART:  Bear Cards & Strawberry Growing Video 

stART: Touchy Feely Book – That is not my Puppy 

stART: Jolly Postman & Greeting cards from Toddler Art 

Book & Cook – Duckies Rainbow & Rainbow Cookies 

stART – Story Telling, Bunnies & Stars 

stART: Giraffe’s can’t dance – a Giraffe Loo Roll Marionette 

stART: Chick – a Pop Up Card 

Book & Cook: Alphabet Cookies – Learning through play 

stART: Busy Airport – Cotton Wool Clouds and, erm, PIGS! 

stART: Hit &Myth – a mix & match book for older children (>5yrs)     

stART: Story & Thank you time – inspirational thank you cards    

stART: Hurray for Fish – one for babies or messy toddlers!     

stART: Bedtime Star – Red Ted, makes a starry night for Pip Squeak’s nursery    

stART: The Way Back Home, Oliver Jeffers – Red Ted makes a plane and a UFO    

Craft: Peg animals – toddlers can help!

Kid’s Book – Nutshell Library, Maurice Sendak & Kid’s iPhone App Review – KidArt

Kid’s  Book and Kid’s iPhone App reviews continue. For my “reasons” behind “Why Apps?!” look here. Type “Kids” or “children” or “educational” into the Apple iStore and you get bombarded with Apps. Which to get?! Look no further…

Kid’s Book Review: Nutshell Library – Maurice Sendak

Nutshell Library by Maurice Sendak. Reading Age: 5yrs +. Read together Age, 1.5 yrs+. Red Ted has always loved these, at first because he loves little books he can hold and put in and out of little boxes. Now (2.5yrs) he is starting to get interested in the little stories. He likes the rythm of counting and the funny little pictures. He doesn’t quite understand all of it yet (e.g. Chicken Soup with rice looks at the months and I don’t think he knows what “February” is yet) but he enjoys them non the less. I love these, because a) I had two of the little books when I was little b) I love Maurice Sendak’s quirkiness and c) (for all parents) it has counting, seasons and alphabets + a little cautionary tale involving a lion. What more could you want?! I have given these as presents before – they make a great little gift!

Kid’s iPhone App Review: KidArt

   Being a crafty sort of mum (not that you hadn’t noticed yet…), I did want to find a crafty App. There are a few around and I basically chose one based on reviews I found online. So we got KidArt. Red Ted took to it straight away. It has a catchy tune when you first load it that Red Ted loves to wriggle too. Then you have a simple touch screen and colour selection pallet. You can also use some “stickers” and different backgrounds. Give it a little shake and your last addition disappears. You can also save the artwork and send it to family if you really want! Although, I (!) find it a little hard to draw accurately, the simple menu, bright colours, fun music and shaky shake eraser really to please Red Ted, and that is what it is all about. A bit of colour. A bit of art and a bit of fun. Lovely.

Remember though, there are many FREE Apps out there. Sometimes it is the “Lite” version of something as a taster and sometimes they are just free. Don’t knock the free stuff a 2-3 yrs old will probably be more than happy. Some of the “Lites” are irritating as they add several screens to try and make you buy the full version, which with toddlers can be infuriating. If this is the case just delete it! But do get all the Lites first before you buy and you will see if you like the App.

           

The Gallery – Nature (Green & Blacks) & Kindness Club – Be Nice to a Neighbour

2 for 1 Saturdays continue… First up the Gallery, where I get a chance to take random photos. Then the Kindness Club, where I get a chance to think about how I am teaching values to my children. I will always try and fulfil the prompt with the help of Red Ted and Pip Squeak!

The Gallery

We are back at the Gallery this weekend. The theme being “Nature”. Nature is indeed wonderful and inspiring. I am particularly taken each year, how out of “seemingly” nothing my vegetable garden grows. From this black patch of earth. A tiny seed. A little care (but not much) and a couple of month’s later, as if by magic. Green. Fruit. Veg. And then, when we are done with it, it goes back to that black patch of earth. Magic. Nature at its best!

As Green & Black’s is sponsoring The Gallery this week. I let them inspire me to take these photos:

From the BLACKness that is our compost…

black

 

black

 

black

 

black

black

comes this beautiful GREENness that is the underside of the leaf of our huge courgette plant.

gr

green

green

 

grenn

 

green

green

Isn’t nature amazing? That from Black can come Green?

More Gallery Posts Here:

Broken Mirror – Zoom - Holidays -  Pip Squeak learns about Emotions - Creatures – Motherhood (Yacht) - Who needs the beach when you have a ball? (Up up and Away) - Still life: Life’s Lovely Laundry - Symbol of Friendship (Xenophile) - Self Portrait by Red Ted - (My) Men - Enchanted Woods (Violet Woods) - Portrait - 7 Sins – Pride - Joy – Spring - Ugly – These should be in a Tim Burton film - Outside my front door (Watering Can) - Me - Colour (Red Ted’s Bunny)

The Kindness Club

This week’s challenge at Susie’s Kindness Club, is to do something nice for a neighbour. You really must go over to her site and read the prompt - as she has some very thought provoking comments as to why she picked this as a topic – reading her prompts are as inspirational as the acts themselves.

Now, I have to say, that we are VERY LUCKY indeed, we have some wonderful neighbours all around that we get on very well with. We regularly pop round for coffees, chats, to use the, erm, stove or to briefly “offload” a child whilst something urgent needs to be done. My family have benefited hugely in terms of clothes and toys, and I am not kidding when I say that this has impacted our monthly finances noticeably. My “meagre” offerings in return are muffins, granola bars (at Nr 10) and the a wee bit of baby sitting (at Nr 9 and Nr 14). But before I feel too humbled, I would like to say, that I did “try” from the word go and when we moved in almost 4 years ago, that Christmas I brought them all some homemade Austrian Cookies as a means of introducing ourselves. Maybe that small gestured helped bring about the generosity that followed? I don’t know. But I like baking and I like sharing.

So today, Red Ted and I made some more of our “famous” Yoghurt Pot muffins (the photo are said muffins, minutes after coming out of the oven). We have eaten half, but tomorrow I will take some round to Nr 10 (sadly Nr 14 is on holiday). I was worried that “continuing” to be nice to the neighbours I know well, wasn’t quite enough and that I should venture further afield (but I am scared of scarring the widow at Nr 13, I have been racking my brains about what I can do for her for months now), but decided that actually, this is ok. I have great neighbours and not only do they deserve a muffin, but a whole post to tell them how lovely they are. This is to you, Nr 10, Nr 14 and Nr 9. You know you are. And my world wouldn’t be the same without you!

More cookies and cakes coming your way in the years to come…

How to… make No Sew Lavender Bags/ Pillows!

 

Love the beautiful lavender around this time of year? Think it is a shame when it all goes to waste in a few weeks time? Don’t have the time (or inclination) to sew a lavender bag or little lavendar pillow? Look no further. No Sew Lavender Bags are here.

This is so ridiculously easy, that I am not even sure it is “worth writing a tutorial” about. If you have seen my no sew bunting or no sew apron, you will know what I am on about and hopefully agree with me.

Materials: What you will need is some pretty fabric scraps, wonderweb (or BondaWeb in the US?), dried lavender (cut fresh lavender, place in a paper bag and hang to dry), a hot iron & two tea towels (to protect the iron and ironing board).

Step 1) Cute out two squares, but “wrong” sides together – i.e. you will not be turning these inside out. Pretty side out pleased!

Step 2) Place strips of WonderWeb along 3 sides and iron hot until it is properly sealed. Turn round and iron reverse, just to make sure it is really bonded

Step 3) Fill with lavender

Step 4) Add fourth strip of WonderWeb and iron hot. The fourth strip is the trickiest, as you will not get the central and therefore hottest part of the iron on it, so make sure you really have melted the WonderWeb. If necessary, let cool and repeat

Step 5) Trim edges to neaten.

Variations:

For him: I used old shirts and jeans

For her: Iron on a piece of ribbon (using wonderweb)

For hanging: add a ribbon “loop” to one of the first 3 edges, so you can hang from a coat hanger (only thought of this AFTERWARDS)

ENJOY! And happy smelly drawers.

(PS make these now and use as fabulous stocking fillers near Christmas or surprise someone by sending one through the post!)

Previous How Tos:

-Make Scented Playdough

- From T to Halterneck (Guest Post)

- Felt Strawberries & Gingerbread Men (Guest Post)

- How to make a No Sew Tea Towel Kid’s Apron

- Easy & effective Fish Pinata

- Simple but effective paper frames (vlog) 

- How to make a Flower Pom Pom (guest post) – simply gorgeous – use as wedding decor! 

- How to make a Paper Envelope  

- How to make a No Sew Bib (out of an old shirt)  

- How to make a Fabric Mâché Bowl (from old scraps of fabric!)  

- How to make a Paper Flower (from newspapers)  (guest post)  

- How to make a Paper Boat (vlog)  

- How to make a Paper Cup (vlog)  

- How to make Swedish Hearts (Paper Baskets) (Guest vlog)  

- How to make No Sew Bunting   

- How to make a Balloon Poodle (vlog)  

- How to make Seedling Pots (out of newspapers) (vlog)  

- Funky comic party bags   (Guest vlog)

story + Art = great stART – Walks in park, Leaf Trouble, Loo Roll Marionette Birds

 

As we have been getting some hotter days this year, we have made a few trips to the park recently. Whilst there, we played ball, look at the stream and collected some leaves. Now, I know autumn is the absolute best time for collecting leaves, but as Red Ted was keen, I thought, why not!? I did horrify me to realise that when it comes to leaves, I am clueless. I will have to brush up!

So once we came home, I found a book on leaves. It is about Autumn really, but it is the nicest one I could find on relatively short notice:

 

Leaf craft

 Leaf Trouble, Jonathan Emmett. This book tells the story of a little squirrel called Pip (perfect for our Pip Squeak!). Pip wakes one day to find that things are different: the leaves are changing colour and falling off the tree. Surely this isn’t right?! What is happening. His mum comes and explains why it is happening and that the leaves will come back again – a little like how the sun sets and comes back again the next day. I love the ending, where Pip compares the beautiful autumn colours to the setting sun. Very pretty.

So. What to make?

We have the leaves. But leaves can become brittle with time. I decided we should try leave rubbing – to discover that Red Ted is still too small. So I changed it to leaf printing and painting!

He loved it! And had great joy doing it all by himself. Choosing colours. Painting and printing. I also found that your preserve the leaf a little if you paint it with acryclic paints. But in a way that seems a shame – you want to look at the lovely colours, no?

Whilst at it, he painted some loo rolls too.

And I decided t make some autumnal birds. One out of Red Ted’s craft and one out of mine. I selected Red Ted’s prints that worked together well (greens, blacks and greys) and picked an orange set of mine to represent autumn. I used all pieces of string from gift bags & pepples/ forked sticks for feet and marionette handles. (I think the pictures speak for themselves):

   

Previous Craft Porjects:

Craft: Cork Boats

stART:Piep Piep Piep, Loo Roll Watches

stART:  Bear Cards & Strawberry Growing Video 

stART: Touchy Feely Book – That is not my Puppy 

stART: Jolly Postman & Greeting cards from Toddler Art 

Book & Cook – Duckies Rainbow & Rainbow Cookies 

stART – Story Telling, Bunnies & Stars 

stART: Giraffe’s can’t dance – a Giraffe Loo Roll Marionette 

stART: Chick – a Pop Up Card 

Book & Cook: Alphabet Cookies – Learning through play 

stART: Busy Airport – Cotton Wool Clouds and, erm, PIGS! 

stART: Hit &Myth – a mix & match book for older children (>5yrs)     

stART: Story & Thank you time – inspirational thank you cards    

stART: Hurray for Fish – one for babies or messy toddlers!     

stART: Bedtime Star – Red Ted, makes a starry night for Pip Squeak’s nursery    

stART: The Way Back Home, Oliver Jeffers – Red Ted makes a plane and a UFO    

Craft: Peg animals – toddlers can help!

Kid’s Book & Kid’s iphone App review – Dr. Seuss One Fish, Two Fish & Dr. Seuss’s ABC

Kid’s  Book and Kid’s iPhone App reviews continue. For my “reasons” behind “Why Apps?!” look here. Type “Kids” or “children” or “educational” into the Apple iStore and you get bombarded with Apps. Which to get?! Look no further…

 I am linking this up this week’s  Alphabet Soup! Any letter goes… but as there is the wonderful Dr Seuss ABC review below, I thought it would be rather fitting! We love Dr Seuss and all his quirky books and we love his ABC!

Be sure to come back in about 2 weeks time I will be running a fabulous Giveaway with Duck Duck Moose and you can win some of their excellent iphone Apps like Baa Baa Black Sheep & Fish School!

Kid’s Book Review – Dr Seuss One Fish, Two Fish Nursery edition

One Fish, Two Fish Nursery Edition. Dr Seuss. We all know and love Dr Seuss. I didn’t actually grow up with it, so for me every “new” book is a new discovery. However, I particularly like this Dr Seuss’s nursery edition. Not only do you get the wonderful One Fish, Two Fish counting book, with the marvelous Dr Seuss illustrations and trademark rythm, but the 5 little fish on the top act as counters. Red Ted (2.5yrs) and Pip Squeak, just play with them, but still, counters they are. Something is going somewhere subconsciously! Also means, that Pip Squeak likes this book a lot earlier than she may have done. (Oh and you get to explore colours too!).

Kid’s iphone App Review: Dr Seuss’s ABC

Dr Seuss’s ABC. I am a Kid’s iPhone App convert and do let Red Ted play every so often (under supervision, as he accidently deletes stuff!). My most recent acquisition is the Dr Seuss ABC App. Now, how can you feel bad if the little one is learning the alphabet. What I really like about this App, isn’t just the Dr Seuss drawings and colours, but in particularly the music and voiceover. Both done very nicely, with a lovely flowing rhythm to it. Brilliant. Also, tap on an image and the word will appear. Will definitely help with literacy skills! (0r so I tell myself! ). Red Ted really enjoys this App.  At 2.5yrs I thought he may be too  young for it, but he isn’t. I think he likes the music but also the words appearing and scrolling along the pages. For older children, you can switch the sound off and they can “read to themselves”. The tapping and scrolling still works!

Also linking up with these wonderful book sharing blogs!!

           

The Gallery & Kindness Club

2 for 1 Saturdays continue. I can see this mushrooming, as also have a few tags and memes to do. Oh no! In the meantime:

The Gallery – A  Novel Idea (or B is for Broken Mirror)

This week’s Gallery prompt is a photo representing a book or novel. I chose our 1.1m x 1m bathroom mirror that randomly fell off the wall and smashed into a 1000 pieces (the photo only shows a small corner). Thankfully no one was in the room. It could have been rather horrible. Doesn’t bear thinking about. Which bring me to the book: The Broken Mirror by Kirk Douglas (yes, that is right, the actor).

The Broken Mirror is a children’s holocaust story. I am going to be lazy and link to an excellent review here:

Book Page Review of The Broken Mirror

But two key messages relating to the post:

1) The theme of mirror is about “Satan’s mirror, which distorts all things so that good is evil and evil is good. When this mirror is shattered, its pieces are scattered across the earth, piercing hearts and spreading hate where there should be love. Contemplating the story, he wonders if any of those splinters are close to him.” and

2) “The Broken Mirror” is more than another Holocaust story. It is a testament to the power of the words written on our hearts when we are very young. Stories, songs and conversations can stay with us forever and words can be used for evil as easily as they can for love. Adults have a responsibility to give children words they can live by. As Katherine Paterson says, they give us life, growth and refreshment.”

Food for thought. I hope.

A more frivolous broken mirror link would be to all those fairy tales that feature broken mirrors. We all know “Mirror  Mirror on the Wall”….

As to last week’s Zoom:

This   is this  against a grey sky! Yes! A washing line (or rotary). Well done to everyone that guessed!

Previous Gallery Post

Zoom - Holidays -  Pip Squeak learns about Emotions - Creatures – Motherhood (Yacht) - Who needs the beach when you have a ball? (Up up and Away) - Still life: Life’s Lovely Laundry - Symbol of Friendship (Xenophile) - Self Portrait by Red Ted - (My) Men - Enchanted Woods (Violet Woods) - Portrait - 7 Sins – Pride - Joy – Spring - Ugly – These should be in a Tim Burton film - Outside my front door (Watering Can) - Me - Colour (Red Ted’s Bunny)

The Kindness Club

Hop over to Susie’s Kindness Club to find out more. Take a peak and see if you don’t want to take part?  This week’s prompt has been “hold open the door for someone”. 

I will make it brief. I like photos, so I will try and do Susie’s prompts in photo style. I decided to focus on teaching values to my children. Here we have Red Ted and I engaging in some (PC) roll play. The girl decides to help the boy get out of the house with the pram. Lots of faffing, in comes girl, boy and baby emerge. Lovely.  Smiles and claps all round.

Teaching our children about kindness is just as important as the kind act itself.

How to… make scented Playdough! A fail safe playdough recipe!

There are many recipes on the web for making playdough. I made three attempts, before I felt I got it right (I was making some for one of our “story + art” projects and had a very dissappointed Red Ted when the playdough didn’t come out right). So I decided, that I would write a post to show you “How to make playdough – a fail safe playdough recipe”! Thank you @nimblebee2 for your help!

When we first made playdough, I was a little worried he would want to eat it, as we do a lot of baking and he loves to lick the spoon. Surprisingly, he didn’t. Playdough is like a magic word! 

Homemade playdough tends to be softer and not “smell” as nice, but it is just as much fun.. and we add a sneaky bit of vanilla and cinnamon to make it that little bit lovelier!

And here is how:

• 1 cup water
• 1 cup plain flour
• 2 tbsp cream of tartar
• 1/2 cup salt
• 1 tbsp cooking oil
• Vanilla essence or cinnamon
• Food colouring, Red, Blue, Yellow

Very simple:

1. Put all ingredients (minus colouring and vanilla/ cinnamon) in a pan (your child can help – the photo shows Red Ted on our 1^st attempt, the remaining photos are the best recipe given above!).
2. Stir over a medium (!) heat. Until smooth/ less sticky looking. If very sticky, cook a little longer. Probably a total of 10minutes? (that by the way is my finger doing a pinch test in the photo)!
3. Let cool.
4. Divide into three batches and add food colouring / smellies (one vanilla, one cinnamon, one plain)
5. Store in fridge
6. PS see Red Ted’s apron – check out the link below, but that is a NO SEW APRON! Woohoo!

 

 (My pitfalls: too little salt (misread the recipe) & then cooking it too hot too rapidly!)

 Some recipes state to put the colouring whilst cooking, this is great if you want to get a really nice strong colour, as I found if you add TOO much colour at the end the dough gets sticky again. But it does mean cooking 2 batches! Ditto if you want to add lots of vanilla – suggest you add DURING the cooking process and not afterwards like me!

Enjoy the playdough!

Previous How Tos:

- Turn a T-shirt into a Halterneck (Guest Post)

- Felt Strawberries & Gingerbread Men (Guest Post)

-  How to make a No Sew Tea Towel Kid’s Apron

- Easy & effective Fish Pinata

- Simple but effective paper frames (vlog) 

- How to make a Flower Pom Pom (guest post) – simply gorgeous – use as wedding decor! 

- How to make a Paper Envelope  

- How to make a No Sew Bib (out of an old shirt)  

- How to make a Fabric Mâché Bowl (from old scraps of fabric!)  

- How to make a Paper Flower (from newspapers)  (guest post)  

- How to make a Paper Boat (vlog)  

- How to make a Paper Cup (vlog)  

- How to make Swedish Hearts (Paper Baskets) (vlog)  

- How to make No Sew Bunting   

- How to make a Balloon Poodle (vlog)  

- How to make Seedling Pots (out of newspapers) (vlog)  

- Funky comic party bags  

start + Art = Great Start – Cork Boats, Christmas Stamps & grandparents

I really wanted to review some lovely books about grandparents, because today we had a lovely day at Opapa’s house (Opapa = Grandpa in Austrian). We went there to hang out whilst The Englishman studied for some exams.

We arrived, expecting, Opapa, sunshine, a sandpit and a blow up pool. We went away having Gotten Crafty unexpectedly!!!

We have no Grandparent books, but Zoe at Playing By the Book reviewed a whole bunch of fabulous sounding ones here. We have two on order and will have to wait on Mei Mei for Christmas, as it is a little more expensive.

But this is what we made:

 

I recommend the catamaran configuration as the one cork configuration even with “stabalizers” toppled a little. I poked holes with the toothpicks and broke it in half to connect the corks. (Red Ted spent most of the day without clothes on, so, I am sorry, no photos of Red Ted playing with the boats or Opapa!!!)

And then Opapa found some Christmas Stamps and Red Ted got stamping (only an Opapa gets out Christmas Stamps in July!!). We will be coming back to these stamps shortly!!

Christmas in July

Tell me about the sea

Christmas in July

Christmas in July

 Once home, we revisited an old favourite of Red Ted’s: Tell me about The Sea, by Justine Smith. We have two books in the series and also have Tell me about Baby Animals. When he was a little younger he preferred Baby Animals (which Pip Squeak adores right now aged 8mths). Now I think he prefers The Sea (2.5yrs). But they are both lovely books – nice simple images with things to “do” on every page (count, find, look), some nice shiny surfaces to touch, as well as some flaps to lift towards the end. Lovely for them. Lovely for you and a little education on the side! Tell me about The Sea has a page all about boats. Big ones and little ones. Fast ones and slow ones. Even some sailboats. Perfect.

Previous Kids Craft & stART projects:

stART:Piep Piep Piep, Loo Roll Watches

stART:  Bear Cards & Strawberry Growing Video 

stART: Touchy Feely Book – That is not my Puppy 

stART: Jolly Postman & Greeting cards from Toddler Art 

Book & Cook – Duckies Rainbow & Rainbow Cookies 

stART – Story Telling, Bunnies & Stars 

stART: Giraffe’s can’t dance – a Giraffe Loo Roll Marionette 

stART: Chick – a Pop Up Card 

Book & Cook: Alphabet Cookies – Learning through play 

stART: Busy Airport – Cotton Wool Clouds and, erm, PIGS! 

stART: Hit &Myth – a mix & match book for older children (>5yrs)     

stART: Story & Thank you time – inspirational thank you cards    

stART: Hurray for Fish – one for babies or messy toddlers!     

stART: Bedtime Star – Red Ted, makes a starry night for Pip Squeak’s nursery    

stART: The Way Back Home, Oliver Jeffers – Red Ted makes a plane and a UFO    

Craft: Peg animals – toddlers can help!