Crafting by not a very crafty mum - finger print thank you cards

Christmas was coming, the goose was getting fat, so it was time to sort out Christmas thank you cards.

I was so pleased how fast and effective this one was. Check it out.

These are all our thumb prints. I've seen things with baby/toddler footprints, etc, but I thought it would be lovely to include the whole family this Christmas.

I bought a finger printing set which had brown paint and just added some red stickers as noses and drew in some details with a biro. If I'd had some black stickers, I would have done black for us parents and red for just Little E, but red was what I had in stock!

Again, I put this on a postcard that I printed out as many times as I needed, but if you have agreeable little ones you could make them all by hand. Not likely with our Little E! One good thing about making them as postcards was some of the borders that were available were lovely and I felt really added to the final outcome.

I think I've had the most positive feedback about this thank you card.

And yes...I have big thumbs...for keeping people under, y'know.

Crafting by not a very crafty mum - hair keepsake for grandparents' day

Little E has a glorious head of curly hair. When he had his first hair cut, I was planning to keep a curl, but in the end I kept a whole bagful! Enough to make a Little E toupee.

I put one curl in his baby book, but what to do with the rest?

One idea I had thought about and then brought out were these cards:

I was always a bit sniffy about "new holidays" such as Grandparents' Day, but now that I have a child, it is such a nice way to say thank you for all they do for us.

"Ingredients"

Card

Sticky back plastic

Photos

Glue stick

Sellotape

Pen

Step 1

Cut out two square of sticky back plastic big enough to fit your lock of hair. Trap the hair between them.

Step 2

Fold your card and cut out a shape on the front. I went for a heart and used a template to help me draw it. Make sure it is big enough to show off you lock of hair.

Step 3

Sellotape your sealed lock of hair to the back.

Step 4

Decorate the front of your card as you wish. I went for a photo of Little E with his grandparents. I used a silver pen to write Happy Grandparents' Day, but it didn't come out that well. I think gold would have been better, but I don't have gold!

Ta dah!

Both sets of grandparents were very touched and it is an easy way for them to keep a lock of his hair for future reference.

Cake decorating - diggers!

We all have those memories of that kid whose mum always pulled out some amazing home made cake - a pirate ship, a train, a working nuclear power plant...

I'm not that mum!

However, a friend of mine gave me some brilliant advice.

"Buy a chocolate cake and stick their favourite toy on top. They will love it!"

Works for me!

As you may have guessed, Little E likes diggers. I'd collected some ideas online of digger cakes. There are some awesome ones out there, but we were returning from a family wedding and staying at my in-laws house for Little E's birthday party, so I had limited time, equipment and (frankly) energy.

I'd eaten this cake from Sainsbury's at a work leaving do. It is a huge, triple layer chocolate cake. At the time, I thought it could work well as a building site with all the chocolate "rubble".

I stood and thought a bit about my options. I wanted to decorate the number 2 on top. I had wondered about having all the diggers arranged in a big 2, but they were too big, using brownies (too big), etc. The Malteasers I had bought were much more flexible to make a number out of, so I cleared a patch...

Then add diggers!

These are from a pack by Le Toy Van. I was so pleased when I got them out of the pack. They have great movements and feel nice.

All the chocolate flakes removed from the top could then be used as rubble.

There were 3 other diggers, but they were bigger than I expected and I decided less was more. However, my cousin-in-law had found some cute builder candles for me to add.

And with the rest of their crew...

Little E clocked the diggers immediately and (after we cut the cake) played with them all afternoon. They were definitely a hit!

It was such a simple thing to do and made everyone so happy, especially the people who ate the rest of my bag of Malteasers!

Crafting by not a very crafty mum - high five card

Our Little E loves a high five and when I saw this idea, it had to be done!

This was for Big E's birthday. Little E is beginning to like drawing a bit more now, but drawing around his hands is still the easiest way to get some crafting done.

"Ingredients"

Coloured card - purple is Big E's favourite, so I then chose a contrasting yellow

Glue

Pen

Paint and a sponge to paint with

Step 1

Draw around your little one's hands

Step 2

Cut out the hands. Be careful and keep the "stencil" for later. Fold your other piece of card in half.

Step 3

Cut out two thin strips of card and fold into concertinas. Stick these to your card and then onto your hands and they will pop out.

Step 4

I hadn't really thought about what to do with the front of the card, but there's a really nice UK show for children called Mister Maker. In one episode he used stencils and just painted around the edge to make a "cave painting". It looked pretty cool, so I thought I'd have a go. 

I really liked the effect and so did Big E. He wasn't expecting the surprise inside!

Step 5

I wrote my message on the front.

It is sitting proudly on the mantelpiece and hasn't fallen apart yet, so for the win!

Big Bang Cake

Big E's birthday! I've got into the habit of decorating a cake in the style of what programmes we are enjoying at the time.

So I've done Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones. Time for...The Big Bang Theory!

If you are a fan of the show, you'll remember there is an episode where Sheldon drinks coffee and ends up hiding in a ball pit from his friend Leonard. It's very funny. This was trying to replicate that. I got the idea via Pinterest, as per usual.

It didn't turn out as well as I had hoped, but Big E appreciated it, Little E tried to eat all the M&Ms and our friends who love the show had a laugh.

I really cut corners this year, so I'm sure it could have turned out better. Here's what I did.

I was worried there wouldn't be time to bake a cake, so I bought one.

Then I cut out the ball pit. The cake had layers, so this was pretty easy to do. I used a plate to make a nice neat circle.

What did I do with the leftover cake I cut out, you ask?

Er....well...some of it might have gone in my mouth. Just to test of course...

Then I rolled out ready made red icing. I am useless at icing, so it's a bit of mess. It didn't help that there wasn't quite enough.

I cut out images of Sheldon and Leonard and stuck them on cocktails sticks, so I could push them into the cake.

I then added the balls to my ball pits. I used M&Ms, because I like them and they are nice and colourful, but you could use anything you fancy.

I had found edible gold glitter spray and fancied giving it a go. I thought I could use a stencil to write out Bazinga, etc. I should have taken more care, as you can see ther letters all smudged. I was going to use black and yellow icing originally, but was intrigued by the glitter. I think it would have looked much better with the icing.

It tasted yummy! We all enjoyed the M&Ms with our cake. I shouldn't feel so despondent about the result. Not everything will turn out as well as I'd hoped! That's the point...to learn new things. It will be better next time.

We are watching Person of Interest at the moment. Not sure how to make that into a cake...

Toddler activity - ice eggs

Just one of those ideas I squirrelled away for a slow day - make an ice egg that you can then "hatch".

I don't have any photos of the process, because I literally took a few minutes to sort this out and then bung it in the freezer for when I needed it.

Essentially, you freeze a toy animal in a block of ice. The original idea I saw was for "dinosaur eggs". We were visiting The Living Rainforest (http://www.livingrainforest.org) and Little E really liked the frogs, so I picked him up a plastic frog from their gift shop.

The figurines need to be pretty small, as you squeeze them through the neck of a balloon. Even this little fella took a bit of wiggling. Then pour water into the balloon, tie off and stick in the freezer. Cut and peel off the balloon when you want it. Voila!

I was thinking about ideas of how to melt the egg. Since Little E is not quite 2, I thought I'd just go for some warm water. When he's older, I might try things like salt. Not sure I remember the science behind why that works....

Little E loves water play, so really enjoyed pouring the water and got really excited as the ice shrunk away. He then poured his cup of milk in too!

He kept exclaiming "Gone! Gone!" about the ice. It was really exciting. Little E then did something I didn't expect and began some imaginative play with the frog - getting it to leap around in its little pond. In the end we went outside to do some more pond building for our new little guy, i.e pouring buckets of water everywhere to make puddles. It was awesome.

So, that seemed to work well. Need to collect some more plastic creatures and balloons for another day.

Crafting by not a very crafty mum - peacock buttonholes

It is nice when people have faith in you.

My sister was finally tying the knot. Bring on the wedding Pinterest boards!

She had chosen a peacock theme for their day and we kept seeing some lovely feather buttonholes. Every now and then a tutorial on making your own came up.

"Oh, C, you could do that!" 

And I decided I could...

And I did!

To be honest, I think I had bitten off more than I could chew, but luckily HobbyCraft had a cheat for me.

I was looking for artificial flowers and thinking about how I could attach a pin when I found these ready made ones:

Nearly perfect and only £1 each! I didn't like the foliage they had attached, but that was easy to pull out.

I then wrapped and glued ribbon around the stem. It matches the bridesmaid's outfit (me!) and the bride's shoes.

I then glued a peacock feather to the back. My mother-in-law got me some fab ones from a special shop outfitters, but you can buy bags of them cheaply online.

Then came the weeks of anxiety about them falling apart on the day!

I wasn't certain how well they would do if it was wet, wild and windy. I certainly didn't want them to look shabby for my sister and brother-in-law-elect's big day. Both of them reassured me. We just needed them to last for a few photos. For my sister especially, having something handmade for them by family was more important.

But actually...most of them lasted all day. Just a couple weren't perfect, but it was just the ribbon came a bit unstuck at the bottom. They certainly didn't unwind all the way. The peacock feathers stuck fast all day.

Crafting by not a very crafty mum - flower card

Little E is very outdoorsy. His birthday is late September, so a few of the presents we really wanted for his second birthday wouldn't get much use before the weather got too bad.

Relatives to the rescue with early birthday presents!

Early thank you cards then.

I've seen so many things you can do with hand and foot prints. Little E quite likes me drawing around his hand and I'd seen this bunch if flowers idea and came up with this.

I used

Coloured card

Pritt stick

Backing card

Pen to write a message

I don't think it needs explanation of how to make it! I bought the backing card as a last minute thing when I was in my local art shop. That way I didn't need to faff around making a card that stood up, as it can just be propped up.

I didn't realise how big Little E's hands hot got, so they hang over the edge of the card. I quite like the effect, but you may want a bigger piece of card for yours!

Crafting by not a very crafty mum - camera card

Our second Father's Day!

As I've been saying in my other blogs, I'm finding Little E very uncooperative with my crafty stuff. He just doesn't seem interested. I thought all little kids loved colouring and drawing..until Big E told me he hated it as a child. Oh...

I'd never considered Little E might never like this stuff.

It means I've been thinking that these crafts are really for my own amusement and it's time to branch out with things I can do.

Nothing TOO hard of course! I am lazy after all...

I searched on Pinterest for "Father's Day cards" and loads of ideas popped up, but it liked this best...

A camera card! Big E loves photography, so it was perfect.

I started with:

Black card

Black jar lid

Silver pen

Red sticker

Photo of Little and Big E

Cut out of a Canon logo from a magazine

Step 1

Fold the black card in half. Draw out a simple camera outline. I searched for some online and based my on those.

Carefully cut out the outline. Leave the middle attached, so it can stand up.

Step 2

Find a black jar lid. Most in my fridge were. I started with a smaller lid, but it definitely works better with a bigger lid.

I printed my photo out on normal paper, but a proper photo probably works best. I drew around the lid over the part if the photo I wanted and then you have a perfect sized photo to fit in the lid. You don't have to stick it down, because the lid's screw mechanism will hold it in place.

Step 3

Decorate your card. I got our real camera down and copied some of the writing from the front. I added a red sticker and a Canon logo I had cut from a magazine.

The original pin I'd seen had used some nice rhinestones for camera buttons and flash, but I couldn't find any in my local shop.

Step 4

Add a message. I can't resist puns and wrote this one. Others I thought of were: We just click and picture perfect.

Step 5

Stand back and enjoy. I think our camera thinks it's looking in a mirror. :)