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. :)

Crafting by not a very crafty mum - 60th Birthday Hug

I knew it was my father-in-law's birthday. No problem.

But...then I suddenly realised this was the big 6-0.

It then occurred to me, I probably ought to do something special. Doh!

I've been gearing up to try something with paint and throwing balls (Little E is still amazing at throwing), but I only had two weeks to go, so I pulled out an easy idea I'd been thinking about.

A nice big hug. :)

I used:

Some left over green card

Pritt stick

Pen

That's it!

Step 1

Chase child around the house, wrestle them to the ground and pin them while you frantically draw around their hands.

Or distract them with a YouTube video of diggers in my case...

I totally understand why Little E didn't cooperate. "I'm currently using my hands, thanks mum..." I have a wonderful child who wants to move, explore and be outside. I've excepted that simple pleasures such as drawing, puzzles and doing crafts with mum might be years away or might never happen. That is one reason why I chose this card. Once I had drawn round Little E's hands, his input was no longer required!

The result was pretty cute.

Step 2

Cut out a length of card for your "hug". I didn't measure. I had left over card and used the longest piece I had.

Step 3

Write your message. I wrote on the "top" hand, so it was more like opening a card and then a longer message as part of the hug. I added Little E's age to the back hand (19 months). I like to think these little hands might be little treasured mementos forever, like prints of his feet when he was tiny.

Step 4

Fold the card up, so it concertinas out. Then stick the hands down. I used pritt stick, but use whatever comes to hand (ha ha!)

It looks a lot more effective than I thought it would, so I'm very pleased. It also took about 10 minutes! Perfect for a slap dash mum like me.

I think I'll make a few more for birthdays, etc, as if think quite a few of my family would like to have a cut out of Little E's hands to keep.

Crafting by not a very crafty mum - Easter cards

Oh yeah...people will probably get Little E Easter gifts.

I thought I was home free until his birthday, but then we were given an Easter egg. A simple thank you would probably suffice, but I felt inspired and thought I'd make some Easter card that were also thank you notes.

I had a hunt round Pinterest. Some great ideas as always and this time I didn't need to make a stack of cards, so could do something more "bespoke". In the end, a couple of ideas caught my interest and I combined them into one card idea.

I love puns!

Someone had posted a picture of a similar idea with the circle and bunny ears. It looked like a professionally printed one where you could upload your own photo. The comment below said how hard it was to take a picture of your child wearing a costume, so drawing it in afterwards was a good idea.

I then saw a separate card with the pun. Couldn't resist!

Really easy and I've already made a few more. I probably only need about 6 for close family, so it will be easy for me to make that many.

How to:

I used

Yellow card (I used A5)

Print out from our computer of Little E

Sellotape

Felt tip pens

1) Fold card in half

2) Cut a shape out in the front. I went for a plain old circle, as I could just draw around a glass. Maybe an Easter egg shape might work well? I centred it up as best I could. Try to leave room at the top for the ears! I realised just in time my mistake and redrew my circle lower.

3) Cut out. I used scissors, so my edge is not very neat. I'm too lazy to care, but others might want to use a craft knife.

4) Print out a photo and stick it into the window. Try to pick a photo where the face is the main subject. You need the head to be cut off slightly off at the top, so the ears look like they are coming out the top.

5) Draw your bunny ears and a message of your choice! I used Little E's crayola pens and a pink fluorescent marker. All seemed to come out fine! I drew the ears in pencil first as a guide. Good thing I did, as I had to rub out one of the ears and try again!

And then...variations on a theme...

Messy play without the mess! - finger paints in a ziploc bag

Isn't it great when something works out well? I'd see this idea of putting paint in sealable bags, so your child could "paint" without getting messy.

Sounded like such a good idea, but Little E doesn't do much sitting a the moment and there never seemed a good time to try it out. He gets a bit fed up sitting in his chair, even if he has something to play with.

I then saw the idea of sticking it to a window, which I thought he might prefer as he would be standing. I thought we didn't have an appropriate window, until little E squeezed down the side of our armchair to the French doors. Oh yeah! Forgot those were there!

So I got:

A ziploc bag for 80p (thank you Pen to Paper)

Finger paints (given to me by a friend)

A piece of white paper

Tape for the window (brown masking tape was what we had lying around)

I folded the paper inside the bag. Squeezed some blobs of paint onto it, then sealed the bag and stuck it on the window.

Little E was definitely interested. He had a good squidge of the paint. The nice thing was, he could walk away and then come back to it, unlike being stuck in the high chair. 

Clever Aunty L showed him how if you mixed the paints they made different colours. I always love it when other people come to see Little E. They always bring new games and ideas to help me stimulate him.

I left it up until the evening and then took it down. I carefully slid the piece of paper out and left it somwhere safe to dry up. I washed the ziploc bag out. Most of the paint came out, but it won't be as shiny as it once was!

This is now hanging on the fridge :)