Children's Xmas Decoration

I've been working on a christmas decoration idea that my two boys could help me with.

This is the result:

It does, of course, look more impressive in RL, where you can appreciate all the bling and shine from the embellishments.

The star was made using lollipop sticks:Stick them together, then paint:

..and finally add your sparkly bits:

...and a hanger on the back.

Think this would be a fun activity for a group of children to do, maybe for the tree?

I also had a go at a walnut mini pumpkin:

(based on an idea suggested by K on .hand.made.heart.felted)

Thanks for looking and for any comments,

See you tomorrow,

qwiksave

Cupcake Case Flowers

I've been making a home decor item for tonight's craft.  It's one that is so easy you could make it with young(ish) children.

Here we have:

Faux flowers made of shiny little cupcake cases.

To make them you use straws and drawn (or stamped) leaves and buttons stuck to the centres of flatened shiny cupcake cases .

Stick things all together (I used glossy accents for the buttons, sellotape for the rest) and to keep them upright, insert the straws into plastercine that is put into the bottom of the plant pot.  

Hope you are enjoying your weekend.

Thanks for popping by and for any comments,

See you tomorrow,

qwiksave

Leaf Necklaces

My boys (aged 8 and 10) amused me this morning.  I suggested that we made a craft present for each of  their girl friends.  You should have heard the protests they made about definately not having any girlfriends! Not to mention the vigorous shaking of heads and protestations at the idea of making anything for the girls that we do know.  I showed them the finished craft which looked easy & fun and wouldn't take them very long.  I had found it on this great (american) site, Frugal Family Fun Blog today (the site link is also in my sidebar). 

They are initial leaf necklaces

 (for Cara, Megan, Ellie and Isabella :-)  )

The full instructions can be found on the link above but basically you use alphabet biscuit cutters to cut the initial out of a leaf and then laminate both sides using clear contact paper.  Cut the leaf out and then hole punch the contact paper at the top and thread & tie string through.

Despite their protests they DID make them. They fetched the leaves from the garden (hazelnut tree) and the older one was quite happy to make the initials.  (If I had got the leaves I'd have picked better specimens but you have to let them do things themselves!...)

Things we learned from doing this:

1. Make sure you check the leaves for teeny insects before you bring them inside!

2. You need a hammer or something tough to tap the initials with if your biscuit cutter shapes aren't as sharp as they should be.

3. Allow quite a bit of clear contact paper on the top where you punch the hole and if you accidently rip through it mend it with a clear reinforcement ring.  We put rings on all ours to make them stronger.

4. 'Big Bites' might be tough, but they aren't very good at punching holes in two layers of contact paper!

5. I need to learn some basic knotting techniques!

I'm pleased with the results (I even made one for myself!) and think they would also look

fab with seasonally coloured Autumn leaves.

Thanks for looking and for any comments you may leave,

See you tomorrow,

qwiksave

Summer Holiday Special - Part 10

This is the last part of my Summer Holiday Activity Series. (If you haven't already, please check out the other Parts 1-9).  I hope you've enjoyed looking at these as much as I have making them.  Whilst doing this I have found it interesting to see just how different my children look in the 5 years that have passed since these pictures were taken.  It's very hard to imagine the next 5 years....and the next!

This was a fun creative activity, making an aeroplane and a car out of a banana, wafers, sweets and whipped cream:

Here is my son proudly picking it up so I can take a photo:

OOps! Crash Landing!

..and this is the car we also made:

No accident this time!

Towards the end of the holiday we picked some local blackberries:

Yum!

(Another activity to try, fruit picking, it's fun!)

* * * * *

I didn't get to show you everything we have done (this series would be ENORMOUS!) but we also went on day trips to various places and we had a week at the Seaside, Tenby in Wales, where I used to go as a child.

Here we all are with our beach creation

#

Enjoy the rest of your Summer Holiday,

and I'll be back with regular crafting soon,

qwiksave

Summer Holiday Special - Part 9

This is the last but one in the Summer Activity series and it has an artistic element in this one - its not all kids! :-)

The theme for this is Bubbles!

Back then in 2005, I had a bath and took some ordinary looking pictures of bubbles on the surface of the bath:

Then (also back then) I adjusted the pictures I took using a photo editing program

"Bubble Bath"

Create a free slideshow with Picnik!

They look so different, like something from space!  Anyway, that set the theme for today's activity. No, not space, bubbles.

We made some bubble pictures using paint, washing up liquid and a straw:

..and we made bubble wrap pictures:

and then I took some more pictures and altered them too:

Hope you have enjoyed this series,

One Final Part to come soon,

qwiksave

Summer Holiday Special - Part 7

Following on from my other parts 1-6 of this series, here are some more activities that you could do with your young children in what is left of the Summer Holiday.

Cooking! And after helping to make this part of the recipe for Rhubarb Crumble.....:

We needed to go out and buy some Cream and Custard so we got out our bikes:

and hurtled down to the local shop:

We stored the precious cargo into our luggage carrier..

 

and whizzed back home:

Mission accomplished!  Two activities in one - Cooking and Cycling! 

* * * * *

For a less energetic activity, you could make yourself a cardboard box television and put whatever you want on it!:

Maybe Spiderman or...

Dinosaurs!  ROARRRRR!!

Hope you are finding this useful,

Look out for Part 8 coming soon,

qwiksave

Summer Holiday Special - Part 6

This weekend I am doing a mini-series on activities to do in the holidays with your young children.  Please see parts 1-5.  These are a record of some of the activities that we did with our 3 and 5 year old boys in 2005 that may give you some ideas.

Some of the activities are obvious things like taking them to the local park:

But, expanding on that idea.  Take them to the local park and set off rockets:

Nice gentle ones with grandad.....or

...powerful homemade water rockets (keep your distance)...

..made by your engineer Dad!

(how to make these can be found on the internet)

* * *

Visits to grandparents are always nice too:

They love to see them - and that's where mine are right now.

Hope you are finding this useful,

Look out for Part 7,

qwiksave

Summer Holiday Special - Part 5

Following on from Parts 1-4 of my Summer Holiday Activity Ideas, I have some more for you:

The first is gardening - or helping with weeding or clearing up.  Even very young children can do this.

Another idea: Car Washing!  Well, that is what it started out to be! The trouble started once the hose pipe 'gun' came out!  I wasn't there, my husband was doing this with them - and taking the photos.

"Car Washing.."

Create a free slideshow with Picnik!

Nobody seems to have been harmed and it was good to see the hugs at the end.  What a lovely record of that time in their lives looking back on it 5 years later!

Hope you are finding this series useful,

more to come,

qwiksave

Summer Holiday Special - Part 4

Onto Part 4 of my Summer Holiday Activity Series.  Please see Parts 1-3 for further activities I did in 2005 with my children, then aged 5 and 3. 

The next activity we did was:

Go to a Party Shop and try on fancy dress!  No, that's not really a legitimate activity...

The next real activity was...

We dressed up and went to the local library to their Pirate Event!  Libraries do have events going on in the holidays, see what events your local library has on for children during the holidays.

Because it was raining on the way back....

the next activity was:

Den making with furniture in the front room

..Add some sheets on top...

..and crawl inside!

And when your dad comes home with a gigantic foam rocket, DON'T take it outside to play with:

Just put it in the launcher...

and let it BANG onto the ceiling!..

This concludes Part 4 of this series.  More to come shortly.

Hope you found this series useful,

qwiksave