Halloween Crafts – Making Spooky Lanterns

It has become something of a tradition that we have a little Halloween party each year. We schedule it during half term so it gives the kids a chance to get together and have fun, and us mums get to catch up with each other. I provide the house and some basic drinks and snacks, the other mums bring extra snacks, craft activities and games, one even taught a dance routine last year! In preparation for the party we’ve started doing some Halloween crafts at home and making some things to decorate the house with for the party.

We were sent a pack of four Halloween lanterns to make from Baker Ross. They have a really interesting selection of Halloween crafts to make and I particularly like the “day of the dead” themed crafts which might be more enjoyable for older children.

There were four different designs of spooky lanterns in the pack on different coloured card. The designs were punched out of the card and we needed to push out the design and glue the “stained glass” tissue paper on the inside of the lantern windows. This was really easy and good practice for little fingers doing a semi-fiddly job.

My top tip would be to fold the creases of the spooky lanterns where they have been scored before you start gluing and sticking, if you pre-fold them so they’re ready it makes things much easier later on.

halloween crafts

Once you’ve glued the tissue paper stained glass into place you should leave it to dry for a few hours. Then the instructions say to glue the flap on the lantern in place to create the box shape. We glued ours, but in the future I’d probably use double sided sticky tape – much easier, quicker and less sticky.

Once the glue is dry, following the instructions, fold the lantern together and affix the stick and glittery string. You can pop an LED tea-light in if you like, but I think it looks rather fab on its own. We’ll make the rest of the lanterns and hang them from the ceiling for our party!

The boy really enjoyed making these with me. The instructions were clear, but he did need a grown up to help guide him and to do some of the tricky folding. He loved the result though and proudly showed off his lantern to everyone who would look. This was a great Halloween craft activity, something different for us to do which we both enjoyed!

Autumn Crafts – Make your own Autumn wreath

We went for a little walk yesterday around the park and we looked at all the different colours of the leaves. It was a mellow, autumnal day, still warm but with a slight seasonal dampness. The slow death of summer and the beginnings of decay were all around us. It was a good chance to talk about change and the seasons. Inspired by this we came home and made an autumn wreath. It was really simple and lots of fun to do. Why don’t you have a go too?

autumn wreath

You will need:
One paper plate
Orange paint (plus paintbrush etc)
Leaf foam stickers
A short piece of ribbon or string
Sticky tape
Scissors

A few days before our walk we painted our paper plates orange, we had to give them a couple of coats of paint and we left them to dry. Once they were dry I cut out the inside of the plate, leaving a ring which we could decorate.

We sat down with our packet of leaf foam stickers from Baker Ross (currently available at a bit of a bargain price), and got sticking. The pack contains six assorted leaf designs in autumnal shades. Which gave us another chance to talk about leaves, autumn and the seasons.

Once we’d decorated our autumn wreath to our satisfaction, I cut a loop of ribbon and stuck it to the back of the paper plate ring with sticky tape, and we proudly hung our autumn wreath up on the wall.

It’s a really, really simple craft activity, but I think the result is quite effective and it’s a lovely way to brighten up the house a bit now the nights are beginning to get shorter. Roll on Christmas! (Too soon?)

Autumn Crafts – Painting Hedgehog Tealight Holders

It may be September, but the world has suddenly slipped into autumn. Autumn is one of my favourite seasons, full of mellow fruitfulness, crunchy leaves and an excuse to get our open fire lit and roaring. The small boy and I have been noticing the changes around us on our walks, the berries in the hedgerows, the acorns and conkers starting to fall from the trees and the busy squirrels stocking up for the lean winter months. This lead us to start talking about hibernation and the snuffling, shuffling hedgehogs which we rarely see by often read about.

We were sent a box of ceramic hedgehog tealight holders to paint from craft company Baker Ross, so one afternoon after our autumnal walk we sat down and painted them up.

Hedgehog Tealight Holders

The box contained four plain white ceramic hedgehog tealight holders and we used some paint which we were sent to decorate them. A box of four ceramic hedgehog tealight holders currently costs just £4.40, which I think is good value and you can paint them up as presents for people.

Hedgehog Tealight Holders

I chose to paint mine blue with multi-coloured spots and the small boy wanted to paint his black and red. As you can see from the picture he was really focused on the task and he sat and painted his hedgehog for about half an hour or so. This is a great craft activity which works to strengthen his hand muscles, improve his hand-eye co-ordination and his attention to detail.

Hedgehog Tealight Holders

While we were painting we chatted away about hedgehogs and I looked up a few hedgehog facts for him. Did you know….?

A baby hedgehog is called a hoglet
Each hedgehog has about 5000 spiky spines, each one falls out after about a year
Hedgehogs hibernate in the winter, they eat as much as they can and then find a cosy nest to curl up in for the winter around October
A hedgehog is nocturnal and only comes out at night to forage for food
A hedgehogs favourite food is slugs – yukky!

Hedgehog Tealight Holders

Here are our finished hedgehog tealight holders. We’re very proud of them. They were easy to paint and I think they look really good. Despite my initial thought that the black and red hedgehog might look a bit gothic, I think he’s managed to create quite an interesting effect. He’s incredibly proud of his creation and loved to show it off to visitors and enjoys me lighting it at night.

Craft Kits: Easy Rugby World Cup Coaster Craft

The Rugby World Cup begins on 18th September; whilst for me the excitement might pass me by, for the boys in my life this is a time of odd-shaped-ball delight! Don’t get me wrong, I live next door to a rugby club and I realise there’s much to admire about this noble sport (mainly thighs); so I’m happy to get involved in a bit of pre-tournament crafting fun. To celebrate the Rugby World Cup, the boy and I sat down to make some Rugby World Cup Crafts.

We used the Rugby Coaster Kits from Baker Ross. These kits contain colourful printed foam coasters and foam stickers which you can make rugby themed coasters with. You can get them in packs of 6 or 18 coasters and they’d be a good craft to do for any rugby fan; world cup or not!

Everything you need to make the coasters is in the pack. This is helpful, as there’s nothing worse than sitting to do a craft and discovering you need something extra to complete it.

Rugby World Cup Crafts

The coasters are pre-printed so you know where to stick your stickers. If you wanted to free-style it you could just turn the coaster over to the blank side and do your own design.

We started by writing our names on our personalised coasters. This is good practice for him; he starts school this month and has been practicing writing over the summer. I decided to make a coaster for Daddy to put his ~~beer~~ soft drink on while he watched the Rugby World Cup.

We then set to work sticking the foam stickers on the coaster. This is great to improving his dexterity and hand strength; popping the foam stickers out of the sheet and peeling off the backing can be quite fiddly for little fingers. He enjoyed the challenge and did rather well with it all.

Tip: Whenever we do something involving peeling little bits of backing paper off I always make sure there is a bowl to put our rubbish in; it stops the kitchen being covered in tiny bits of paper and it’s much quicker to tidy up. Plus it encourages the small boy to be a bit more considerate with his mess.

Rugby World Cup Crafts

As you can see he enjoyed making his Rugby World Cup coaster. It kept us both busy and focussed on the task in hand for half an hour; and he’s rather proud of his creation.

You can find more of our craft posts here!

We were sent these crafts for review purposes. All images and opinions are our own.

Crafting with Kids: Fish handprints on canvas

The world is 4.54 billion years old so I’m pretty sure there isn’t an original idea out there. I hold my hands up, I went on ye olde Pinterest and borrowed/was inspired by/stole this idea for kids handprints on canvas. They were for Christmas presents, I thought they’d be cute, cheap and easy to do. Two out of three ain’t bad.

To start with I went to one of those pound shop type places and found some cheap canvases. I bought a pack of four for a pound, which was an immense bargain.

When we got home I painted wavy scenes on them, thus accurately depicting the ocean. I would’ve asked my four your old to help but I didn’t want blue paint everywhere, it was quicker and it was easier for me to do it than to stand in the kitchen for an hour arguing why the sea couldn’t be red. My wavy canvases looked like this…

They took a while to dry, so I left them overnight. Naively I thought getting the boy to press a painted hand onto a canvas would be the easiest thing in the world. I was wrong. I started this crafting venture on 2nd October 2014 and we managed to finish it on Christmas Eve.

Both husbear and I tried repeatedly to get him to do it, we tried it with our best “fun activity” voices, we negotiated hard, we tried bribery, we tried tricking him into doing it, we tried witchcraft (made that one up). Nothing on earth could persuade him to put paint on his hand and press it onto something four times. But for some reason, late on Christmas Eve afternoon he did it. Using some sparkly gold paint thickly slicked onto his hand, he made a fish swim in the sea. We did a victory dance. We ran up the stairs and did that thing Rocky does, I did a lap of honour round the kitchen. Then we had a brew.

Once they’d dried (at this late stage I helped them along with the hairdryer) I got a marker and drew on an eye and a mouth for the fish, wrote his name on his masterpiece (his masterpiece? Yeh right) and then wrapped them up for gifts.

I think it looks alright, it’s a nice thing to have and any self respecting grandparent would love to receive some artwork from one of their beloved grandchildren wouldn’t they? Wouldn’t they? Apparently not. Three months of negotiation and temper tantrums (from both sides) and not a glimmer of appreciation for it. Next year they’re all getting a box of crappy chocolates instead.

This is a cheap and easy activity for you to do with a willing, co-operative child. I wish you luck with your crafting endeavours, but I fear our crafts-as-gifts days are over.

Celebrating Craftmas with Laura Ashley

I love getting crafty for Christmas. I have relatively low crafting standards at home, I’m content to make cotton wool snowmen with my 4 year old and other such delights. Sometimes it’s nice to do something for myself, so one rainy Sunday afternoon I found myself braced against the elements and heading to another wonderful Ministry of Craft event, this time in conjunction with Laura Ashley.

We were in the cosy upstairs of Rosylee Tearooms, 25 bloggers gathered for some Christmas crafting, or Craftmas if you will. We spilt into two groups and I started by making a large origami box. Using large squares of beautiful Laura Ashley wallpaper, intricately folded into a large-ish gift box with lid. We then created a large bow to top the box with, again out of strips of wallpaper. I chose a contrasting paper to my box. It’s really rather effective and I’ll be recreating this at home with some nice thick wrapping paper.

Once we’d completed our first craft task we were treated to a selection of canapés, my favourite were the mini tomato bruschetta, but there was something for everyone, even gluten free options.

Suitably fortified we moved on to the sewing machines, a personal fear of mine. I’ve not used one since school and even then I wasn’t known for my skills. I am a nervous machinist, hand sewing is fine though. Thankfully I was under the expert guidance of Jeanette from the Ministry of Craft and I was sat near Hollybobs who really knows her way around a sewing machine.

We were set to work making little drawstring bags to put presents in. Using Laura Ashley fabric we made little red sacks and decorated them with cute bunting. Jeanette soon got the measure of me and entrusted me with her unpicker, which was just as well as I managed to sew all the wrong things together. It was easy to use the machine, my problem was more a lack of care, attention and confidence. Regardless I managed to make a pretty attractive looking bag.

I was really pleased with my efforts, they may lack finesse but they’re not terrible. Spending another afternoon with the Ministry of Craft has done wonders for improving my crafting confidence, which is so important when crafting with the small boy. My New Years resolution is to find more crafting me time and to learn how to use my sewing machine!

You can read more about our craftmas afternoon on the Laura Ashley blog. I think a lovely time was had by all, thank you to Laura Ashley, the Ministry of Craft and Joe’s Bloggers for arranging it. It’s amazing what can be created from wallpaper and upholstery fabric!

Christmas Crafts: Make Your Own Snow Globes

As a child I collected snow globes and I was fascinated by them, shaking them and watching the snow or glitter fall. I’ve always fancied making my own. I’ve seen a million craft tutorials online about how to make your own snow globes, so I thought I’d give it a go. It was remarkably simple.

I’m keen to reuse and recycle our household waste as much as we can. For years all our jam jars have been washed out and used for a range of other uses, such as, storage jars, re-filling with homemade jams, chutneys and pickles and for various crafts. This time I put one of my empty jars to a more creative use. I made my own festive snow globe.

To make your own snow globes you will need…

1 clean jar with a metal lid
1 figure which will fit in the jar
Glitter
A few drops of glycerine
Superglue
Water

snow globes

To make your snow globe…

Using the superglue carefully glue the figurine to the inside of the lid (make sure the lid is clean and dry), leave this for several hours, or overnight if you can. Once it’s stuck firmly to the lid you can continue making your snow globe.

snow globes

Tip around half a teaspoon of glitter into your empty jar, top the jar up with water and add half a teaspoon of glycerine. The glycerine helps the “snow” fall more slowly in the globe.

Once you’re happy and the jar is as full as it can be, dot superglue around the inside rim of the lid and screw it on the jar tightly. Leave it to dry properly for a few hours and then shake it up and enjoy your snow globe.

snow globes

It really is that easy, it looks really effective too. I suspect that this is a festive craft we’ll be doing again and again.

Painting Pots at Minikin Emporium

On Sunday we toddled off to Minikin Emporium in Sale, Greater Manchester to meet Katy and Laurence from Frank PR. We were there to find out more about Growing Up Milk Info and to have a go at painting a pot.

We’re no strangers to Minikin Emporium, we first visited about 2 years ago when the boy was but a baby. We had some hand prints done for grandparent presents and this lovely necklace for me; on the reverse is his little baby fingerprint, I treasure this necklace above anything else.

We started off by painting a mug, we had lots of colours to choose from and his creativity knew no bounds. He quickly painted the mug inside an out with swirls and curls in a rainbow of colours. He loved it and wouldn’t stop adding to his artwork.

Soon it was picnic time and he merrily munched his way through a plate of pitta, hummus, tomatoes and veggie snacks and drank several glasses of pink milk (strawberry milkshake). While we enjoyed our picnic, the lovely Claire who owns Minikin Emporium came rounds and wrote everyone’s names of their mugs.

We had a lovely, healthy, balanced picnic lunch and learned a little about the benefits of growing up milk, and how much growing tots need calcium and Vitamin D.

Minkin is a lovely, relaxed place to hang out and paint a pot, I very much doubt it’s the last time we’ll visit. We can’t wait to see his finished mug once it’s been fired.

Disclaimer: We were invited guests of Frank PR on behalf of Growing Up Milk Info and we have not been financially compensated for this post.

Crafts: Glass Painting for the unartistic

Three million years ago I went to art college. People think this makes me some kind of Mancunian Monet but alas no, I studied journalism and thankfully never picked up a paintbrush other than to redecorate my flat.

Besides being able to draw a bit I genuinely have very little artistic talent. This doesn’t stop me from trying. I’m a firm believer in doing things you enjoy that you might not necessarily excel at. If you’re going to have a hobby it needs to be fun and enjoyable.

I like crafts. I enjoy drawing with my son and making things with him. I went through a cross stitch phase a few years ago which I loved, and last year I tried and failed to teach myself crochet. I was browsing the DoCrafts website and I happened upon the Aquaglass Glass Painting Starter Kit, I’ve always wanted to give glass painting a try so I ordered it.

It’s a cracking little kit which will go quite a lot way I think. It has a tube of black relief outliner and four little pots of coloured glass paint (red, yellow, green and blue) as well as a little paintbrush. It doesn’t come with an instruction sheet but it was easy to figure out.

Use the black outliner to create your design, once that’s dry then paint with the coloured paints. As it was my first go I chose a nice jar to paint. I thought I’d go with a really simple design and just paint coloured panels around the jar. This was quite easy to do, though my brushwork with the black paint was a bit splodgy.

My first attempt was not beautiful, but I’m quite pleased with it. I’m looking forward to trying my hand at glass painting a few other things, I reckon I’ll ruin a few more jam jars first until I get the hang of it properly. I’ve got some lovely plain candle holders which I plan to decorate.

I enjoyed doing it, it was nice to focus solely on a task and to not think about the million other things you have running round your head if you’re a parent. It was a lovely piece of me time and a hobby I reckon I could get into fairly easily and cheaply.

Disclaimer: I was sent the Aquaglass Glass Painting Starter Kit for free for review purposes. These are my honest opinions and I really enjoyed playing about with it.