Free Printable: Make your own Happy New Year Bunting

The period between Christmas and New Year can seem a bit flat. The kids can start climbing the walls and no amount of winter walks can fill the time. It’s a good time to plan some crafts. I have some New Year printables which I can pull out of the bag, or off the printer, but this printable Happy New Year bunting is 12 pages of fun colouring and crafting, which you can then use to decorate for New Year.

Download the Happy New Year Bunting here!

New Year is usually a time for parties. We often get together with friends and their families over the New Year period, the kids love to sit and colour for hours. This Happy New Year bunting printable would be a fun way to occupy the family at New Year.

Just download them and print them out onto A4 paper. Colour them in however you like, you may have themed colours for your party, or you could let the kids go wild. You could add glitter, or stickers, or cover them in feathers, the only limit is your imagination!

Once they’re decorated how you’d like, cut them out carefully and fold over the flap at the top. Get a length of ribbon or string and using tape, thread the ribbon over the back and stick the flap down so it’s held in place on the ribbon.

Do the same with each one until you’ve spelled out H-A-P-P-Y-N-E-W-Y-E-A-R and then hang up your colourful bunting wherever you think best. But whatever you do, or wherever you hang your bunting, I hope you have a very Happy New Year!

Download the Happy New Year Bunting here!

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Happy New Year Bunting

FREE Printable: Happy New Year Colouring Sheets

That’s it. Christmas is pretty much done and dusted and the next big date in our diary is New Year. After all the fun and frivolity of Christmas, who really has the time and energy to get out a load of glitter and glue and get crafting with the kids? Not me, that’s for sure. I’ve created a cute little set of New Year Colouring printables wishing you all a Happy New Year which I’ve made available for you to download and use for free.

Download the London printable here.

New Year is usually a time for parties. We often get together with friends and their families over the New Year period, the kids love to sit and colour for hours. Here’s a selection of sweet Happy New Year Colouring printables which they can colour in to welcome in the New Year!

Download the Paris printable here.

Choose from London, New York, Paris, Dubai, Beijing or Sydney. Colour one or colour them all!

Jus choose your favourite city or cities, download them and print them out. They are A4 sized, so just print off however many you need. Give the kids a million coloured pencils or felt tips and let them go wild with them. Adults who enjoy colouring in might also like to get in on the action too.

Download the Dubai printable here.

Our New Year celebrations are usually fairly low key. We might have an early dinner out with friends somewhere and then off home for snacks and family snuggles in front of the TV before the boy goes off to bed. Sometimes I might do some work while it’s quiet.

Download the New York printable here.

The fireworks at midnight usually wake my son up, so he will usually get up and watch them out of the window with us for ten minutes before he goes back to bed.

Download the Beijing Printable here.

New Years Day usually involves us all going on a long walk somewhere with the dog and a roast dinner at home. We have a small extended family and our friends are usually busy, so we tend to do our own thing. What are your family traditions at New Year?

Download the Sydney printable here.

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FREE Printable: Chinese New Year – Year of the Tiger

In 2022, Chinese New Year falls on Tuesday 1st February. Chinese New Year is a glorious, colourful celebration of the New Year, just when I feel the year is at its darkest and gloomiest. This year is the Chinese Year of the Tiger.

In Manchester the Chinese New Year celebrations are legendary. There is usually a big parade, Chinese crafts exhibition, a big celebration in Albert Square and a fantastic street food market.

2022 is the Chinese Year of the Tiger. The Tiger is the third of the 12-year cycle of animals which make up the Chinese zodiac in the Chinese calendar. People born in the Years of the Tiger including; 1914, 1926, 1938, 1950, 1962, 1974, 1986, 1998, 2010 and 2022 will celebrate their Zodiac Year.

To celebrate Chinese New Year and the Year of the Tiger, I’ve created this colouring sheet for children, or indeed adults. It’s a simple sheet which you can print out on A4 paper. All you need are some felt tips or colouring pencils and it should keep the kids entertained for a little while. If you want to extend the fun, you could also try making a Chinese drum, or some traditional red envelopes for Chinese New Year.

Download your free printable colouring sheet here.

It’s pretty cute isn’t it? It’s A4 sized, so just print off however many you need. Give the kids a million coloured pencils or felt tips and let them go wild with them. Adults who enjoy colouring in might also like to get in on the action too.

I’d love to know what you’ll be doing to celebrate Chinese New Year. Let me know in the comment box below. Gong hei fat choy!

2023 is the Year of the Rabbit, you can download the Year of the Rabbit printable here.

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FREE Printable: Chinese New Year – Year of the Tiger

FREE Printable: Happy New Year Colouring Sheet

That’s it. Christmas is pretty much done and dusted and the next big date in our diary is New Year. After all the fun and frivolity of Christmas, who really has the time and energy to get out a load of glitter and glue and get crafting with the kids? Not me, that’s for sure. I’ve created a cute little printable wishing you all a Happy New Year which I’ve made available for you to download and use for free.

New Year is usually a time for parties. We often get together with friends and their families over the New Year period, the kids love to sit and colour for hours. Here’s a sweet Happy New Year printable which they can colour in to welcome in the New Year!

Download this FREE printable here

The fireworks at midnight usually wake my son up, so he will usually get up and watch them out of the window with us for ten minutes before he goes back to bed.

If you enjoyed this, you might also like to try –

FREE Printable: Happy New Year Colouring Sheet

FREE Printable: Chinese New Year – Year of the Ox

This year Chinese New Year falls on Friday 12th February. Chinese New Year is a glorious, colourful celebration of the New Year, just when I feel the year is at its darkest and gloomiest. This year is the Chinese Year of the Ox.

In Manchester the Chinese New Year celebrations are legendary. There is usually a big parade, Chinese crafts exhibition, a big celebration in Albert Square and a fantastic street food market.

2021 is the Chinese Year of the Ox. The Ox is the first of the 12-year cycle of animals which make up the Chinese zodiac in the Chinese calendar. People born in the Years of the Ox including 1925; 1937, 1949, 1961, 1973, 1985, 1997 and 2009 will celebrate their Zodiac Year.

To celebrate Chinese New Year and the Year of the Ox, I’ve created this colouring sheet for children, or indeed adults. It’s a simple sheet which you can print out on A4 paper. All you need are some felt tips or colouring pencils and it should keep the kids entertained for a little while. If you want to extend the fun, you could also try making a Chinese drum, or some traditional red envelopes for Chinese New Year.

Download your free printable colouring sheet here.

I’d love to know what you’ll be doing to celebrate Chinese New Year. Let me know in the comment box below. Gong hei fat choy!

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FREE Printable: Chinese New Year – Year of the Ox

Free Printable: Nice List Certificate Template

Download your free Nice List Certificate printable here today!

Now November is upon us, my thoughts are turning to Christmas. As I write this, we are in the middle of a pandemic and we are locked down and unable to go out, winter is settling in for the season and there doesn’t feel like there’s too much to cheer about. This is why this year I’ve decided to go all out for Christmas.

It may be smaller than we’d like, we might not be able to go to church or meet up for celebrations with friends and family, but I will be decking the halls brighter than ever before. I want to bring some extra twinkle, sparkle and love into my home and one of the ways of doing that will be really pushing the boat out for my son.

The Twelve Days of Christmas at Tatton Park 2017

That doesn’t mean I’ll be spending thousands of pounds of the latest gadgets, games and gizmos; it means I’ll be sprinkling some extra Christmas magic about the place. Part of what I do every year is a Christmas Eve Box and it always, always brings good cheer. I never really spend very much on it, it’s just full of fun things to do on Christmas Eve and it’s as much a part of our Christmas as turkey and Christmas stockings!

One thing I’m adding this year is a Nice List Certificate. It’s a simple thing and a nice little addition to the box. It’s also free, which is also quite important this year when many people are tightening their purse-strings.

Download the Father Christmas version here

As I was making one for our use; I thought I would make two versions and make it available for you to download for free too. I made two versions because some people call the big bearded man Father Christmas and some call him Santa Claus. So I’ve made one of each and you can take your pick!

Download the Santa Claus version here

All you need to do is print it out and fill in the name of the child on the nice list. I’m hoping it will serve as motivation for an early night and no early morning Christmas stocking opening! Merry Christmas!

Free Printable: Nice List Certificate Template

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FREE Printables: Learning about Bees

As spring turns into summer my garden is buzzing with insects. Like many people we are particularly keen to give our local bees a helping hand and a bit of love. Gone are the days where we pull up dandelions with abandon. Now we’ve got a scruffy, weedy, wild flower patch at the bottom of the garden; complete with a bug hotel, bird box and hedgehog home. It might take a year or two for them to be populated, but we are doing our bit.

How to create a wildlife garden with your kids

We are always on the look out for bees buzzing about the place and we have been learning a little bit about them too. Did you know that there are over 20,000 species of bee in the world and around 270 species of bee in the UK; but only one of these is a honeybee. People can be frightened of bees because they sting, but usually only if they’re being attacked or feel threatened. The are 600 species of stingless bees in the world. They’re all worth looking after and encouraging, so what can you do to encourage bees into your garden?

Grow plants with nectar and pollen
Create bee hotels and bee friendly habitats
Don’t been too keen to weed
Grow some wildflowers
Leave a patch of your garden unattended and let it run wild
Stop using pesticides and weed killers

You don’t have to have a big garden to make the world a bit more bee friendly, a window box or a couple of pots of flowering plants by your front door can all help. If we all learn a bit more about our bee friends, together we can help to support them and create an environment where they can thrive.

The free to download sheets include pictures to colour in and a few facts about –

Bees
Beehives
Honey

It’s enough to keep the kids occupied for a while and a good place to start if you’re going to start learning about bees with them.

Download your FREE learning about bees worksheets here

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FREE Printables: Learning about Bees

FREE Printable: Chinese New Year – Year of the Rat

This year Chinese New Year falls on Saturday 25th January. Chinese New Year is a glorious, colourful celebration of the New Year, just when I feel the year is at its darkest and gloomiest. This year is the Chinese Year of the Rat.

In Manchester the Chinese New Year celebrations are legendary, with a parade, Chinese crafts exhibition, a big celebration in Albert Square and a fantastic street food market.

2020 is the Chinese Year of the Rat. The Rat is the first of the 12-year cycle of animals which make up the Chinese zodiac in the Chinese calendar. People born in the Years of the Rat including 1936, 1948, 1960, 1972, 1984, 1996, and 2008 will celebrate their Zodiac Year.

To celebrate Chinese New Year and the Year of the Rat I’ve created this colouring sheet for children, or indeed adults. It’s a simple sheet which you can print out on A4 paper. All you need are some felt tips or colouring pencils and it should keep the kids entertained for a little while. If you want to extend the fun, you could also try making a Chinese drum, or some traditional red envelopes for Chinese New Year.

Click here to download your FREE Chinese New Year printable!

I’d love to know what you’ll be doing to celebrate Chinese New Year, let me know in the comment box below. Gong hei fat choy!

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FREE Printable: Chinese New Year – Year of the Rat

Crafts: How to make your own Cloud Mobile

April is famous for its showers, so we decided to make our own weather based craft. We went for this fun cloud mobile which you can decorate however you want really. We went for paint, pom poms and a silver lining and we were pretty happy with the result.

To make life easier I created a simple cloud template which we could use to decorate. I’ve made the template available to download, so you can recreate the cloud mobile easily at home. This is a really lovely craft, we are so pleased with how it turned out.

Download your FREE cloud template here.

Crafts: How to make your own Cloud Mobile

Make your own Cloud Mobile

You will need:

A printout of the cloud template
Paint
String or twine
Sellotape
Scissors
A glue gun
Pom Poms
A yellow foam circle

How to make your own Cloud Mobile

Print out a copy of the cloud template on card. Decorate each cloud, we painted ours different shades of blue with silver linings. I thought they might be quite nice with glued on wisps of cotton wool, but the boy had other ideas.

Leave the paint, or whatever you’ve glued to your clouds to dry and then carefully cut them out.

Crafts: How to make your own Cloud Mobile

Using a length of twine (I used a really lovely blue striped twine I found in a nice shop in Gloucester) sellotape the twine to the back of the clouds so they will hang evenly. Make sure there’s a decent loop of twine at the top so you can hang the cloud mobile on a hook when you’re done.

The cloud mobile looked lovely, but I wanted to embellish it with hanging pom poms and a bright sunny sun.

I selected five little pom poms and using the glue gun, glued them onto five inch long pieces of twine I’d cut. I then sellotaped them to the back of the bottom cloud. Again using the glue gun I dolloped some glue onto the yellow foam circle and stuck it so it was peeping out form behind the top cloud.

The cloud mobile was done. We did think about adding some sequins or glitter, but decided it looked great as it was. Really, you can decorate your clouds however you want, let your imagination run wild!

If you enjoyed this post, you can find all kinds of other crafts and activities here.

Crafts: How to make your own Cloud Mobile

FREE Mother’s Day Colouring Printables

Mother’s Day aka Mothering Sunday is coming this weekend. If you’re anything like me, thing can be a bit last minute. But fear not, I, like most mums are happy with a bit of breakfast in bed and a homemade card. I’ve put together four Mother’s Day colouring sheets which could happily be turned into cards, or stuck to the fridge in celebration of Mother’s Day!

Review: Guess How Much I Love You Big Nutbrown Hare

The Mother’s Day Colouring sheets are ideal for entertaining little ones, or colouring in to give to mummy, grandma or a favourite female family member. There are four very different styles to choose from, so there’s something for everyone.

Download the FREE Mother’s Day Colouring Sheets here!

Mothering Sunday in the UK falls on the fourth Sunday in Lent, exactly three weeks before Easter Day. Traditionally Mothering Sunday was the day when people would visit their “mother” church (the church they were baptised in). Mothering Sunday has become an occasion for celebrating mothers and giving them presents, though these days we have shortened it to Mother’s Day.

Mother’s Day is celebrated around the world on different days, in the UK, Canada and Australia it falls in March. In America it is a slightly more commercial celebration which takes place in May.

Our Mother’s Day celebrations are usually pretty low-key (which is how I like it). I will be given breakfast in bed and a cuddle and a card, then we will go to church and the children hand out little bunches of flowers to all the adult women in the congregation. Then we will put on our walking boots and go for a nice bracing walk with the dog somewhere. To me, that is perfect.

If you fancy doing some Mother’s Day crafts, here are some lovely spring crafts you could try –

FREE Mother's Day Colouring Printables