Saturday, November 18, 2017

Jingle Bell Painting {Toddler and Preschooler Christmas Craft}

The bright summer sun sits high in the sky, the air is warm perhaps a touch on the hot side, the smell of the sea drifts in and the taste of salt hits my tongue. 

I can hear the soft jingling of bells, smell yummy gingerbread and hints of peppermint. 

Excitement and happiness and a tiny bit of stress are all around. 

It’s Christmas!
http://babyhintsandtips.com/jingle-bell-painting/#

Wednesday, December 16, 2015

Easy Teacher Christmas Gift

Where has this year gone? It seems to have flown by! So much so, that end of term snuck up on me before I had a chance to buy and create the gifts I had planned on making Bubbles' teachers! Thankfully Bubbles and I were able to make these gifts up quickly the night before.



Friday, December 4, 2015

Christmas Sensory Bin

I'm excited to be joining in today with Sugar Aunts' Christmas Carol Sensory Bin Blog Hop! Bloggers from all over are joining in to bring you a list of carol inspired sensory bins that you can re-create all season long!



Tuesday, December 1, 2015

The best Christmas activity planners plus one for the parent with zero energy!

December is here and so is all the hustle and bustle of Christmas! As someone who struggles greatly with anxiety I already find Christmas difficult; add to that a toddler, preschooler and being 7 months pregnant and I must confess to feeling completely overwhelmed! One way I cope with this, is with a battle action plan.



Monday, November 30, 2015

Christmas Tree Playdough

If you visit us regularly then today's invitation to play should come as no surprise.
 

Sunday, November 29, 2015

Christmas Wrapping Station and Block Shelf

This week I decided to set up a wrapping station for the girls. I set one up for them last year and it was a great success, this year though I had a bit of an ulterior motive.



Thursday, November 26, 2015

Toddler and Preschooler Made Polymer Clay Jewellery

Christmas can be an overwhelming time of year for little ones. With all the emphasis put on shopping and presents it can be hard for Christmas to not become all about 'getting'. One way we try and combat this, is by having the girls make Christmas gifts for their friends and special people.



Tuesday, November 10, 2015

Christmas Busy Boxes for Babies and Toddlers

Even though it's only November, it seems that Christmas is fast approaching! Today I'm sharing with you two simple but fun and engaging busy boxes for babies and toddlers, that I made last year.



Monday, December 1, 2014

Free Printable Activity Book

When Kim from Life Over C's asked if anybody would be interested in a printable QR code craft book, I just jumped at the chance to be involved! I mean, I can't believe I haven't heard of something like this before-it's such a brilliant idea!

Just in time for Christmas too! Simply buy the things on the list, print off the craft book and package it prettily together and you've got a fantastic gift for your child or even your nephews and nieces.

Create your own gift with this FREE QR Code Printable Craft Book. Simply put the book together with the easy-to-find material list on each craft and Ta-Da!! You have a gift! The recipient can scan the code and get the directions. Easy peasy!!
 The book contains eight simple crafts that your kids can complete with minimal supervision and best of all you may have all the materials in your cupboard already!

Thursday, November 13, 2014

20 Homemade Gifts for Kids (Babies, Toddlers and Tweens)

I am so excited to be part of the 2014 KBN Gift Guides for Kid series! This series features over 70 amazing gift guides and is the ONLY kids gift guide that you’ll need this year!

Thursday, December 19, 2013

Kindness Elves Days 5-11


On the fifth day our Advent Helpers visited our home they appeared on the rocking chair in Bubbles' room. They were reading her Bible and suggested she say a special prayer. We talked about different things we could thank God for and how it was nice to remember to thank God and spend time in conversation with him instead of just asking him for things all the time.

I love Anna from The Imagination Tree's idea of having the kindness elves make a list of people to pray for and checking it twice. :)
On the sixth day our Advent Helpers visited our home they invited Bubbles to bake some biscuits. We were going to give them to the neighbours but unfortunately I read the back of the box wrongly and added 2 eggs instead of one and the only flour we had in the house was self-raising so they were more like bread than biscuits. It didn't bother Bubbles though she still had lots of fun. :)
On the seventh day our Advent Helpers visited our home Bubbles was sick so the Advent helpers made her some candy cane soup (warm milk with a candy cane stirrer.)
On the eighth day our Advent Helpers visited our home they invited Bubbles to help them water the garden.

On the ninth day our Advent Helpers visited our home they invited Bubbles to help them bake some gingerbread men for the neighbours-they turned out MUCH better than the Christmas biscuits!
On the tenth day our Advent helpers visited our home they asked Bubbles to hand out some Candy Canes at daycare.
On the eleventh day our Advent helpers visited our home they cleaned up the playspace and asked Bubbles to help by keeping it clean.
On the eleventh day our Advent helpers visited our home Joy was in hospital (we had a little accident the day before and his body smashed). Hope and Love said that a hug was a great way to make someone feel better and invited Bubbles to give lots of hugs.

Unfortunately that was the last visit we had from the Advent Helpers as I forgot to pack them when we went on holidays, I'll definitely be doing it again next year but might try sporadic visits rather than everyday. :)

Wednesday, December 18, 2013

Kindness Elves Day 4



On the Fourth day our Advent Helpers visited our home they appeared in the bathroom with an invitation for Bubbles to brush her teeth and smile-Joy and Love couldn't find Hope and asked if Bubbles could help find him. We talked about how a simple smile can really brighten up someone's day and Bubbles had great fun searching for Hope-who'd hijacked her digger and taken it outside.

I got this lovely idea from one of the fans who posted on The Imagination Tree's facebook page.

Tuesday, December 17, 2013

Kindness Elves Day 3

My apologies, I've been remiss in blogging the exploits of our Advent Helpers aka Kindness Elves. Rather than inundate you with all the missed days in one blog post though I've decided to keep just adding one day's exploits at a time.

On the third day our Advent Helpers visited our home they appeared at our front door in a basket full of leftover Candy Cane playdough we had made for our Mainly Music friends earlier. Our Advent Helpers asked Bubbles to take the playdough to parents group and hand it out as it was our last week.


 Bubbles had so much fun carrying the basket and handing out everyone's little gift-she even insisted on taking our helpers along to group so they could join in and as I'd used the word 'presents' in the helpers note rather than just playdough she decided it was her job to hand out the presents under the tree. :) It was a fantastic end to this year's group especially as we had the most kids come ever. :)


Candy Cane Playdough Recipe
Ingredients:
2 cups plain flour (we used Organ's Gluten Free)
4tbs Cream of Tartar
1 cup salt
2 cups water
2tbs cooking oil
2-3 drops red food dye
Peppermint Essence (We used half a bottle but that's because I let Bubbles pour-a few drops should be enough)

Method:
To make the red: Mix all ingredients in a saucepan. Stir over medium heat for 3-5minutes or until the mixture congeals. Remove from heat and dump on a lightly floured bench and cool slightly. Once cool enough to touch knead until smooth.

To make the white: Mix all ingredients except food dye in a saucepan. Stir over medium heat for 3-5minutes or until the mixture congeals. Remove from heat and dump on a lightly floured bench and cool slightly. Once cool enough to touch knead until smooth.

To make into candy cane playdough: Roll red and white playdough into long sausages about an inch wide. Press ends together and twist around one another, pinch together at the end.

Once we'd made our Candy Cane playdough we divided it into 30 portions and placed them in cello bags, at first I tried to be fancy and make them into candy canes but the playdough kept slipping and Bubbles had a little trouble manipulating it so in the end I settled for little squished balls-I wasn't a hundred percent happy with the presentation but decided it didn't matter in the end. Once all the playdough was safely in the bags I attached these labels which I download from here and altered to include the Candy Cane story. Bubbles signed them with an 'I' and I stapled them to the bags.

Wednesday, December 4, 2013

Kindness Elves Day 2


Bubbles had lots of fun coming up with names for our advent helpers yesterday and settled on Love, Joy and Hope.

This morning they were waiting by the kitchen entrance in front of a rainbow, I expected Bubbles to find them straight away but she was a little confused that they had moved and needed a few prompts from Daddy to find them. She was so excited about the rainbow and wanted to share the coins with Squiggles straight away-she was quite disappointed when she was told Squiggles was too young to eat chocolate, but decided she could share a toy with Squiggles instead.

I was so proud when Bubbles made the choice to wait until after breakfast to eat her gold coins, I don't know exactly what we're doing to encourage her healthy eating habits but this morning's choice made me feel like we must be doing something right!

There are so many fantastic ideas being posted on The Imagination Tree's facebook page-I can't wait to give them a go.

One of the readers commented that she's doing the 3 wise men and they're searching for baby Jesus-I think this is such a fantastic idea and something to think about doing next year.

Tuesday, December 3, 2013

Kindness Elves


I love this idea from Anna at The Imagination Tree! It's a twist on the Elf on the Shelf idea, in Anna's own words" Create a new tradition for Christmas with the Kindness Elves, an alternative to the popular Elf on the Shelf idea, and place the focus instead on positive, character-building activities for kids. Teaching love, kindness and gratitude with a hope to raise kids who move away from the “entitlement” attitude which pervades our modern generation."

We don't 'do' Santa for the same reasons outlined in the post but I love this so much that w
e're adding this to the list of exciting things we're doing in the lead up to Christmas but calling ours Advent Helpers (a name I borrowed from one of Anna's readers). Not only is it a fantastic learning tool but it's a cheap way to enhance the magic of Christmas, I'm just using some gnomes my brother gave me as our 'elves'. :)

Here's the link to the article: http://theimaginationtree.com/2013/11/alternative-elf-on-shelf-tradition-kindness-elf.html

And here's our special little advent helpers standing by the candle of Hope waiting eagerly for Squiggles and Bubbles to wake up: