Thursday 17 October 2013

Make Your Own Fun Gifts for Teachers :)

It is with both excitement and sadness that we are deep in the throws of moving country at the moment, with the house furniture packed up & floating somewhere in the Atlantic as we answer Africa's beckoning call home! So sadly tomorrow is Katies last day at nursery. I wanted to give her dear teachers something with a bit of "colourful us" thrown in, so after buying a load of pencils and glue at Poundland, heres what we came up with .. stationary cups/ vases made out of pencils!



Right now to make these you will need the following ...


Wrap a hairband elastic around the tin and start inserting pencils all the way around. Then glue each one together using superglue or a suitable wood glue.



Let dry and decorate as you please ...



I threw in some flower pots on top to raise the vibrance a notch higher even :)





Friday 11 October 2013

A Princess Castle Party Prop


Heres one we made in the midst of moving house! We were surrounded by large cardboard boxes with loads of packing to do .. but somehow making decorations for Katies upcoming princess party seemed more interesting and this creation came to mind -




Heres how we did it-

We had 1 grocery left in the kitchen - namely coffee... and one sponge in the sink, and that was all we needed ;)






And heres are pics of the Princess having fun with it on the big day :)









Wednesday 25 September 2013

A Grocer Store for an Enthusiastic Shop Keeper


For a long while now, Katie has desperately wanted a toy shop and she is always moving the furniture round so as to make herself a store window counter for her little toy cash register. A few weeks ago we visited some friends who had a wooden toy grocer stall which cost them over £90, and though this was a great hit with the little ones, it got me thinking that surely with a bit of imagination we can do it a lot cheaper.

And so we made one...

Firstly, i bought an old tea trolley on eBay for £3 -->



Then i wrapped a cardboard box in candy striped wall paper and and cut it to look like a canvas roof. I also used sticks inside as reinforcement to stop it folding.




I then tied 4 sticks to each of the frame legs and settled the box on top .... and voila, we have a very happy shop Keeper!






Tuesday 24 September 2013

A Peppa Pig Party- Chloe Turns 2!

As i have mentioned before, following my initial vehement comments about not allowing those ugly oinking pigs into my home... Peppa came back to bite me in the ass! Ever since our visit to Peppa Pig world last year they have slowly but surely made their way in through the door and become my kiddies' favourites. I might even have to admit that the simple story lines are fantastic for young kids and Ive even enjoyed some of the underlying humour from Mummy Pig and Daddy Pig thats targeted at us frazzled parents :)

Anyway, I took Chloe to a party store to choose a theme for her birthday a few weeks ago, she wouldnt budge from them so i relinquished. And thats enough of my waffling. It turned out to be a real fun theme.. here are some pics and ideas

This was the invite cover.. living in the UK a muddy puddle party is quite fitting, you might not even need to prepare ;)


Aside note- Wellies in the dishwasher with a dishwashing tablet and some bicarb come out like new!


Moving on... the Party table, i went slightly ape with the theme after all ;)
So for this I made the backdrop using a very large blue table cloth from Poundland. I got the kids to paint a big piece of cardboard yellow, sprinkle gold glitter on it and then cut it into a sun once it had dried. We used the same method to make the apple trees and clouds. The kids absolutely loved making it as it came out so big, bright and fun!



The little ones were also involved in making the umbrella with raindrops. I cut out lots of large drops on blue paper and they stuck them onto strips of sellotape.. the end effect as seen above came out really nicely :)

Then we made some character props ...


I found an awesome website to print these massive props, its called www.blockposters.com . You simply send in an image and request the dimension size of your poster, and it sends you back an Adobe file split over the number of pages you requested. I just used the character outlines from colour in pics and got the kids to firstly make the puzzle by putting the pages together and taping them together, and secondly to paint each colour at a time by covering up the others with masking tape. We then stuck each character onto a blue table cloth and mounted them onto the walls.

They were thrilled and very proud of the results, and were used as photo props at the party, as well as for a "pin the tail on the pig" game :)






Now for party food ... I made these marshmallow and fruit trees by making a tightly packed tin foil ball and poking a skewer stick through it, and stabilised in the pot with scrunched up thick paper. The marshmallows/fruit were attached using toothpicks and shredded green paper thrown on top of the pot to look like grass.



Mmmmmm who can say no to a cup of Nutella, these were all gone in no time!



These mini milk bottles were filled with pink lemonade ...



I had some fun with the cake! All made out of fondant, nutella, Kit Kats, Smarties and sponge cake!

These were some cupcakes, they were quick and easy with buttercream icing, food glitter and rice paper character prints


 The party packs had fondant peppa pigs on the outside, and goodies, toys and a Peppa Pig audio story cd inside



The party tables were just done with white table cloths, and i got the kids to put lots of peppa pig stickers on them. We cut up grocers grass mats to make table cloths and put bright fake flowers in watering cans, which all tied in nicely with the theme





Now whats a muddy puddle party without puddle jumping .... i gathered a few little paddling pools from friends and the kids had a blast jumping in them. I had planned to colour the water and put flour in to give it consistency, but never quite got there!




And my little birthday champ was a happy chappy, as seen here with us and the Piggy in the Middle ;)

And that was that. After all my moaning, this has probably been the most fun theme ive done for a party :)









Wednesday 28 August 2013

Shere Village, Surrey


Shere is an idyllic village in the heart of the Surrey Hills. Widely considered to be Surrey's most picturesque town, it can draw large crowds over the weekends and has been widely featured in movies such as The Holiday and Bridget Jones- Edge of Reason.



For families with little ones, its just the perfect place to go on a hot summers day for a paddle in the Tiling Bourne and to feed the ducks. The quaint old village shoppes are charming and not too different from a hundred years ago im sure! There's also a lovely 3 mile buggy friendly walk around the village and surrounding countryside which takes you past pretty cottages, breathtaking country landscapes, fishing ponds and a Silent Pool... and lots of fun swimming spots along the way. Here are some pics












Saturday 3 August 2013

Fishing in the Cotswolds


We had a lovely day out in the Cotswolds picnicking and fishing recently, here are some pics





The car even got lost in the gorgeous green grass!