10th December - Candy Cane Growing

So I've been super excited about this one, it completely captures the magic of Christmas and the kids imaginations. However it is a long term investment of time and effort as you'll be the one to help the candy cane to "grow".

So to grow your candy cane you will need:

1. Plant pots, 
2. Magic Snow
3. Elf magic dust (glitter)
4. Candy cane seeds (broken up candy cane piece)
5. Candy canes to add later
6. Water

 First I got Scarlett to pour some magic snow into a small pot. 

 She then put in the seed and sprinkled with the Elf magic dust. Next pour water over the seed to help it grow.

 To Scarlett's great excitement the magic snow puffs up instantly and the seed is hidden. 

The magic of this is every night I will add a bit of candy cane to the pot to make it look like it is growing. Then on Christmas eve they will have a full sized candy cane. I'll update you with photos of our growing candy cane over the next 14 days of advents.
I did think these would make a really fun present for friends kids, Might do that next year!

9th December - Glitter Pinecones

I'm not going to lie, this is a messy one but who doesn't love getting covered in glitter right?

We collected loads of pine cones from a friends garden a few months ago. I wasn't sure what to use them for at the time, but they kept well and feel very festive.

To try and control the mess I set up the craft by putting some blue tac on the end of a straw. We then stuck a pine cone to the straw and it helped to avoid getting super gluey fingers.

You can then easily dip the cone in glue then sprinkle with glitter. As Scarlett demonstrates below.

These look super cute and the girls really enjoyed this one.

7th December - Christmas Tree Bunting

Thankfully we are back from hospital and Millie is on the mend WHOOP!!!!

Sitting down with them both to do this advent craft was lovely. 

For today's craft I had pre bought some felt tree bunting. Then let the girls add a sparkly star on top of each one. Nice and straight forward but looks really effective, and Scarlett really enjoys seeing this hanging up in the kitchen.

5th December - Sticker Book

I'm so glad I pre planned these crafts as today was a bit of a nightmare. Millie ended up in hospital last night and is in for the foreseeable future. So these advent crafts are a great distraction for Scarlett left at home without mummy and her little sister.
She's taken her sticker book along to grandma and grandpa's for a sleep over today.

Sticker books are a great Christmas craft for the advent, because you can't spend every day sat with them doing something and making a mess to clear away, so this type of activity keeps them busy and give you a break.

Struggling to feel in the festive spirit today, but hopefully illie will be sorted soon and we'll all be home together again.

3rd December - Christmas Cards

Homemade Christmas cards in my opinion are the best.

When you've not got much money and you want to show your love for people they can't be beaten. You spend time and effort (trying to make sure the kids don't mess them up) making them and endure mega hand cramp writing them all out...what more could your friends and family ask for!

So I included our handmade cards into the girls advent calendar to kill two birds with one stone.

So with a simple finger print design we set to work.

 Drying all the cards

Crafty Christmas Advent

This year we're going to do a crafty Christmas advent, mainly because the Lego advent calendar we did last year have all sold out in the shops and they cost a fortune £25 each!
So using our family advent calendar I decided to do some kids craft fun instead.

Each day is a simple new craft. Here is my list for each day.
1. Letter to Santa - Made my own personalised design in word. Then we posted them to the special royal mail address so we should get a reply
(Cost 63p for the stamp.)
2. Clay Decorations. - we've invited a couple of school friends over for tea to help us make these (Cost £5 for the air dry clay)
3. Christmas Cards - simple homemade cards are the best kind for friends and family. (Cost £1 for blank cards and envelopes)
4. Snow flakes - I've pre cut these for the girls to glitter up. Then we'll hang them from the ceiling in their room. (Cost free as we're using bits we already have)
5. Christmas sticker book - we're going to be busy this day so a nice on the go craft we can take in the car. (Cost £1 from pound shop)
6. Mini cardboard tree - precut designs the girls can decorate. ( Cost free. Using old box and existing crafty bits)
7. Tree bunting. - felt tree shapes with stickers. (Cost £1.50 for the bunting and £1 for the stickers)
8. Angel hangers. Paper decorated angels. (Cost free as using crafty bits we have around the house)
9. Glitter pine cones. (Cost free. Cones collected from friends garden and who doesn't have glitter glue!)
10. Grow your own candy cane. - very excited about this one. More to follow!
11. Christmas activity book. - another busy day, another on the go craft. ( Cost free as she was given this last year and didn't get around to doing the pages)
12. Moveable frozen characters. - Were going to put on a show with these ones. ( Cost £1 from pound shop)
13. Snow flake dream catchers. - A craft to do when Aunty Sarah is babysitting. (Cost £1 each from hobby craft)
14. Toilet roll Santa. Pre cut sticky back paper shapes onto toilet rolls. With led candles will make nice little lanterns. ( Cost free)
15. Paper plate snowmen. Cotton wool on paper plates nice and easy. (Cost £2 for plates, wool and stickers)
16. Christmas colouring in. So free prints to keep little ones quiet. ( Cost free)
17. Potato stamp baulbals. This is potato stamps made from Christmas cookie cutters. These will make nice pictures for the girls RM ( Cost free)
18. Mince pies.
19. Reindeer food. Bird food and glitter all put in a little bag.
20. Hanging heart Decorations.
21. Ginger bread house.
22. Frozen fuzzy felt scene. (Cost £1 from poundland)
23. Tealight holder. (£1 from hobby craft)
24. Olaf build a snowman (£1 poundland)

Each craft is wrapped for extra excitement. 

DIY Dolls House

This has been by far one of my favourite craft projects so far!

I have decided to make a dolls house for the girls as a joint Christmas present. Its not totally DIY as I did buy the basic shell. I bought this really large basic Dolls House from ToysRus. It's super cheap at £50 for a wooden house with accessories and figures. But it's plain and boring...hence the price.

Cute toilet before make over

So if you fancy giving it a go, this is how I did the girls one on a super tight budget.

Firstly I painted the house parts before assembling it. Its much easier to paint before screwing it together. I used a some left over matt paint for the exterior walls and added white gloss to the raised areas for definition. I painted the door in a slightly darker blue to the walls just so it stood out.

Secondly I managed to decorate the entire interior walls and floors for free...how?
I searched the internet for a few hours and ordered every free sample of wall papers I could. Most major shops do free samples with free shipping, next, john lewis, homebase ect, but lots of high end designers do them too. The living room wall paper would be over £100 per roll to buy, but I got a large A4 sample for free. You also get the free sample rolls in most DIY shops, I just visited one and took some free strips. I used wood effect wall paper to create wooden flooring in the dolls house too.

I had to wait a couple of weeks for them all to arrive but once they did I got cracking.

Lastly the finishing touches. I used a home catalogue and cut out pictures of photos in frames to sick on the walls, fire place photos, mirrors, lights, plants. Once they were all stuck on they added character to the rooms.

So here are the finished rooms.

This is the master bedroom. This is wall paper glued to the walls and floor. Note the added picture on the wall of a rose from a catalogue of home décor.
I also covered the bed with a scrap of material and made a new bedding set.



The kids bedroom .I used wall paper on the walls and floors again here. I also cut out some kids cartoon pictures from a kids magazine to show it as a kids room. I added coloured paper to the stairs to add extra colour.

This is the living room with the super expensive wall paper. I've use the wood effect paper in here to look a bit like wooden flooring also.

You can see some of the added details here with the photos hanging on the wall, the fireplace and the clock. These were all taken out of a home style magazine.

Next my favourite room. The toilet. But mostly because I managed to find this awesome wall paper. I think this was from a DIY shop, which I took from the free sample roll.







This is the kitchen, again this was an expensive wall paper which I love. I pained the kitchen appliances and put some silver wall paper onto the pretend fridge. I also added some pictures of kitchen house decor stuff like the chalk boards on the left and house rules on the right.

Lastly here's mum in the dinning room, with a drink. I tried to make this as realistic as possible after all. I used fabric on the floor here to create a carpet feel and another square of carpet for a rug


Overall this is now a fun, colourful and hopefully something they will have fun with and play with for a long time. Plus if /when anything gets inevitably damaged, it doesn't matter..we can just re decorate.