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.

8th December - Angel Hangers.

These Angel hangers are taken from an awesome Christmas Craft Book. I bought this book a couple of years ago and I can highly recommend it. We've done loads from the book and there's still so manage pages left to use for crafts it's brilliant. The prints are nice and colourful and the girls love the simplicity of them.

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.

6th December - Mini Cardboard Tree

I used old Christmas cards to make our cardboard trees.

To make the tree's I did the following:

1. On the reverse of the card picture draw a tree template
2. Cut out the tree
3. Use the cut out as a template for 2 more trees and cut out.
4. Fold the cardboard pieces in half with the picture on the inside of the fold 
5. Add glue to the reverse side of the cards.
6. Stick together for a 3D stand up tree.
7. Hand over to the kids to decorate with stickers and anything sparkly. 

I didn't have a chance to take any photos of this craft as I'm still in hospital with Mills. Boo!

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.

This is Halloween, everybody SCREAM!!

 ..In this town we call home

Everyone hail to the pumpkin song la,la,la

My attempt at corpse bride make up. 

3 times today Scarlett has made us watch the Jack skeleton (or skelington as she says it) film. She's watched is every day for the past week. So now I have the song on repeat in my head, especially when I'm trying to sleep at 2am.


Anyway I thought I'd share some of our Halloween crafts and decoration tips.


Firstly to decorating. I hate spending money on decorations for Halloween. Mainly because we have 7 family birthdays in October including Scarlett's so I'm usually skint by the time Halloween comes around. We go down the home made route usually and this year I prepared a few crafts to keep the kids quiet on the first day of school holidays and create some decorations too.

Skull Faces

This ones really simple. I pre cut out some skull faces from A4 white paper (the stuff you pinch from work). I then let the kids colour them in and hand them on the windows. These cast a great shadow on the windows during the day, then I leave a led candle on at night so you can see them back lit from the street. Super cheap and very effective.

Ghost Bunting

Again A4 white paper. Layer 4-5 sheets at a time, fold in half, cut out ghost shape and you have 8/10 ghosts. Then draw on simple silly faces for your kids to colour, or if they are older let them draw their own. String together with black wool. Done.

Hanging Bats

I cut out bat shapes from black card and let the girls cover them in glitter glue. I then suck them to the walls with blue tac and hung them from lights.

Scary Masks

These are great fun to make. Using card from a cereal packet or what ever you can get your hands on draw a shape of any Halloween character you want.
Then using free home furnishing catalogues, clothing catalogues or any other crap that get's put in your post box, cut out colour pieces for your mask.
I cut out brown triangle shapes from wooden flooring section for the wolf here. It looks a bit like fur from a distance and has lots of interesting shades.
I used green grass photos from a gardening magazine for the witch and cut into squares.
Glue all the pieces into place and cover with a layer for glue for durability. Once dry use a marker pen to add details. I also made purple hair for the witch out of some left over wool I had. These are great for parties as there's always someone (usually an adult) who turns up without a costume. The kids will make them wear these.

Rainy Day Fun with Friends - Wormery

It's officially Autumn and as we have a lot of rainy days to come I thought I'd share one of our rainy day favourites. Although it's easier to stay inside and keep warm, sometimes when the kids are bouncing off the walls, you just need to get out!

We invited a few friends over and made rainy day wormeries. Rainy days are best as the soil is easy to dig and the worms are closer to the surface. So I let them all loose with spades and they collected a bucket of worms.

We made the wormeries using some super cheap tubs from Ikea I poked numerous holes in the lids of the pots (for the worms to breath) using a sharp knife. Obviously the kids didn't help with this one.

Then I set out a bucket of sand and a bucket of compost. Each child set to work layering the compost and sand one scoop at a time. Putting in the distinctive layers makes it easy to see where the worms have gone and the tunnels they've made.

Once all the layers were filled about 3/4 of the way up the tub, add some leaves for the worms to eat.

Once the worms are dropped into the pots you can put on the lids and head back inside ready to make a cover for your wormery. The covers are important as worms are mostly underground so you need to keep them covered to keep them happy.

I pre-made the covers as the little ones we had over are too little to do their own, however I got out a load of stickers and pens and let them decorate the covers instead. 

All the kids loved these and we kept the worms for about 2 weeks. Scarlett even took her wormery into preschool once you could see the tunnels they had made and loved sharing them with her class.