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.

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.

Cress Heads

This is a great penny pinching home craft for the little ones.

The kids enjoy getting messy making them, lots of stickers decorating them, then watching them grow. The best bit is they grow super quick for those impatient kiddies who tend to loose interest if they can't almost see something growing before their very eyes. These only take a week or so to mature so are perfect.

So here is how:

1. Cut up an old pair of tights around the ankles.
2. Pour a few cress seeds into the toe part of the foot.
3. Top with soil and tie up end. (for the daddy pour a few extra seeds in around the top of your soil to create a beard before you tie up)
4. Turn upside down onto the tied up end.
5. Decorate with stickers. We did a mummy, daddy and Scarlett. 
6. Place into little dishes to collect water.
7. Water thoroughly at first, then just pour water into the dishes when they start to feel dry.
8. Watch them grow.
9. When shoots appear to be trying to break through the tights, cut a small hole to let them through
10. Add to salads and sandwiches when you want to give them a hair cut.

Day 1

Day 3

You can see the shoots coming through. 

Day 7

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.