Lego KeyTidy

We don't really lose keys (well not too often) but I'm properly fed up with finding random piles of stuff, be it keys, change or whatever hubby empties out of his pockets. And although this hasn't totally resolved the issue it has made key storage a bit easier.

I made this Lego key tidy because hubby love Lego and I like tidy. Win, win!

I went for neutral colours here so it wouldn't look garish.

This cost me £8 delivered..all from ebay:

1. Letter stickers =  £1.99
2. Technic Lego (Part 3701) with holes used as keyring to stick to back board = £1.98
3.Grey flat tile bricks 4 = 20p
4. Large grey plate = £1.99
5. Smaller cream plates = £2.00

This is just stuck onto the wall with blue tac and stays up perfectly.

Sensory Board

This is a work-in-progress project here as I'm planning on giving this to the girls for Christmas.

I wanted to create a sensory board which would grow with the kids. So currently we have lots of fiddly bits on it, but later on I'll use it as a notice board and jewellery rack in their room.

I took a trip to a DIY and pound shop. I've spend about £20 altogether, so this is a super cheap craft with a lot of impact.

I bought the following.
1. MDF board. This was a cheap off cut from the bargain bin.
2. Along the top we have a metal rule which also acts as a magnet strip for the alphabet letters and light.
3. In the middle we have a mirror, door knobs, chalk board, photo frames, alphabet stickers, felt picture board and pink pencil case.

Firstly I arranged the bits on the board, finding out the best placement for everything.

Once I liked the positioning I raided the craft cupboards, stuck down the pieces and this is what we have. the circular photo frames are not finished, but they are hanging so you can lift them up and see underneath. I'm going to fill these with different textures and pictures.

Kids Artwork, Art Gallery

Scarlett always comes home with lots of artwork from preschool and although we put the odd one up, they easily get damaged by falling down off the wall and into the hands of littlest one, or misplaced in the odd pile of paperwork. So I decided to create the kids their own little gallery so they can show off their proud doodles.

I got a cheap £9 frame from Ikea (Norrlida if anyone's interested) 

Here's the before shot.

I then covered the back with some pretty paper, for when the frame isn't full.

I then carefully placed Scareltt's recent artwork. The a4 paper is a drawing of herself. We then have a lolly pop mummy and daddy with a love heart kite. Beautiful.

The finished result looks good. With her art on display, not getting damaged and we can easily change the bits over when she next brings something home. 

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.

Scarlett's Veg Box - A Very Hungry Caterpillar!!

I'm sorry to report Scarlett's veg box has been under attack from lots of wriggly friends. Thursday morning upon checking the veggies Scarlett came running to me in horror. It didn't take long for me to realise why. A very hungry family of caterpillars, we counted 50+ as we picked them off the sprouts, had left what can only be described as a skeleton of a sprout tree. We picked off as many a we could, but the next day MORE. We battled for a week but we lost.

Poor sprout tree!

I have since read online that if you grow these plants through hard cardboard tubes they don't get attacked. So next year we'll try that out.

Our efforts will now move inside the house over winter with some herb growing. So I'll make sure to keep you up to date with those.

Woodland Themed 1st Birthday

We had an awesome day for Millie's 1st Birthday!

My little lady bug.

Now we're on a tight budget with me staying at home looking after the kids, so I had to be careful. Parties can easily get out of hand so this is what we did.

1. Hired the local hall for the day £10 per hour charge. (I don't have a big enough house to host at home)
2. Did a BBQ, pulled pork was the main dish, which was cooked in a slow cooker the night before. Minimal effort and just reheated on the day.
3. All games were home made with crafty bits we had around the house.
4. Most of the decorations were home made.
4. We had a bouncy castle which was hired to us for free from a friend in exchange for some baby sitting the week before.

Hanging Decorations

Home made decorations included loads, and loads of these paper lanterns and fans. All used from some super cheap tissue paper and looked lovely hanging from the high ceilings.

Room Decor

A friend had this tree and kindly let me borrow it for the day to add to the woodland feel. I had bought these paper photo frames very cheap (£1.50 delivered) and got a load of photos printed for free. You can get loads of free prints online when signing up to new photo printing sites. 

I used the cake as a centre piece. Above the cake table I placed the wooden letters I'd decorated. The giant number 1 was made from a cardboard box and wrapping paper off cuts.
I also bought a helium canister (£25) and used the balloons to decorate the venue. At the end of the party I handed out the balloons as party favours so I got my monies worth out of them.

These are the toilet roll mini pinatas I made for the little ones. They loved these!

I also made a large pinata for the older kids to enjoy. I made this with off cuts of the wrapping paper and a spare balloon. Filled with sweeties and confetti which was off cuts from making the tissue paper fans. 

 Happy Birthday Millie Moo!

Millies 1st Birthday

I've been doing the odd post showing the odd little craft here and there leading up to Millies 1st Birthday party, so I thought I'd share some photos from the big day and fill you all in on how it all went.

Firstly for both my girls I prepare a birthday table for them to come down to on the morning of their birthday. My mum did this for me as a kid and I used to love coming down in the morning before school, opening presents and having a cheeky slice of birthday cake for breakfast.

Here is Millies 1st birthday table.

For Millies cake I use a giant cupcake mould for the toadstool and a standard Victoria sandwich cake as the base. The woodland theme party was based all on the Ikea birthday decorations party pack I had bought. So to tie the cake in with the decorations I cut out the animals from the wrapping paper, backed them onto card them placed them on the cake. Simple and effective with very little skill involved. I placed the cake on top of a wooden stool I'd bought the kids months ago. I thought it just added to the woodland theme.

I also decorated some wooden letter I picked up from the local craft shop with woodland theme paper. This was a great party decoration which I've now used in her room.

For party details see my Woodland Party Blog.