Paper Plate Bunnies

Easter Rings

Dinosaur Eggs

Our (not so) Secret Garden

If you've seen this post, then you will know that we usually spend our Sunday's - the only day each week that we are all free - squeezing in some fun family time at the park. 

Unfortunately, today's weather isn't great. It started off way too hot to go out, and now is wet and looking like it's on it's way to stormy. So after a big clean up this morning and some lunch, I figured it was time to decide on an activity for the arvo. 

This is what happens when Mummy and Daddy get creative. ;-)
I've been working on this idea for a few weeks now. And by 'working on this idea', I mean saving toilet paper rolls and hiding them (because my kids instantly have wonderful idea's on how to decorate the looking glass this time and steal the rolls before I get a chance to use them).

So today we made a garden, complete with three flowers, a bee, a butterfly and a ladybug. And Logan made an ant. I say 'we' intending to include the children, but if I'm completely honest, the kids only really got to paint. Cos I'm mean and was excited about our garden. Oops.

So here they are:

And then we made binoculars to look at the bugs in the garden:

Cute huh? ;-)

Felt food

I've been meaning to share my home-made felt food for a while now but I just cannot find it all because unfortunately the kids have lost so much of it. Anyway, I have decided to share with you what I can find and then at some point when I eventually find the rest I will share it too.

Enjoy.

Here is our tea set. I did make tea bags but thats one of the things that have gone missing.

Here is the junk food, it was chips and chocolate and popcorn but currently I can only find the chips. I made the table cloth too. It is for the kids little table in their home corner which I will share with you at another time.

And here is dinner, Noodles (the box is home-made from felt too), lasagne, salad and pasta. There is supposed to be eggs, bacon and cherry tomatoes too but all is missing.

The food was so fun to make! I will hopefully find the time in the future to make more. I was going to do cake and cupcakes but I found some adorable wooden ones which I ended up buying instead.

Squishy Balloons

Ok so I admit it, I've no idea what to call these, but aren't they cute? They are just balloons filled with flour and then Izzy has drawn faces on them. So so simple but pretty cool too.

Bay was excited about them, even the older two got into them when we got out a basket to toss them into. I think I have probably gotten them most use out of them all. I use them kind of like stress balls I guess, I just play with them all the time.

If you decide to give these a go with your little ones (for such a simple activity, they really are worth it), then you will probably end up wondering how I managed to fill them. 

I stretched the balloon's as you usually would and then because I don't have a funnel I got Logan to cut the end off a bottle for me and then I put the balloon on it. I filled it with as much flour as it would take - which isn't much at all - and then I used the end of a connector pen to push more in. Then all was left to do was to tie it up and hand it over to Izzy to decorate.

Simple projects sure are the best ones, especially when you have limited time but don't want to miss out on doing these things with your children.

I'll admit, when the kids were tossing them into the basket I was quite worried that they would pop and end up spreading flour everywhere but it turned out to be me who popped one last night!

Icing Biscuits

This activity is always a hit, and not just with toddlers but with the older kids and mummies and daddies too! Logan is not one to get involved in our crafty activities, he tends to sit back and praise the kids handy work (he gets involved more in the physical activities) however even he joined in last time we decorated biscuits! 

There are a few reasons why I like this activity so much; 

• It's quick to both set up and do - little ones usually have short attention spans and it can be rather frustrating to spend quite a while setting up an activity only to find that the kiddies are only interested in it for a few minutes,
• It is pretty cheap - the biscuits are usually found for about $1-2 and icing sugar is about the same, and usually something people will have in the cupboard, just like sprinkles and food colouring,
• And who could resist these cute treats? They taste so good!

I'm sure that most people have a go at this at some point in their lives however I find that I personally can be rather forgetful when it comes to different activities to do with the children and foods to feed them, I mean, this activity, like I said, is so quick to set up, it's cheap, and a quick wipe of the table and sweep of the floor and it's cleaned up, but we've only done it maybe 2 or 3 times as I forget about it all the time! For this reason, I have decided that I'm going to put even the simplest of activities here on my blog both so that I don't forget them, and so that you guys can be reminded of them too.

After decorating all the left over biscuits (there were more than pictured), we decorated a few sponge cupcakes to enjoy while the icing on the cookies set. Yum!

Pompoms

I saw this on pinterest and since I had the paper towel roll and pompoms laying around I figured I would give it a shot. 

I wanted to make it bigger and more interesting but didn't have enough toilet rolls so maybe I will do it another time.

It was such a good little attention-stealer! Bay will be three in a month and so I really wasn't sure that he would be all that interested but I was wrong. And the cool thing about it was that it wasn't just the pompoms falling through the roll that he found interesting, it was also experimenting with the bowl and where he could place it for the pompoms to land in it.

Threading Straws

I love activities that help Bay to better his fine motor skills. Beading is a wonderful one for that but as of yet he just can't get those little beads onto the string.

So today we tried a new activity that worked out very well.

I cut up four straws and set them up with four pipe cleaners and then I sat down with Bay and set the activity in front of him. He didn't understand what to do at first but after i showed him what to do he did it without a problem. And the cool thing about pipe cleaners is that they can make bracelets without knots, so essentially, it is an activity a small child can so without then need for adult help.

Playdoh

Today Bay and I made playdoh so I thought I would take this chance to share with you my recipe.

You will need:

• 1 cup of plain flour + extra for kneading
• 1/4 cup of salt
• 2 tsp of cream of tartar
• 1 cup of water
• 1 tsp olive oil
• 2 tsp vanilla essence
• food colouring

Add all the ingredients into a saucepan and give them a good mix until they are combined. Put them on the stove over a medium heat and stir constantly until it comes together to form a big lump.

Turn the playdoh out onto a clean surface and leave to cool for 5 minutes or so. Once cooled, sprinkle over about a handful of flour and knead for a few minutes, until it is smooth and has lost its stickiness.

.

Bay loved it when we put coloured rice in our playdoh this afternoon, making it lovely and spotty with a new texture. Fun!

Edit: Seriously guys, this is some super playdoh!! Bay left some out on the floor, as kids do, and we've now found it 14 hours later. And it is still sift!! Seriously, it is still as perfect as it was when I first made it a few weeks ago

Coloured Rice

Coloured rice is such a big hit in our house. All the children enjoy it, but none more than Bay. We have done heaps of thing with it since i made it last year but our most popular is playing with plastic animals in it. He also enjoys transferring it with spoons to different containers.

Something I love about the rice is that it's a messy activity, but with such an easy clean up! Two minutes with the vacuum and its all cleaned up, and rice is pretty cheap so wasting the few bits that get vacuumed up isn't a massive deal. However, if your smart, you will remember to sweep/vacuum first so that whatever falls on the floor can go back in the container.

To make some of this wonderful stuff you will need:

• Rice, I used 3 cups per colour and it has lasted ages
• liquid food colouring
• white vinegar, 1 tbsp per colour
• ziplock bags
• large baking trays

The process is so simple. Put the rice in a bag, drop in the vinegar and food colouring, close up the bag and give it a good mix. Add more food colouring until you are happy with the colour and then spread the rice out over they trays.

The rice will take a couple of hours to dry completely. Give it a good mix every now and then as it tends to stick while drying.

Once dry it is safe to be played with. The colour does not rub off and the rice lasts forever :-)

Things That Go Quietbook

This is the second Quietbook that I completed. It took me about a week to complete and is completely hand stitched. This book isn't as interactive as my On The Farm book. Anyway, here it is;

The cover.

Pages 1&2. The bear comes out and the ship moves back and forth

with the purple ribbon is pulled.

Pages 3&4. Pull the ribbon on page 3 to lift the planks of wood. 

The car page was the first I did of this book and remains my favorite.

Unfortunately the kids have lost two of the traffic lights and I have

yet to replace them.

 Pages 5 & 6. The rocket ship moves on the ribbon. 

There is a cat in the rocket to surprise Bay as he is loves cats. 

The propeller on the plane spins and the wings lift up.

 Pages 7 & 8. The arm (arm?) on the digger moves at the buttons. 

The Train comes apart.

There are four pieces with velcro and one with a button.

The back cover, just like the On The Farm book, only with 

different colours.

Felt Masks

These are the first masks I ever made. The big kids love being

superheros, Bay's is supposed to be like a kings crown however he is sure

that they are teeth and so when wearing the mask he runs around growling at everyone/thing.

These masks are so pretty and so simple to make.

Like always I didn't have any printer ink when I made these

(Bad habit of mine) so I had to draw them by hand but you can

download the templates from here. I went one further with these masks

than the original maker did and I stuffed and backed them. It took maybe two days for me to make these, all hand sewn.

This is my Rudolf. I wanted to make a heap of Christmas masks however by the time I got this one finished I was so over making them. Maybe next year?

Halloween Finger Puppets

So we have a Black Cat (which is brown because I couldn't find any good quality felt in my usual stores), a Mummy, a Skeleton, a Ghost and a Pumpkin.

I do plan on making 5 puppets for every special occasion and animal group however I have been fairly busy lately.

On The Farm Quietbook

This is my On The Farm quietbook. I am very proud of this book. I think it took me about a month to complete as I was working on so much at the time and the whole book is hand stitched because I don't own a sewing machine.

I got some Ideas, such as the barn, from Pintrest but I drew my own patterns and did my best to make each page my own.

I hope you enjoy looking at it as much as I enjoyed making it. Unfortunately I don't have any patterns to share because I didn't keep them and didn't actually draw templates for all of the pages.

The Front Cover.

Pages 1 & 2. Both very popular pages, and for good reason too!

Aren't they cute?

The apples have velcro on the back so they can be 'picked'

and put in the basket.

The barn. 2 Cows, a pig and a rooster. The rooster has a little

pocket window to sit in and the cows and pig have velcro.

The animals are finger puppets. The reason they have no eyes is

because I started off making them with google eyes, which were really cute,

but they didn't last long. And I think they are kinda cute without eyes!

Pages 3 & 4. Before anyone says anything, yes, I do realize that

Indians don't actually sleep on the farm. I was originally making a

tent but ended up deciding that Indians were way cuter. Unfortunately

my children have lost the Indians.

So the main thing with these pages is counting. 1 moon, 2 clouds,

3 moths (which were originally butterflies until Izzy kindly reminded

me that butterflies are asleep at night) and 4 eggs.

Pages 5 & 6. The garden is yet another popular page.

The veggies, 2 Carrots, 2 Beetroot and 2 Potatoes, can be pulled from the dirt, stored in the basket and re-planted again.

The tractor wheels come off and stick back on with velcro. A very simple page but it was a favorite with Bay.

Pages 7 & 8. The letterbox is another popular one. The windmill was a last minute page. The blades can spin.

There is a blank letter in the envelope. The flag (flag?) moves like a

 real one. Here in Australia we don't have the flags on the mailboxes so the kids don't understand it. "Why not just open it to see if there is mail?"

There is a dragonfly hiding in the bush.

The back cover.

And that's that. Like I said, I hope you enjoyed it. It was so fun to make.