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.