Tales of the unexpected with The Boy, my pride and joy.
Spring has sprung and the grass has ris'!
A rhyme my dad used to recite to me as a child and this weekend has definitely seen nature reawaken from a deep slumber. Once Spring is on its way, Easter follows closely behind and for this week's Tuesday Tutorials, I've chosen some great examples of decorations to embrace the Easter weekend.
I've recently come to realise that bunting is an easy way to decorate a room for a special occasion, and with an abundance of card and craft materials, plus a willing and able assistant, it's a fun and easy craft activity to do together.
There are a few times of year that really lend themselves well to craft for children; Christmas is one and Easter is the other. However, while children love creating items from basic materials, it can be quite daunting for some parents to visualise the finished item, or to see a piece of craft and work out what was used to make it. We've been sent some really easy Easter craft kits from Yellow Moon, yet they are incredibly effective; enough to satisfy children's crafty cravings, and calm parents' frazzled nerves.
It’s official; Easter is just around the corner and the web is awash with brilliant children crafting and home-made game ideas for you to try over the holidays.
Here’s a round-up of favourites for you to try yourself:
There are always fun ways to use an empty toilet roll tube, and cute toilet roll bunnies are a great way to craft and recycle at the same time. All you need is some pastel paints, PVA glue, a marker pen (for the face), some googly eyes (for fun stick-on eyes), and wooden lolly pop sticks (for the ears). [Read more…]
We've been sent a wonderful selection of craft items to get to grips with, and the minute The Boy saw the three different sized polystyrene eggs he declared that we'd be making a family of Easter chicks. And so armed with acrylic paint, feathers, googly eyes and foam feet we set to work.
Easter is a wonderful time for crafting with children; so many different types of materials and craft types can be explored with them. In this Easter card tutorial, we've used the popular craft of button art to liven up a traditional 'egg' card.
For my first Mother's Day back in 2010, Mr. TBaM took me to Dyffryn Gardens in the Vale of Glamorgan. We had a beautiful walk through the gardens pushing our little bundle in his pushchair, and it was good to revisit the site after such a long break since my last visit.
Dyffryn Gardens is a place that I'd first visited as a child with my parents, when the main house used to hold craft fayres every so often, particularly at Christmas time, and we'd wander from room to room and enjoy the immediate gardens. At the time though, things were beginning to look a little tatty, and fairly soon after the main house was closed to the public and left to fall into disrepair despite the efforts to maintain it. Visiting the venue over the past two to three years, and seeing such a stunning house boarded up, was so sad; I'd recount my memories to Mr. TBaM and sigh with nostalgia.
76. Sensory (Having spent the day in bed, completely drained and aching from a flu bug, I managed to drag myself downstairs and set up a light play box for The Boy. I used waterbeads and small submersible lights in plastic Easter eggs and The Boy had great fun playing with them.)
77. Eggy Sticks (We started decorating the polystyrene eggs I'd bought him for Easter. I put them onto kebab skewers as it makes them easier to paint without getting paint everywhere! It's taken all week to finish them off as we both fell ill with the flu bug and recovery has been very slow.)
78. Decay (I couldn't quite bring myself to throw out my dying tulips as the colours and shapes were gorgeous!)
79. Daddy Robot (Today was Mr. TBaM's birthday and The Boy was desperate to get him a robot costume, no easy task for an adult!)
80. Tired Eyes (We had to fly solo today as nanny, who had been looking after us all week, came down with the dreaded flu bug. I'm ashamed to say The Boy spent the day being entertained with the television, iPad or laptop. Dreadful parenting!)
81. 'Ear, 'ear (We set to making our Easter Bunny mask yesterday, as we'll be away in the week leading up to Easter.)
82. Speckled Egg (We finished off our Easter decoration eggs today, far from eggs-citing but I'm panicking about packing before our holiday tomorrow!)
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I've got a whole load of Easter crafts on the go at the moment, it's a really fun time of year for creativity. When 3M Scotch set us a challenge to create some Everyday Magic at Easter with the children by working on an Easter craft challenge using the Scotch Brand products, we decided to make an Easter Bunny mask. The Boy is never that keen to wear a bonnet, but loves the idea of pretending to be the Easter Bunny and he's been practising his bunny hops for weeks now!
You'll need:
1. From the brown foam, cut out two long ears and a face shape, just the top half of the face will do. Position this over your child's face and use a pen to make on where their eyes are, remove and cut eye holes.
2. Cut a 'snout', eye shapes out to surround the eye holes, and two buck teeth from the white foam.
3. Cut a nose from the pink foam.
4. Put some strips of double sided tape on the inner part of the ears, and stick fluffy cotton wool on. The double-sided tape works better on foam than PVA glue.
5. Use the superglue to glue the 'snout' and eye surroundings onto the main mask. This should be done by ADULTS, take care with superglue and follow the instructions carefull.
6. Place double-sided sticky tape over the cheeks of the bunny's face, and cover this with more fluffy cotton wool.
7. Place a strip of double-sided sticky tape on the centre of the white 'snout' and put the middle of the pipecleaners onto these close together, pressing them down firmly. Cover this with a strip of sticky tape.
8. Put a generous dollop of superlue over the centre of the whiskers and push the pink nose on top of this. Again ADULTS ONLY, The Boy is not touching that superglue, he's just pointing to the nose.
9. Make a small hole either side of the mask, about an inch in, and thread pink ribbon through and tie it. You could also use elastic for this.
For more information on 3M Scotch products, please visit their Facebook page.
This tutorial is sponsored by 3M Scotch who also sent a selection of 3M Scotch products to help complete my own project.
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I was sent the above Hotel Chocolate Easter egg to try out. Part of the 'Beastie' range that they have introduced this year, the 'Zebra Beastie Egg' is one of the better value eggs from the collection this year. Priced at £15.00 it comes beautifully wrapped in a stand and cellophane with six mini eggs in both salted caramel and praline flavours.
The salted caramel truffles are one of my favourite things from the Hotel Chocolat range, and I was really pleased to see them included in this Easter egg. There are three of these smooth chocolates, and three of the praline flavoured mini eggs, which Mr. TBaM was only too happy to taste-test and declared them delicious.
The egg itself is made of thick milk chocolate , thicker than conventional Easter eggs, and this certainly helps to justify the pricetag of £15.00. I would like to point out that the 'Beastie Eggs' are aimed at children, and I do honestly feel that it's at least double the amount I would consider spending on a young child's egg. However, it would be an idea teenager's egg, especially with the zebra print made with an all-natural cocoa butter transfer, and I feel that £15.00 on a luxury egg for an appreciative teenager is a justifiable cost.
I was sent this product for the purpose of this review, my opinion is honest and unbiased.
