Making Simple but Beautiful Christmas Tree Mini Wreaths

Miss E and I have been making some Christmas wreath decorations to gift to her teachers and Godparents this year. I'm really pleased with how they have come out and think they are a fab gift. The best thing is that these were made by a 10 year old and are really simple and cheap to make.

Here's what you need -

• Curtain rings (wood ones as they ave the metal hoop at the top) We used ones compatible with a 28mm pole and picked these up in Homebase for £1.29 for 6
• Wool in any colour you fancy, green if you want them to look like traditional wreaths (£1 in Poundland)
• Multi-size gems - I bought 2 packs of different size ones for 99p each from Hobbycraft
• 3mm ribbon in a colour of you choice (40p per metre)
• Hot glue gun (or another firm glue)
• A pair of scissors

How to make the Christmas Wreath Decorations

1.  Cut a long length of wool. Tie it on to the curtain hoop close to the metal ring. Take care to wrap the wool around the hoop, pushing it close to itself every so often and ensuring you keep a tight hold. If you run out of string, you can tie another piece on and the knot will sit at the back so it won't show, Once you have finished the full hoop tie off the string around the metal hoop and make sure it is secure.

Review: The Works - Make Your Own Slime by Karina Garcia

Back in May I decided to make slime with the boy that I coach through the charity TLG. I needed a fun activity we could complete in about 40 minutes (including clear up) and slime was his suggestion. It was nothing I'd ever attempted before but after some googling and browsing of the web, I came up with ingredients I thought I could source in the UK and that would work.

Thankfully they did and we had lots of fun. I shared a short video clip on Instagram and quickly got asked to share my recipe, so this led to me making a YouTube tutorial and I was super impressed with how well it did in the first month, getting about 10K views and then it must have been added to an autoplay list or something by YouTube as it now has over a quarter of a million views on it and I seem to have developed a little fan base of kiddie slime makers. It is like another world, a world I was not part of and didn't really know existed. There was I thinking I was making a tutorial for parents to make slime with their kids but I've found that most kids go it alone!

As a parent it can be a bit of a worry that your child is off exploring YouTube alone as all sorts of random and inappropriate videos can pop up on the recommendations. For this reason I was really pleased to be offered the new book by slime guru Karina Garcia. This year she has published her first slime making book called Make Your Own Slime and it is ready for the UK market, so all the ingredients needed are easily available in the UK. This is something I can give to Miss M and Miss E and let them have some fun knowing they won't stumble across things I don't want them to see on YouTube.

Win your own design Christmas wrapping paper - yes please!

I spent a really enjoyable hour tonight sitting with my 7 year old twin girls at the kitchen table. We were all sat there together creating designs for Christmas wrapping paper and it was so nice to share our ideas and encourage each other. Miss M would not call herself a natural artist and she never really sits down and applies herself so it was particularly fulfilling for me to be able to reassure her that she has talent too, it is not just her twin who is the arty one.

Christmas crafting - 26 more sleeps

As you know the kids are counting down the sleeps until the big day and I'm pleased to say we are now at just 26 more.  Thankfully I'm up to date with the shopping and our Christmas is being spent as part of the community here so I don't have that many preparations to be done, it is fabulous!

During the run up to Christmas the kids and I will be keeping a 'sleeps diary' as we count down in anticipation of the fun ahead, we are doing this in collaboration with Mothercare. This weekend the girls and I enjoyed some time together making some crackers for our breakfast Christmas table and also making decorations to go up on our stairway as part of our Christmas house make-over.

We used instructions and a craft pack sent to us by Cartridgesave.co.uk. They have a number of free downloadable instructions and templates for easy Christmas crafts at the moment and you might fancy having a look on http://www.cartridgesave.co.uk/christmas.

It is also worth checking out their Christmas competition if you are a blogger, as they are giving away £500 in Amazon vouchers to the blogger who uploads the best Christmas cracker that they have made and decorated themselves. You need to create your cracker using their easy guide, then write a post and share photos of your cracker and send the photos and blog URL to them on christmas@cartridgesave.co.uk by 18th December 2013.

Here are mine and Miss E's entries to their competition. Miss E wanted to copy my design and she cut and stuck it all herself, I think she did a fab job and I even prefer her finished cracker to my own!

Miss E, aged 6 years

Mummy, aged considerably older than 6 years!

As well as the crackers the girls enjoyed glass painting some decorations that we had bought and they want to give some of them away as gifts. I think they will make lovely little mementos for people. I just need to string them up.

Rebecca at Here Cme The Girls has put together a great post with 100 crafts for kids.

Disclosure: I am working with Mothercare to create a sleeps diary during December, they have provided me with PJ's for the girls and vouchers for my time. Cartridgesave sent me a craft pack to make my crackers and be able to enter their competition. I have not been instructed what to write by either party and as always I remain honest.

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Design the new pig for NatWest - #PidsByKids Children's competition

Yesterday we had a fun afternoon crafting. Luckily my kids like to get the glue (and particularly the glitter glue) out and even more luckily I can stomach the mess!

The aim of today was to design a pig each so they could be entered for the NatWest Pigs by Kids competition. As a child I practically begged my parents to change my bank over from Midland to NatWest when the china pigs were launched nearly 30 years ago but sadly it never happened and I could only of dreamed of having the £100 that was necessary to get the final Sir Nathaniel pig. Of course these Wade made pigs are now collectors items and sell for a lot of money.

You never know I might be able to go one better this time and have the piggy creation of one of my children made into the new iconic NatWest pig.  If you have a child aged up to 13 years they can create a pig and you can upload it to the internet for them by 12 noon on 11th November 2012 and you never know.  Three finalists will be chosen by the judges and then there will be voting by the public on the NatWest Pigs by Kids microsite.  The winners design will be made into the new NatWest pig which will be given out to children who open a bank account during 2013. The aim of course, is to help kids to start to save and this is a super thing and very much in line with my values.

Here are the pigs that my girls created and have entered to the competition -

Miss E's creation, she is my artistic one and loves to draw and make

Miss M in the process of creating hr 'Scarlet Pig', for someone who is normally not interested
in crafting I am seriously impressed.

Take a peek at this video, which explains all -



Full terms and conditions for the competition can be read on the NatWest site.


Disclaimer: This is an advertising promotion for NatWest. We were provided with a beautiful craft kit so that the children could create a pig themselves.

How to make sandcastle flags (for the non-crafty family)

If we are honest I am a little late getting this post up on my blog but seeing as we are having an Indian summer right now, I'll go for it.

Here is an easy crafty activity that I do with the kids each summer. I am not at all a crafting guru and this is super simple and hardly costs a penny, so any regular mum like me can have a go!

Every child I have met so far seems to love playing with sand and of course a trip to the beach is even more fun.  I recall wonderful times as a child going to the seaside with my family and I have very fond memories of making sandcastles with my Dad.  He is a bit of a sandcastle hero really and even now 30 years later he is still enjoying making them but with my kids now.

Whilst Dad mostly did the hard work digging moats and crafting the multi layer castles I always enjoyed the final decoration and would collect shells and stones and also place small flags on the sandcastles.  We used to buy a little pack of these flags and I recall they used to be pretty expensive.  When JJ was first old enough I knew I wanted him to have the fun of flags too but I did not want to spend out on them, so each year we sit down and make some flags. Here's how.....

Yay - the craft that made Miss M sit still & win a £100 voucher

If I said to anyone who knows her well that Miss M sat still for an hour and applied herself to just one task this last weekend they would not believe me.  This is a child who has 'ants in her pants'. She is not at all good at applying herself.

So what was it that had her interested I can imagine you are wondering. It was the magic cocktail of Mummy's full attention and Hama Beads. We had such fun together and I have to be honest, JJ has had hama beads for years but I have never really sat down with him and done them.  He just gets on with it himself. You would have thought that I would have learnt by now that kids love any toy or play item better when a parent is involved.

I think this is something that Merry from Patch of Puddles blog is aware of, as a home-schooling mama she is used to working with and engaging her children and I know hama beads are a bit of a passion for her. So she is holding a hamabead competition this summer and she invited my kids to join in and create some designs around the theme of ‘an amazing holiday’.  JJ got the concept straight away but Miss M and Miss E were a bit more stubborn and just insisted that they wanted to make some creations of their choosing, rather than fitting with the theme.

Would your child like to enter the competition and be in with a chance to win a £100 gift voucher to spend in one of Merry’s online shops such as Craft Merrily, Play Merrily, Jolly Dollies or The Little Big Toy Shop ?   Yes?  It is dead simple; get them to craft a hama bead creation of their own design, take a photo and email that to  patchofpuddles {at} gmail {dot} com with a note of your child’s first name and age.  The entries will be judged by an independent person from DKL Marketing or Hama Beads (TBC) after the close date of midnight 31 August 2012.

Here is what JJ created - first a rocket to take you to the moon, which he tells me would be the most amazing holiday ever and then an aeriel view of the earth, taken from his rocket!

If you have not tried out hama beads before then I genuinely can recommend them as a nice way to help your children craft.  Merry has put together a special starter kit that you can purchase for £11.95 but there is no obligation to do so, you are free to enter the competition just using the beads you already have.

Head over to Patch of Puddles and see the full details.


Disclosure:  Merry was kind enough to send us some hama beads so that we could take part in this competition.