Themed family fun - Fish week

Welcome to fish week!

This week we decided to make a picture of a fish in the sea. The main thing I like about these types of crafts is that they really give the children a chance to use their own imaginations and decorate the picture however they like instead of the more structured crafts that I normally do.

Themed family fun - Pig week

Welcome to pig week! This week we have made paper plate pigs and cup cake pigs and we have had loads of fun.

Paper plate pigs - These are so simple to make and so much fun.

All you need is:

* Paper plate.

* Pink paint and paint brush.

* Pink paper.

* Black pen.

Just paint the plate completely pink. Cut a circle of pink paper for the nose and colour in two black dots, cut two small dots and colour in black for the eyes and cut out two triangles for the ears. Then stick all the pieces to the plate to make a pigs face. You will not need any glue as the paint is still wet it will stick when it dries.

Pig cupcakes.

You need:

* Cup cakes.

* Icing sugar.

* Pink food colour.

* Marshmallows.

* Red lace sweets or similar.

* Smarties or similar.

* Icing writing pens.

To make.

Make some pink icing with the icing sugar, water and pink food colour.

Cover a cake in pink icing.

Cut a marshmallow in half and place one half in the middle of the cake to make a nose. Cut the second half into two to make the ears. Place these at the top of the cake.

Add smarties for the eyes and a small piece of lace for a mouth.

Finally add two dots of writing icing on the nose and a dot on each smartie for the eye balls.

I hope that you have enjoyed reading about what we did for pig week and if you have joined in too then I would love for you to link up your posts below on the themed family fun linky.

Don't forget to come back on Monday to find out the next theme and if you would like more information on the linky take a look at the link at the top of my blog.

Painting daffodils.

Faith loves daffodils, they have always been her favourite flower. I think it's because they are always everywhere in the spring and she likes to pick one whenever we are out and bring it home to look at. She always put's it in a glass of water and she will sit and talk with it, it is very sweet.

Anyway, when we decided to paint a picture of a flower it had to be a daffodil.

We were inspired by the following tip from Center Parcs’ Creative Crafter, Emma Hull.

•    Find materials around the house to add to the painting, giving it a 3D effect. Why not paint an old bottle cap and stick it in the centre of a flower, really bringing your painting to life?

We used the bottom of an egg box to make the 3D effect of the centre of the daffodils.

Look how proud she is!!

This is my entry to the Center Parcs and Tots 100 March challenge. If I’m chosen, I would like to visit Elveden Forest.

Themed family fun - flowers week

Welcome to flowers week.

This week I have been very ill so I am afraid we only have a small craft activity to show for flowers week.

We used coloured paper doilies to make a flower and then stuck it onto some paper. We then used pens to add a flower pot, stalk and decorations.

Tomorrow I will be posting our paintings of daffodils which we also did with flower week in mind.

If you have been inspired by this weeks theme then I would love for you to link up at the bottom of this post.

For more information on themed family fun, take a look at the page at the top of the blog.

Don't forget to come back on Monday to see the next theme!



Themed family fun - outer space week

Courtesy of dreamstime.

Welcome to themed family fun - outer space!



This week we have made outer space pictures and model rockets.


Outer space pictures.

For this we simply used chalk on black paper to draw pictures of planets and stars and we smudged some of the stars to make them look twinkly. We then used some star and space stickers which I brought from a craft shop to finish them off.









Model Rocket.


For this you need; * Empty toilet roll.
                              * Tissue paper.
                              * Card.
                              * Cello tape.
                              * Scissors.
                              * Ribbon.
                              * Felt tip pens.

To make your own rocket;

1) Wrap the toilet roll in tissue paper and secure with tape. Tuck the ends inside the roll using more tape to keep it in place.

2) Draw a circle on the card by drawing round a small plate or with a pair of compasses. Colour in the cone or decorate with patterns.

3) Cut a line into the center of the circle so that you can make the circle into a cone and secure with tape.

4) Wrap the ribbon around the toilet roll and tape in place so you have two lines of ribbon going around.

5) Use some more tape to secure the cone on top of the toilet roll and you now have a rocket.

6) Finally cut some strips of orange and yellow tissue and tape to the bottom of the rocket for the flames.









If you have joined in with this weeks theme then I would love for you to link up below.

For more information on the themed family fun linky and to get my badge please see the section at the top of this page.

Don't forget to come back on Monday to find out the next theme!



Themed family fun - Dog week.

Welcome to dog week, the first week of my new linky 'Themed family fun'.

This week we watched a movie that had a cast of dogs, made pictures of dogs and cooked puppy cupcakes.

The movie.

Disney's treasure buddies is the film that we chose to watch together as a family as we have seen a few of the buddies films in the past and always enjoyed them, so when thinking of a film that contained dogs, it was the first film that we thought of. 

For those of you that have not heard of the Disney buddies series of films, the buddies are five puppies named Budderball, B-dawg, Buddha, Mudbud and Rosebud which are the main characters of each film and they can talk. 

The treasure buddies film was made in 2012 and the story is told by a monkey named Babi who is telling the story of how he met the buddies to his nephew. The film centres around a search for Queen Cleocatra's tomb and has a comical Indiana Jones style theme and there is even a talking camel!

Darren, Faith and myself all enjoyed the film very much and Faiths favourite character was actually Babi the monkey which did surprise me as she is a huge dog fan. 

Overall, I would recommend a viewing if you have young children as my two teenagers were not so impressed.

Drawing dog pictures.

We decided to have a go at drawing a dog as Faith got a lovely book for her birthday that teaches you to draw lot's of different things including some different types of dogs. Faith was really good, however my efforts were not so good so in the end I decided to go back to my simple dog head drawing for my final piece! Faith decided to draw a poodle for her final piece and I know that I am biased but I think it is really good for a just turned 6 year old. We then mounted them onto a piece of yellow card.

Cooking puppy dog cakes.

We found this recipe in an old Annabel Karmel cookbook and then adapted it to our tastes and what we had, as for the ears you were meant to use langue du chat biscuits but we couldn't find any shops that sold them.

Ingredients.

For basic cupcakes.

• 100g Stork or similar.
• 100g caster sugar.
• 100g self-raising flour.
• 2 eggs.
• 1tsp of baking powder.
• 1tsp of vanilla essence.

To decorate.

• A tube of smarties or similar.
• A packet of giant chocolate buttons.
• Icing sugar.
• Writing icing.
• Rich tea finger biscuits.

Method.

1) Pre-heat the oven to 180.

2) Cream together the butter and sugar in a bowl.

3) Add the eggs one at a time and mix well.

4) Mix in the Vanilla essence.

5) Fold in the flour and baking powder until combined.

6) Spoon into cake cases and bake for 20 minutes in the centre of the oven.

To decorate.

-Make some icing with icing sugar and a little water.

-Cover the top of each cake with the icing.

-Use a smartie for the nose and one of the eyes.

-Use a giant button for the other eye.

-Put a biscuit on each side to be the ears.

-Finally use the writing icing to add dots for the eyeballs and a mouth.

 I hope you have enjoyed reading what we got up to on our dog week and if you have joined in this week then I would love for you to link up your post on the linky below.

For more information on this linky have a look at my page at the top of my blog.

Don't forget to check back on Monday to see what the next theme will be!

Potato printing

Sometimes in life, it's the good old simple ideas that really are the best!
Yesterday we decided to do some painting so we got everything out only to find that we did not have any paint brushes (due to the older two taking them and then not putting them back!) so as I had some potatoes that were looking a bit past there best, I decided to cut some shapes into the potatoes to make potato stamps.

FJ, my little one, absolutely loved using the stamps and she spent ages making a picture. FJ is normally quite a hyper child as she rushes through things eager to get on the next activity so for her to sit for over an hour working on one picture, it really is amazing.

For anyone that has never done this before you simply get a potato, cut it in half and then cut around the potato, leaving a shape in the middle that sticks out, so that when it is dipped into some paint only the shape gets the paint on it and then you use it like a stamper.

The finished artwork!