Milkshake birthday card.

Our gorgeous little boy's 2nd birthday has approached so quickly! Can you believe it! Where does the time go?!

Last year I made a giant Gaston the ladybird (from Ben & Holly's Little Kingdom) for Oscar's birthday card which  was read out live on Channel 5's Milkshake for his 1st birthday.

We were so excited it was featured and recorded it to show Oscar when he is older.

So we thought we'd try again this year and put our creativity to the test again.

This years theme we have gone for Peppa Pig, and she is accompanied by her little brother George Pig, Mr Dinosaur and a rather tasty looking chocolate cupcake with sprinkles on top.

But who's hiding under the cake I hear you ask ;) yep there he is, our little Oscar!

To make our card we used some great quality recycled card stock from Hardings, our local framers and gallery in the centre of the village. The shop keeper left some free card stock outside the main entrance to be re used locally, I thought this was a really nice touch so jumped at the chance and grabbed some.

We then printed some stock images of Peppa Pig characters found online (thanks Google) which were sent to our local printers Footprint South. I can't recommend these guys enough! I have used them for all my crafts and their papers and ink are great quality, their customer service fantastic and their print turnaround extremely speedy.

A few hours cutting and sticking later and here's what we came up with.

We used sticky foam to raise the characters slightly and double sided sticky tape to secure the photograph and cupcake securely.

The Peppa Pig font was downloaded free of charge from the awesome collection at Dafont. 

So, the big question is was it featured...

It sure was. You can catch a small clip right here.

Milkshake require birthday cards at least 1 month before they are due to be read out, so as long as you get crafting in good time and catch the post there is every chance your cards might get read out (:

It's a lot of fun seeing your little ones photo up on the big screen amongst their favourite tv and story book characters.

Bumble bee hand print painting

As you may well know it was recently Father's Day so a great excuse to get the paints out and do some hand painting.

We always love making cards for family and friends, they're fun to do, messy and so heart felt!

We've so far done octopi, parrots and this time round we hand painted bumble bees.

What you'll need:

Black paint

Yellow paint

Two sizes of googley eyes

Your little persons hand

Kitchen foil

Scissors

Pritt Stick glue

Using the paints dab paint onto the palm of your little person's hand alternatively making stripes with the yellow and black paint to give that bumble bee effect.

Ensure your child's fingers are together for this hand print and place firmly down onto your card and allow to dry.

Once your hand prints have dried stick your googley eyes on using the glue stick, one smaller and one larger give a fun and quirky look.

Finally cut out some wing shapes from the kitchen foil and stick on to your bumble bee.

Here's how ours turned out :)

Memory box frames

Well it's been a while since I've written a post but I just had to share this.

I've recently been working on a memory frame box for Oscar, he's now 20 months old and we have boxes of stuff, momentos, baby grows, toys the list is endless!

But you can't keep it all without verging onto hoarding so I decided rather than keep it all boxed up why not pick a few sentimental bits and actually make a keepsake from them.

That's when I stumbled across memory frame boxes or 'shadow boxes' as they call them across the pond!

I'll be honest I was a bit nervous about putting one together, and a bit at a loss as to where to order a suitable frame especially online so the idea has sat on the back burner temporarily!

Then I came across a deep box frame, featuring a fitted pin board, pearl effect pins and an opening glass with magnetic closure in a nice ivory vintage finish. All of this for an affordable £12.99 at The Range.

Box Pin Frame- Shop here.

I couldn't resist!

It was simply a case of picking out some of Oscar's belongings and pinning them in place to display. We choose Sophie la girafe his favourite teether, first baby grow, christening booties, his hospital tag & newborn hat.

To have one of these ordered and put together for you will set you back around £40. But I thoroughly enjoyed making one myself and saved some pennies in doing so.

Here is the finished product.

I have a spare frame for Lottie and have started filling it already so each of the children have one.

Hope this has inspired you to make your own keepsake or think creatively about other ways to cherish your baby's belongings.

Insect Hotel

Another craft project post here, this time

something for the garden! 

We actually started this before Lottie made an arrival last week, with some of the gorgeous spring sunshine we've been having I've been keen to get the garden into a nice place for the children to roam and so has hubby!

He's been pruning and mowing and I've been looking for garden toys and activities for the little ones.

I've always been keen on bird tables, houses and insect homes! You can get some really pretty ones now and some fun to make practical ones too! Unfortunately they don't always come cheap and some of the insect houses in the garden centres are £20-£30.

So we set out to make our own. Pinterest  is full of inspiration and designs for insect hotels and is great place to explore ideas for your bug home.

Here are some of the designs we liked:

I also found some excellent guides to constructing an insect hotel and what materials to use for the 'rooms'

This was our personal favourite! It's a really colourful and illustrative guide.

http://www.daviddomoney.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/David-Domoneys-Complete-Guide-to-Making-Your-Own-Insect-Hotels.pdf

We scoured the local green areas around the house to collect bits, walked over to the common with Oscar and went for walks with family to collect pine cones, dried leaves, reeds, moss and picked up some bamboo from B&Q.

To create little quarters in the hotel we separated areas off using tin cans, we actually recycled Oscar's formula tins as they're a nice big size to fill and create bug friendly spaces. The hotel also features a brick at the base with little crevices and holes for the bugs to nestle in, this also gives some weight to the hotel which will help stop it toppling in the wind.

The structure of our bug hotel was a shelf type design made from wood, varnished with wood protector and then painted with an outdoor paint we found in the garden shed. Its a nice natural green colour so blends in well in the garden. I believe its a garden paint available at B&Q but if you have materials spare lying around the house it's always cheaper and more fun just to re use things!

Here is our frame being constructed in the woodwork stage by our lovely Grandad :)

Here you can see the frame is made from wood which has been cut to size, pieced 

together and affixed with screws and then varnished. A final coat is being applied, we went for the green paint instead of the white/cream.

The fun part was filling the bug hotel with our little toddler Oscar! Here he is at work in the garden:

And here is the progress thus far! We still have some dried leaves and other nesting materials to finalise the hotel before its grand opening! But we're really pleased with it so far and are looking forward to welcoming some creepy crawlies into the living quarters real soon :)

If you're handy with woodwork and like painting and recycling items we hope this has inspired you to put together your own bug hotel. It doesn't even need to be made from wood, there are lots of additional ideas for structures of bug houses including empty cans, bottles or simply reusing an old compartment drawer to fill. Explore what items you have laying around the house/ shed/ garage for ideas and you can also pick items up that might work from the dump or from free cycle groups.

Just think of all those beautiful butterflies, ladybirds and bumble bees you could have visiting soon and the good they do for nourishing the garden and encouraging local wildlife.

Easter goodies

So so much chocolate! These eggs are everywhere and as cheap as £1 per egg in some stores!

Hubby's bought one, Grandparents, Aunties! And hey we all love chocolate but with Oscar's dairy intolerance he gets very sickly at the smallest portion he just can't hold it down!

So I treated Daddy & Oscar to an alternative Easter gift in a matching Daddy & Baby mug set!

Just adorable and only £2 from the buy/sell groups! 

What alternative Easter gifts have you shared with your loved ones? X

Toddler sensory garden

Well we've seen a teeny weeny spot of sunshine recently and with all the gorgeous daffodils out I thought it would be a fun time to think about the back garden and making it a little more toddler friendly!

We've got a Little Tikes slide which was very kindly passed down to us from our neighbours but apart from that the garden is a bit bare for play things! 

Now being on maternity I thought I'd keep a closer eye on the buy/sell groups and see what pops up! I also put the odd post up to see if people had garden items for sale.

We managed to find a little tikes rocker for £4 and a Early Learning Centre sand and water table for £10.

The sand and water table normally retails at £50 and the rocker £25 so lots of savings here :)

This weeks been a really tough one with another trip to the GP and an urgent blood test at hospital due to suspected obstetric cholestatis, add in a sick and very clingy toddler and exhaustion sets in very quickly!

To top it off Oscar and I missed our 2nd play date in the last few weeks and chance to get out the house and catch up with buddies and our last term session of baby signing, we were feeling rather cooped up!

So getting the garden sorted into a place for fun times was a nice idea, Mummy could sprout ideas inbetween the vomit, screeching and clingyness on top of the anxiety awaiting my test results.The perfect distraction!

Even better that the lovely ladies on the buy/sell groups offered to deliver the goods to us, so no need to get all packed up in the car or carry and lift items, the doorbell went and we were able to pay for our new garden toys at the doorstep :)

Here is Oscar enjoying the garden, he loves the fresh air and even brings his shoes up to us now when he wants to go and play outside!

Then it dawned on me that although the buy and sell groups are a great way to pick up toys there are other ways to entertain your little one outside.

We have had a spare planter in the living room for months and it suddenly dawned on me that we could put it to good use outside where it should be!

I thought a toddler sensory garden would be a nice touch and a place to put some colourful windmills, toys and plants for Oscar.

So on Saturday we nipped out to the shops and picked up some mini daffodils for 75p a mini plastic truck for £1 and I had some pet rocks in the garden.

 I drew some little eyes and a smiley face onto the truck with a permanent marker.

We filled the planter with a cheap compost and I planted the daffodils. Here is the finished garden:

I know its really just a planter filled with a windmill and some nik naks but we really love it! The beauty is we can re plant seasonal flowers and change the contents easily as we wish, it gives a little corner of the garden for Oscar which is visually fun, colourful and stimulating and all at toddler height :) 

I'm going to help Oscar water the daffodils with a little watering can so we can watch them flower further.

So that's been our little outdoors adventure for the last day. Hope this has inspired you to create your own fun in the garden and outdoor spaces.

Homemade Easter activities

I saw these online at the NutureStore and just had to give them a try with Oscar!

With Easter on its way and sping clearly blooming we are in the mood for making some crafts and treats for loved ones.

At playgroup this week we made Daddy and adorable Easter cup chick! 

Our Easter chick was made with a painted yellow cup, filled with some shredded paper, a fluffy feather tail at the back and some googly eyes and a beak for the face! Sprinkle some mini eggs inside for an extra Easter surprise!

At home we've made some Easter bunnies! These are a lovely gift for friends and family and can be made with bits you find around the house!

You'll need:

- an empty toilet roll middle

- brown, white and pink paint

-a paint brush

-googly eyes

-some cardboard

-scissors

-cotton wool balls

-glue

-Sellotape 

1. Paint your toilet roll middle brown and allow to dry.

2. Cut some ear shapes and feet shapes from your cardboard and also paint brown, leave to dry.

3.Glue on your googly eyes if they're not self adhesive ones.

4. Paint on a pink nose, white whiskers and white ear middles and again allow to dry.

5.Attach your ears using Sellotape inside the toilet roll.

6.Attach the feet at the base of the toilet roll using the Sellotape.

7. Glue on a cotton wool ball tail at the rear of the toilet roll.

8. Fill with mini eggs/foil covered chocolate eggs as an Easter treat :)

Here are our Easter bunnies in their natural habitat!

Our bunnies are now all ready to give as an Easter gift! That's if we don't eat all the mini eggs first hehe!

These make a lovely home made alternative to store bought pre packaged eggs and are a great way to recycle bits around the house :)

And thanks to Blu Tack and our bunny creations Oscar and I have won £25 to spend at Hobbycraft! one of Mummy's favourite shops! We entered our bunnies into the Easter competition and they were picked as winner! We're looking forward to picking out some more craft goodies in the near future! Thank you Blu Tack and Hobbycraft.

Felt keyring cuties!

Check out these cute little key rings!

These are super easy to make, all you need is some felt, needle and thread, some rounded black eyes for the beads, key rings, ribbon and some stuffing. I drew my templates free hand.

What I love about these is they could also be used for a cot mobile if you wanted to make your own home made mobile. Just be sure to use felt fabric for the eyes if using these for a child. Mine were key rings so I used beads but if in doubt stick to something more child friendly.

DIY Baby hamper

Thought I'd write a post about baby showers, gifts and hamper ideas. I know they're rather American but I really do think baby showers are lovely. Everyone is always so excited about the pending arrival of a new little person into the world and what better excuse to get all the girls together have some nice nibbles, a catch up and play some light hearted baby themed games, not to mention all the gorgeous gifts you can have the joy of giving/ receiving.

Trouble is what do you get for someone? There's bound to be plenty of the same ideas and always the worry the mummy to be might be bombarded with a tower of newborn nappies and wet wipes and baby gifts always seem so overpriced, add the term 'baby' to something an it automatically seems to triple in price!

So I decided I would put together my own baby hamper, not only was this a great deal of fun to make, and yes I expect some of the items might be duplicates or similar to what others may bring but I loved the thought of putting something together myself, it shows a lot of thought, time, care and consideration in putting something together which I always prefer to picking something off the shop shelf.

I have a slight 'wicker basket' problem and seem to have gained quite a collection over the years, they're lovely for storage and nice and airy. One of which is a little basket with a handle, this looked perfect for a hamper so I began with this as my starting point.

Firstly I think some baby essentials never go a miss, so I picked out a baby lotion, some talc, baby shampoo and wet wipes. All useful bits to have. I used a range of brands as I find it's nice to try different products to see what works for your baby. Here we have some of the leading brands, Simple, Johnsons, and Aldi's own Mamia.

After this I sought out some cute items for baby. A stroller book in fabric with different flaps and textures to keep baby entertained and in a cute bear shape. Soft and safe for a newborn. Also I chose a wooden 'wiggly worm' in a cute rainbow of colours. Maybe more suitable as the child gets older but would look very cute in the nursery until so.

I decided to finish of my hamper with a home made felt keyring I put together. This is really for the mummy to be and a cute little extra. It is an apple design.

Finally the hamper needed wrapping. To complete the look I bought some plastic film from my local florist, you can buy these by the sheet for 50p I tied the film with some ribbon to fix it into place.

To complete the gift I put together a piece of art for the nursery. I kept this neutral because although I know mummy to be is having a little girl, it's never easy to know what people's nursery choices and decor are like. I stuck to an animal theme and a beige background featuring Mr fox inside a white box frame.

So, there you have it! A fun and simple way to put together a baby hamper for the lovely mummy to be! Hope this has inspired you and you have fun making yours!

Map art

Another craft post here!

This time a birthday present for my wonderful dad ( love you dad!)

Inspiration for this actually came from another gift idea which popped into my head (which is still a work in progress) I've always wanted to have a go at a couple of these idea one of which is scrabble word art and the second is map art.

I had no luck in securing some spare scrabble letters so opted for an attempt at map art and I'm glad I did!

This is definitely one of my favourite pieces.

Firstly I needed to get hold of the right maps covering the correct locations for my art. I wanted to include places such as where my dad grew up, where he got married and where he bought his first house. 

I nipped down the local charity shop to my work place which happens to be an Oxfam bookshop and had a good rummage through the map sections. Here I found for £1.99 an OS map dating back to the 1970s for two of the locations I was searching for. These were covered in the Winchester & Basingstoke areas.

The bookshop told me that local maps are always few and far between as they're the first to sell, so due to time constraints I then turned to ebay to secure the second map I needed.

This time I went for a map of the solent mounted on cloth dating back to the 1960's. The map arrived in the post in a couple of days. Even on ebay I was surprised to see so few maps available, so if you're intending to get into map art I suggest you secure maps of your interest first before planning your projects.

I had a spare white box frame from previous craft ventures which I used to complete this piece. You can pick these up from your local hobby store, my favourite is The Range.

A lot of map art I've seen on Pinterest is heart shaped, butterfly's or stars and they all look great! But being a present for my dad I wanted something a little more personal.

So the word 'Dad' it had to be!

I was a bit anxious about using a word as my template as it was a little bit more challenging then a solid shape outline. The 'A' proved the hardest to cut out especially that pesky little hole in the centre of the letter.

I found A font I liked on the computer and typed the word 'DAD' into a word document then printed it off. This formed my letters template.

I then placed the letters over the area of the map I needed and cut around the template. For this I used a small pair of scissors for precision although I think a sharp Stanley knife may also do the trick particularly for the inside of the lettering.

I was a little concerned that the map might rip whilst cutting or that the hand cut letters might come out looking a little scruffy but was pleasantly surprised with how well the lettering came out.

I then printed a back template for my box frame saying 'worlds best xxx' and space for the DAD lettering to be inserted in between.

The map lettering was then attached with a double back sticky foam to give its 3D effect.

So here it is...

It was a real hit and dad loved it! :) he thought it was very unique!

If you'd like to make your own map art here's what you'll need:

-Maps

-A box frame

-Double sided sticky foam

-Some sharp small scissors or a Stanley knife

- A shape template (heart, star or perhaps a word) 

Happy crafting!

***Update***

I'd just like to add in a quick picture of another of my map art projects. This time a 30th birthday present for a friend featuring  heart shaped maps,  I also incorporated something a little bit different which was to include the location of their seats at our local football club, they're avid Saints fans.

It's nice to see how the different map shapes give a completely unique new look, other templates which work nicely are butterflies or stars :)

DIY Christmas

As promised here is an update of all the fun I've had making unique hand made Christmas gifts and crafts this season!

Firstly a lovely idea for Christmas cards, is the hand print reindeer! You simply need some brown paint, red paint (for Rudolf's nose) some boogly eyes and some pens! (Oh and a lovely little baby/toddler/ child)

Oscar and I made these for family & friends:

Oscar was a delight when making these and loved dipping his hand in the paint! Don't worry if they don't look 'perfect' its all part of the fun! 

Once your child has made some hand prints on the card you can use a finger to dab on the red nose! 

Allow these to dry for an hour or so and simply draw on some antlers, stick some boogly eyes on and a festive message and you're done! 

On top of these I made some hand and foot print parrots with my boy! These were gifts for Grandparents. I thought these would be especially nice as the Grandparents don't have much of Oscar's art. Our house is adorned with his masterpieces already but not so much is kept at family's houses so we thought these would make a nice little present.

For your parrot art you will need:

3 coloured paints

Boggly eyes

A box frame

Coloured card (for the beak)

Simply take a painted footprint from your gorgeous little one and allow to dry. Then add two hand prints to make the wings. We used a mixture of paint colours for the wings to give our parrots more colour.

Once these have dried simply stick a boogly eye on, cut out a beak with the coloured card and glue it on to finish off your parrot.

We mounted ours in a box frame £2.99 from The Range and finished them off with Oscar's name and age! They are adorable and fun to make!

Finally here are a few other bits that kept me busy:

Sausage dog and Auntie word art.

These were made on Tagxedo using custom shapes and printed professionally at our local printers.

We also customised a wooden kitchen for our little boy. But I feel this deserves its own blog post :)

Baby & Toddler hand & foot castings

I've been meaning of getting Oscar's hand & foot cast for a long time! So when I saw online that someone was offering them for as little as £15 I jumped at the chance.

Christmas is a bit tight this year, with a string of bad fortune in the run up to December including a broken oven door, hubby's car breaks failing, my car's nox sensor needing to be replaced at an extortionate price and a return to physiotherapy this month its all got a bit too much!

So we put a cap on Christmas! I decided to hand make the majority  of my pressies for family and friends including Christmas cards (post to follow) so that included Hubby's! 

I decided that the one gift to get hubby should be something we can treasure forever so what better than a casting of our gorgeous boys foot and hand!

I popped along to a local mum's group to get the imprints done. The lady took Oscar's casting first and it didn't take long at all, we got some gorgeous prints. I asked for it to be inscribed with Oscar's name and age so we would always remember when it was taken.

I picked the casting up the following week, they had been dropped off in a box and Oscar's was the last one there! I collected it in bubble wrap and was so pleased with the quality! It looked brilliant, the colour was a nice natural clay and the inscription nice and clear. Chuffed to bits I took the casting home and began to think about finishing it off for Christmas.

Sadly finishing the product proved a lot trickier for my skillset (I'm still mastering mounting and finishing a lot of my crafts) . The box frame I bought was not deep enough for the casting. I tried Hobbycraft, Wilkinsons, The Range and none of them were quite right.

The casting came needing a further 1-2 weeks time to dry. Although after enquiring I found out that they can be placed in the oven to draw out the excess moisture which only takes an hour. Thumbs up to that!

The box frame I ended up with was one from IKEA called a Ribba. 

Here is the beautiful casting of our sons hand/ foot.

I must be honest its a gorgeous casting, I was really happy with the quality but hit a few mishaps trying to frame it myself. Life Self Castings Studio in Southsea do offer your casting to be completed in a frame at an affordable price so this may well be worth considering if you want it to be finished off with a professional look to it . If you want to simply hang your casting to the wall that's fine there's also a little hole at the back of the casting to do so.

Here are my top tips:

1. Allow 1-2 weeks drying time in a nice warm and airy room.

2. Buy your box frame and glue in advance. Ikea Ribba box frames are the perfect depth and dimensions for your casting :)

3. Do not attempt to measure up your casting in the box frame until its completely dry or you risk damaging it. If you do sadly knock it or chip some of the casting simply use a wet finger to merge the surrounding area as best you can.

To get a casting for yourself take a look at 'The Life Casting Studio' in Southsea for a timeless imprint of your own much loved little one in your life.

Christmas decorations... on a budget!

I saw this wonderful idea from another mummy friend (thank you Gem) of how to add a bit of Christmas cheer to your home, study or even your office desk at work without having to spend lots of extra money on Christmas decorations!

Simply add a paperback book Christmas tree to surround yourself with a little festivity!

What you'll need:

-A paperback book- 150 pages or more (one you no longer need or you can pick one up cheaply for less than £1 at the local library or in local charity shops) 

- Glitter, sequins or any other materials you wish to decorate your tree with.

(I made a fabric star topper for mine)

- clips

1. Fold back the front cover of the book and gently tear it away from the pages and binding until it is completely removed.

2. You need to perform 3 folds of each page. Here I will use photographs to show you (it's easier than trying to write instructions) please follow the folds as pictured:

Fold 1:

Fold 2:

Fold 3:

Continue for each page until you reach a minimum of 150 pages.

Use your clips to hold the folded pages back whilst you work through further pages.

Work in progress!

Once your tree is complete you can roll the edges in glue and then glitter for some sparkle or glue on sequins, tinsel, gems anything you like to decorate your tree!

I simply added a fabric star on top which I made from one of Oscar's old bibs, drew out a template, cut out the fabric, sewed it together and stuffed with filler, its held on top as a a small cocktail stick was inserted in the base and then I just slipped it into the top of my tree :)

I'm going to take mine to work for my desk as a nice touch of home made Christmas

Have fun making yours!