What was in our Free Toucan Craft Box

A couple of weeks ago we were lucky enough to get a code from a friend to enable us to receive a free petite craft box from Toucan Box! Toucan box send out the required materials for a craft project to do with your child to save you the time of finding and getting the materials yourself and having to come up with idea's.
They are suitable for ages 3-8, have age appropriate projects and follow different themes. The boxes come in three sizes, petite, grande and Super.
Your free box will be a petite box which usually cost £3.95 (plus approx 82p postage) but you can upgrade to Grande for an extra £6. Grande are £9.95 a box (not inc postage) and you can add extra materials for a sibling for £4.95. Super are £16.95 (not inc postage) and again you can add materials for a sibling which is £9.95 for this box.

We received our box towards the end of October so appropriately it was Halloween themed and the project was a Halloween Lantern. The box was addressed to G personally which was a nice touch.

Here is what was inside our box:

• sheet of orange tissue paper
• sheet of green card
• sheet of orange card
• square of black craft foam
• a small glue stick
• a green pipe cleaner
• a purple glow stick
• a lolly
• a Sticker for a chart*

G was especially pleased with the lolly and intrigued by the glow stick!

The Lantern was straight forward to make but obviously with G only being 3 I had to assist her. She loves a bit of gluing and sticking so she had no problem with those parts and she did some of the cutting and then mummy took over.
She also decided what shapes to have for the face so our face was our own original design by G.

Here is the finished lantern below:

We enjoyed our Toucan box project and had some left over materials but put in G's craft supplies. It was something exciting to get in the post and I think these boxes are great for busy parents who might not have the time to sort out a craft project but would still love to do one with their child and for those with older children they could let them get on with it themselves. We will be getting a second box due to a discount and I would consider keeping on with the petite boxes once on a better income. It is great they have different options to suit different budgets. 

If you would like to try a Toucan Box for free you can type in my name (Adele Baxter) at the check out or follow this link. If you sign up you can then refer your own friends to receive 50% off your next Toucan box.

Let me know if any of you do and what project you receive!

Throwback Thursdays - Halloween

I think these photo's are from 8 years ago which terrifies me! A Halloween night out at University. I love a bit of fancy dress.

It was at one of our favourite haunts in Concert Square Liverpool. I really miss these days.



Happy Halloween everyone! 

Wicked Wednesdays - Halloween

I've not managed to get on the blog much with it being half term but I thought I'd pop on to do a Halloween Wicked Wednesdays.



Here is my daughter 3 years ago on her first Halloween.

So scary she scared herself!

Ok maybe not. She just wasn't in a very happy mood that night.  A novelty singing Halloween dog did the trick of cheering her up though.
This photo makes me come across as a cruel mummy forcing my baby into a costume she was not happy with, complete with mess in the background. Bloody awful. Definitely a Wicked Wednesdays contender.

If you'd like to join in just click on the pic above and it will send you on over to the lovely Brummymummyof2.

A Halloween Scene and My Top 5 Spooky Crafts 2014

I love Halloween and I love crafts, especially one's that G can join in with, so after having a little look around a few blogs and being inspired I thought we'd try a few out. I've listed my top 5 simple Halloween activities that you can do with your child.
I also am sharing my own crafting activity of making a Halloween scene.



Mini Glitter Pumpkins

I found this great simple Halloween craft idea from the brilliant Hodgepodgecraft blog. Great to do with even really young children and you only need a couple of things to do it. I found the mini pumpkins in a large Sainsburys store and a couple of tubes of acrylic paint in the pound shop. Gude who writes the blog got hers from The Works which I'll be checking out as our paint didn't coat the pumpkin so well.
G had a quick go at doing one whilst nana was round at the weekend. I think she'll be giving it a second coat and doing the second one next week







Hanging Spiders

These are from Life As We Know It and look like a fun make. I know G would love playing with them after. I've struggled getting hold of the polystyrene balls and black pipe cleaners but I figure if I manage to get hold of the balls I can substitute for sparkly silver pipe cleaners instead.


Jack Skeleton Apples

These are from Wonkywonderful blog (click the link) and look AMAZING! I can't wait to try them out. I'll be getting myself a couple of clocks of white chocolate, some fresh apples and some black icing next week!


Hobbycraft Foam Clay Cat Set:

This little kit is no longer on their site anymore but you can probably find it in your local store like I did. It's a lovely little set and cost me £1. It makes 2 small cats. I've never used foam clay before, it's odd stuff! G enjoyed this but it was more fiddly than I had anticipated so I had to help more than I would have liked to. I love to make things but obviously this activity was intended for her and therefore more she does the more enjoyable it is for both of us.

They have a few other little Halloween craft kids at the £1 to £2 price range. I also love their papier mache pumpkin for decopatching/decorating - great as a decoration/center piece and/or a great place to hide Halloween goodies. I'd love to get their scrape away Halloween decorations kit, these are easy and fun for 3 years plus, perfect for G to do single handedly (I will be sat watching of course) and they are only £2.


Pumpkin Carving:

A wonderfully (or in my case averagely) carved pumpkin....isn't this the best bit about Halloween? Well along side the dressing up! I think I'll be attempting a Jack Skeleton one as I'm not sure how I'd go with any more complicated unless I was on my own for a few hours, which is not going to happen. I love looking at designs on Google images.


Our Halloween Scene: 


For our Halloween scene we used:

• A large sheet of black card from Hobbycraft
• A few sheets of craft foam in white, black, purple and white - depending on the shop the pound shop sometimes do packs of craft foam.
• A packet of googlie eyes
• PVA glue
• A couple of pipe cleaners
• A black marker pen
• Some black fabric (or could just use craft foam)
• Glitter
• Some coloured paper (we used brown to do the tree)
• Scissors

It depends on the age of the child how much you'll need to help with this. G is only 3 so I made most of the characters and she put the glue on and stuck them (apart from the tree which was a bit fiddly) wherever she liked. She made her own bat almost completely by herself which she was very happy with and even gave it a dress out of some scraps of paper we had left. She did the glittery bits and some of the cutting out, taking the big edges off and I did the more intricate bits. I'll be using the left over scraps of paper and foam with G next week along with some googlie eyes so she can come up with some more of her own creations.

My top picks from the shops for Halloween

I love Halloween and although I don't always get to dress up and do something special for it I still love seeing all the Halloween themed stock come out in the shops and having a browse.
Here are some of my favourite buy's I've spotted this year. If I'd had the money I'd buy them all.




Aldi - Signs £1.49. As I mentioned in my autumn post, I thought I'd update my very small Halloween stock and get one of these fab signs. We have the 'turn back' sign pictured above.

Also in Aldi were these amazing doorbells. I'm a little embarrassed to admit it gave me a shock when I pressed it and a nasty spider or other design of tongue shot out their mouths.
The shopkeeper couldn't confirm the price of these for me at the time. I might be tempted back next week to get one. I think they'd be great for giving trick or treaters a scare. Does it make me evil finding it funny to give them a scare? That's what they're coming for right?!

PoundLand have some great bits and bobs for Halloween. I got a pack of green and black balloons (as G loves her balloons - what toddler/preschooler doesn't!), a green halloween bowl, this fab bunting
and a tacky looking light up green spider which I knew G would love.

Looking on their online site I've also spotted this fab door mat which they didn't seem to have instore. They might well do in a store near you though.

I am quite a fan, of what others probably would find annoying, halloween novelty musical toys - I do have a little collection of my own. In Sainsburys earlier in the week I found this impressive musical 'rising witch' which retails at £15. Sadly I don't have that amount of money to spend on a novelty item otherwise I would have snapped it up.
I also loved the candy bowl with a snapping skeleton, which I think was £12 in Sainsburys but also found by looking online that B&M have it too for £9.99. Again great for scaring kids ha!
Sainsburys are also selling MONSTER pumpkins....they really are huge!!
 B&M also have a variety of halloween goblets on sale for 4 for £3. The designs I liked aren't on their website so I'll update this post when I've managed to get a snapshot.*







After a brief browse in H&B today (actually looking for hairdye so I'm not the one scaring the kids with how bad my hair looks) I spotted some great flat tinsel like hanging pumpkin decorations, I think for about 69p which I'd like a couple of. I also like their cute little ghost outfit. Their website doesn't seem to have any of this years halloween stock on currently so I'll have to try and get some photo's and update this post over the weekend.

I found this gorgeous little top in the girls clothing section at Asda for £4. I'd actually love this in adult size. I'll probably have G in this for the rest of October.

Morrisons also has some great Peppa Pig long sleeved tops in, a pink one with Peppa &Suzy as witches with plenty of bats and an orange one with George dressed as a Mummy. These are £5 each.

I also love Tesco's baby halloween clothing range, particularly the orange and black selection including a lovely orange 'Happy Little Pumpkin' bib and lovely little pumpkin booties!
Tesco also have some great little Halloween craft packs starting from £1, including a pompom spider.
Also for once a supermarkets claims for selling huge pumpkins are true. I hauled one back today for £2 and I'm looking forward to searching for some great carving inspriation.

£6

Finally Hobbycraft is worth a visit, especially if you're not on a tight budget. They have some lovely bits and bobs and craft sets, all quite good prices but you could get really carried away! We chose the foam clay cat set pictured below. I loved the papier mache witches hat and pumpkin, they would be great to do in some fab decopatch papers or whatever decoration you or your little one choose. I also loved their little witch and pumpkin lanterns at £3 each. I was disappointed however to find their pack of 3 little polystyrene balls, which I went in for (for spider making) was the same price as their big variety pack in the Christmas section.
I also found the most amazing Christmas project in there of which i did spend a good deal of time staring at, dreaming away......but that's another season and another post!

*The hardship of not having a working smartphone! To be updated.

Autumn's Here

Yesterday* I felt it was the right day to post this. The first cold day, the first day I'd properly noticed the leaves falling down from the tree's, the first day it properly felt like Autumn.....but then I was knackered, kept myself away from the internet and fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow!

Today it was warm and sunny again. So bizarre in October but the crisp cold weather came back this evening. Although I hate to be cold and it makes it so much harder to get out of bed, this time of year doesn't feel right without it. It's a novelty at the moment and you can't get that festive feeling without the dropping temperature and the dark evenings for the up coming celebrations of Halloween, Bonfire night and then of course Christmas which is creeping up at an alarming rate!

not inc yesterdays leaf collection

We've been digging out the hats, gloves and scarfs today (to see what still fits G) and yesterday collected some fallen leaves (they're finally changing colour!) to add to our little Autumn collection of conkers and fir cones. Last year we made a picture with G's leaf collection (with mummy's help) which you can see at the top of the page. (As you can see I've been having a bit of a play with pic monkey...this one's turned out a bit like a 3 year old's effort...I got a bit carried away with the effects).

This evening we started threading some conkers as G decided she wanted to make a necklace out of them. Mummy did not find this autumn activity as enjoyable as she'd anticipated ....why is string so hard to thread through them?! I actually gave up after 3 and postponed the conker necklace making until tomorrow when I'll hopefully have renewed patience. Surely threading some string through a conker is a skill all mum's naturally possess? I don't remember my mum getting frustrated about it. There must be a trick I'm missing. A giant needle would help!
Tomorrow we'll hopefully be seeing friends and later I'll get the glue out for G to get creative with her leaves. I'm going to leave her to it this time to see what she comes up with.




After watching one of Brummymummyof2's youtube clips I trekked up to Aldi to have a look at their Halloween stock whilst out on the weekly dreaded grocery shop. We came back with this ->
I'm not sure if it will encourage trick or treaters or put them off! :)



I can't wait to carve a pumpkin with G, make some halloween gingerbread biscuits and get her all dressed up. We got all mummy's old musical Halloween toys out of the cupboard yesterday. One she's still scared of, a couple she's entertained by, one broken one that was one of the only things that settled her as a baby and another, a skeleton that dances to Ricky Martin's Livin La Vida Loca with flashing lights, that she loves! I came back in the room to find her singing and dancing to it. Too cute!
This year I'd love to try out some fancy Pumpkin carvings that you see online, or these days on Pinterest, but realistically it will just be the usual scary face.

I'm also looking forward to digging out G's bright pink ear defenders for Bonfire night and making some chocolate apples! I love fireworks, although the night would be best if spent with a lot of friends or family which we haven't had the chance to do for a while.


I love all these things about Autumn. The frenzied build up to Christmas and increasing energy bills can be stressful when funds are so tight but there is still a lot to look foward too.

What do you enjoy most about Autumn? Or are you not a fan?

*Written 5/10/14