Showing posts with label crafts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label crafts. Show all posts

Tuesday, 25 November 2014

Our Weekend Box - what was inside





A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to get a code for a free Weekend Box!

 Weekend Box is a new fortnightly creative activity box for young children aged 4 - 6 years old. My little girl is only 3 but she still had fun doing the various activities with mummy's help.

There are 4 weekend box club characters, which you can see in the photo above - Wooster, Hattie, Oswald and Sammy. Each of them have different themed activities.


Here's what was inside our free weekend box:



It was an exciting thing for G to receive through the post and upon opening it there were exciting little parcels to be unwrapped. A different colour for each themed activity/character.

  • Green for Hattie 
  • Red for Wooster 
  • Yellow for Oswald 
  • Blue for Sammy
 Underneath the parcels there was a piece of A4 red card, a kite template, a board game board drawn out on a piece of A5 card, four instruction cards, colour coded to go with the little parcels, a small envelope with a strip of 4 small stickers and one larger sticker and a poster.


There was also a brochure in the weekend box advertising natural clothing.


There are four activities for your child to do and you can obviously spread these out during the weekend or do over a couple of weekends, or during the holidays.


Here are the activities we received:



Kite Project 

This was the green packet, Hattie the Hedgehogs activity, containing the thread, a wooden peg and 2 straws.
The Kite Template obviously was also for this activity!

All you needed to provide yourself for this was a plastic bag and sellotape. A brightly coloured one is a preferable choice to make it look nicer.

G was able to help cut out the template, help draw round it and help cut out the kite. She also helped position and stick on the straws (one of which i had to replace as she cut one of them up into pieces :) ) and then mummy had to take over and do the fiddly bit with the thread.
 Once finished G loved playing with this and spent ages running round with it just inside the house!






Popcorn 'Cupcakes'

This was the red packet, Wooster the rabbits activity. It contained a little bag of spice mix and a bag of popcorn kernels. We needed to provide a little bit of icing sugar and honey and optional dried fruit.

G doesn't like popcorn herself but really enjoyed seeing the popcorn pop. It's something she's never witnessed before and she found it funny and exciting.

Besides needing an adults help with the popcorn because of the danger of a cooker, this activity was straight forward.








Peg Butterflies

This was the blue packet and Sammy the Squirrels activity. It contained 2 wooden pegs, 2 sparkly pipe cleaners and some sticky tabs. The red card was to use in this activity.

You had to draw out the shape of two butterflies on the card, cut them out, decorate and stick on & decorate the pegs for bodies and attach the pipe cleaners for antennae.

This is another simple activity and good to do mostly by themselves if older than G. She did really well with cutting and was able to stick the pegs by herself. She did all the decorating and had a go at trying to attach the pipe cleaners herself. She curled them up by herself on one of the butterflies.








Boardgame

This was the yellow parcel, Oswalds activity and contained a tiny dice and 4 tiny buttons for counters.
 I thought this was ok for just 2 children or a parent and child to play but considering the small piece of card and tiny dice and tiny buttons it would have been much too fiddly in my opinion for 4 people, especially children to play.

There was the option to flip the paper board over and add your own board game options to the board on the other side which left blank spaces to be written in.
Although I though this wasn't the best out of the four parcels I thought it was great for inspiration to think up and create your own board game. It reminded me of when I was younger and made and amazing rain forest game with my best friend at the time.


The poster included in the box was to collect your stickers from each weekend box. There is one included in each box you receive and after collecting 5 you send in your poster and get a special surprise in your next weekend box.
The strip of smaller stickers included were to place on the instruction cards after completing each activity which was a nice touch, especially as all young children love stickers. Well I know mine does! Your child can also colour in the back of the box when they've finished all their activities, to keep as a certificate.





Weekend boxes come at a usual price of £7.50 a fortnight and there is an option to pause your boxes for one or two months. If you'd like to try one out for FREE you can use my code: ADELE17286
Or you can use my link hereYou can then invite your friends and get 50% off your next box!

I think weekend box is a brilliant idea if you are on a comfortable income and need some inspiration on what to do with your children in your spare time together. I think they would be particularly useful during wet weather or long holidays. If you don't get stuck for ideas they could also just be a helping hand with some fun activities and saving you time sending the materials you need straight to your door.
It's also great to give your child a surprise through the post every now and then!


Let me know what you think if you try them out and what activities you receive!

Thursday, 6 November 2014

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!





Tuesday, 21 October 2014

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.