School Bag Packing List Keyring

Our house can get a bit chaotic some mornings. Trying to remember which bits are meant to go into which bag on which days was proving to be a challenge.

So I made up these key rings so that no matter who was packing, they could check off all the contents before leaving. Even better, Mr 6 could check the checklist and (fingers crossed) bring everything back home again at the end of the day.

So simple and quick to make. Using Word I wrote up a list of things the kids needed every day, and a second list of things they needed on particular days. I made them roughly rectangular in shape, and printed them out. I cut them out and put them back to back before laminating, cutting out, and using a hole punch and key loop to finish them off.

Solar Fairy Night Light

I've been very busy recently with winter colds, children and making up some things for a craft stall for a fundraiser at our school. Mostly wings, but now I'm also working on some solar powered night lights. The one above was my first prototype and still needs some final touches, but perhaps you can get the general idea.

Simple Hairclips

More hot glue gun fun, and a couple of new hair clips. To make the flower clip it was a matter of roughly cutting out a flower shape from two matching colours, I used red felt and pink fleece (because I had them). I then trimmed the pink flower until it was a little smaller than the red, and then glued it all onto the clip with a matching button. Done!

To make the pink bow I simply folded the ribbon back and forwards a few times. I put a couple of quick stitches in to keep it firm. Finally I wrapped it around the middle with the tail end of the ribbon and glued it all in place. Too easy.

Ruffled Flower Hair Clip

 

This week I finally bought myself a hot glue gun. So much fun! As soon as I got home I made some new hair clips for Miss 3. This one was made using this tutorial. It was dead easy. 

I used a shiny slippery material that I knew (from making the ruffled skirt) frays really easily. So I started by gently melting the edges of my circles with a lighter. I have found from clips I've bought that hot melt glue can sometimes not stick well to shiny metal surfaces, so I then wrapped a short piece of ribbon around the clip and glued it in place, to help everything stick more firmly. After that I just followed the instructions in the tutorial, folding each circle into quarters and gluing it in place.

Paper Crane Mobile Tutorial

The paper crane mobile that my mother made for me as a child was one of my favourite things. The delicate balance and the way the birds fly around at the slightest breeze, makes it enchanting to lie in bed and watch. So it was definitely something that I wanted to make for my own kids.

I chose 5 squares of wrapping paper in 5 different sizes and colours. I won't include the instructions for how to make a paper crane here, it's probably best to check u-tube for that.

How to:

You will need:

- 5 paper cranes (more or less)

- wooden kitchen skewers with the sharp end cut off, 

- cotton thread

- superglue

- scrap paper

First attach a thread to each of the birds by tying a length of cotton thread to a piece of paper or match stick. Thread a needle onto the other end of your cotton. Post the paper through the hole at the bottom of the crane, and using the needle, push the cotton through the middle of the birds back. The paper should stop the cotton from coming out, leaving you with a thread to tie the bird in with.

Using slips knots tie the bottom two birds onto either end of one skewer at two different heights (so the birds can fly without their wings crashing together). Then tie a third piece of string to the middle of that skewer. Carefully move the third piece of string until the skewer is hanging evenly and in balance. 

Next get another skewer and tie the third string to this new skewer together with some more birds. Once more tie a hanging string to this skewer and find the balance point. This can take some gentle tweaks as the growing weight means smaller adjustments give a greater imbalance.

Finally take the last skewer and tie your last bird on one end and the rest of the mobile on the other end. Find the balance point again, and tie the final thread on, which will be used for hanging the mobile.

Once everything is hanging nicely, put a tiny dot of super glue into each knot to hold it all in place.

Wooden Parking Garage

 

When my son was younger he was cars obsessed, anything with wheels was much loved. We started with a cardboard garage when he was 1. We gave him a commercial plastic garage when he turned 2, but it just didn't last even though he's a fairly gentle child.

Eventually I decided it wouldn't be too much work to make a wooden, more robust version. Unfortunately it's so long ago now, I don't have any plans etc to share. Only the pictures of a much loved and well used wooden garage.

Handprint Table Top

One from the archives. Our coffee table needed a new top, and my toddler had some cute little toddler feet and hands just ready to make prints with. I started by painting the table top with an off white, then I put the prints on (with the help of said toddler). I then drew boxes around the prints and painted them in (light shade on two sides, darker on the third side and darkest on the forth side). Finally I finished it with varnish, and wrote a name and date on the underside. Nowadays it's not looking nearly so new, has a few scratches and pen marks on it, and regularly has glue and playdoh smeared into it, but I still enjoy seeing those little hands and feet.

Paper Flowers

I was decorating an outdoor space ready for a birthday party recently. We really wanted to hang some balloons but didn't have any on hand, and so we decided to try our hands at making something with paper instead. We wanted something that we could hang up and that would sway in the wind a little.

I had been looking at these beautiful paper tulips and thought that was a good place to start. We had two things to consider: that we only had white paper available, and how would we hang them? We decided a yellow flower center would look nice and add colour.

To make the yellow centre, we took a tissue and dipped two sides in watered down yellow food colouring. The tissues were then hung up to dry for a couple of hours. When they were dry, we tied string around the centre of the tissue so that it looked like a bow, and threaded the string through a hole in the bottom of the flower. We made 3 different sizes of flower to add some variation, and hung them around in small bunches.

If anyone uses this idea, I'd love to see what improvements and variations you come up with.