Egg Box Daffodils

Poppet really likes daffodils. Whenever she sees them she exclaims "for your wedding mum!" and picks some for me (I am already married so I am not sure why she thinks I am due another wedding).

We have a big clump in the garden that she had been eagerly checking everyday, waiting for the first one to bloom. Now we have a beautiful little patch of yellow in the garden.

While we were waiting for them to bloom we made some very simple paper ones - first Poppet painted some egg box cups yellow. While they dried I made a flower template and cut out some flower shapes from yellow card (Poppet is very keen to help with any sort of cutting activity so to pacify her while I got on with it she got some scraps to cut up). I put a fold in each petal to make the flowers look more 3D.

Poppet glued an eggcup on to each flower.

Then we put the flower on a ball of blutak and carefully pushed a nail through the middle to make a hole. It felt very Blue Peter-esque. Poppet liked it.

Poppet carefully threaded a pipe cleaner through the hole to form the stem.

Our daffodils sit merrily in a vase, brightening up the room. My mum recently visited and took a few hours to realise they were not real.

Poppet: 3yrs 2mos

Little: 1yr 6 mos

PS We have found the pipe cleaners a little too bendy, I'd use straws next time.

Button Hearts

The other day I discovered the girls had excitedly found my button collection (I don't know why I collect buttons as I don't remember ever sewing one on). Buttons were strewn all over the floor - miraculously none had been eaten (that I know of) - and Poppet was very keen to keep playing with this new found discovery.

So being as it is Valentine's Day shortly we thought we would attempt to make some heart shaped thingymabobs to hang around and spread the love.

 I drew a heart on a piece of foam and a bit of card and gave them to Poppet along with some buttons and a wee jar of glue. She carefully glued the buttons onto the outline of the heart, which we then left overnight to dry and the next day I cut round the buttons and threaded a ribbon through the heart for hanging. I thought they looked quite pretty!

Poppet: 3yrs

Little: 16mos

Paper Christmas Wreath for Toddlers

Ever since we made a wreath for our front door Poppet has enjoyed spotting them when we are out and about, and she was very happy when she opened our picture Advent calendar and found a picture of a wreath one day! 

We decided to make a paper one that the girls' could have indoors. It was really easy and combined two of Poppet's loves - cutting things up with scissors and glueing!

I cut a circle out of the middle of a paper plate to form the base of our wreath, but you could also just cut a circle from an old cereal box.

I got out our red and green foam shapes and we roughly tried to cut them into leaf and berry shapes (really roughly!). Poppet is still getting used to using scissors; it takes her a lot of effort to open and close them so she is so pleased with herself whenever she does actually manage to cut the smallest bit off. I also added red pompoms, and lots of green tissue paper that we ripped up into small pieces.

Then Poppet just had to glue on green bits until the plate was covered. After a while she was asking me to help her because she had glue all over her fingertips and the tissue paper was sticking to her rather than the plate which was making her frustrated. Together we managed to glue all the green bits on, (using lots and lots of glue). Poor Little wanted to help so badly, she found some tissue on the floor and reached up to stick it on to the plate. But only this morning I found her eating Sudocreme out the pot so she just can't be trusted around art materials yet!

Can you spot Little desperately trying to join in?!

Poppet then stuck all of the 'berries' on, and it really looked like quite an effective wreath. We left it to dry and then I stuck it to her bedroom door. However when Poppet saw it she demanded that I move it to the window so that "Santa can see it". And so it begins!

Poppet: 2 yrs 11 mos

Little 1yr 2mos

Homemade Rainstick

This is another addition to our do-it-yourself musical instrument collection - Poppet got FAR more enjoyment from making this than she does from actually using it so it tends to stay sat up on the windowsill but it was still worth it for a day of crafting activity!

I saw the instructions for how to make a rainstick over on The Imagination Tree ages ago and kept it in my mind for such a time when I had a cardboard tube available; well I finally framed and hung up a print that had been languishing in a tube in the cupboard for a long time so we gathered our materials together and got started! We used

• 1 cardboard tube (thick type)
• small nails (type for hanging pictures)
• hammer
• glue
• craft paper
• collage bits to stick on
• split peas and peanuts for the inside (you could use anything you have to hand - lentils, dried beans, rice, pasta etc...)

To start off you simply hammer in the nails at random intervals all around the cardboard tube - the more you use the better it will sound. Poppet was very insistent that she have a go at banging some in so I started them off for her then held the tube while she hit them, being careful to keep her hands away from the nail. She LOVED this.

Once we had finished the inside of the tube looked like this:

We filled the tube up with some nuts and some yellow spilt peas and made sure the lid was sealed very securely. We tried it out and they gave a good sound but I think you would get an even better sound if you used shiny, hard, dried beans like kidney beans or something. We will definitely try this again once I get around to framing some more prints that I have lying around! Then Poppet covered some pieces of paper (she chose pink and purple) in glue and rolled them around the tube to cover it and pressed it all down. It doesn't really matter if it creases as it will get covered in collage bits anyway.

We left it to dry (as usual, copious amounts of glue was used), and then in the afternoon Poppet decorated it with some torn up tissue paper, feathers and foam shapes.

And here she is trying out the finished product. The girls were distinctly underwhelmed by the noise it makes in comparison to the drums we made! But it was free and we had great fun making it!

Poppet : 2 yrs 8 mos

Little: 11 mos