Merry Mail Christmas card holder

Today we received loads of Christmas cards from people. However, we had a problem where should we place these as we had no Christmas card holder and the banister that we usually use has been overtaken by the advent calender! So me and Little Boo set to work making a Christmas card holder. 

After a bit of research on line I had an idea and wanted to make. First we painted a piece of a cardboard box black.  This is Little Boos favourite colour to paint with and I knew that it would look nice behind the material I decided to wrap the card with.  We painted the pegs with a mixture that Little Boo mixed with a combination of glitter and paint. Actually more glitter than paint. 

The Merry Mail sign  was done using a free Christmas font called Mickey's Merry Christmas   .  Little Boo chose the font when we were on the Computer she loves Mickey so I was not surprised. 

I then highlighted the font in Microsoft word clicked on the right button then clicked font then ticked outline.  This meant that Little Boo could colour this in. 

Once this was coloured it was just a case of putting this all together. 

We attached another piece of card to the back of the black piece just to reinforce it.  This also gave us the opportunity to sandwich the ribbon in between the two pieces of card. Little Boo enjoyed using the sellotape to attach this.

  

This is how it looked when all the pieces were attached. The silver part is a piece of card we wrapped with a silver paper. After this we just added the letters with a glue stick.  I have added eyelets to the top but you could just tie a ribbon to the top to hang this.  Little Boo later loved adding the cards with the pegs. 

gingerbread man playdough

You know when you hit on a good idea when it lasts for most the day! In Little Boos advent a few days ago was a gingerbread man  cookie cutter.  This was so that we could make gingerbread men using the play dough recipe I had pinned.  This is the BEST play dough we have used it smells amazing and I think that the spices really help with the consistency of the play dough. Anyway thank you to 2 big 2 little  for the wonderful idea.

I have used their recipe as follows

• 1 cup flour
• 1/2 cup salt
• 2 tsp cream of tartar
• 2 tbsp vegetable oil
• 1 tbsp cinnamon
• 2 tsp ginger
• 1 tsp nutmeg
• 1 tsp cloves 

The smell is AMAZING! We did not have cloves so I just omitted this it was still great.  We played with this for hours Little Boo kept coming back to it. We made the gingerbread men then decorated them.  This was great for counting as Little Boo counted two eyes then counted on the buttons that she wanted. Little Boo then asked for her  toy oven to cook them.  I made a baking tray for the oven (a lunch box lid with foil over it). 

We had loads of cutters apparently there was a Mommy, daddy and a baby one 

Later on when the ginger bread men were cooked the dolls had a Little tea party. 

Snowman biscuits

We helped my Mom and Dad over the weekend to put up the Christmas decorations.  A tradition that I would never like to miss out on! I love doing their tree as it has loads of mine and my sisters decorations that we made when we were little, so many great memories! We tend to laugh at each others creations and at my Mom for keeping them ALL.  I can now understand why she keeps them all though I could not part with anything Little Boo makes.

 I hope that when Little Boo gets bigger that we will to have decorations that she can look at.  It was funny to watch Little Boo look at the decorations that we made with great interest.  I thought at one point that she may start to offer me tips for improving my master pieces.

Anyway due to putting up the decorations I thought it would be nice if we had a little something to take with us so decided to make some biscuits (always goes down well with my Dad he is a biscuit addict).  I searched on-line for the simplest recipe I could find and found this easy biscuits recipe this suited the limited ingredients that I had available and time.  Little Boo loved mixing all the ingredients that I had ready for her in bowls.  We mixed it then cut out the circles then all of them were ready to bake.

Only problem was that I had to be at my Mom's within the hour which gave them just enough time to cook and cool.  No time to decorate them.  I told Little Boo that we would finish them the next day which was met with tears, this meant that the biscuits went on a trip to Nannies to finish off cooling in the car as we drove there.

We finished them off once we had decorated and everyone loved them.  I know they liked them as some suspiciously went missing before they were even decorated! All we did to decorate them was add a bit of icing sugar then a sweet for the nose and chocolate drops for the eyes and mouth.  This is great for fine motor skills as Little Boo had to pick up the small bits to decorate the biscuits. They were then all finished to eat. Apologies that they are on an icing sugar splattered plate needless to say Little Boo liked spreading the icing.

This idea is really versatile and could be used for many occasions. All you need to do is decorate them differently.  If you do not feel like making the biscuits why not decorate rich tea biscuits?

A Christmas party for the dolls

Little Boo is very excited about Christmas and today in her advent was pretty paper to write our letter to Santa and an invitation to her dolls Christmas party! We got to work making crackers and party hats.  I was surprised that Little Boo liked the crackers even though they did not bang.  All we did was wrap toilet rolls with tissue paper and tape them. They looked really effective. Some of them we made into mini crackers as the "dollies are only little"

We also made some little chairs as I had some cardboard boxes spare.  These did not take long to make and we will be adding paper mache to them to make them more sturdy for reusing them. I have a feeling that we will be adding a bit of sparkle to them as well as they are pretty dull at the moment. I should of taken pictures of the stages but all I did was cut two flaps of the box fold one in a suitable place and cut the other one into two equal pieces then attached this. I hope that the picture helps if anyone wants to use the idea they would be brilliant in a home corner as long as the children do not sit on them :)

Then we set up Little Boos kitchen as she wanted to cook for them and the table (upside down toy box with wrapping paper tablecloth) .  I was really pleased that Little Boo looked for Knives and forks and even laid these out in a sensible way.  Everyone had to have straws as Little Boo loves these at the moment.

After this the dolls wanted pudding so we made some snowman biscuits using the white play dough and then decided to use this for a Christmas pudding. Little Boo really enjoyed cutting this up and sharing it between the dolls. 

We both enjoyed this and to be honest spent most of the morning returning to the activity making more crackers and inviting more dolls and teddies to join our party. 

Our countdown to Christmas

I have been looking at loads of advent calenders on Pinterest and decided to do our own big advent calender.  It has been so much fun thinking what to put in each bag. I have tried to keep it as healthy as possible so not everyday will there be a chocolate bar or sweets but a craft or game/activity to do. I hoped that Little Boo would like it and this morning when we came downstairs I was not disappointed she was so excited and asked if Santa had brought them. 

I brought the bags from ikea for £4 for all of them.  I realise that this is expensive but I wanted to reuse them for as long as they last and liked the design on them.  A cheaper alternative would be to hang decorated toilet rolls or the cheaper brown sandwich bags.  Obviously I needed to be careful what I was including in the bags as the items need to fit.  I started a board on Pinterest with the countdown bag ideas  and I also had ideas of my own. 

Today's bag included some free colouring in sheets from the Library, Stickers from a sheet which I have cut up and placed in a few of the bags, Little Boos Christmas cards and a little packet of Haribo and some home made stamps for the cards. 

The idea was that Little Boo could write her cards as it is the 1st December I thought we should make a start. I have made some home made stamps which have Little Boos face on and have been printed onto sticker paper from the £1 shop so she enjoyed putting the stamps onto the envelopes. Then wrote the cards with the sparkly pens.

The advent itself is on the banister pegged to some ribbon.  The pegs I covered with some strips of paper that I had over from my Christmas crafts as I have been doing some iris folding Christmas cards.  I then cut and laminated the numbers which were from ewe hooo! and attached these to the pegs with a hot glue gun. 

I hope to share with you how the rest of the advent goes.  Most bags have easy craft activities that I have either thought of myself or brought from the £1 shop.  Tomorrow is a letter to Santa  I have found the template for this on sparklebox I have also just found out that you can post this to an address that the royal mail provide and they post a letter back! 

This idea can be as expensive as you make it.  I have tried to find a lot of activities that I already have what is needed or have found free items such as colouring in sheets.  I have cut up some of the sticker sheets that I have brought as well as helping them to fit in the bags it also means they can be used in a few bags.