Maltesers cake

This cake I saw on the Internet and it was a must try! We love all the ingredients in the cake so knew we would love the end result and we were not disappointed. It was so easy to make.


All you need is

100g butter
200g milk chocolate
3 tbsp golden syrup
225g crushed digestive biscuits
225g Maltesers

How to do this 

• Melt the butter, chocolate and syrup in a pan on low heat
• Add crushed digestives when this is melted
• Add Maltesers and stir for a little while (you do not want to melt the Maltesers)
• Place in a small lined baking tray the (suggested size was 22cm x 17 cm x 2 cm deep)
• press down and smooth 
• Refrigerate for at least one hour 
• When chilled take out of the baking tray and peel off the lined paper 
• Cut into squares 
• EAT! 

When we had to crush the biscuits Little Boo really enjoyed doing this I placed the biscuits inside a bag and she rolled them with the rolling pin to crush them up.

 I hope that you all love this cake I know that we did!!

Spin art

Recently we went to Walsall Art Gallery and Little Boo really liked one of the works of art by Damien Hirst which was one from his spin art series.

Due to this we set to work doing a activity that I have had in mind for ages! I brought a salad spinner from Ikea a few months ago which was cheap.  I brought this with the intention of using it for spin art and it is so simple!

All you need to do is cut the cardboard to size, pop it in the salad spinner, squirt the paint onto the card, place on the lid (very securely) then spin!

We started adding glitter and glitter paint in as well and this makes the end result look really nice and sparkly!

I have an idea in mind to use these for a Christmas project so watch this space!

Painting leaves with feet, sponges and spray bottles.

Today we decided to have a day in crafting! This week we have been so busy getting out and about that it was a much needed day to stop and relax (well as much as you can with a 2 year old) the day was actually far from relaxing but was great! Therefore, I have a few activities to share with you all.

 The first few hours was spent outside playing and using our spray bottles! The idea was to get the outline of the leaves by using them.  However, this idea did not work for the desired outcome but we still had fun using the spray bottles and ended up with a very pretty piece of paper! The paper that we are using is wall paper lining brought from the £1 shop this is a wonderfully cheap alternative to the usually very expensive rolls of easel paper and much thicker.  The leaves were stuck down using masking tape folded back on itself.  I used this as the tape is not too sticky and does not damage the leaves when they are peeled off this way the leaves can be reused.

The next thing that we tried was sponge painting.  Little Boo was unsure about this to begin with but once I showed her what would happen she was really engaged and excited to see the results.  I have recently brought Little Boo the block paints that are in the picture.  I realised when she used these type of paints at a local craft day that it encouraged her to mix the colours and she loved doing it.  I then saw the paints in Wilkinsons for £2 and could not resist, she loves them! 

Now for the most fun activity painting with feet! Little Boo LOVES me painting her feet to do footprints and she loves to paint my feet as well. First of all we started off just doing footprints.  I then decided to try out the idea with the leaves and it worked.  Little Boo loved it as well.  I did join in as well and ended up having my feet painted and most of my legs! We did this activity in the kitchen this way I can just clean the tiles as it can get quite messy.

Little Boo peeling away the leaf she was so excited to see what it looked like . 

The finished picture was lovely and if you look you can see the outline of her little feet.  

More fun with leaves-Sticky Autumn picture

Little Boo loves playing with contact paper.  We have been using it for making since she was about six months.  I was really pleased to find the sticky back plastic vinyl in the pound shop as usually I pay a lot for it. Due to getting it cheap we were able to make a large picture using the easel to stick the sticky back plastic on to.

The idea was simple we just got all the leaves and the items that we collected out on a big tray I then let Little Boo stick whatever she wanted.  Due to Little Boo loving Tree Fu Tom at the moment we decided to colour in some pictures of him and the others from the program.  We then shrunk these by scanning them and reducing the size.  Little Boo enjoyed doing this as well as she loves using the computer. We used all the characters in the picture as they all live in the forest and Little Boo wanted to make a forest for them.

I hope that you can enjoy this idea it is so simple and really good fun. I have left our picture out and Little Boo keeps coming back to it to add more items.  When it is completed we will place another piece of contact over the top and some cardboard to make a frame.

Painting with items from our nature walk

To make use of those wonderful leaves and twigs and nature walk items I decided to do some painting with Little Boo using them.  She always gets really excited when I mention painting so this was a great hit which ended up being very messy.  It does not have to be messy but Little Boo decided that she also wanted to paint herself as well!

I realised when doing printing the less paint that you have the better.  Sometimes this is difficult with Little Boo as she is always keen to blob on loads of paint. So to overcome this I put the paint on a big tray then spread it thinly and did not get out the paint brushes. This worked effectively as it enabled us to mix the colours effectively.

Instead I made our own paint brush out of a twig and dried pine needles and which was really effective and looks like a mini broomstick. This made Little Boo laugh as we are reading Room on a Broom (Julia Donaldson) at the moment and she said that she was painting with her broom.

We used all the items we collected and it was interesting to see all the different prints that could be created with them.

We decided that we wanted to roll the conker across the page and watched as it made a paint trail.  The leaves we had worked OK but really we should have done this activity as soon as we had collected them or the day after as some were too dry to do an effective print with them.

We are out tomorrow and will be collecting more leaves as I have a few more ideas to try out and want to try the leaves when they are not so dry.  I am sure that Little Boo will not mind doing some more painting!

Play dough Sweet shop- Maths the fun way

A few days ago it was requested that we make another cake and sweet shop as we have done in the past. However, this time we made a few changes so it was a fun maths activity. I made up a new batch of play dough and decided on Strawberry, chocolate and vanilla.  I followed the no-cook recipe as I was trying to get it done quickly with as little mess as possible . Then we started to make our sweets and cakes. This in itself was a great activity as whilst we were making we were chatting  about what we were doing and our day.  I had been at work so it was a great way to relax and just enjoy some quality time together. 

Never throw away old chocolate containers they can be used as great moulds for play dough. 

Little Boo practicing with the cooking tweezers. 

I asked little Boo if she wanted to do a pick and mix! she was really excited about this. The idea behind this was so that we could count out the sweets as well as improve her fine motor skills as I had recently brought some utensils from Ikea which included some cooking tweezers these were great for the pick and mix. Which we placed into plastic cups.  

We set up the stall, Little Boo decided on how much everything was going to be. The scales were a great hit as she loved pretending to weigh the fudge. I put a mark on the scales where she needed to weigh too however, she just found it funny to keep on adding the fudge. Myself and her Dad were the customers who came into her shop and asked for items. To improve Little Boo's maths we were asking for specific amounts of sweets such as three orange ones. It was apparent whilst playing that it was a helpful game to play to learn colours as well. 

She used her till to add up the cost then wrote me and her Dad a receipt.  I just thought it was amazing how she had done the receipt like a list.  

It was obvious that Little Boo liked the activity as she asked to play the next day.  I had placed clingfilm over all the items so they were fine to play with again.  It was lovely as when I was at work she asked her Nanny to help her make some more sweets for the stall. They made a great job! 

Making a note of special memories and milestones

Earlier this month I pinned an idea from Thirty handmade days she had made a Busy mamas memory can. I loved it and instantly thought "I need to make one!" then thought " we shall make one together"! My sister had given me a tub a few days previous that was perfect for the job.  All we needed was stickers and something for the background I had sparkly contact paper which worked great.

We then stuck stickers all over it.

And added some to the lid. 

Then you have a wonderful memory tin.  The idea is that this is a quicker way of noting all  those milestones.  Just get a piece of paper jot down what happened and the date then pop it in the jar. When it gets full we will glue all the pieces of paper in a scrap book.  This I feel has been so much easier than a baby journal for me I wish I had thought of the idea when Little Boo was younger.

Nature tray (part two)

I just want to show you what we have been doing with the nature tray.  From our local toy library we have borrowed a light box this has been great fun to play with as the laminated leaves look amazing!

Little Boo had fun moving them around then started to make faces.

 Then to count items. We also discussed all the colours that she could see.

From the toy library we borrowed an easi-scope this is a computerised microscope which is handheld it it is amazing and so easy to install onto the computer.  It allows you to take magnified images of the items .  Little Boo enjoyed this but I think that older children may like the activity more. Little Boo found it more interesting to look at her own skin and finger prints which show up really well using the easi-scope.

Pine cone

pine cone

conker husk 

feather

fir tree

feather

sycamore tree seed 

leaf

Little Boo enjoyed feeling all the objects and we discussed how they felt. She loves to watch how the sycamore tree seeds fall and calls them helicopters!

 We are now in the process of trying out craft ideas using the leaves.  We have made a start with our paper bag owls and making faces with the leaves. However there will be more...