How to Make a Paper Fortune Teller (video)

July 18, 2016July 18, 2016 JayneLeave a comment

Paper Fortune Teller
Sausage and Burrito Baby are lucky to have an amazing relationship with my mother-in-law, who really is a truly awesome Nan to them both. They love spending time at Nanny’s house, not least of all because she has loads of toys and craft stuff set up for them to use. Sausage often sits there for hours with Nanny’s selections of paper, pens, glue, tape and other bits, happily making wonderful creations which she gives to us as gifts. One thing she LOVES to make is a paper fortune teller, something that I also loved when I was a kid too, although she can’t seem to remember how to fold them herself, so that responsibility always falls to me.

On Saturday, we went to MIL’s for the afternoon as we so often do, and Sausage wanted to make a fortune teller and I decided to get her to record me making one so that she could watch the video next time and make it for yourself, but it gave me the idea to share it here! I hope you find it useful…

How to make a paper fortune teller

Sausage uses a whole load of different “fortunes” on hers; for instance, one of these ones she used as a “which Pokemon trainer would you be”! It gives kids more hours of fun that you’d ever think a single sheet of paper could, allows them to be creative and is just a really sweet, simple little activity which can be done anywhere AND reduces screen time.

They’re also really good for helping with spelling; sometimes, instead of writing a colour on the outside, Sausage will do a blob of the corresponding colour which means that she has to remember the spelling of the word every time she does a fortune. Simple enough, you might think, but making them use colours like “turquoise” can really take it up a notch!

Do your little people know how to make fortune tellers? Is it something you’ve passed down to them from your own childhood? What do yours write inside their fortune tellers? Leave me a comment below, I’d love to hear from you!

Christmas · Cooking and Recipes · Crafts · Kids

BKD London Baking Kits Review and Discount Code #bkdbakes

December 6, 2015 JayneLeave a comment

If there’s one thing that Sausage and I love to do together, it’s baking. We’re never happier than when we’re in the kitchen, working together to make something tasty for the family, so when the lovely folk at BKD London got in touch and asked if we’d like to try one of their baking kits for kids, we agreed straight away. Even the boxes they come in are gorgeous!

The kits contain everything you need to make gingerbread men, apart from butter and golden syrup, including the cutter and everything to decorate them. The instructions were really clear – so much so that I basically stood back and let Sausage do everything herself (minus a little help with measuring and weighing).

The whole process from beginning to end was super simple – the only part that Sausage didn’t like was having to wait for her gingerbread dough to chill before she could roll it out! Here’s the finished product:

They tasted absolutely delicious!

These kits come in a number of varieties (I’ve got my eye on the unicorns!) and would make an amazing sticking filler for any kid who loves baking. The best news is that we’ve got a 10% off code for all Mum’s the Word readers. Just enter the code MUMSTHEWORD10 at the checkout. Happy baking!

Crafts · Crowdsourced

Our Favourite Halloween Crafts

October 26, 2015 Jayne4 Comments

Sausage is a huge fan of Halloween. In fact, just the other day, she told me that Halloween was actually her favourite, ahead of Christmas; if a kid chooses something ahead of a holiday which involves copious amounts of presents, you know it’s serious! I do my best to indulge her love of Halloween with costumes and pumpkins and a yearly viewing of Ghostbusters, but this year the goalposts have changed. This year, we’re living in a village which actually DOES STUFF for Halloween!

On Saturday evening, we’ll pop over to the other half of the village to meet in the Mission Hall. From there we’ll indulge in a supper of hot dogs before all the families go trick or treating together! Sausage is beside herself with excitement as we’ve never done trick or treating before. Houses who wish to be involved are to place a pumpkin outside, so we thought we’d go one step further and make some awesome Halloween crafts for our display, and we’ve been searching blogs for inspiration. Here are our favourites:

These glowing ghosts over at Adventures of Adam are so simple, yet wonderfully effective and would make a lovely window display for Halloween night.

These tissue paper pumpkins from Parenthood Highs and Lows are wonderfully easy to make and look fab, and I reckon even Burrito Baby could get involved with making them.

As someone with a Pokemon FANATIC as a daughter, I know for a fact that we’ll be making this at some point this week! Go to In The Playroom for full instructions.

Another craft which would look fantastic as part of a window display and is super simple to do are these clothes peg mummies from Thinly Spread. Their googly eyes and wavy arms don’t make them look too scary, making them perfect for toddlers and little ones.

If you’re looking for some fun, spooky treats to give out to Trick or Treaters, these brilliant spider cakes from Pink Oddy are just the thing and they’re great fun for the kids to make, too.

We love a bit of bunting in our house and this super-simple Halloween version from Daisies and Pie is a great addition to any Halloween house, especially if you’re throwing a party.

I’ve been wanting to make these Jelly Worms for ages as they make the perfect gruesome Halloween sweets, but I’ve never got around to it. Luckily, The Gingerbread House has a great tutorial to help you make your own.

These lanterns would be the perfect accompaniment to Trick or Treating, especially if you used battery powered tealights or glowsticks, as the tutorial from Mum in the Madhouse suggests.

These sugar skull dolls from Zing Zing Tree could not be more appropriate for us this year as Sausage is going to be dressed as a real-life Day of the Dead Senorita this year, so these will definitely be being made by us!

Sausage and I were a bit late to the Hama beading party but now we’ve discovered them, we’re massive fans. This spooky glow-in-the-dark Hama craft from Hannah Spannah would be brilliant to hang in windows or on gate posts on the night itself.

If you have a little one (or even yourself) who isn’t keen on the full dress-up experience, then these autumnal Halloween masks from Dilly Drops could be the perfect solution.

Finally, these pop-up ghosts from Diary of a First Child make a really gentle ‘trick’ if people aren’t in the giving mood but you don’t want to go full-on and egg people’s houses! People will find it so adorable that they’re bound to muster up a treat after seeing them!

What will you be making this week?

Crafts · Kids

Be Prepared: 5 Ways to Keep the Kids Entertained this summer

June 18, 2015March 1, 2016 JayneLeave a comment

Kids are off school during the summer, which means there is no more homework to keep them busy (and quiet) in the afternoons – so they can become restless and noisy which ends up giving the parents a huge headache. Two options spring to mind – you could switch on the television and put a DVD on for them or you could go a step further and get the kids involved in some arts and crafts to release their creative streaks and keep them entertained for longer. Let’s go with the second and examine some ideas.

Keep a scrapbook

Kids are only young once so why not keep a scrapbook of their summer holidays? This is a great craft idea because kids can make memories of their favourite days by sticking pictures, tickets, brochures and maps of their adventures on the pages of their scrapbook. Craft Superstore have everything you need to make your kids’ scrapbook wonderful, including fun and colourful stickers to really enhance the creative appeal of the book. When they grow up, your kids can look back at the summer of a lifetime.

Egg Carton Boats

Take some old egg cartons from the fridge and paint them with your kids. Add a stick with a mini sail and test the boat’s endurance on the water. This will be perfect for the extra hot days of summer when kids are splashing about the paddling pool and need something to play with. They can take their favourite toys on board (if they fit) and pretend they have just set sail for an epic sea adventure. The plus side is that this craft will also encourage you and the kids to recycle more instead of just throwing used cartons away.

Button Bracelets

A handy summer craft for kids that they can do indoors or on rainy days is making their own button bracelets. This is also a great excuse for you to use up all those old buttons in your sowing kit. According to Martha Stewart, the steps to making a button bracelet are to thread elastic through shanks and turning every second button upside down to allow it to overlap. Once the bracelet fits around your kid’s wrist, it’s time to trim the elastic and tie it in place.

Birdhouse Decoration

Invite wildlife into your garden this summer with a decorative bird shelter, stocked with food and treats to attract all sorts of birds. Before hanging up the house, give your kids the chance to paint it how they please. They can add polka dots or draw little chickens on the wood to make it seem more homely for the birds – www.parentmap.com advises that you use peanut butter, birdseed and pine cones mixed together as the perfect bird treat.

Shell Creations

If you’re taking a trip to the beach this summer, bring an empty plastic bag and have your kids gather together their favourite sea shells. Once you get home you can glue them together to make little creatures, which can be painted and decorated. To take it a step further, create an enchanting wind chime with shells, string and a long stick. This is perfect to hang outside the door or up in the childrens’ room.

Christmas · Crafts

Best Home Made Christmas Decorations

November 24, 2014November 24, 2014 Jayne9 Comments

Since Sausage came along, I’ve made it a bit of a Christmas tradition to make home made Christmas decorations to go on the tree and around the house. We always make our own paper chains, usually from Christmas printed paper or old rolls of wrapping paper from the year before but the main event is the decorations for the tree. I have a dream that, one day, when I’m old, none of the decorations on my tree will be shop bought, but all handmade by the girls and I over the years, so that when our grandchildren, should we be lucky enough to have them, come over for Christmas I can show them all the treasures their Mum and Aunty made when they were little.

This year, as it’s BB’s first Christmas, I thought we’d make salt-dough stars from their hand prints – we’ll cut out the shape of their hands (providing BB plays ball!) and then decorate them with white paint and glitter.

Some of my blogging chums have got some absolutely stunning ideas for home made decorations so I thought I’d pull together some of my favourites, to give you some inspiration for the run-up to the festive season:

Cas from Mummy Never Sleeps wrote a guest post for Carolin at Mummy Alarm showing us how to make a gorgeous, kid-friendly, cheap window display from things you’ve probably already got around the house.

Joy over at Pink Oddy has made some simple but effective salt dough stars which are perfect for making with little ones. I also love how versatile these are in terms of the millions of different ways you could decorate them, even to match a specific colour scheme or as gifts for family or class teachers.

As a single Mum, my friend Aly from Bug, Bird, Bee is one of those amazing people who makes her budget stretch as far as possible by foraging, making home made gifts and some seriously savvy charity shop shopping and I’m always impressed by her skills. I love these Hama bead (which you can buy from Craft Merrily) creations for Christmas and I can totally see a Hama bead Angel sitting at the top of our tree!

My friend Vanessa from HPMcQ is one of those people who is ridiculously stylish and talented so I just knew her handmade decorations would be something aspirational – and I wasn’t wrong. These paper tealight houses (for battery operated tealights, of course) are utterly adorable and would look at home on even the most minimalist of mantlepieces. I really want to try making these but I suspect they might be a ‘mummy-only’ project!

I absolutely LOVE this home made wreath, for which Ali at Kids Chaos used upcycled books. I’ve never been one for outdoor decorations before but I love this idea so much that I’m definitely going to put something on my front door this year. We’ve actually got a pine-cone giving tree in our garden AND a holly bush, so I’m thinking I might be able to make this without any expenditure whatsoever!

For me, Christmas should be a time to treat all of your senses, and these cinnamon stick tree decorations from Cass at Frugal Family are the perfect way to tantalise your sense of smell! Nothing says Christmas like the smell of cinnamon, and true to form, these gorgeous decorations are super cheap to make.

No craft round up would be complete without something from the Queen of Craft, Maggy at Red Ted Art! Her site is awash with amazing Christmas-themed crafts, but these cork snowmen and Rudolph would make such a lovely, colourful addition to any tree – and it’s always good to have an excuse to accumulate a lot of corks!

Otilia, over at Romanian Mum, made this gorgeous paper tree garland, which I reckon Sausage would love to make too, especially as it involves glitter glue! I guess we could use other shapes too, such as snowmen and stars.

My own offering may not be quite as slick at the others, but I was so super impressed that my woollen baubles worked last year! They’re super messy to make but very cheap as you only need water balloons, wool and PVA glue.

All of these will be added to a Pinterest board of the best home made Christmas decorations from around the web, so if you’ve got a post you’d like me to add, please leave a comment below with a link to the post. We’d love for you to follow the board too, so you can see all of the new Pins as they’re added.

Follow Mum’s The Word’s board Home Made Christmas Decorations on Pinterest.

Thanks for reading and happy Christmas crafting!