Day #65 Decorating With Dough – Part One

by Sara le Roux,  Owner and Inspirer at The Creation Station Penistone and District

December is nearly here!

Yay!

The Christmas tree is almost ready to be brought down from the loft and this year we will have our work cut out convincing Izzy that it is not a shiny toy to pull down every two minutes!

In readiness of our glittery green addition, I think that it’s time we created some new decorations to hang from our tree…

What You’ll Need

• 1/2 Cup Salt
• 1 Cup Flour
• 1/2 Cup Water
• Rolling pin
• Cutters
• Measuring cups

I love salt dough – it’s so versatile! You can leave it plain, paint it, glitter it, or even stamp it – whatever you like!

I had pre-measured the ingredients so that Boo was able to mix his own dough.

“Eurgh sticky Mummy!”

We eventually got the dough to the right consistency – mouldable but not wet and sticky.

Boo had fun rolling the dough and playing with the cutters.  I love that he is learning so many new things every single day that we are exploring and creating.

We got our decorations all cut out and then placed them onto a baking sheet.

I used a drinking straw to create a hole in each of them for our hanging string and then popped them into the oven to bake at 100 degrees centigrade for about an hour.

Tomorrow we decorate!

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Activity Time: 15 minutes

Day #65 DONE! 35 to go!

Sara x

 

Day #64 Boo The Red Nosed Reindeer

by Sara le Roux,  Owner and Inspirer at The Creation Station Penistone and District

My little boy was feeling a little brighter today but definitely still not at 100%.  I decided to cheer him up with a bit of festive fun…

What You’ll Need

• Brown Sugar Paper/Card – we used A3 sugar paper
• Scissors
• Sellotape
• White Card/Paper
• Black Marker Pen
• Brown Paint – we used Crayola washable
• Sponge & Plate
• Double sided tape
• Red pom pom

I cut two long strips from the A3 sugar paper and after measuring them around Boo’s head we joined them together with sellotape to make a band.

“Sticky Mummy!”

Boo is getting really good at doing painty handprints, so this time I let him do them by himself.

He was fab!

He carefully made sure that he’d got enough paint on his hand from the sponge, and when he put his hand on the white card he even gave it an extra press down with his other hand!

Whilst his handprints were drying we cut out some circles of white card and drew the eyes in place, and then used double-sided tape to secure them to the brown band of sugar paper – along with the red pom pom.

I carefully cut around Boo’s handprints whilst he practised his cutting skills on a separate piece of card.  Using the double-sided tape we then attached our painty ‘antlers’.

Ta Dah!

Boo The Red Nosed Reindeer !

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Activity Time: 15 minutes

Day #64 DONE! 36 to go!

Sara x

 

Day #63 Germ Central!

by Sara le Roux,  Owner and Inspirer at The Creation Station Penistone and District

Our home has officially been invaded by the dreaded cold lurgy! Both kids have now been struck down with awful, fuzzy colds.  Izzy is generally coping fairly well and still manages to play a bit, but Boo just wants to lay on the sofa under his blanket and be cuddled 😦

So whilst Boo was napping on the sofa I decided to spend some time with Izzy developing her creative skills.  I dug out an ‘iron-on crayon’ set that we were given a while ago.  Izzy has begun to show an interest in crayons and really loves making marks on paper.  I thought that it would be nice to capture the moment in a bit of a different way…

There are many different products like this available from any good art and craft retailer but the one we’d been given contained the crayons, tracing paper and doodle sheet (plus instructions).

 

 

The kit was very straightforward and we got down to drawing our picture.  Izzy was having great fun trying to make marks on the tracing paper but the crayons were actually quite solid.  You needed to press quite hard to draw anything so instead she decided to hand me her colour choices each time and let me do the work! – whilst she also tried to eat the crayons – oops!

Yes, those are fluffy dinosaur pj’s she’s wearing – it’s a duvet day after all!

When we were done with our doodling I grabbed one of Izzy’s white onesies and used a hot iron to fix the crayon picture to it.

Definitely one to keep!

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Activity Time: 10 minutes

Day #63 DONE! 37 to go!

Sara x

Day #62 Season’s Greetings!

by Sara le Roux,  Owner and Inspirer at The Creation Station Penistone and District

We had one of those days today where it just seems to take forever to get going – plus Izzy has a horrible cold so things are just that little bit harder for her at the moment – lots of cuddles were definitely prescribed 🙂

After our ‘to do’ list for today was finally out of the way (phew!) I thought that we could continue our festive theme and make a lovely Christmas wreath for Nana’s house…

What You’ll Need

• White Card
• PVA Glue & Spreader
• Paint – we used red and green Crayola washable
• Paper plate
• Scissors
• Sponge and plate

Boo got very excited when he saw the paints coming out today…

“Paint hands Mummy!”

We got our sponges ready and then used the green paint to create lots of lovely green ‘leaves’ for our wreath.

“Splat Mummy!”

Next was our beautiful red hand print bow…..

After a fair bit of cutting out (which Boo decided was Mummy’s job) we arranged the ‘leaves’ and then got them all stuck down onto the paper plate base.

Last of all was our finishing touch – the red bow….

Season’s Greetings!

I think this will look fab in nana’s hallway 🙂

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Activity Time: 15 minutes

Day #62 DONE! 38 to go!

Sara x

Day #61 Rain,Rain Go Away!

by Sara le Roux,  Owner and Inspirer at The Creation Station Penistone and District

Well today was a miserable day weather wise.  It just can’t seem to decide whether it should be pouring with rain or lovely bright sunshine!

After a busy morning working a 7^th Birthday ‘Arty Party’ and then taking Boo to his friends’ 4^th Birthday party this afternoon I decided that we should have a bit of a ‘calm down’ period at the end of our day.  We watched some television, had a quick visit to Nana’s and then it was time to do our rainy day ‘make’….

What You’ll Need

• White Card – 2 pieces
• Ribbon – we used curling ribbon
• Cotton Wool
• PVA Glue & Spreader
• Scissors
• Sellotape

We started by cutting out a lovely cloud shape from one of our pieces of card which Boo then happily began sticking cotton wool to.  He kept gluing until it was all covered and fluffy.

We cut raindrop shapes from our other piece of card and then using some curling ribbon we created our falling rain……

A bit more ribbon at the top to create a hanging loop and we were done!

Rain, rain go away!!

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Activity Time: 10 minutes

Day #61 DONE 39 to go!

Sara x

Day #60 Merry Mistletoes by The Incredible Hulk (a.k.a Izzy)

by Sara le Roux,  Owner and Inspirer at The Creation Station Penistone and District

So I just couldn’t resist…….we had more cards to make and Izzy was very cheery this afternoon!

What You’ll Need

• Card – whatever colour you like
• Paint – we used green Crayola washable
• Sponge & Dish
• Marker pen – whatever colour you like 🙂

Wet cloth at the ready….!

Once again we squidged little toddler toes into the painty sponge – this time she was ready for me though and the hands went in too – oops!

Izzy looked a bit like the Incredible Hulk – unfortunately there are no photos I’m afraid as I was trying to fend her off from happily painting me too – there were huge squeals of delight as she tried to chase me around the room with her painty hands!

Eeeeek!

So after lots of giggles we got cleaned up a bit and got back on track with our cards….

We had pre-folded our cards into an A5 size again and placed them on the counter ready to be printed on.

Ta Dah!

Very Merry Mistletoes! (and a very happy memory)

Cards done!

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Activity Time: 10 minutes

Day #60 DONE! 40 to go!

Sara x

 

 

Original tutorial found on Pinterest (by Kailee Smith)

Winter Windowland

 

What can you see out of your window during the winter season? Could it be raining or snowing? Can you see robins, reindeers and elves or even Father Christmas?

Download your  Winter window here.

Day #59 Creative Christmas Cards

by Sara le Roux,  Owner and Inspirer at The Creation Station Penistone and District

Next on our ‘to do’ list is Christmas cards!

When it comes to our children I will always insist that they make their Christmas cards to give to our extended family – until they reach their teens anyway and then it’s up to them 🙂

Receiving any sort of present is just wonderful, but the ones I love the most are the homemade ones.  I know just how busy people are and to receive something that they have taken time out of their hectic lives to make just for me makes me love and appreciate it so much more.

So Izzy…..time we got those ‘tooties’ out and made our first lot of Christmas cards!!

 

What You’ll Need

• Card – whatever colour you like
• Paint – we used brown Crayola washable
• Sponge & Dish
• Wiggly eyes x 2
• Red collage item – sequin, pom pom, gemstone etc – using a red felt tip would also work just as well
• PVA glue or glue stick
• Black or brown marker pen

We used our ‘tried and tested’ method of how to prepare paint for handprints or footprints.  You can of course simply use a paintbrush to get the paint onto a child’s hand or foot, but by using a sponge you just seem to get a more even coverage, create less mess and even use less paint – plus who doesn’t like squidging their feet into a painty sponge 🙂

We had pre-folded our card into an A5 size and placed them on the counter ready to be printed on – make sure you have a wet cloth handy to wipe painty baby feet afterwards otherwise you may end up covered in it!

Ta Dah!

2 perfect footprints ready for decorating……..

Hey Ruldoph!

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Activity Time: 10 minutes

Day #59 DONE! 41 to go!

Sara x

Create your own fantastic fox

Download your fantastic Fox here.

Day #58 It’s Beginning To Feel A Lot Like Christmas…..

by Sara le Roux,  Owner and Inspirer at The Creation Station Penistone and District

So this week marked the start of our Christmas themed sessions in all of our Creation Station classes.  It’s surprising how quickly you can start getting excited about the holidays – especially when it’s still November! Once all the fireworks have finished for Bonfire night and you start seeing all the Christmas light’s being switched on in the town centres it’s hard not to get all wrapped up in the lovely festivities.

I decided that we should get a head start on our gift making this year as doing most things with two small children (or any children!) just seems to take so much longer….

What You’ll Need

• Wooden lolly sticks – we used lovely multi-coloured ones like THESE
• Glue gun – super glue, pva or double-sided tape would also work just as well
• Scissors
• Felt tips – we used Crayola washable
• Collage – sequins, buttons etc
• PVA glue & spreader

 

These decorations are so simple to make that I think we will be doing a few extra ones for our extended family – I’d better get glueing!

I decided to prep our decoration whilst Boo was napping – less chance of him wanting to ‘help’ with the hot glue gun!

Boo does love his felt tip pens and the more time we spend working on his drawing skills the less time he spends trying to bash them into the paper – my fault – I bought him a set of stamper pens so now he thinks that all pens work that way 😦

After he had finished doodling on the Christmas tree we got the lovely sparkly sequins out.  Boo can be very particular about where he wants collage placed on his pictures so there was no way I was getting in on this activity.

“Sticky Stick Mummy!”

Eventually I was allowed to be chief gluer but definitely still no sequin time for Mummy.

All we have to do now is wait until it’s dry and then add some thread at the top!

Time to hide it away until the real Christmas tree comes out next week!

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Activity Time: 20 minutes

Safety Tips:

Be sure to keep any hot glue guns, super glue etc out of the reach of inquisitive little hands

Encourage safe scissor use – especially if you are letting your little one have a go!

Day #58 DONE! 42 to go!

Sara x