At home with Ali

Easter craft for kids: Eggshell homes

2015-04-02T21:21:00.000+11:00

oooh Easter craft is my favourite type of craft.... mainly because of the easter chicks (you can see more about my easter chick obsession here and here).

I bought a new batch of Easter chicks and we decided to make them some little eggshell homes. I don't have any specific quantities or instructional information for you because we didn't measure anything. It was all a bit experimental!

We carefully broke three eggs – dividing them in half as neatly as we could. We cleaned out all the eggie bits inside. Once our colours were chosen we covered the eggs in warm water mixed with food colouring. We didn't want super dark coloured eggs so we didn't overdo it on the food colouring.

We let our eggs soak in the water, checking them now and again. Once they had soaked up pale shades of colour we took them out of the water and let them dry on paper towel.

Our eggs were brown chicken eggs so the colour isn't fabulous on the outside but the insides look awesome... beautiful pale, blue, green and yellow. Our little chicks are very happy in their eggshell homes.

Rainy Day Fort

2014-04-30T13:29:00.000+10:00

A quick little post for a quick and easy activity.... the rainy day fort. My kids love making an umbrella fort when it is raining. They grab every umbrella we own and construct a fort that they can sit under in the rain. It does work best for that lovely light summer rain. They do get wet while they are trying to construct the fort and fill in any of the gaps. If the rain is heavier I throw a tarp over the whole thing which keeps it nice and dry. Enjoy the rain!!!!

We love forts of all shapes and sizes. For more fort inspiration check out my Forts, hidey holes and garden nooks Pinterest board.

If this is your first visit to At home with Ali – welcome. If you like it, you can follow along via email, RSS, google+ or facebook. You can also find me on Pinterest and Instagram.

2 Easter Hat Ideas

2014-04-02T22:13:00.001+11:00

Cakey needs an Easter hat for her school Easter hat parade. Boo wants one because Cakey wants one. I tried really hard to make a hat from paper card but it was beyond me.... instead I bought a super cheap hat and we stuck stuff to it..... much, much easier. The idea was inspired by the gorgeous Easter hat created by Heather Designs.

Now to get all that lovely Easter stuff on the hat I used cotton and thread and my hot glue gun. I began by sewing the artificial flowers on where Cakey wanted them. I had planned to sew on everything but that was way too slow. Bring on the hot glue gun.... now here's the thing... I know that crafty people own hot glue guns because they are awesome BUT every single person who has to make stuff for kids should own one. You can get them in the supermarket! Seriously, they glue stuff on really well, really fast. You will burn your fingers but that is a small price to pay in my opinion.

Cakey showed me exactly where she wanted her little chicks, pink bunnies and glittery eggs and I stuck them on the hat for her. She is very happy with the hat and I only burned myself once!

Now Boo's hat is technically a paper crown. I wanted something easy that she could help make herself. The base of the crown was created from a piece of A3 yellow paper card – it was cut in two pieces, which we stapled together to make one long flat crown.

This crown was inspired by this delightful version from Sun Hats and Wellie Boots. We made the crown very tall so there was plenty of surface to cover with foam easter egg stickers which I found in a local store. You don't need stickers though – you could easily cut out coloured paper easter eggs and glue them on.

We added some paper eggs on pipecleaners – they look very cute bobbing away on Boo's head! To make these I stapled the end of a pipecleaner to paper card cut in the shape of an Easter egg. I also stuck a foam egg sticker on top of each paper egg which covered up one side of the staple.

We then stapled the pipecleaners to the yellow paper card base of the crown in two places – you need two anchor points otherwise the pipecleaners do not stand up very well.

We stuck down a pink edging around the top of the crown – mainly to hide all the staples! I then wrapped the crown around Boo's head and stapled the two ends together to fit.

Some more Easter ideas:

I love those little yellow Easter chicks and you can see what we have done with them in the past here and here and here. We also had a lot of fun making glitter eggs.

I think this little pink felt bunny by Michael Ann is gorgeous if you can sew and I love these leaf print eggs. These treats by Living Locurto look delicious. And, I have created some Easter printables for the kids to give to friends, they are available on Childhood 101.

Cheers, Ali

If this is your first visit to At home with Ali – welcome. If you like it, you can follow along via email, RSS, google+ or facebook. You can also find me on Pinterest and Instagram.

Winter Olympics Playdough Fun

2014-02-16T22:27:00.000+11:00

The kids and I have been watching the Winter Olympics. And now..... we have been re-enacting skiing and snowboarding with playdough for the last few days. This has been so popular we ended up making two batches of playdough – one of the batches was a special super-white playdough.

Super-White Winter Wonderland Playdough Recipe

2 cups of corn flour
Half cup of salt
2 tablespoons of cream of tartar
2 tablespoons of vegetable oil
1 cup of boiling water
Silver glitter (optional)
Mix together, tip out onto a floured surface and knead until you get a smooth consistency. Add more water if it is too dry. Add more flour if it is too wet.

Boo made some silvery, winter wonderland rocks to go with her winter wonderland scene. To make these – squeeze a dollop of white pva glue on the top of some garden stones. Cover with silver glitter and let them dry. Pretty simple and very sparkly!!!

Paddle pop sticks played a huge role in our winter wonderland play. They were skis, snowboards, poles and the walls and roof of Cakey's snow cave. We also used them to hold up flags, bells and our mini bunting. I made some mini paper bunting by cutting out triangles from folded paper and gluing each triangle on a string. We attached the string to paddle pop sticks and stuck them up in the playdough.

The kids played all sorts of games with these little Winter Olympic scenes... Cakey enjoyed the sensory play aspect and Boo enjoyed letting her imagination do all the work in pretend play.

If this is your first visit to At home with Ali – welcome. If you like it, you can follow along via email, RSS, google+ or facebook. You can also find me on Pinterest and Instagram. Cheers Ali

Zero to Two: the Book of Play

2014-02-10T21:41:00.000+11:00

When I had my first baby I had no idea what to do. I had spent so long thinking about just getting to the birth I had forgotten about the 'actually having a baby in the house 24/7' thing. It was a shock, particularly as I do not come from a big extended family and had not spent much time with babies at all. Once my bub started being awake during increasing portions of the day I wondered what I was supposed to do with her. I turned to books, blogs and the internet and slowly collected a few ideas and activities that meant that my little one and I started to fill our day with little bits of fun.

And now there is no need to scour the internet because you can get a bucket-load of fun activities for babies and toddlers all in one ebook... Zero to Two: the Book of Play. I am very proud to have contributed an activity to this book – a DIY post box that I made for my super-cute 15 month old nephew.

Zero to Two showcases 25 different activities for babies and toddlers from kid bloggers across the world. These activities are easy to do at home. PLUS the book also includes more than 50 links to additional activities. There are also two free printables – fun stroller cards and lovely finger puppets.

This ebook is available to download right NOW right here at the special price of $6.99 (USD). This launch price is only being offered for one week (until Sunday February the 16th). It will then revert to the full price of $8.99 USD. Purchase this ebook now for immediate download of a pdf file which you can view on your screen or print out in full. Payment is via paypal.

Get a sneak peek of the ebook here.....

Soooo, get your copy now and take advantage of the introductory price and start playing. Cheers Ali If this is your first visit to At home with Ali – welcome. If you like it, you can follow along via email, RSS, google+ or facebook. You can also find me on Pinterest and Instagram.

DIY Toy Camera

2014-02-07T14:55:00.000+11:00

I have been having some crafty, make it yourself fun. That's what happens when there is nothing worth watching on tv! Anyway the kids own toy cameras and real cameras but that did not stop me from making cardboard cameras.... and the kids like them. They are big and colourful but the best bit is the squishy sponge button they press down to take an imaginary picture. And yes.... they always check the back of the camera to have a look at their shot!

Materials:

Empty rectangular cardboard box – approximate camera size give or take
2 sheets of A4 coloured paper
2 bottle tops (one big, one small) – I used a vegemite lid and a milk bottle lid
String and 2 large buttons
A family photo
Toilet roll
Squishy sponge circle/cylinder – I found one in a package of kids' painting sponges but you can always cut a larger sponge down to size.

Tools:

Holepunch
Scissors
PVA glue or a hot glue gun
Sticky tape

Step 1: Cover your box in coloured paper while still leaving the top of the box open.

Step 2: Punch holes on either side of your box and thread through the string. Anchor the string on the inside of the box by tying large buttons to each end of your string.

Step 3: Tape the lid closed and cover it with a piece of coloured paper cut to fit.

Step 4: Make the lens – glue the largest bottle top to one of the large sides of the box (the face of your camera). Glue the smaller lid inside the larger one. If you use PVA glue you will need to let the glue completely dry (overnight preferably) before you can move onto the next step.

Step 5: Make the view finder – cut approximately one third off a cardboard toilet roll. Cover it with coloured paper. Sticky tape the toilet roll to one side of the top of your camera.

Step 6: Make the 'take a photo' button – glue the circular sponge onto the other side of the top of you camera. If you use PVA glue you will need to wait until the glue dries before giving it to a kid.

Step 7: Draw on some extra features using a coloured marker or a white-out pen. I drew a flash and some extra buttons just for fun.

Step 8: Stick on a happy snap on the back of your camera.

Step 9: Snap away!

If this is your first visit to At home with Ali – welcome. If you like it, you can follow along via email, RSS, google+ or facebook. You can also find me on Pinterest and Instagram. Cheers Ali

Building ships with boxes

2014-01-19T22:44:00.003+11:00

A cool little competition flew into my inbox. A cruise ship building competition with no restrictions on what materials you can use.... awesome! And you know what, we haven't had a great big crafting session in ages. When I uttered the words 'wanna make a cruise ship' the kids jumped at the chance.... their poor little neglected crafty souls screaming for tape and paint!

Cakey took on the challenge of making a cruise ship with cardboard boxes. We always have a stack of boxes in our tub of stuff that would normally hit the recycling bin. Having a tub of empty boxes as well as various ephemera is soooooo useful for crafting and even, dare I say it, independent crafting.

Cakey decided stacking boxes was the way to go, securing them with sticky tape. She cut a door for the people and made a chimney with a massive plume of smoke, made from white tissue paper. Boo copied Cakey, as a little sister will, stacking two small boxes and adding a figurine person to sail her ship. Cakey added a life boat to her cruise ship. Sail boats are her speciality. She makes them using a styrofoam tray as the base and attachs a sail made from a straw and a piece of paper.

This project deserved paint. Cakey chose red, black and gold, Boo chose 'every colour paint'. I added some pva glue to the paint so that they could stick on some sparkles.

Cakey also got to try my new drawing tool - the white out pen. I have seen Alisa Burke use a white-out pen in her work and I have been intrigued to try it. Cakey got to it first and drew on the name of her ship and some windows. It worked a treat.

If this is your first visit to At home with Ali – welcome. If you like it, you can follow along via email, RSS, google+ or facebook. You can also find me on Pinterest and Instagram. Cheers Ali

4 apps for kids

2014-01-14T22:26:00.000+11:00

Do you do the app thing with your kids or not? Is playing with an app on an ipad better than watching television... worse.... or pretty much the same thing? I don't really know but what I do know is that our kids want to use our ipad.... it makes sense – I want to use it too! Everything in moderation, eh?

There seems to be about a trillion apps available for kids – and it can be hard to sort the good from the bad... and that is where word of mouth can come in handy. I would love to know what apps your kids love to use. And, in turn here are the popular ones in our house. (Now would be the time to apologise to android users... the apps below are all available from the itunes store for ipad.)

1. SquiggleFish

Available in the itunes store here (£1.99)

This app combines good old fashioned drawing on paper with the technical fun of an app. The kids draw sea creatures on white paper with a black outline and whatever colour they like. Once the drawing is complete you can take a picture of the sea create within the app. Then watch as your mermaid or fish or submarine comes to life and swims in the sea. When I first tried to get this app to work I got frustrated until I read the instructions. There might be a lesson in that.

2. The Human Body

Available in the itunes store here ($2.99)
This is an amazingly detailed app of - you guessed it - the human body. You can watch blood pumping, analyse bone structure and record your own sounds. But what the kids love best is making their avatar eat and then poop. On a sidenote this app is illustrated by the amazing designer and illustrator Kelli Anderson.

3. Mystery Math Town

Available in the itunes store here ($2.99)
This is one is for my 5 year old. It is part adventure, part spooky house and part mathematics. It involves searching for fireflies and releasing them from their glass jar prisons. To get through any door or window you have to solve a maths equation – you can set the difficulty level. Try touching some of the furniture in the houses, there are some cute extras.

4. Paper by 53

Available in the itunes store here (Free but then all extra bits to make it good cost $2.99 each)
I downloaded this app for myself but the kids have taken to it. It is a simple drawing app, it works well for us as we can each have our own separate journals within the app. It is a little annoying that you end up spending a lot to add the extra functionalities. Make sure you like it before you hand over the cash. If you and your kids like this drawing app I recommend the paintbrush and the color mixer tools.

What apps do your kids like?

If this is your first visit to At home with Ali – welcome. If you like it, you can follow along via email, RSS, google+ or facebook. You can also find me on Pinterest and Instagram. Cheers Ali

Christmas Pudding Decorations

2013-12-09T22:45:00.000+11:00

Oh golly gosh these Christmas plum pudding decorations are so cute. Cakey and I had a great time making them and they look fab hanging on our Christmas tree. I love a tree filled with homemade and kid-made Christmas ornaments.... don't you? Check out some of our other homemade tree decorations here and here. And keep reading to find out how to make these little puddings!

Materials needed:

Small polystyrene balls (40mm)

Wooden skewers

Brown paint

White air drying clay

Red beads and green leaves

String and an anchor bead

Step 1: Skewer your polystyrene balls onto a wooden skewer and paint them a pudding brown. The kids made their own brown paint.... after all, they have had many years of practice making brown paint (they used a mix of red, purple and yellow). Leave the painted puddings to dry completely.

Step 2: Once the paint is dry remove the skewers. Mould some white air drying clay over the top of each pudding ball – try to make the clay look like custard dripping over the pudding. Before the clay is dry make sure you re-open the hole created by the skewer - otherwise you won't be able to thread a string through the pudding.

Step 3: To decorate the puddings, push red beads and green decorative leaves into the clay before it dries. Sometimes the beads fall off once the clay has dried – glue them back on with superglue.

Step 4: Once the clay is completely dry, grab a needle and thread. Tie a bead onto the string to act as an anchor and thread the needle through the hole left by the skewer. Tie the string at the top to make a loop and hang it on your Christmas tree.

And there you have it! For more Christmas goodness have a look at my Christmas Pinterest board.

You may also like to check out some of these kid-friendly Christmas crafts:

15 Christmas Decorations for Kids to Make by Picklebums

Icicle Ornaments by Happy Hooligans

Popstick Wreath by Childhood 101

Chenille Candy Canes

Toilet Roll Reindeer by The Craft Train

Printable Christmas Gift Tags

2013-11-25T20:49:00.000+11:00

Christmas is speeding towards us like a freight train! The kids are already full of Christmas excitement. At this time of year I tend to be excited about Christmas too. It isn't until closer to the big date that I falter in Christmas spirit.... brought down by the weight of endless to-do lists!

Anyway... before I get to the bah-humbug stage I created some cute Christmas tag printables for you. I didn't feel like going with the traditional red and green Christmas themes. Instead I chose the partridge and a the pear tree and a deliciously plump Christmas pudding.

You can DOWNLOAD them free for your personal use here (partridge) and here (pudding). I hope you and your friends and families like them.

For loads of Christmas craft ideas check out my Christmas Pinterest board. You also might want to have a look at last year's homemade snowflake Christmas cards and tags.

And if you want more free Christmas printables, check out these:
Printable Christmas Gift Tags by Caroline Johansson
Holiday Greeting Tags by Eat Drink Chic
Vintage Pink Santa tags by Shabby Blogs
Lovely type base and funny Christmas labels by Emily McDowell

If this is your first visit to At home with Ali – welcome. If you like it, you can follow along via email, RSS, google+ or facebook. You can also find me on Pinterest and Instagram. Cheers Ali

Travel Activity... Journalling

2013-11-04T22:06:00.002+11:00

We recently spent some time travelling around New Zealand in a campervan. It was great fun and I would love to do it again. I thought our holiday would be a perfect time to introduce the kids to journalling so before we left I bought:

Acid-free spiral bound A5 diaries
Some fabulous bright watercolours that were perfect for travelling (this is not a paid link I just LOVED them).
Small paintbrushes
A variety of artline fine felt tip markers

Every second day we all sat down and did some drawing and painting in our diaries. It was a combined family effort, Cakey and I often worked together on the same page. There was no right or wrong way to do this, we just painted what most appealed to us from the day. The best thing about this is now we have a lovely keepsake of our holiday.

Halloween Witches Brew

2013-10-21T13:07:00.000+11:00

Halloween produces mixed reactions from the grown-ups here in Australia. There are those you who love a chance to dress up and then there are the others who turn off all the lights and pretend they are not home. I am yet to meet a kid who is not excited by the prospect of Halloween.

Having spent some of my childhood in Canada where I experienced the full North American Halloween extravaganza I have a soft spot for the holiday.

Plastic Halloween stuff has been in the shops for a few weeks and Cakey has been running an intensive campaign to buy buy buy. With a week and a bit to go I finally succumbed and bought a pile of creepies – spiders, skulls, eyeballs, rats and a severed hand. Awesome! These will probably be handed to friends in a game of spooky lucky dip.

In the meantime, I thought we should have a little fun with them so I set up a witches brew activity. It was simple. I supplied a cauldron (my casserole pot), jugs of water, blood (bowls of water mixed with red food colouring), eye droppers, spoons and assorted creepy crawlies and gross things.

The kids mixed up the brew, adding everything but the severed hand. The brew was well mixed and then ladled out into bowls. And then I sent them both to school with red stained hands... I am really hoping they don't call the stains 'blood'.

I hope you all have a super-fun Halloween. I have been busy with an exciting side-project but I hope to be back blogging with a little more regularity soon. Cheers Ali

If this is your first visit to At home with Ali – welcome. If you like it, you can follow along via email, RSS, google+ or facebook. You can also find me on Pinterest and Instagram. Cheers Ali

Lavender playdough

2013-09-10T22:08:00.000+10:00

Ah playdough how I love you, we have been experimenting with a few variations to our usual super simple playdough recipe. We have tried peppermint, lemon and chocolate but my favourite so far is lavender. We collected some lavender from my aunt's garden and dried it in the sun. Boo had great fun crumbling it into the dough mix.

Lavender Playdough Recipe

2 cups of plain flour
Half cup of salt
2 tablespoons of cream of tartar
2 tablespoons of vegetable oil
Dried lavender
5 drops of lavender oil
1 and a third cups of boiling water mixed with purple food colouring (or a mix of pink and blue food colouring)

Basically throw it all in a bowl and mix it together, then knead it with a little extra flour until it is beautiful and smooth.

Boo played with our lavender playdough along with a bowl of buttons and some bottle tops. She turned them into some lovely little lavender cakes.

Tissue paper lollies

2013-08-12T20:19:00.000+10:00

Just as I was finishing this post Chris piped up "do you realise that only Australians will know what 'lollies' are, don't you?". Ummm maybe???? Ok so, lollies = sweets = candy. Problem solved!

This is one of those super simple crafts.... and it involves no paint or glue or glitter!!! All you need is a square of tissue paper and a tissue – roll it up and twist the ends. Cakey tells you everything you need to know in the video below. Please have a look, Cakey is very excited that her tutorial will be watched and she is hoping that someone in this world will like to make a paper lolly too.

As you can see from the tutorial it doesn't take long to make a tissue paper lolly. My kids made many, they also enjoyed making tiny little lollies. We experimented with different shapes – discovering that a crumpled tissue makes a lovely round paper lolly and a folded tissue makes a more rectangular lolly.

My little one, Boo, turned this craft into a pretend play lolly shop. We set up a little lolly shop with bowls of tissue paper lollies and a toy cash reigster.

Together we added some playdough lollies (sweets/candy). To make these, we rolled out a piece of blue playdough and a piece of pink playdough. We placed the pink playdough on top of the blue and then rolled the two together. I then sliced the roll to make swirly lollies which we popped into a jar for selling in our shop.

Time to Create – Pattern Printing

2013-07-16T15:32:00.000+10:00

I love a bit of process-based art and so does my 2 year old. Boo is all about the PROCESS.... she cares very little about the product. And now I have in my lap a wonderful book filled with a stack of process art ideas. This book is Time to Create, Hand-On Explorations in Process Art for Young Children, written by Christie Burnett. With chapters ranging from drawing to sculpture to digital photography there is something for everyone no matter where your mess tolerance lies!

We, of course, picked something a little messy to try out first – pattern printing with found objects. It was great fun..... this is what you need if you want to try it too.

Paper – I spread out a large piece of brown paper from a roll that I picked up in the supermarket, but any paper will do the trick.
Sponges and takeaway/plastic containers – place one wet sponge into each container. Use one container for each colour. We used three.
Paint – squeeze a generous dollop of paint on top of the wet sponge. I spread the paint out over the sponge with a paintbrush. The wet sponge absorbs the paint turning the sponge into one large stamp pad.
Miscellaneous stuff that you can print patterns with – we used a potato masher, leaves from the garden, cookie cutters, crumpled paper, and Boo also experimented with her fingers and hands..... as a 2 year old will!

We turned our pattern print into a piece of wrapping paper for a special friend. This is just one of the many ideas in Time to Create, it is a great resource for encouraging art... even if you don't think you are arty!

Time to Create: Hands On Explorations in Process Art for Young Children is now available internationally through all major online booksellers, including The Book Depository, Amazon, Fishpond and Barnes & Noble.

Want to know more about Time to Create? Keep an eye on the following blogs for upcoming stops along our international blog tour...

Picklebums . An Everyday Story . Learn With Play At Home . Octavia & Vicky . Sesame Ellis . Nurturestore . Simple Kids . Our Everyday Things . Rainbows Within Reach . Teach Preschool . At Home With Ali . Go Explore Nature . Not Just Cute . Lessons Learnt Journal . PreK+K Sharing . The Imagination Tree

(I was given a copy of "Time to Create". I was under no obligation to write a post about it. All opinions are my own and I love this book.)

Mistakes made by a Crafty Mama

2013-06-29T21:23:00.000+10:00

Sometimes things don't go to plan and sometimes I do really STUPID things. Here are just a few of my mistakes when doing art and craft with the kids.....

Oh yes that piece of styrofoam is nailed to the table! I kinda forgot to compare the size of the nail to the height of the styrofoam..... a simple and crucial error. BTW no kid was hurt during this activity although I can't say the same for the table.

_________________________

My smile visibly faded during this project. I thought that giving the kids shredded paper to add to their paintings was a brilliant idea. It was a TERRIBLE idea. That stuff goes EVERYWHERE. I am pretty OK with mess as evidenced here but this was something else entirely. To clean up I popped the kids in front of the tv and swept for 45 minutes. Totally not worth the 15 minute painting activity.

_________________________

Seriously... how did I think it was a good idea to give my kids a spray bottle full of watered down red paint INSIDE the house? Somehow I did, they loved it and I nervously jumped from one foot to the other watching a mist of bright red paint settle on my furniture. Strangely I have also let them craft with copious quantities of glitter INSIDE the house.... I think I see a pattern, I may need help!

_________________________

Big-time whoops! Science experiments with white vinegar and bicarbonate of soda are all good but don't do it on the lawn. It kills lawn. Poor, poor Chris who spends so much time tending the lawn and garden... I am sorry.

_________________________

Can't I just leave a good thing alone? Cakey and I were very happily drawing peg people and popping them into slots in a Corn Flakes box boat. I decided to draw vomit of my peg person. I thought it was funny. Cakey DID NOT think it was funny at all.... and that ended that activity.

_________________________

Ahhh, take your eyes off the small child with a large tub of fluorescent pink paint at hand and this WILL happen. She painted her legs too.

_________________________

Do you make crafty mistakes? I would love to hear about it.

Red Ted Art: Cute and Easy Crafts for Kids

2013-06-25T08:17:00.000+10:00

The kids and I were thrilled to receive a copy of Maggy Woodley's book Red Ted Art: Cute and Easy Crafts for Kids. This is a book with something for everyone – it is a book of crafts to make with kids and a book of crafts to make for kids.

PROJECT #1: The first project from the book we set about making were the walnut boats. I bought a bag of walnuts from our local green-grocer. Using a nut cracker I carefully broke one side of the walnut – salvaging the other half to use for a boat.

The girls made flags for the boats using colourful scrapbooking paper, pva glue and toothpicks for the masts.

Maggy suggests filling your little boat with either melted candle wax, Blu-tack or playdough. I gave Boo Blu-tack to squash into her boat while Cakey and I experimented with melting candle wax into the little nuts.

At first I thought it was going to take a long time for the wax to fill the walnut shell but once the candle got going it took no time at all. After doing the first one myself, I handed the candle over to Cakey to fill all the walnut shells. I got the job of holidng the flag in the middle of each boat while the wax dried around it.

We made a handful of walnut boats and then sailed them in a bowl of water. Boo's Blu-tack filled boat sunk.... we called it the shipwreck... and we sailed the wax-filled boats around it. Download the free Walnut boats extract from Red Ted Art: Cute and Easy Crafts for Kids here.

Extracted from Red Ted Art by Maggy Woodley (available in hard copy or as an ebook)

PROJECT #2: As soon as I saw Maggy's Five Little Ducks in the book I really wanted to make them myself! The kids insisted on helping.... so together we chose our rocks from the garden and painted them yellow and white. Each rock got two coats of paint. Once they were dry I drew on their little duckie faces with permanent markers. Our little ducks have been given a home in a blue paper pond.

THE BOOK... There are tonnes of crafty ideas in this beautifully presented book. It is easy to follow with step by step instructions for each project. There are lots of 'my type of crafts' – making fun things from paper, stones and sticks. And.... if you are handy with a needle and thread then you will be happy indeed with gorgeous projects like felt doughnuts and strawberries.

Red Ted Art: Cute and Easy Crafts for Kids is available to order online through Fishpond (with free international shipping). It is also available from some independent book retailers here in Australia so keep your eye out for it. You can purchase an ebook copy from here.

To see more ideas from this fabulous book visit these Australian bloggers who are each featuring a Red Ted Art craft this month. And of course visit Maggy herself at Red Ted Art for more kid craft ideas than you can poke a stick at. :)

Sunday 16 June: Laughing Kids Learn’s Book review
Monday 17 June: One Perfect Day
Tuesday 18 June: Triple T Mum
Friday 21 June: Picklebums
Saturday 22 June: Mummy Musings and Mayhem
Monday 24 June: My Little Bookcase
Tuesday 25 June: At Home with Ali
Wednesday 26 June: Everyday Story
Thursday 27 June: Learn with Play at Home
Thursday 27 June: Lessons Learnt Journal
Friday 28 June: Wildlife Fun 4 Kids

If this is your first visit to At home with Ali – welcome. If you like it, you can follow along via email, RSS, google+ or facebook. You can also find me on Pinterest and Instagram. Cheers Ali

Toilet paper flowers

2013-06-04T20:47:00.001+10:00

We always paint with our watercolours set. I have noticed that when we do something over and over again the kids' attention span starts to wane. Worse still, the time spent painting gets shorter and shorter. I have also noticed that when you change just one aspect of an activity the kids' interest can be totally re-energised.

When I saw an idea in Skye Roger's book Paper Bliss that turns squares of toilet paper into paper roses I knew what I could do to re-invigorate watercolour painting.

Our Micador watercolour set came out and I grabbed a toilet paper roll. I cut a circle from each square of toilet paper. It might sound strange but the kids were intrigued. I asked them if they would like to paint on my cut toilet paper circles... they did. It took them a little while to realise they had to be gentle with the toilet paper. Their brushes kept tearing the paper. They soon got the hang of it and began dabbing the paint on and watching it bleed into the paper.

The girls painted many, many circles of toilet paper. We laid them all over the dining room table to dry. I didn't get a chance to paint as I was too busy cutting circles to keep them in supply.

After the paper had dried I stacked the circles in piles of four. I pushed a paper fastener through the stack and then scrunched each layer until I had a rose shape. We arranged them in a vase and they are sitting on the mantlepiece.

Linked to Kids Get Crafty

Team Tag – Simple Cars and Crayons

2013-05-30T07:53:00.000+10:00

Today I have a little surprise for you. The contributors to Childhood 101 are playing a team tag game where we are sending readers on a journey through the blogosphere. So it is with great pleasure that I introduce to you fellow contributor, Kate from Picklebums. Today you can find me over at Octavia and Vicky with an energetic improvisation game for kids.

Kate is an early childhood educator and Mum of four, who lives on a small property called ‘The Pickle Farm’ in rural Australia. Kate writes about all sorts of wonderful things from gentle parenting, gardening, family food to fun printables for the kids. Thanks for being here today Kate. (follow the link at the bottom of the post to join our game of tag)
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There are times when I need a quick and easy activity to engage one or two of my kids while I attend to something, or someone else. I don't have time to set up a fancy art activity, or create an elaborate imaginative play scene. What I need is something that is quick to set up, easy to clean up and that even my toddler can do independently. And sometimes, these quick and easy, spare of the moment activities turn out to be really great... this was one of those times!

I just needed ten minutes to have a sane, adult, phone conversation. I needed something new and interesting to engage my five year old and something the toddler could also join in with. It had to be an activity where they could work side by side, together, but still with enough space to do their own thing.

I thought for a moment... what is one thing they both like right now? And how can I present that in a different, but easy to set up way? Then I had a brainwave!

I got out the long roll of paper and spread it right along our large dining table, from end to end.

I grabbed the big box of pastels and dumped them in the middle of the paper.

I grabbed a handful of cars and popped them on the paper too.

Then I drew a road down the middle of the paper as the boys watched me.

That was it.

It didn't take the boys long to get in on the action...

Noah (who is two) drove cars up and down the road, while Morgan (who is five) drew car parking spaces, trees and an airport.

After I'd made my phone call and wandered back in I discovered both boys busy drawing their own roads and other items, creating elaborate imaginative play scenarios, making car noises and playing together happily.

I tucked this super simple idea away in a corner of my brain and have used it a few times since. We revisited the cars idea and also had lots of fun with drawing things for our wooden people. Even the big girls (nine year old twins) got in on the action when we combined Lego with the drawing.

I'd love to hear your ideas for super simple play that really hits the spot for your kids!

(You can find Kate on her blog, facebook, pinterest and twitter.)

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Thanks so much Kate for your super simple and fun idea. To keep the team tag going pop over and visit me at Octavia and Vicky. I have been dying to share our improvisation game.... exploring creativity in a different way. And then keep going and visit all the blogs in the team tag. There might be a new one to discover! Cheers Ali xx

10 more things to do with a 2 year old

2013-05-15T21:26:00.007+10:00

I have been overwhelmed and awed by the response to my post – 10 things to do with a 2 year old at home...... so I decided to do a second instalment before Boo hits the big 3. I hope you find some ideas here to entertain your busy 2 year old... even if it only last a few minutes!!!

1. Sorting pom poms

Moving pom poms or small objects from container to container is very popular in our house. Adding a spoon or a scoop adds an extra challenge.

2. Grow something edible

We watch it grow, check for interesting bugs that often get there first and finally pick it and eat it (if bug free). You only need a tiny bit of room to get growing!

3. Thread with pipe-cleaners

Long pipe-cleaners are perfect for little fingers to thread through holes punched in paper card. My 2 year old also likes to use the hole puncher to make holey paper.

4. Play hat shop

Lay out every hat in the house. Set up a cash register... use a toy one or make your own. Our homemade cash register is an egg carton with slots cut into the lid to feed coins into. I always add a few paper bags so that Boo can package up the sold bags.

5. Make a small world on a tray

We use a playdough base and then add whatever elements are popular on the day. Our latest small world (below) is a fairy inspired world with shells, rocks, fairy figurines, unicorns, sticks and a light sprinkle of glitter.

6. Go exploring with homemade binoculars

These binoculars are easy to make and great to take on an adventure. Cover the ends of two cardboard rolls with cellophane and tape them together. You can also add a string so they can be easily carried.

7. Make some sponge decorations

This is always popular in our house. I cut shapes from cheap soft sponges. Boo paints the sponge shapes with pva glue and dips them in glitter. Sometimes we turn the glittery sponges into puppets by gluing on a wooden skewer.

8. Do some print making

This is very simple print making. My trusty plastic tray with a raised edge is perfect for this sort of art activity.... I place a couple of dollops of watercolour paint on the tray, add some water and then let Boo mix it all together. Lay a sheet of paper over the paint and lift it off to see your creation. It is all about the reveal!!!

9. Make a bead oyster

Tape two paper plates together. Add a pool of pva glue inside the paper plates and let your little one add the treasure. We use beads and buttons, but of course these are a choking hazard so I have to supervise very carefully. If you are worried, substitute beads for small pieces of paper. Once the glue is dry, you can close them up so that the oyster's treasure is hidden.

10. Try a little science

We have done this many times and it is always fun. Add bicarbonate of soda to a container/jar containing a mix of white vingear and food colouring. Stir and watch it fizz..... supervision is needed of course. You can play around with varying quantities to see the reactions.

I would love to hear your ideas for keeping 2 year olds happy and entertained. It can be a tough job sometimes!

And now for some useful links:

A newly discovered blog for me that has tonnes of ideas for play is Fun at home with kids. I particularly like this water transfer challenge post.
For reggio inspired art activities for toddlers visit An Everyday Story.
If your child likes sensory play check out this post by Small Potatoes.
The places on Pinterest to visit for tonnes of ideas are For the littlies, Sensory Play is so much fun and Playdough magic.

A Castle Cake for a Princess Party

2013-04-30T22:28:00.000+10:00

Cakey wanted a princess theme for her 5th birthday party. With her agreement we changed it to a castle theme to make it a little more open-ended and boy-friendly. I really had no idea what to do for the cake until my mother pulled out her old copy of the Women's Weekly Children's Birthday Cake Book. Inside was a castle cake that I thought that I could make.

I am not that great in the kitchen. Normally for birthdays, I bake a round cake and decorate it with sweets. This castle cake was going to be my very first fancy cake. I used my usual kid party cake recipe from Donna Hay, this recipe makes a solid cake which is easy to ice and decorate.

Recipe for one basic vanilla cake:
2.5 cups of plain flour, sifted
1.5 teaspoons of baking powder, sifted
1.25 cups of caster sugar (Donna's recipe actually calls for 1.75 cups of sugar but it is way too sweet)
250g butter, melted
4 eggs
1.25 cups of milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Beat all ingredients until smooth. The mixture is quite runny. Pour the mixture into a lined and greased cake tin. Bake at 160 degrees C (320F) for 1 hour and 15 minutes or until cooked when tested with a skewer. I made two of these cakes in a 22cm square tin. I made each cake from scratch because after many baking failures I have finally learned not to double a recipe.

Bake two square cakes

I made a large quantity of fluffy butter cream icing in a pale pink. (I also had extra icing ingredients in the pantry in case I needed to make more.)

Butter cream icing
250g butter, softened
2 cups of icing sugar mixture, sifted
2 tablespoons of milk
Beat the butter with an electric beater until very pale and creamy. Beat in the icing sugar, milk and food colouring.

Now the construction... I chose the flattest cake for the castle's base. I covered it with a thin layer of icing. I squared off the second cake and cut out four, mostly equal, squares for the castle towers. I placed the cake squares (towers) on each corner, the icing acted like a glue.

Cut out four equal, flat squares for the castle towers

At this point Chris took the kids to the park so they wouldn't hear my swearing as I tried to ice the castle cake. I found the joints between the base and the square towers very difficult to ice. In the end I disguised my messy icing with strategically placed liquorice all-sorts, smarties and freckles.

Ice the cake and use ice cream comes for the turrets

Next the turrets... using tall ice cream cones. I placed the cones on top of the iced cake towers. According to the photo in the Women's Weekly the ice cream cones are completely covered in icing. I could NOT get the icing to cover the cones. In the end I only iced the bases of the cones and left the rest of the cones/turrets plain.

We needed some little flags to finish off the turrets. I cut four flag shapes from a piece of folded over paper. I glued the paper flags onto toothpicks and carefully poked the sharp end of each toothpick into the top of each turret. I added candles and I was done. Yay! For her 6th birthday Cakey will be getting a round cake decorated with sweets.....

Getting creative with kids

2013-04-14T21:05:00.002+10:00

I often find that I set up art and craft for the kids, get them started and then quietly disappear to do something super-exciting like washing the dishes. I like to draw and paint too... why do they get to have all the fun!!! After all, I desperately want to find the time to draw and create. If I wait until the kids are tucked into bed I am just too tired to do much of anything.

So lately I have been setting up projects that I want to do and amazingly enough the kids love it. This is one of those projects. I felt the need for some simple watercolour painting. Out came the brushes, paint and paper. Out came two small children eager to see what I was doing.

Unlike my children my imagination is old and tired. Visions of unicorns, rainbows and fairies don't come easily to me, I need a little bit of inspiration to get me started. For this project I raided the fruit bowl for some unsuspecting fruit for a still life.

Cakey's banana, capscium and potato

Boo's fruit and veg

Cakey's strawberries and eggplant

The three of us sat very happily painting fruit. It wasn't long before their imaginations let loose, painting fruits and vegetables that we did not have (ie. strawberries and eggplant) and then moving to rainbow rain and beyond. I stuck with the fruit. When they got hungry little bite marks started appearing in the still life!

I have done this many times now and the kids always want to join in. Sometimes they want to do exactly what I am doing and sometimes they use the materials in their own way. So I say 'let those dishes pile up'.

Visit Tinkerlab and the Artful Genius if you would like some motivation to get a little bit creative every day. Visit the House that Lars built and Geninne's Art blog if you would like some inspiration.

If this is your first visit to At home with Ali – welcome. If you like it, you can follow along via email, RSS, google+ or facebook. You can also find me on Pinterest and Instagram. Cheers Ali

Outdoor play kitchen

2013-04-03T22:11:00.000+11:00

Many months ago we found an old cabinet on the side of the road. It was in pretty bad shape – peeling paint, dirty orange contact covering the wooden shelves and a weird asymmetry to the legs. We brought it home, set it up on our patio and pondered what to do with it. I decided to turn it into a play kitchen for Boo. I thought it would be a fun project for us to do together.

The BEFORE picture

Boo and her playgroup friend helped me wash the cabinet. They had great fun dousing it with sudsy water. It did occur to me that I should strip off the old paint and then sand the cabinet but I am way too impatient for that sort of thing. I did however strip off the old orange contact from the shelves.

How did I miss the right leg????

Boo and I took a trip to the hardware store where she chose the paint colour. We also went on a little trip to our local material shop so Boo could pick out some material for the curtain I wanted installed. She chose the first material she saw and would not be swayed.

I painted the cabinet during nap-time. I was super fast, so fast that I missed an entire leg of the cabinet.... which I only noticed when I downloaded these photos. Whoops!

The curtain was attached using plastic tubing and cable pins

Chris made some curtains for the bottom shelf. We attached the curtain by threading a piece of plastic tubing through a sewn loop. The plastic tubing was then nailed into place using cable pins (one on each side and one in the middle). When it was finished the kids and I loaded in all our play kitchen equipment.... and the girls set about preparing a pretend feast.

In the future, I would like to paint one side of the cabinet with blackboard paint so the kids can write/draw up their menu. I would also like to add a rail on the other side to hang tea towels.

There are lots of ways to turn old or unused furniture into pretend play kitchen pieces, here are two of my favourites:

DIY Modern Play Kitchen from small + friendly, this is an amazing kitchen, way better than our simple cabinet and way better than any of the commercial play kitchens I have seen.
Play Oven from A Little Learning of Two, another amazing example of upcycling.

Another Chicken World

2013-03-20T21:45:00.001+11:00

"I just laid an egg!"

We haven't done any little world play in ages. The lovely Megan from Coffee Cups and Crayons reminded me of all our little world play and I got inspired to set something up for Boo.

As it is Easter I got out all the ingredients for a Chicken World.... a shoebox lid, a batch of light green playdough (recipe at the end of the post), a box of little Easter chicks, a handful of bottletops, matchsticks, beads and little pieces of tissue paper for chicken food.

We started off filling the shoebox lid with playdough. Boo pushed all the matchsticks into the playdough creating fences to keep the chickens in. She gave them little beds (bottle tops) and put them to bed.... and then the chickens got hungry. We fed them beads and tissue paper from a small bowl – so delicious for fuzzy chicks.

Chickens in bed

The packaging on the box of chickens had pictures of eggs and flowers. We cut them out and popped them into the little world. Both Cakey and Boo loved playing with this little world. It is still on the dining room table. The playdough has gone a little crusty but the chicks are happy – they are well fed and loved.

The farmer is checking on the chickens

Playdough recipe: 2 cups of plain flour, half cup of table salt (not cooking salt, it will make the playdough grainy), 2 tablespoons of cream of tartar, 2 tablespoons of oil. Mix the ingredients with 1 and a 1/3 cups of boiling water coloured with food colouring. Knead with a little extra flour.

If your kids like little world play they might like these activities:

Arctic Ice Play from Pre-school Play
Little Frog World from The Imagination Tree
Mermaid's Lagoon from Small Potatoes
Little Worlds and Miniatures Pinterest Board

Linked to The Sunday Showcase, It's Playtime and Kids Get Crafty

Easter glitter eggs

2013-03-13T22:40:00.000+11:00

Glitter eggs - we have made them before and we will make them again because they are FUN. I first saw this idea on sew and the city, her glitter eggs are perfectly smooth and gorgeous. Ours are not quite so gorgeous but we love them :)

To make glitter Easter eggs with kids, you will need:

Styrofoam eggs
Glitter
Pva glue
Wooden skewers

I skewered each styrofoam egg onto a wooden skewer. I also provided a tub of pva glue and a tub of glitter. The girls used a paintbrush to cover the styrofoam eggs with glue. They then dipped and twirled them in the tub of glitter. This method does not give a smooth and all-over glitter effect.... but it is achievable and fun for the kids. (For a perfect finish you need to pour glitter over your rotating egg after applying a thin layer of glue.)

As each egg was finished they were popped into a sturdy glass jug to dry. The kids applied a fairly thick layer of glue to some of the eggs – the glue and glitter did start to run down the eggs leaving a streaky effect.

The eggs drying

The glue and glitter started to run down the egg as it dried... making an interesting effect

Once the eggs were completely dry I sprayed them with hair spray so that glitter wouldn't float all over the house!

If you are interested in more Easter craft have a look at our Rainbow chicken house. And if you want some egg decoration inspiration check out all the ideas over at Alisa Burke.

Linked to Tuesday Tots and It's Playtime