Make Your Own Pop Up Cards

This week we celebrated Daddy's 40th birthday so with much excitement two little girls made their own cards to give to him. Miss M (4.1) and I decided that it would be fun to try making a pop up card so it would be extra special for such an occasion.

We googled how to make pop-up cards and found this great tutorial with easy to follow instructions. Then we watched this tutorial so we knew how to decorate it. Making the card didn't take long at all and the finished product was super. (I'm a bit biased!!) Instead of using the glue to make ours we used a strong double sided tape as I don't always trust a glue stick to hold cardboard in place.

As Daddy opened his card on the morning of his birthday he got a wonderful surprise - there was a picture of him riding his surfboard on a big wave and on the front of the card he found a picture of our family.

Maybe your kids could try making a pop up card for someone you know or why not try out some special designs for Christmas.

A Little Bit of Cute

Look what delightful play items we found at the treasure shop today - a lovely kid's washing line and an old fashioned washing trolley. ($4 for the line. $5 for the trolley.)

Wet washing hanging on the line.

Drying very quickly when the weather's fine.

Along comes the wind and blows it all about.

Flip, flap, flip, flap, floating in and out.

Composer: Liz Olsen

Publisher: ABC Music

Five Creative Ideas with Cookie Cutters

We collect cookie cutters. Sometimes we find a few when we go on treasure hunts and add them to our container and I have some great ones I have been given as gifts or have purchased over the years. Here are five creative things that can be done with cookie cutters....

1 + Play with play dough +

There is nothing better than having a big blob of play dough kept in the fridge ready for use at any time. We use all kinds of different things with our dough but I like to have the cookie cutters available for a spur of the moment play dough play. This recipe is perfect for play with cutters.

2 + Bake some biscuits +

Here's an easy peasy recipe we like to use for baking biscuits and here it is being used with cutters. Cookie cutters are great for little hands that like to help with cooking.

3 + Print on paper +

Printing with cookie cutters is easy to do and the effect is so wonderful you can use what you create to make wrapping paper. Put some acrylic paint (we use washable) onto trays or disposable plates. Dip the cookie cutters into the paint and print onto sheets of paper. We like the effect of printing on brown paper. Any size paper will work. Why not try making some beautiful gift cards.

4 + Trace around +

With this activity we took three sheets of crisp white easel paper and joined them together with tape. I tipped the cookie cutters out and the girls used felt pens to trace around the shapes. This was a good activity to do while I cooked the dinner. The girls were kept busy creating.

5 + Sandwich shapes +

Making sandwich shapes from cookie cutters is as simple as buttering the bread, adding the filling and making shapes in the bread using cutters. I find the best bread for this is the bread you can purchase at the supermarket. As lovely as fresh bread from the bakery is, the bread shape doesn't allow for many cutter shapes and you want to try and get the most out of the bread without wastage. Of course there isn't any wastage in this house as I'm happy to eat the in-between bits, especially when it's fairy bread!!

For an even prettier shape you can use tiny cutters to cut the centre out of the top shape which will reveal the spread. Jam looks particularly good. If only I could put my hands on our tiny cutters after our move!

We play games with our sandwich shapes. We count them and talk about their shapes. We sing songs and guess which ones are the odd ones out. I enjoy presenting the girls lunch creatively, the girls learn something in amongst the fun and hopefully the sandwiches look good enough to eat. Cookie cutter lunches don't just have to be reserved for party time.

Playing Along - A Play Treat

The girls and I are playing along with everyone over at Childhood 101 We Play today.


This isn't exactly the healthiest game idea but boy we had fun playing it! I've been out of action now for a few days with neck, back and head pain and daddy has been taking over the daily role of "director of fun". Today was his first day back at work so I had to resume my role and this is the game we came up with - a cake and lolly shop.

Can you see our teeny tiny cakes, gummy bears (over sized), lolly pops, donuts and our yummy chocolate cake? There's lots for sale in our cake and lolly shop and as I found out, it's all pretty expensive. I payed 50 million dollars for a few lollies and a cake for a birthday party!!

Come and play at the Childhood 101 We Play link up!

Making Stamped Cards - Creating a Gift

Yesterday I posted that we were making our own stamps to create some thank you cards for friends. At the time the stamps were happily drying in the sun. By the afternoon they were ready for the stamping fun and the girls were able to create beautiful and very colourful homemade printed cards.

Stamping Printed Cards

You will need...

Plain cards - I buy these from a craft shop, cut to size but you could just as easily use paper or cardboard you have to cut yourself.
Acrylic paint - we used Crayola washable paints
Paint trays - we used plastic plates. Take-away container lids are also great.
Stamps - we used our homemade stamps!!!

Pour the paint onto the paint trays - we put one colour on each plate and spread it out.
On each paint tray we then placed a stamp. This made sure that the colours stayed fresh.
Begin by dipping the stamps into the paint and then placing them on the card.
I lay our cards out flat so the girls would only put the prints on one side. It also gave them more space to be creative.
The folding and writing can come later when our printed cards are dry.

And here they are...

These are our homemade cards to say a BIG thank you to our very special, giving and helpful friends.

Do you like to get your kids to make gifts for their friends and family? What have they created? I'd love to hear your ideas!

Making Stamps - Creating a Gift

Recently we've had new friends and wonderful old friends (separately) do some amazing things for our family. Each act of kindness was to bless the girls but really through their kindness we have all been blessed in various ways.

Their kindess has prompted us to give a thank you back and considering that the gifts were for the girls, I thought it would be great if the thank you's came from them. We have started a two part process of making our very own thank you cards using homemade stamps. The girls made the stamps this morning and this afternoon will use them to decorate cards. I'm excited to see how they will turn out and I think the girls may enjoy using something they have designed to make other creative things.

Making Stamps

You will need....

Small blocks/ off-cuts of wood

Various raised collage items - bubble wrap, milk bottle lids, pipe cleaners etc are some of the things we used - look for interesting textures and shapes.

PVA glue

Making stamps is easy enough to do. Simply attach a collage item to one side of a block of wood using the PVA glue then repeat the process 'till you've made as many stamps as you would like. Some items like pipe cleaners may need added weight on top while they dry. This will stop them from springing up.

Here are some of our homemade stamps. I'll show you our thank you card creations tomorrow.