Craft: Creating easter eggs using food colouring

For a little one-on-one time with "Popette" yesterday, I thought it would be fun to make some colourful easter eggs using food colouring.

All you need is:

• Hard Boiled or Blown Out Eggs
• Food Coloring (be careful as ours left stains!)
• Vinegar
• Water
• Spoon

Instructions:

For our craft I used blown out eggs. If you don't like the idea of blowing out eggs, you could always use hard boiled eggs.

How to blow out an egg:

I first washed the eggs under running water to get rid of any stickyness.

Then using a needle made a hole in the top and bottom of the egg. To get mine made quickly, and please an eager "Popette", I made the holes quite large so when I blew out the eggs yolk it ran out more easily.

After emptying out the eggs, I gave them another quick clean with some hand wash detergent, and let them dry in an empty egg carton.

Making up the colours:

Using room temperature water add a 1/2 cup of water into a mug with a 1 tablespoon of vinegar. We made three colours, Red, Blue and Yellow, so made up 3 mugs with water & vinegar. Then "Popette" and I added about 20 drops of our preferred food coloring.

Gently place your egg in the mug of food coloring. Then slowly stir or let it sit in the colouring, watching it carefully. When you are happy with the shade of colour pull it out and leave on some paper towel or place in an empty egg carton.

Because I made the wholes in the eggs a little large, a whole lot of food colouring came pouring out so having the egg cartons can be handy to catch any drips!

With the leftover colours I set "Popette" up with some art paper and brushes, and let her make some paintings...two crafts out of one!

Weekend escape to Canberra

On Friday Hubby and I took the girls away for short stay in Canberra. We had been craving a quick getaway, and the chance to see the Toulouse-Lautrec exhibition currently showing at the National Gallery of Australia. Hubby & I used to love weekends away as a couple, and would often zip away for a night or two to Canberra or the Hunter Valley...how things change when you have kids. The last time we went to Canberra was when I was about 3 months pregnant with "Cherub", so it was lovely to take both the girls (even though the drive there took longer than usual, with the 3 stops we made on the way!) away and enjoy the different scenery.

Here's a little collage of our trip:

"Popette" loved running outside the gallery, sitting under the different countries flags, had fun making a shadow puppet in the family activity room inside the exhibition (great idea) and playing at a local park.

All in all a lovely little break from the usual routine.

Watch this space...

For a while now I've been thinking about what I want from my blog. I originally started blogging as a way to express my thoughts on motherhood and document the day-to-day happenings of my firstborn "Popette". Over this past year blogging became more than that, and took me away from what was important.

I want blogging to be something I enjoy and not become a chore (I have enough of those already!). I want it to remain as a way for me to be creative (especially when I don't get the time to do anything else) where I can see instant results in the creativity, unlike my unfinished artworks that are waiting for me to dedicate time to them.

I don't write blog posts to make money, or monetise my blog. It's always been just for me, and to be about my girls (and maybe the occasional craft post or recipe).

While I enjoyed writing for Kidspot’s ‘52 weeks of grateful’ challenge last year, it meant I hadn't written that much about my girls. It also chewed up a lot of time that I should have been spending with them. It made me miss important time with both of them, especially my bubba "Cherub", who is growing up at such a fast rate and entering into the world of toddlerhood and out of that sweet bubba stage.

Thinking about it now, I guess I used blogging as a way for me to escape "Mummyhood" for just a little while.

This year I made the decision not to participate in Kidspot's "Grateful" challenge.  Instead I am focussing my attention on blog posts about my girls (they are a subject close to my heart, and is what started me blogging in the first place), the occasional ‘grateful’ post (as I did find it therapeutic and it helped me "see" what I was grateful for in my life even if I didn't realise it at the time), craft activities “Popette” and I make together and the occasional topic that interests me.

I hope you will stay with me on this journey of rediscovery, and pop by to say Hi or leave me your comments (which are always much appreciated).

So for the time being, watch this space!

Craft: Playdough prints

"Popette" & I make some fun prints on Friday using old pieces of playdough and paint.

If you have old pieces of playdough thats dried up, and think it should be tossed out. Don't toss it out. Instead, you can create this fun craft with the kids.

All you need is:

Old playdough
Roller
Tools such as playdough cutters and patterns
Watercolour paints
Paint brushes
Art Paper

"Popette" adding a splash of colour

How to make a print:

We first used something to roll out the playdough, then made some patterns in the playdough. (We used some of "Popette's" playdough cutters and tools).

Then covered the playdough in a watery paint, and finally pressed down a piece of paper on top!

"Popette" thought it was great fun, and enjoyed making patterns in the playdough and painting the playdough.


Another print where we drew pictures and used playdough shapes

I just hope she doesn't dry out her new playdough on purpose, so she can do some more printing!

Teething woes

Poor little Cherub has been so miserable these past few days. She's had 4 teeth come through all at the same time, on top of a nasty cold...I'm pretty sure teething and colds go hand in hand.

Cherub fast asleep after her visit to the doctors

I was only telling Hubby a week or so ago how lucky we were with Cherub that she hadn't had a terrible time with teething, and then this week happened! Poor little mite.

For the past few days, Cherub's been having terribly high temperatures, the highest got to 39.1 on Monday which scared the living daylights out of Hubby & I, and resulted in a quick trip to the medical centre to see the doctor we had only seen hours earlier. At the time, Cherub was also having diarrhea, so the Dr thought it was a gastro bug...Hubby and I think its all teeth related.

The doctor suggested we keep her on Panadol and Children's Neurofen, so for most part of the day my sweet girl is taking medicine to keep her temperature down.

I really hate teething (I remember writing this post about Popette), it's so horrible seeing them in so much pain, and not being able to do enough to help them. She doesn't want to take her meds, she doesn't want to suck on a teething toy, doesn't want bonjela or teething tablets...everything gets a big crying attack, or gets pushed away.

While I love her to bits, I'm sick of her crying and just want my happy little bubba back.

I really hope the teeth pop through quickly, and she returns to my sweet little Cherub. I hate seeing her like this.

How do you cope with teething?

Craft: Paper roll Owls

I found this cute craft on the Internet, and thought I'd make it with "Popette" on the weekend. They are cute little owls made out of paper rolls.

Such an easy and affordable craft to make with the little ones. I'm always stashing a few paper towel rolls, or toilet rolls away in the craft box.

All you need is:

Plain toilet or paper towel rolls
Glue
Scissors
Coloured paper (or Textas, Pencils or Paint if you want to be extra creative!)
Stick-on Googly eyes

You can either paint or cover the paper rolls with any coloured paper you have lying around. We decided to use coloured paper for covering the body, for the owl's wings and beak, along with some googly eyes.

How to make the owls:

I rougly measured out how much coloured paper I needed by lining up the toilet roll against the paper, then "Popette" and I got busy gluing down the paper onto the owls bodies.

"Popette" sticking on the coloured paper

To make the wings, draw a large eye or leaf shape on a doubled-over piece of paper, so when you cut it out you have two exact size shapes for the wings.

Cut out a little triangle in yellow or orange paper for the owls beak (or you could draw it on in texta or pencil) and stick on to the body.

Then pinch the top of the paper roll a little to form the owls ears. (You can cut the roll to form the ears, I tried both types, but think the folded option looks neater)

Then glue on the wings, and stick on the googly eyes.

There you have it. A cute little owl.

Here are our owls!

Hoot-hoot!