Halloween and Autumnal Crafts from Baker Ross

We really enjoy receiving arts and craft goodies from Baker Ross and our latest delivery of Halloween and Autumnal craft kits has provided Freddy and the friends, with lots of creative fun!

We received  the following selection to try out:

Top Hat Craft Kit  Pack of 3 £2.70

Day of the Dead Foam Stickers Pack of 105 £2.99

Scratch Art Haunted Houses Pack of 8 £2.95

Woodland Animals Cross Stitch Pack of 5 £3.49

Hedgehog Cushion Sewing Set Pack of 2 £4.70

Year of the Monkey Stained Glass Monkey Decorations Pack of 6 £3.96

Wooden Trophy Magnets Pack of 8 £2.79

The Baker Ross craft kits contain almost everything required to create some lovely crafted pieces. With impressive end results, they allow children to feel confident in their creativity and help develop their skills. Freddy really loves to invite his friends over to share the fun and help him to test out the Craft-it! sets. Having a Craft Party is a great idea for entertaining children, and the Baker Ross sets lend themselves perfectly to this.

The first activity they enjoyed was the Scratch Art Haunted Houses. The pack includes 8 black house shapes and the tools for scratching away the top surface. Underneath the black is a shiny holographic style, silver design, which contrasts really well giving a striking effect.

The top layer scratches away really nicely so you don't damage the under layer when creating your design. Once completed, the houses are made free-standing by slotting in semi-circular cardboard feet. This was a little bit fiddly as the slotted feet are quite easily ripped, but with an adult's help the display of Haunted Houses made a dramatic and spooky Halloween scene!

This year is the Chinese Year of the Monkey. The Stained Glass Monkey Decorations are a lovely way to celebrate that fact. The set comprises of 8 pre-cut monkey shapes in black card, with push out, pre-cut holes. There is also a bag of coloured cellophane squares in assorted colours and some ribbons for attaching to the hanging decoration.

You need to use glue to attach pieces of cellophane to the back of the monkey shape, which show through the holes in the design. The boys enjoyed doing this, but it was very messy with glue going everywhere! They made some very colourful (and very sticky) monkeys that look very pretty hung in front of a window with the light shining through.

Older children would be able to take more time and cut smaller pieces of cellophane to make a more multi-coloured and neater effect. But even when done by a 4 year old and a 6 year old, the end results are still pretty good!

The Day of the Dead range of products on the Baker Ross website is absolutely brilliant. I love the colours and the designs. The set of self adhesive Day of the Dead foam stickers are lovely. There are 35 assorted designs including skulls, guitars, hearts, flowers and maracas in each pack of 105 stickers. They lend themselves to a whole host of crafting activities from card making to decorating jewellery boxes or photo frames.

The boys used them to decorate some cool Halloween Top Hats.

The Top Hat making kit comprises of pre-cut, thick black cardboard pieces that are glued together to make the rim and the top of the hat. There was no way the boys could do this unaided so the adults stepped in!  Given time and a good glue and something to hold everything together while it dried, I think you could make a pretty good and sturdy top hat. However, trying to get it done quickly so the boys could get sticking with their Day of the Dead stickers, meant the end results were not as good as they could be. This is not an activity to be rushed.

The materials themselves are good quality and well cut. In hindsight, I think using glue dots would have been a better way of assembling the hat. The hats would be a good addition to a Halloween costume and can be personalised using any decorations you like.

Freddy and his friends decorated their hats with the Day of the Dead stickers and they looked pretty cool and ready for a Halloween party! The foam stickers have a peel off back making them easy to stick on. They are such good quality and give an impressive effect.

As ever with Baker Ross, I was impressed with the quality and the designs of the finished crafts. I love that everything comes pre-cut or pre-punched and ready to use with minimum preparation needed. Almost everything you need is included, we just used our own glue and scissors to complete the crafts. The activities are quite straightforward and can be completed by children with varying degrees of skill. Even the youngest children will be able to participate in many of the crafts with supervision, while older kids can unleash their creativity independently and put their own artistic spin on the finished results.

Baker Ross products, including the ones we tried out, can  be found on their website at www.bakerross.co.uk.

Father's Day Crafts from Baker Ross

When it comes to special occasions, nothing beats a homemade gift from a child who loves you. Knowing that they have put in their time and effort to create something special makes them the most precious of presents to receive.

For Father's Day, Baker Ross have a brilliant range of crafting goodies to help children make something really special for their dads. Freddy received some of the sets and we hosted an after school get together with his cousins to try them out. 

The things we tested out included:

Father's Day Foam Stickers: pack of 120 £2.99

Tie Book Mark Kit: pack of 4 £2.99

Toolbox Photo Frame Kit: pack of 4 reduced from £3.96 to £1.99

Car Wooden Desk Tidy Kit: pack of 3 £3.45

Father's Day Car Cards: pack of 8 £1.99

With Baker Ross products, you know you are getting a brilliantly thought out craft activity containing everything needed to make something that looks great. With pre-cut foam pieces and self-adhesive stickers, many of the kits are really easy and straightforward to do. Children just need to add their own artistic flair to make a design that their dads will love.

The children seemed to really enjoy doing the crafts for their dads. They don't always stick religiously to the instructions, but they all put their own unique spin on the activities to create unique gifts. The foam stickers were stuck on with some wild abandon at times, but this makes the gifts even more unique!

We particularly loved the Father's Day self-adhesive foam stickers. With shapes such as guitars, ties, lap tops, footballs, moustaches, newspapers, remote controls, power tools, golf clubs and PS3 controllers, there are designs to match any dad's personality. There are also slogan stickers with phrases such as 'World's Best Dad' and 'King for the Day', which are ideal for card making. We used the stickers to personalise the car shaped wooden desk tidy, which we filled with sweets to make a lovely gift. Alternatively, you could use paints to create a unique design on the easy to assemble 3D wooden car.

The tool box photo frames will grace any dad's desk and will look fabulous with a family photo inserted. They look really cool once completed and are a lot of fun to make with the assortment of self-adhesive tools to stick on around the foam frame. The frame is free standing, slotting into a base.

The tie bookmarks come in four different designs and the 'Dad Rocks' one complete with a guitar sticker is perfect for Ian. The other designs include sports, a race car theme and a #1 Dad design. They would be a perfect additional gift if buying a book for dad this Father's Day.

The colour in car cards come in three designs; a camper van, a Mini and a race car. They can be coloured in with felt tips, crayons, pencils or paints and come complete with envelopes. 

Seeing how proud Freddy was to have made his daddy a selection of such lovely gifts was a delight. He and his cousins carried out the crafts with such enthusiasm and really enjoyed creating the things that they made.  There are going to be two very happy daddies on Father's Day!

Find all these Father's Day craft packs plus hundreds of other themed craft ideas and accessories at www.bakerross.co.uk.

Hosting a Craft Party with Baker Ross

We received a brilliant delivery from Baker Ross this week and so we organised a crafting party for Freddy and his cousins to try their hand at some fabulously arty activities.  I love Baker Ross's craft kits. They are excellent quality products that create great end results that the kids can be proud of.

I covered the dining room table in an old plastic tablecloth and laid out the craft sets along with some extra paints, glue, paint brushes and scissors. The kids tried their hand at decorating their own rainbow fish, making mermaid bookmarks, painting garden gnomes, making scratch art monster fridge magnets and decorating little Superhero themed gift bags that we filled with chocolate coins for them to take home along with all the other things they made.

Crafting is great for children. Not only does it fire their creativity, it also helps develop their concentration, their dexterity, their hand eye co-ordination and their ability to follow instructions. The children have lots of fun as they involve themselves in some constructive activities, which teach them lots of new skills.

We received the following sets:

Ceramic Gnomes
£4.96 for 4

Decorate with acrylic paints or ceramic paint pens and personalise with a name. These gnomes are suitable for inside and outdoors and look really cute with their pointed hats and big boots.

The children really went freestyle on their colourful designs and enjoyed getting messy with paint. Freddy used googly eyes on his gnome, and later when it was dry, he wrote his name on the plaque with a Sharpie Marker.

Polystyrene Fish
£2.49 for 6

Decorate your own colourful fish with Deco Pens, sequins and glitter. This activity goes perfectly with a reading of the story of the Rainbow Fish. Children will love to re-enact the story of the Rainbow Fish with their own multi-coloured fish.

Their is some lovely detail on the fish with its scales, fins, tail, mouth and eyes. The polystyrene is very solid with a close weave so it didn't have that cringey feeling that you get with the polystyrene used for packaging. The fish could be suspended on strings to make a lovely mobile or underwater diorama.

Mermaid Weaving Bookmarks
£3.49 for 4

Foam shapes, self-adhesive foam decorations, coloured ribbon and googly eyes are included in each individual kit, to create a colourful mermaid with a woven tail. This is a lovely activity and the finished bookmarks look really pretty.

I really appreciated the fact that the things needed for each mermaid came in its own individual, sealed bag.  This means you don't need to sort through lots of stuff beforehand. You get spare eyes in each pack too, so you don't need to panic if you lose one! Weaving with ribbons is a bit fiddly, but with a little help, everyone did a great job.

Tropical Fish Cushion Sewing Kit
£2.99 for 2

With pre-punched felt pieces, self-adhesive felt shapes, yarn, plastic needle and stuffing, children can create their very own Blue Tang and Clown Fish (aka Dory and Nemo!)  It's a great introduction to sewing for children aged 5+.

Monster Scratch Art Fridge Magnets
£2.99 for 10

This is a fantastic activity comprising of 2 each of five designs of scratch art monster shapes along with scratch tools and adhesive magnets. As the top surface is scratched away it reveals rainbow colours, creating some cool designs. Once the design is completed, the magnet can be stuck on the back.

This was a lovely activity that gave some great results. Everybody enjoyed scraping away the top surface to reveal the colours underneath.  It was very easy and very satisfying to do, using the tools provided.

Super Hero Foam Stickers
£2.99 for 120

With 30 assorted designs including girl and boy superheroes, city skylines and 'Wham' and 'Pow' emblems, these self adhesive foam stickers are great fun.  We used them to decorate gift bags, but they are perfect for all kinds of activities.

It was lovely to see both male and female superheroes in the designs. It kept everyone happy!  The foam stickers really are great value and would be really useful for hosting a Superhero birthday party, for decorating party bags, invites, decorations etc.

Coloured Sequins
£2.99 per jar

These colourful sequins can be stuck or pinned to add colour and sparkle to lots of different crafts, such as collages or card making. We used them on our Rainbow Fish, sticking them with a dab of Baker Ross PVA glue.

You get a lot of multi-colured sequins in this 90g jar, each colour bagged up individually. It's a great value product for keeping in the craft box.

Hosting a craft party is a great alternative to a traditional birthday party. Children are kept entertained and engaged as they take part in the set activities and get to take home all the goodies that they create. The Baker Ross products are ideal for this. They are super value and the quality and designs are excellent. There are so many different themes available you could easily base a party around a single theme such as animals, flowers, sports or under the sea, or just pick a selection of products from the range.

I like that they are so well thought out, without being overly ambitious or too complicated. The sets give the children an activity that they can add their own creative spin to, whilst still being structured enough to give a good, consistent end result.

Freddy loved doing all the different crafts and was very proud of the things he had made!

www.bakerross.co.uk

Valentine's Day Crafts from Baker Ross

Baker Ross sent us some great crafting goodies for creating some lovely Valentine's Day or Mother's Day gifts. 

The children really enjoyed decorating heart shaped ceramic trinket boxes using some lovely, pastel coloured porcelain paints.  The heart shaped boxes are £3.49 for a box of four, which is excellent value.  They are 8cm in size and come with a fitted lid.  They can be decorated to create very personal gifts for loved ones.

The Hobbyline Brights Porcelain Paint Pots come in six bright pastel colours: orange, rose, ice green, opal blue, reseda and white.  They cost £10.99.  The paint goes on really nicely and can be baked to heat fix the design. They are the perfect medium to decorate the ceramic trinket boxes.

The kids enjoyed coming up with different designs for each of the ceramic heart trinket boxes that they decorated. Freddy wanted to make one for his big sister Ella with her name on!  Other designs involved stippling, geometric designs and dots.

The paint dries with a nice sheen, giving a great end result.  I loved Freddy's pot with a pink snowflake on top.  It is such a good way to bring out a child's creativity.

Painting the heart shaped trinket boxes was a really lovely craft activity with good end results.  They are a really great idea for making presents for mums, grandparents and other loved ones.  It would also be a lovely activity to do at a birthday party.

We also received a Spring Card Activity Set, which sells for £6.99. Each pack includes patterned and coloured card, corrugated card, pre-punched card baskets, textured and tinted paper, ribbon, decorative crystals, split pins and stickers.  There are 88 items in the pack, making it really good value. There are also instructions for projects.  

It is a kit that will let children have some springtime crafting fun, making cards, decorations, models, displays and other crafts, such as this cute birdhouse.  

There is so much potential for creativity and the colours and designs of the card and paper are really subtle, seasonal and nice. It is a really versatile kit encouraging children to try card and paper crafting.  

You can find all these crafting products plus hundreds more on the Baker Ross website at www.bakerross.co.uk.  They have craft sets, accessories and products for all seasons and special events.  I love their stuff and so do my crafty kids!

Get Your Christmas Craft On with Baker Ross

A rainy winter afternoon in the run up to Christmas provides the perfect opportunity to do some festive crafts with the children.  Baker Ross had sent us a selection of their Craft-It products including Christmas foam cards, sequin decorations, hand puppets, stickers, craft pens and ceramic owl trinket boxes, so we enjoyed a brilliant crafting session together.

It's lovely to get the kids crafting to make decorations, cards and little presents for loved ones. Freddy really enjoys getting creative with glue, paint and pens and to see the look of concentration on his face is simply wonderful!

What I love most about Baker Ross craft sets is that they contain everything you need to complete a project (sometimes you might need scissors or glue but all the necessary bits and bobs are included). They come with full instructions and the projects are pretty straightforward with impressive end results. Kids love making them and loved ones will enjoy being given a thoughtful, homemade gift.

I love the ceramic items that Baker Ross do, which can be decorated with acrylic paints or porcelain paint pens. They make lovely gifts.  We were sent some owl trinket boxes, which are really cute and ready to be decorated.  Freddy used shimmery paint pens to colour in his owl and did a great job making it look colourful.  At £4.48 for four owl trinket boxes and five packs of porcelain paint pens for £9.99, this is a lovely Christmas craft activities for children of all ages to enjoy. 

The Christmas Foam Card Kits contain three separate packs, each containing everything needed to create a gorgeous handmade card.  With foam sheets, ribbon, pre-cut foam stickers, lettering and googly eyes, kids can make designs featuring a snowman, Rupolph or Santa.  They are colourful and fun.  Freddy was able to make the cards virtually unaided and did a beautiful job creating them,  He just needed a little help with tying the ribbon and putting the letters in order to spell out Merry Christmas. He added some of Christmas pudding felt stickers (96 for £2.99) to add his own spin on the design. At just £1.99 for a three pack, they are excellent value.

The Christmas Sequin Decoration Kits make three Christmas decorations.  There is a Santa, a reindeer and a snowman, each with a sequinned, shiny, 3D tummy!  Each kit comes with pre-cut, self-adhesive foam pieces, a polystyrene body, sequins, plastic pins, ribbon and googly eyes.  It is very straightforward decorating the foam template with the foam stickers.  Then the sequins are pinned to the polystyrene body, which did make Freddy's fingers a little bit sore after a while, so I helped him!  The decorated body is then stuck onto the foam shape using glue.  The end result is lovely and Freddy was really proud of what he had made.  The kits are £3.99 for three, which again is excellent value.

The Christmas Hand Puppet Sewing kits include pre-cut felt templates, self-adhesive felt shapes, yarn, needles, googly eyes and instructions to make three hand puppets.  They are a great introduction to sewing, as the punched holes make it easy to stitch them up, if little ones can avoid tangling up the yarn!  The puppets are still a work in progress. They are £3.75 for 3.

The Baker Ross Craft-It products are perfect for a Christmas craft party or can be used to entertain your own children in the run up to Christmas.  They are great for making gifts, or indeed make lovely presents in their own right.  The prices are excellent, the quality is great and the range is extensive.

You can find out more and order craft sets through the Baker Ross website.  Whatever your event or whatever the season, they have craft sets that the kids will love alongside essentials for more experienced crafters to use on their own projects.

Summer Craft Ideas from Baker Ross

We love Baker Ross and always get excited when we receive a box full of crafting goodies to try out.  Our latest box included some brilliant crafts with a summery theme.  There were Flip-Flop keyrings to make.  Sand Art bottles ready to be filled with colourful glitter.  Wooden fish to colour in and some lovely ceramic beach house money boxes to decorate.  There were also some sparkly Deco Pens, which can be used on lots of different surfaces to achieve a sparkly effect with ease.

The kids were in their element using the pens to decorate the ceramic money boxes and the wooden fish.  Freddy had a lovely time designing patterns and let his creativity run wild.  The Deco Pens are lovely to use.  They are filled with water based acrylic paint, which goes on brilliantly giving a matt finish with some added sparkle.  At £9.99 for a five pack, they are a great product for writing or colouring in on a multitude of surfaces.  A definite crafting essential!

The Flip-Flop keyrings allow kids to design their own insert to personalise their creation.  Kizzy used images cut from magazines to make some very funky looking keyrings.  She finished off the designs by colouring in the strap using the Deco Pens, giving a lovely end result.  At just £2.88 for six or £10.80 for 24, they would be an excellent activity to do at a craft party.

The wooden fish have articulated, bendy bodies and are great for even the youngest children to decorate.  Once coloured in they make lovely little tactile ornaments to display.  they are £3.95 for four.

The ceramic beach house coin banks are really cute and once decorated make a fully usable money box.  The Deco Pens worked a treat on them.  At just £5.96 for four, they are great value too.

Here is a video of the kids in action as they enjoyed a crafting session thanks to Baker Ross!

           

You can see the whole range and shop for these and other great crafting products at

bakerross.co.uk

Mother's Day Crafting with Baker Ross

Whatever the occasion, Baker Ross has a great range of craft products, which will inspire the kids into making some brilliant creations.  With Mother's Day fast approaching, we received some lovely items from Baker Ross, perfect for making homemade gifts for mums, aunties or grandmas on their special day.  

There were wooden trinket boxes, wooden jewellery trees and flower pots ready to be decorated using the range of stick on gems, rose stickers, bows and pearls. We also received pre-printed cards that were ready to decorate with felt tips and other embellishments plus the items needed to try our hand at Decopatch.  Such lovely ideas for treating mum on Mother's Day!

The children enjoyed the craft activities, working together to create some really lovely, quality craft items that would make really acceptable gifts.  The complexity of the activities can be suited to the age and ability of the child.  At 4, Freddy was able to stick stickers and colour in with felt tips independently and he was very proud to show off his finished pieces!

11 year old Kizzy was able to do more intricate designs, adding embellishments and personalising items to her own taste.  17 year old Ella tackled the slightly more fiddly and much more messy Decopatch and did a great job making a floral jewellery tree.

I love the wooden keepsake trinket boxes.  They have a hinged magnetic lid and are made really well out of quality wood.  They can be painted, varnished or decorated with stickers to create a personalised design.  At just £4.98 for six boxes, this is great value.  Kizzy chose to decorate hers using acrylic flower jewels (£3.99 for 180), satin bows (£2.99 for 72) and pearls (£2.99 for 120).  Freddy used the felt rose stickers (£2.99 for 90).  Decorating keepsake boxes is a great idea for an activity at a children's birthday party and would give guests a lovely gift to take home with them.

The wooden jewellery trees are just £2.75 for a pack of two.  They are free standing and have branches so you can hang your jewellery on them to keep it safe and tangle free. They are ideal for decorating using Decopatch, choosing from the varied designs of paper available from Baker Ross and sticking pieces on the tree using special glue with a stiff brush.   The Decopatch paper is £3.49 for 3 sheets and the varnish glue is £5.99 for a 150ml pot.  The finished effect gives a colourful, shiny and water resistant finish.

                               

Kizzy liked the au naturel wooden look of her jewellery tree and simply added self-adhesive pearls to decorate it.  Maybe she was being a bit lazy, but the end result looks lovely covered in her necklaces and rings!

The Design Your Own Flowerpot Kit consists of 4 pots, each with a paper insert which can be decorated to make a pretty end result.  Planting the pot up with a houseplant would make a very nice gift for Gran. The Flowerpots are £4.96 for 4. 

The pre-printed Mother's Day cards are such an excellent idea.  They can be decorated with paints, felt tips or crayons and lend themselves brilliantly to the addition of googly eyes and hair accessories.  At £1.99 for 8 they are an excellent price.  there are also some pop-out heart cards at £2.56 for 8.  Both sets include envelopes so the handmade cards will be ready to send to a loved one.

As ever, I have been really impressed by the quality, range and value of the Baker Ross products.  The children all loved creating some lovely craft pieces and did a great job learning new skills and using their creativity.  

You can find all the products mentioned above and hundreds more at the Baker Ross website, where you can order online and see some inspiring ideas for art projects. Check out the Baker Ross blog for arty inspiration!

Follow Baker Ross on Twitter @bakerrossltd for special offers, craft tips and giveaways!

Christmas Crafting with Baker Ross

Now December is here, my children are enjoying some fun-filled Christmas crafts, to make loads of lovely hand made festive things to decorate the house.  Baker Ross have sent us some brilliant CRAFT-It! Christmas sets to try out, which contain almost everything needed to make some great decorations.

 They are a great way to get younger children producing decorations using these craft essentials.  They are easy to do, and give good results.

Kizzy and Freddy were happy to spend a Sunday morning doing some arts and crafts together.  The Sequin Bauble Kit was the first set they tried out.  It contained three polystyrene balls with ribbon hangers, ready to be decorated with sparkly sequins using plastic push pins.

It was easy to do, even Freddy was able to have a go because the pins were not too sharp.  Each bauble comes with its own set of pins and sequins so it doesn't get too out of control. 

Very quickly the bauble looked very pretty and Freddy was very impressed with the colourful, sparkly end result.  With a bit of patience you could make a more intricate pattern, but it looks equally pretty with a randomly colourful design.  This makes it a great activity for kids with an end result they will be proud off.

The Yarn Wreath set makes six woollen wreaths, strung with ribbon and decorated with sequins and bows.  The set contains pre-cut rings of card with a hole to thread the ribbon to.  Colourful yarn is woven round and round to make a wreath bauble.

Freddy got himself into a bit of a knot with this!  But daddy helped him and together they made a very neat yarn covered wreath which was then decorated by gluing on sequins and a bow. 

They look lovely and will be joined by the rest of the handmade decorations on our Christmas tree this year.

The Christmas Paper Chains are a fabulous thing for little ones to do.  Each piece has an adhesive end that can be licked and stuck to make a loop, joining up to make a chain.

The colourful pieces feature different Christmas characters and look really fun and festive, perfect for decorating the kids' bedrooms or the playroom.

Freddy was able to do this activity independently and he was very proud of his paper chain!  It helped with his hand-eye co-ordination, his dexterity, his patience and his counting skills.

Baker Ross offer a huge range of craft sets, seasonal activities, fundraising kits and toys for both school and home.  They have a 100% Price Match Promise so you know you are getting the best value.  They also have a 28 day no-quibble guarantee and delivery fixed at £2.99 or FREE for orders over £50.

You can shop online at bakerross.co.uk

It's a perfect place to find stocking fillers and activity sets to keep the kids entertained over the holidays.  It's also brilliant for parties with lots of themed products for party favours and prizes.  The prices are really good and each multi pack is given an individual price breakdown per item.  I could read through the catalogue or browse online for hours!  There is some great stuff for keen crafters and crafty kids to enjoy!

The products I received are as follows:

Sequin Baubles £3.60 for pack of 3

Festive Paper Chains £2.99 for 240

Decoration Sewing Kits £3.60 for pack of 3

Penguin Jewel Decoration Kit £2.99 for pack of 4

Yarn Wreath Decoration Kits £3.50 for pack of 6