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!

Getting Creative with a Zack & Quack Craft Party

Zack & Quack is the new hit TV show on Nick Jr featuring Zack and his duck friend Quack who, together with the help of their friend Kira, enjoy adventures and solve problems in their pop-up paper world.  To celebrate the premiere we were invited by UKMums.tv to host a crafts party to coincide with the showing of the first episodes.  Armed with mountains of cardboard boxes, glue, stickers, paper plates, cardboard tubes and lots of imagination, the party guests made their own creations inspired by Zack & Quack!

There were cardboard cameras, paper plate faces, decorated treasure boxes, iced biscuits, origami Belly Up frogs and a brilliant box racing car!  Crafting is always so much fun and kids love to get creative. 

The Zack & Quack show itself kept a roomful of boys and girls totally engrossed!  They all really liked the animation and the humour had them giggling.  The stories were fun and the children loved how Zack solved his problems by making things out of paper in his pop up world.  It was definitely a big hit.

Look out for Zack & Quack on Nick Jr at 4.30pm on Fridays.  You can also check out the Nick Jr website on www.nickjr.co.uk/shows/zack-and-quack where you'll find lots of craft ideas and activities.  You can also watch clips from the show and meet the characters.

Making Valentine's Day Cards With Freddy

Today Freddy was off nursery as he has a nasty cough.  Having his company meant that we could do some craft activities together for Valentine's Day. As a family, we enjoy any excuse to have a themed day with food and activities planned around the occasion, and Valentine's Day is no exception.  You don't find me and Ian having a romantic meal for two, instead it's family fun for five!

 I dug out all the crafty bits and bobs that were even vaguely heart shaped and let him go wild with a glue stick and some cardboard.  I love the idea of making homemade cards for special occasions.  Shop bought cards are so expensive and I end up binning them, but homemade ones cost nothing and are kept forever.  They are a wonderful record of your child's artistic development, showcasing their creativity.  I have over 20 year's worth of my children's drawings, paintings and cards packaged up in my garage!! (No wonder I have an issue with clutter!)

Freddy is a very active child who runs around, dances, kicks things, throws things and plays hard.  He also has a fabulous vocabulary and a sharp sense of humour and is amazing with technology.  Although he loves educational games on the computer and can recognise many of his letters and numbers by sight, he is extremely reluctant to pick up a pencil or crayon.  He does not like to draw or colour in and makes no effort towards the early mark making that becomes emergent writing.  In fact he can't even hold a pen. He just doesn't get it!  I don't know if it is because he is a confused left-hander (his dad is a leftie) or if his eyes are the problem or whether there is something else going on...or whether it is just a 'boy thing'.  I'm sure once he is at school he'll get into  the swing of writing and drawing, and if not we will be able to work out what the problem is.  But for now, rather than pressuring him into doing something he really does not want to do, I think that doing craft activities is a good way for him to develop the necessary fine motor skills required.  He enjoys it too, so everyone is happy.

Freddy loved sticking the foam shapes, material hearts, paper hearts  beads, sequins and googly eyes onto his design in a display of carefully considered and precisely positioned randomness!

I loved that he made the top heart into a face.  That is a very Freddy thing to do!  So although he wasn't impressed with the idea of signing his name inside the card, which is for his daddy, he stamped his personality all over it and it will be much treasured!

Artzooka For Christmas

We love Artzooka craft sets from Wooky Entertainment!  From the cool, eco-friendly packaging to the inspirational and innovative craft ideas, they are brilliant sets that keep the kids happily entertained for hours!  We received two of their brilliant kits to try.

Sock-Ups Animal Plush

Create your own adorable plush animal-friend from a sock!

This kit contains:

• 3 socks

• 10 styrofoam balls

• clear elastic bands + 1 white rubber band

• 6 felt eye stickers

• polyester stuffing

• 1 Artzooka episode + instructions on DVD

• 1 instruction sheet with Artzooka challenge included

You can make three models: a caterpillar, a turtle and a koala each using a sock.  The animals each have a different difficulty level so you can learn skills and progress to make the trickier animals.  The step by step instruction sheet is all fully illustrated.  The enclosed DVD features an Artzooka episode  and includes visual instructions for the activity.  The technique can then be extended and inspire you to make your own creations from all your own old odd socks! It is a great way to do toy making that doesn't involve any fiddly sewing.   RRP £14.99

Sketcher Tape Set #1

Using different decorative adhesive tapes and stickers you can embellish pictures!

This set contains:

• 5 rolls of decorative tape and 160 stickers

• 6 backgrounds to decorate

• 1 instruction sheet with Artzooka challenge included

You can use the colourful patterned tapes to build up the background pictures, adding patterns and textures. Then you can add stickers to build up the picture further.  The backgrounds can be joined together to make a bigger scene.  You can extend the activity by customizing exercise books or diaries using the same technique.  RRP £9.99

To find out more about Artzooka and their products, check out the website at artzooka.com.  Their products are available at Amazon.co.uk.

Our Opinion: Artzooka sets will make excellent gifts for children and encourage them to be creative.  The challenges extend the activity and inspire crafty kids.  I love the cool, eco-friendly packaging with the reusable cardboard case.  There is a great selection of really nice, innovative craft kits to choose from.