Easter Bonnets, Nests, Eggs and More!

Holly has a bit of pressure on her when it comes to this year's Easter Bonnet parade at nursery.  For the last 4 years in a row, either Lara or Holly has won the annual Easter Bonnet competition and Holly would really like to win it again - this weekend she spent nearly a whole day creating things for her masterpiece this year.

I won't share our secret formula for winning the Easter Bonnet competition but I will say this - Holly is incredibly independent when it comes to homemade crafts.  When she sees her older sister cutting, glueing, sewing, shaping, painting and sticking she wants to do all of the things that her older sibling does.  Often I think she'll struggle with the concentration or dexterity required but she always surprises me.  Holly's Easter Bonnet this year is entirely of her own making.  She knew exactly what she wanted to do and told me what she needed.  When she has struggled, she has asked for help but in many cases she has just needed some tips on how to approach a problem - such as how to hold her ha taught while she sticks things on it.  I'm very proud of her, whether or not she is a winner!

Holly's hat has been created using craft kits and Easter themed craft materials from Yellow Moon - our one-stop shop for children's craft activities.  I think this is one of my very favourite times of year for crafting with the girls because there are so many fun ideas of things you can make.

Lara and Holly have decorated our dining room with a string of foam rabbits, each of whom is dressed in a different outfit.  One of these handsome rabbits has made it into Holly's Easter millinery!

My girls love working together in the front room - Lara helps with the more fiddly tasks such as peeling the backing off foam shapes.  Holly barks instructions, for instance to tell Lara what colour paint to use.

Yellow Moon's range of Easter craft activities this year range from spring animals (we loved painting wooden chicks and lambs but it did get VERY messy) to everything you need to lay on your own Easter egg hunt.  Lara and Holly have still got some special colour-your-own Easter egg presentation boxes to create, and some bunny rabbit mosaics.  But the girls most fell in love with these beautiful paper baskets which they very creatively filled with other Easter-themed materials.

These little spring baskets come in a set of 8.  The base folds and slides together (we used tape to make it sturdy enough to hold chocolate eggs!) and the handle is held in place using metal clips.  Lara and Holly chose to fill their baskets with coloured shredded tissue paper (a Yellow Moon staple) and topped with tiny glittery decorative eggs which come in a pack of 100.  The baskets look so cute that we have placed them in the window for everyone to see, alongside our daffodils and spring flowers.

We can't wait until Easter and I'm sure there will be lots more crafting to come!

Don't forget that you can earn between 5% and 20% cashback for your school on most Yellow Moon purchases.

Christmas Craft Activities with Yellow Moon

At this time of year I move a big box of Christmas craft materials into our dining room so that the girls can help themselves in the mornings, evenings and weekends to create Christmas ornaments, pictures and cards until their heart's content.

I like to let the girls loose with felt and foam sticky shapes, coloured paper, Christmas printed paper, glitter and glue from Yellow Moon who sell craft materials for kids (as well as lots of fun stocking fillers).  I like to have lots of Christmas staples in the house.

But this Christmas, Yellow Moon sent the girls some slightly more adventurous Christmas craft kits that they have been starting on this weekend.

Both Holly and Lara very much enjoyed constructing these reindeer bags which are perfect for carrying festive treats, or for leaving out in the hope that Santa will fill them full of goodies.  Because these are made from foam sticky pieces, they are very easy for Holly to make too but it made a nice change for the girls to also need to use glue to help construct these kits.  The pack costs £3.75 and contains four individual craft kits.

Lara has recently discovered needlecraft so these Penguin sewing decoration kits were perfect for her. Each kit contains everything you need to make a fabric penguin Christmas decoration to hang on your tree.  The kits are well-suited to someone taking their very first steps into needlework - the fabric is pre-punched with holes so that the plastic needle passes through the fabric easily. Lara took to it very quickly and within ten minutes she had got the hang of it and was steaming through.  She even managed to finish it off and stuff her penguin using the instructions (rather than me!) to guide her.

Lara is planning on giving one of these hand-made decorations to her teacher this Christmas, I think its a lovely idea.

Don't forget that you can earn between 5% and 20% cashback for your school on most Yellow Moon purchases.

Kids Craft Activity Sets from Yellow Moon

Yellow Moon sent the girls a bumper box of kids craft activity sets to fill the weekends with fun.

We love Yellow Moon craft sets because they are great time fillers for if the girls get a bit restless at the weekend while I'm cooking or if we have jobs to do that they can't join in with - each pack usually contains 4 to 6 sets of the same, or similar activity. This means that both girls get a chance to try out a craft together and that they can have a couple of tries to get things just perfect. It also means that when we have friends over to play, I can lift out one of these craft sets for them all to enjoy. The sets also make great gifts for friends and family.

Lara and Holly both enjoyed making these brightly coloured stained glass beach huts in the days after we got back from a short break to the seaside in Dorset. I think these would make a wonderful summer holiday activity. The kits contain the delicate black paper outlines and a selection of sheets of coloured cellophane which you can cut and stick into place and then hang with the ribbons provided.  The set contains 6 beach huts in a range of designs.

This weekend we made these brightly coloured pot-plant gnome stakes which are designed to catch the sunlight through their coloured segments.  We used porcelain paint pens to colour in the plastic because we didn't have any glass pens or glass paint available - it seemed to work quite well.  Holly particularly enjoyed this activity and wanted to place her gnomes in the garden to look after our chilli plants!

And tonight the girls have been making these!  These little finger puppets are great examples of quick craft activities that can occupy the girls for a few minutes.  I just needed a little bit of space while cooking the dinner tonight so I sat the girls down with one of these alien finger puppet sets each and they set to sticking all the pieces together, really helping one another with their creations.  It was a great show of teamwork.

Don't forget that you can earn between 5% and 20% cashback for your school on most Yellow Moon purchases.

SillyBillyz Painting Aprons Review

BPM Childcare contacted me to see if we could put their Sillybillyz painting aprons to the test - I can't think of two better little girls to test them out than Holly and Lara who spend almost every moment of their spare time at the weekend either helping me out in the kitchen, or creating artistic, crafty creations in the dining room.

These SillyBillyz aprons come in two different styles - long-sleeved or no-sleeves - and the girls tried both of them.  For us, a long-sleeved apron is most appropriate when painting (painting always means chaos in the Mellow household) but a sleeveless apron works better in the kitchen, and when doing craft activities which require a lot of careful attention to detail.

I love the flexibility of the Sillybillyz aprons.  The fabric is water proof and provides excellent protection from paint and cookery ingredients and yet it isn't as thick and unwealdy as most painting tabbards.

Both styles of apron fasten closed behind the neck with a velcro-style fastening which I have found to hold closed very well.  Holly and Lara both need my help in order to undo them.. this is a good thing because it means I don't leave the room for two minutes only to find them sitting painting with their aprons hung up over the side of their chair!

The flexibility of the fabric means that the girls are happy and comfortable to wear their aprons even when cooking so they've been wearing them pretty much all weekend.  I was specifically asked to give my feedback on the sizing of the aprons.  Holly is now 28 months old and is wearing the 0-3 years apron which is a perfect size for her.  Lara is wearing the age 3+ apron which is stated as being suitable upto 5 years old; as a tall 5 year old I was expecting it to be a bit snug but it fits her perfectly (mind you, now I'm looking at these photos, it looks like the sleeves are a little short... much like most of her other clothes).

The Sillybillyz painting aprons are machine washable but so far I haven't needed to put them through the wash as I've been able to wipe all the chocolate and curry powder and chalk from them with a cloth.

Sillybillyz painting aprons cost from £9.95 to £13.95 from BPM Childcare and I think they are brilliant quality.  Right now, I can't see us using any other apron in our house!

Yellow Moon Crafts

Yellow Moon sent us a bumper pack of kids creative craft materials to review.

This weekend I was rummaging through the box of craft materials and had a brain wave.  There was a small bag of around 200 craft shells (£2.99) which I think were intended for creating pictures or ornaments but it dawned on me that the girls could get just as creative with them in the garden as they could do indoors.  I added the shells to their sandpit and they didn't even need prompting to start creating shapes and creations.  Holly liked piling them up to make "sandcastles" and Lara enjoyed trying to spell out words by placing the small shells in rows on the sand.  It was great fun and I'm so glad I did it.  Now there are little shells to hunt for every time they play in the sandpit - a mini treasure hunt.

On a colder days we like to spend our time together - just us girls - in the front room making crafty creations.  Both Holly and Lara have loved this simple pack of Fruit and Vegetable card cut outs (£2.45) which can be decorated in any way you like.  Lara has concentrated very hard on colouring them in in the "correct" colours and with the "correct" designs using some chunky Giotto Turbo Giant Fibre Tip Pens (£3.99) which come in 12 colours and can quickly fill up the vegetable shapes.

But of all the craft activities we do, Lara most enjoys "constructing" things.  These brightly coloured butterfly jewel magnets come in a set of 4 and are made from foam with googly eyes and stick on jewels.  Each pack contains everything you need to create a butterfly magnet, including instructions and sticky pieces.  Holly made one too (with a bit of help from me!) and loves seeing her own crafty creation every time we pass the fridge door!

There are LOADS of great creative craft supplies at Yellow Moon as wells as party bag fillers and fun treats.  And don't forget that your school or group can earn cashback on all of your purchases.

Kids Craft Ideas - Homemade Spice Cards

Last week, Mellow Grandpa celebrated a big birthday.  We bought him a voucher for a michelin-starred curry restaurant in London and the girls wanted to make him a birthday card each so I thought I would try something just a little different with them - I raised my store cupboard for spices and pulses that I would use in a curry myself and let the girls get creative.

Most people have a cupboard with little jars of spices, many of them go unused for months on end.  I love cooking curries and I have an entire cupboard dedicated to whole spices and ground spices and yet I still always find a rogue jar at the back of the cupboard that is many years past its use-by date.  This creative craft idea is a brilliant way of using up those lesser-used spices you have been hoarding.

I lifted out some whole spices such as cumin seeds, cinnamon sticks, cardamom pods, black onion seeds and star anise.  Then I also gave the girls some ground spices such as turmeric, cumin powder, asafoetida and clove powder which all have amazing scents.  Finally, I poured out a small bowl of red split lentils which are a curry staple of ours.  I covered the table with a large sheet to collect the debris and let the girls loose with the glue and glue sticks!

Both Holy (1) and Lara (4) loved choosing their own 'ingredients' for their card.  They enjoyed handling and sniffing the different whole spices and the mess on their hands and on the table brought much hilarity.  The girls concentrated very hard on getting their designs for Grandpa just right.

We loved this fun craft idea as it was colourful, smelled great and helped us all explore our ingredients cupboard.  We talked together about each of the spices as we used them - what they were called, where they come from and what we use them for.  It was a brilliant journey that resulted in some very personal touches to these spicy birthday cards.

MyStyle Craft Design & Make Shamballa Fire Jewellery Kit Review

Lara recently received this MyStyle Craft Design & Make Shamballa Fire Jewellery kit to review and she has been totally absorbed in it.  The kit is available from Tesco for £12.99 and it includes the materials you will need to make two different necklaces, two bracelets and a pair of earrings in the Shamballa style.

The Shamballa Fire Jewellery set features a re-usable craft box which includes knotting cord, Shamballa beads, sparkly beads, earring wires and necklace attachments.  The Tesco website recommends this jewellery making kit for children from 3-4 years so I had expected it to be well-targeted for Lara (age 4.5) but in fact it was very tricky.  I spent an entire evening making this simple knotted bracelet... there is simply no way that a 4 year old would have the dexterity, attention to detail or attention span needed to make the bracelet.

That said, Lara did manage these earrings with only a little help from her Daddy to make the spirals a little tighter.  She very much enjoyed choosing the beads and threading them onto the wire.

This MyStyle Craft Design & Make set comes with a 16 page colour guide that walks you through the steps needed to make your own jewellery.  I found the instructions very easy to follow, including the detailed pictures that show you how to make the knots.  I found it tricky to thread the cord onto the Shamballa beads because it frayed easily.  Once again, I think the instructions and the threading are more suited to an early teen than a younger child.

I think this craft set presents good value because of the materials provided and the life-long skills that you will learn.  Equipped with Shamballa knotting skills you could take on the world!

Do-It-Yourself Personalised Christmas Plate

I saw this idea on Facebook the other day and knew I had to give it a try.  I already owned a set of Porcelain Pens from earlier in the year (we use them to let the girls decorate our coffee cups for work) so all I had to do was source a plain white dinner plate (£2 from Cargo today) and away I went.

I drew around a pastry cutter to get the size of the mince pie right and I drew around the base of a sherry glass to get the size of the drink circle right. I free-styled the carrot because I was feeling confident by then.

The beauty of porcelain markers is that you can wipe them off easily if you make a mistake so you can practice the writing.

Our porcelain markers need to be baked to make them permanent so the plate us currently in the oven!

Lara can't wait to use the plate on Christmas Eve.

Yellow Moon Christmas Crafts for Small People!

This weekend was an incredibly festive affair.  We prepared and froze chestnuts to eat on Christmas day, we tasted and then ordered a Christmas turkey, we made a Christmas cake together and then started making some fabulous Christmas decorations before settling down in the evening to watch some of the movies that we had recorded last Christmas.  The girls loved it.

Yellow Moon sent Lara some samples from their vast range of craft materials for children so that they could start creating their Christmas crafts.  A great starting point was a big pack of Winter Card & Paper which costs £5.99 for 100 sheets of different coloured A4 card an paper.  Having tried to find something equivalent on the high street yesterday with no luck, I think this is an awesome value set which includes gold and silver card as well as thinner card in lots of colours but a particular focus on red, green and black.

Holly and I had great fun sticking these Christmas feathers (£2.50) onto a piece of card to make a Christmas Tree.  I don't think Holly actually knows what a Christmas Tree is yet but she thought it was hilarious when the feathers stuck to her sticky fingers.  Holly finished off her tree with some Christmas Glitter Pom Poms (£2.99) which come in three different colours and sizes.  We stuck them on using mini glue dots which have become my new best friend, they may be a little trickier than glue sticks for a 1 year old but for Lara, who is 4, they are certainly a LOT less messy.

The absolute star of our Yellow Moon craft pack was a set of sparkle Deco Pens (£9.99 for 5).  These are definitely for Lara and myself to use (I wouldn't let Holly anywhere near them!) but these metallic sparkly pens make great markers for Christmas crafts.  Lara put together this nativity scene complete with baby Jesus, Mary and her belly button (this is very important), a horse, a goat, a sheep and Joseph doing a handstand.  I love these pens and think I will be using them a lot in the run up to Christmas.

I have lots of fun craft activities planned with the girls over the coming weeks - I just LOVE Christmas craft and I'm really impressed with the range of Yellow Moon craft accessories and their prices.  You can get free delivery if you spend over £50 and every purchase can earn cashback for your chosen school or charity.

Ella's Kitchen - Geting Creative with Veg!

Today, Holly, Lara and I made a creative crafty masterpiece using almost primarily vegetables!  We were challenged by Ella's Kitchen to use some of the vegetables that they use to make their new range of 'my little BIG meals' to create a work of art and this tree was very much a join effort between the girls.  It was messy but fun.  Holly felt really grown up (it was the first time she has ever sat up at our table in a booster seat as opposed to a high chair) and Lara demonstrated great concentration adding little details such as a tiny hand-drawn birds nest with miniature blue eggs!

My little BIG meals by Ella's Kitchen is a new range of single-serving meals designed for toddlers from 12 months upwards.  Each of the dishes in the new range is made with between 5 and 7 different vegetables so we used a few of them to make our tree.

First up, Holly pasted glue onto the trunk of the tree and both girls stuck on peelings from a sweet potato (one of the ingredients in the Creamy Coconutty Chicken Curry) to use as bark.

Then we made the branches using dried beans (from the Beefy Beef Stew and Full of Beans Pork Stew) and pasta (from the Bolognese Bake)

Next, in the absence from any fresh herbs currently worth picking from our garden, we stuck on fresh spinach leaves to finish off the tree.

The girls drew on grass, and nests and sky using markers and crayons before Holly and Lara finished off their masterpiece with some natural vegetable-based paints.

SmART Attack - Getting Crafty with Shredded Paper

This weekend Mr. B shredded two year's worth of financial documents in our Fellowes document shredder - a good habit to get in to if you want to help try and protect your identity.  Two years worth of finances is quite some volume of shreddings and seeing as we don't have a pet who can make good use of the shredded paper, I decided to let the girls loose on the shredded paper and take part in the Fellowes smART Attack challenge.

The Fellowes UK Google + page has a series of short videos with ideas of crafts to do with children using shredded paper such as papier mache, bracelets, wands, monsters and flowers.  I think their videos are brilliant - step by step but nice and concise.

The girls had great fun helping Daddy to shred all of his papers - with our Fellowes shredder I'm happy for them to get involved because it has a sensor which automatically cuts off the shredder if it detects little fingers coming close and Holly put it to the test a number of times!  Unfortunately (or fortunately, I guess) all of Mr. B's papers were white so I was presented with the challenge of arty activities which involved just white paper.

Holly made a shredded snowman and a shredded snowflake.  White shredded paper works really well against a bold background colour.

To make these Christmas crafts we used:-

Black and red thick paper or card
PVA glue and a paintbrush or spreader
Glittery pom poms
Small pieces of cut-up pipe cleaners
Coloured card
Scissors

I painted the shape of the snowman and snowflake onto the card and Holly grabed handfuls of shredded paper and patted them down onto the paper.  She used the paintbrush herself to put glue onto the pom poms for the buttons and eyes on the snowman, and for the points of the snowflake.

We added a pipe-cleaner nose and I cut a hat from coloured card. Holly's eyes lit up when she realised that she had made a face!

Lara made a sheep which required quite a lot of artistic wizardry from me to make it sheep-like!  I think she would have been better off with a flock of smaller sheep.

Both girls had great fun getting crafty with shredded paper and I shall definitely be doing this again.  I can imagine Christmas wrapping paper making some great coloured shreds to play with.

Check out the Fellowes G+ page for more great crafty ideas - you NEED to know how to make a shredded paper moustache!

Pinkabella Activity Book Review

Lara is 4. There is something built into 4 year old girls that triggers an obsession with the colour pink (I am pretty certain there are few parts of her upbringing by me that have encouraged the pink thing... it just happened!) and so the Pinkabella activity books from Parragon are ideal for fuelling Lara's interest in all things pink.

The Pinkabella books are suitable for girls from 4 upto about 8 years old (or perhaps older?) - they bring together colouring, drawing, dressing up and creative activities into activity books that spark little imaginations. Each book features Pinkabella and her friends. Pinkabella wears pink, dreams pink and even has pink hair. Pinktastic!

Each book comes with a little set of accessories (things stuck to the front of a book always get Lara excited). Accessories include shaped crayons, pink erasers and stick-on gems and bows. When Lara completed her first day at school I gave her Pinkabella's Sticker Activity Book which includes several sets of sticky-notes as well as lots of themed activity stickers inside the book.

Lara isn't yet able to read so I had to explain several of the activities to her and Pinkabella's friendships were a bit lost on her because of this.  However, once I had set Lara down and explained the point of a double-page she wanted to work on, I was able to leave her for over half an hour to get on with her puzzles or drawing... or seemingly random application of stickers to a page!!!

Activity books such as these are EXACTLY Lara's kind of thing and she can absorb herself in and the Pink-ness definitely makes them more appealing.

Lara's next project is the Pinkabella Colours in activity book which features crayons in the shape of a butterfly - Lara finds this is absolutely fascinating.  I think that the second book holds more appeal for her now that she knows who Pinkabella is and what to expect of it.

I think that it is pretty clever that some of the books have carry handles - to me the Pinkabella books would make great holiday activities that your child could take with them in the car or on a plane and the handle would really help here.. Titles in the range include Pinkabella Colours In, Pinkabella’s Playhouse and Pinkabella Loves Drawing.

You can find out more about Pinkabella on her website where there are free colouring sheets and further activities.

  

Children's Book Review : My First Sewing Book

The crafty and needlecrafty part of me is desperate to get Lara joining in with simple needlecrafts. While 'My First Sewing Book' from CICO Kids may be a touch advanced for her, it has certainly sparked an interested in fabric crafts that I am keen to encourage.

My First Sewing Book is part of a range of books from CICO kids to encourage hobbies that require quite a lot of concentration - crochet, knitting, art and even bicycle maintenance for kids. My First Sewing Book is ideal for children from age 7 upwards but I think that many of the 35 sewing projects are the type of activity that Lara and I could get started on together.

Every project has step-by-step instructions that I find easy to understand.  Projects such as a simple felt bag in the shape of a cat, a sock monster or an egg cosy might be attemptable with a slightly younger child such as Lara - in fact, we intend to make a Christmas Stocking together in the run up to Christmas as well as some very simple felt tree decorations which she can help me to cut and can add her own embroidery to as a first foray into the world of needlework.

I picture Lara spending an entire school holiday at some point in the future working through lots of the projects in the book - for slightly more adventurous children there are instructions for making rag dolls and their clothes, a gardening bag or a lovely owl doorstop/cushion.

Lots of the projects involve recycling of fabric that you might already have around the house such as old t-shirts or fabric cut-offs.  Most of the exercises use simple running stitches but some of the gifts and more decorative pieces involve more decorative stitches.

I think this is a great introduction to sewing, both for creating pieces but also for decorating them and I can't wait to get started with Lara.

Lara Joins...The Weekend Box Club

This weekend Lara and I spent quite some time together getting crafty, cooking and playing in the garden inspired by the contents of a Weekend Box.  The Weekend Box is a subscription club where, every fortnight, your child received a parcel packed with weekend ideas for children; creative, healthy and green activities to keep your little ones occupied throughout the weekend.

 

Last Friday Lara was unwell and couldn't go to nursery so I stayed at home with her and we cracked open the Weekend Box. The little box came with everything we would need to complete two different craft activities, a gardening activity, cookery activity and a story activity... and it really was pretty much everything we needed.  In a regular box you receive 4 activities in each box.

At first I was a little sceptical about the concept of the Weekend Box but I think I've been won around.  As a family who already do quite a few craft activities together, actively encourage the girls to help us in the garden and ALWAYS have little helpers in the kitchen, I wasn't originally sure that the Weekend Box presented good value for money because many of the contents of the box are already things we have around the house.  But then when I thought about it I realised that with a regular subscription you aren't just paying for the materials to conduct the activities but also for the inspiration and the reference sheets - each activity comes with instructions on a printed sheet which can be used again and again.

 

OK, so we are quite unusual in that we have odds and ends of craft materials and gardening products available for the girls at most times but for many families, it would cost an awful lot of money to go out and buy full-sized versions of all of the materials provided in the Weekend Box and they may never be used again. So yes, now I've thought about it, I think that the Weekend Box is pretty good value for money, especially when you sign up to a regular delivery.

On Friday Lara got busy with the creative activities.  She made these fun pom pom animals from wool, PVA glue, sticky eyes and foam pieces.  Then Lara was inspired by a green activity which involved up-cycling fabric off-cuts to make fabric letters... she chose to decorate the letters from her own name.

On Saturday Lara and I planted Basil seeds in the garden in a recycled egg box.  Lara absolutely loves being out in the garden and always seems her happiest when planting and watering.

 

On Sunday Lara and I made carrot soup for lunch using our Weekend Box recipe and the special sachet of magic spices.  Unfortunately Lara was a grumpy boots and refused to try the soup she had made (she's always been a bit funny about soup... right from day one).  But me and Mr. B absolutely loved the soup!

We still have a story activity to do together which involves creating a story from the characters on the prompt sheet... perhaps we will do that as we drive off on our holiday!

For me one of the most admirable things about the Weekend Box is the green credentials.  100% of the contents of each box is recyclable and 95% of it came from recycled sources in the first place.  The instruction cards are all printed with acid- and alcohol-free inks on FSC approved paper.  Lots of the activities in the Weekend Boxes are designed to encourage in our children an interest in eco activities and the world around us.

I think that the Weekend Box would be perfect for children from about 3 years to 8 years and would work brilliantly well during school holidays when you need lots of inspiration for ideas for activities for children.  You can follow Weekend Box on Twitter (@WeekendBoxClub) or Facebook (/WeekendBoxClub) for exclusive content, competitions and much more!

YOU CAN GET YOUR FIRST WEEKENDBOX FOR JUST £5 WITH THE CODE WBEMMA2

Hobbycraft Kids Craft and Inspiration - A Fuzzy Felt Flashback

Fuzzy Felt.  Woah, this brings back memories!  And My Little Pony Fuzzy Felt at that.  I feel like I'm reliving my own childhood through Lara and I tell you what, it feels good to know that Lara still gets the same amount of pleasure from the simple things in life.  Lara was sent a set of My Little Pony Fuzzy Felt from the home craft specialists, Hobbycraft who wanted to show her quite how impressive their range of children's creative activities is - and its not just cutting and sticking!  Lara has really enjoyed sitting quietly creating simple scenes from her Fuzzy Felt which comes with LOADS of scenery pieces as well as a few special My Little Pony character which you stick onto the backing board to make a scene and can peel and re-stick until your heart's content.

But Lara does love her craft activities - we have an entire room of our house dedicated to the girls' craft equipment.  Lara, being totally into all things 'princess' was very impressed by the Crayola Color Wonder Disney Princess Glitter Paper and Markers which look like they are colourless markers until the point at which you use them on the page - then they magically bring colour to the page.  To be honest, I wasn't very impressed.  The pens are billed as mess-free because the ink won't mark hands or clothes but to me it means you are limited on colours and creativity... plus the glittery parts of the paper rubbed off all over Lara'a hands and clothes instead!

The biggest hit in our family from Hobbycraft's range of kids activities was this set of 4 Hello Kitty jigsaws.  We LOVE jigsaws in the Mellow household as they take a lot of concentration (aka quiet time) and bring an amazing sense of achievement when completed.  Hobbycraft have a really wide range of children's character jigsaws across a wide age range of capabilities.