Paint Sticks Review - Mess Free Painting

Holly loves to paint! At school (usually without an apron). At home with our childminder after school. In the garden. At the table. She loves it!  The trouble is that I really don't trust Holly with paint. Holly is wild and enthusiastic but her clothes always get covered and so does our laminate flooring and the walls... oh my, the walls.  I may have found a solution to the messy chaos though - Paint Sticks.

Paint Sticks are wind up sticks of paint, a little like glue sticks that I'm sure your little people are used to using. The sticks are made from semi-solid paint which means there is more or less no mess and definitely no need for paintbrushes which is great news to me as Holly usually ends up utilising about 100 different brushes and then leaves them for me to clean up afterwards!

Holly and Lara were sent a pack of classic Paint Sticks from Little Brian - the pack contains 12 different paint sticks in bright bold colours. The girls very quickly set to work making their own master pieces.  Using the paint sticks is a little like using a thick crayon... the paint goes on nice and thick and dries quickly.

Holly painted me a brightly coloured rainbow using almost every colour of Paint Stick available! Lara experimented with colour blending.  The thing I think they most enjoyed was using the paints to coat rubber stamps; I thought this was a really creative idea from Lara because stamping ink is a nightmare with children (gets everywhere, stains everything) and in fact Lara has a greater level of control over colours when using the Paint Sticks with rubber stamps than she would do with any other medium.  At the end of our first Paint Stick experiment, neither girl had paint on their hands, arms or clothes... RESULT!

I haven't told the girls yet but Paint Sticks have a little secret... you can use them on windows and glass too. The paint glides onto glass easily and you can rub it off easily with a cloth. This makes them perfect for decorating windows, perhaps for a party or big event such as Halloween or Christmas.

I've now packed up our Paint Sticks as I'm planning on taking them with us on holiday. They're so compact and mess-free that I thought they might make good entertainment for us when we're away so that the girls can continue being creative even when we aren't at home.

A pack of 12 Little Brian classic Paint Sticks costs around £5-6 which is more affordable than buying 12 large bottles of different coloured poster paints and definitely less messy.

Autumn Sand Art #BRCraftClub #BRbloggers

Lara and Holly love creating sand art pictures. Set them loose with a jar of coloured sand and some sticky paper and they can create masterpieces.

These autum leaf sand art decorations were a fun craft activity for an autumn afternoon. The kits come with a set of pre-cut leaf shapes with sticky peel-off covering. Inside the kit you'll find some little sachets of brightly coloured sand in all sorts of autumnal colours. Gently pour the sand over the sticky leaves in fabulous colourful combinations.

Lara was surprised at how bright the colours were and told me they weren't realistic (!) until we then went for a walk down the lane outside school and saw bright reds, oranges and vibrant yellows among the fallen leaves on our way. Only then did she realise how stunning nature can be.

You can find lots of autumn craft ideas for kids at Baker Ross.

Halloween Art Activities for Kids

This October, we are planning a small Halloween party at our house for the girls with dressing up, lots autumnal foods and treats as well as lots of Halloween-themed decorations, many of them we will make ourselves.  Baker Ross sell lots of small craft kits for children to create their own Halloween decorations, you can find them in the Baker Ross Halloween arts, crafts and treats section on their website.

Holly enjoys sticker crafts so I set her to work on these A4-sized Halloween Dotty Art pictures. all you have to do is to choose the coloured dots you want to use and then fill in the patterns on the page. This pack contains 8 pictures featuring bats, skulls, cats, pumpkins and even Frankenstein! For Holly these dotty art sets are a good exercise in concentration because you have to follow the pattern - I don't think I've actually seen her complete one but, coloured or not, they make striking posters for the wall and will be perfect for our house party.

No Halloween party would be right without dangling creatures for you to walk into in the dark. Both girls are making jewelled owls to dangle in a line across the room, and furry Halloween pom pom creatures. The Pom Pom kit comes with enough  wool to create three different pom pom characters - a spider, a bat and a pumpkin.  Pom Poms are fairly easy to make (for slightly bigger hands like Lara's) and you can really bring them to life using the stickers and foam accessories provided in these craft kits. If we hang these from the ceiling they'll be sure to give someone a fright in the dark.  These individual kits would make great activities to take part in during a Halloween party.

We won't be going trick-or-treating this year but that doesn't mean we won't be having any treats!  These little colour-in skull bags are perfect for small treats or party bags to take home a couple of Halloween biscuits from a party. The intricate skull designs feature lots of floral patterns for colouring in - bright colours work best and when coloured in, they remind me of the mexican colours and patterns that characterise Day of the Dead festivities.  If your small people are into colouring then you can top up with supplies such as simple packs of fibre-tip pens or other craft essentials when you're ordering art and crafts supplies from Baker Ross.

Cool Cardz Scratcheez Review

We don't often struggle for ideas to fill our summer holidays because Lara and Holly are both incredibly crafty. Most days I could plonk them down in the front room with a new craft activity and they would while away hours making hand-made creations. This summer, Lara is very much into making trinkets and gifts for her friends and so the Cool Cardz Scratcheez kit is proving a hit.

The Cool Cardz Scratcheez kit from Flair helps your children make little laminated cards to fill any need that they can dream up - secret membership cards for their own little club, VIP passes for special events, party invites, thank you cards or simply a token of friendship to share with one another.  Lara has even used these Cool Cardz to make laminated gifts for her teachers for the end of term.

This Cool Cardz kit comes with a set of boho-chic themed cards on which you can draw and write whatever message you fancy and adorn it with stickers (there are a few included). Each card also has a laminate wallet. Use the special roller to cover the card with laminate and turn it into a professional looking card that you can share with others.  Lara enjoyed using the laminator once she had worked out how firmly she had to hold it, and how hard to had to pull to get the laminate to stay in place (it's actually very forgiving if you get it wrong you can just about get away with peeling it off and starting again).

But the Scratcheez kit for these Cooll Cardz includes another special touch that can turn your cards into a special message. Use the secret message stickers to cover over your design and allow its recipient to scratch it off to reveal the message - there is a scratching tool included but I think a coin would also work.

Our favourite part of the whole kit is the magical rainbow-coloured scratch-off stickers which appear black until you scratch them off to reveal a rainbow design. We all think they're a rather striking addition to a card.  You can also finish off your card with sparkly boho-chic stickers of sparkly gem stones.

The handy laminator gadget also doubles up as a storage bag - there is space for all the gards and accessories, including the ring-shaped stampers. I can't see Lara using it as a handbag, but its a handy place to keep all the cards whether they are waiting to be made, or ready for handing out to friends and family.  

The Cool Cardz Scratcheez kit costs around £19.99.  It is great to know that you can buy refill packs with more Cool Cardz, laminating pouches, stickers and gems - it means that the kit isn't finished when you finish the first pack of cards - refills cost around £7.99.

If, like me, you have small creative people who can't get enough of making things, then they can join the Cool Create Club for free for creative ideas for the summer holidays at www.coolcreateclub.co.uk.  Other Cool Cardz themed sets include Shopkins, Chic Boutique and Frozen.

Summery Sand Art Ideas

We're loving the spring sunshine, getting in the mood for warmer weekends over the summer and so the girls have enjoyed doing some summery-themed craft activities together.  Sand art is one of the craft activities that both girls enjoy doing together.  Lara has now learned how to avoid getting sand EVERYWHERE but Holly on the other hand... sigh...needs a lot of assistance.  It is very easy to turn your floor into a sandpit if you let the kids play with coloured sand unattended!

This month Yellow Moon sent us some summer themed sand art picture cards and a selection of their neon coloured sand which has a great number of uses.

Sand-art pictures are sticky cards with a picture stamped into it.  When you peel away part of the coating you reveal the sticky behind and you can pour on sand that will stick to that part of the picture only.  Pour away the remainder (the bottles of sand come with a handy little funnel to make it easy to get the sand back into the bottle) and then move on to the next colour.

Lara has really got the hang of this and has enjoyed meticulously filling in these seaside pictures with lots of brightly coloured sand.  Holly has joined in and is learning the skill but often forgets to pour the excess sand away after use so we have built up rather a collection of generic "rainbow coloured" sand for use in other activities.

Another way of really showing of coloured sand is to fill up little decorative bottles with layers of different colours.  Lara and Holly actually sat and planned the arrangement of colours they wanted to use for these bears (planning doesn't normally feature highly in Holly's skillset).  Once the bears were full the girls chose to use them as ornaments to decorate their new rainbow-themed bedroom.

All of these sand art activities for children can be found for sale at Yellow Moon - the biggest kids craft store you can think of!  Don't forget that you can earn between 5% and 20% cashback for your school on most Yellow Moon purchases.

Halloween Sticking, Stamping and Puppetry!

Both Lara and Holly have very much been enjoying their autumnal crafts together at the weekend.  At this time of year we start looking forward to Halloween; it isn't a day that we particularly celebrate at home or at school but the idea of spooky goings on and "frights" is very much encouraged as a theme to explore at this time of year.

Yellow Moon sent the girls a selection of halloween craft activities which are perfect for the run up to half-term and would all make wonderful activities for a halloween party with friends from school.

One of Holly's favourite things to do is sticker-craft as she can now do this independently.  With a bumper pack of glitter foam stickers and a pack of plain black paper, Holly was able to make fun, striking images.  The foam stickers have lots of small parts to pop-out for the most striking effect and Lara was better suited to this element of the activity.

These spider finger puppet kits come in a pack of 4 and make a variety of designs - I think they'd be perfect at any time of year but they do seem very fitting right now!  The girls had great fun performing a spider-show for me after they had made their spider puppet kits.

The girls had most fun with these simple halloween foam stampers which come in the same designs as the foam stickers so that you can make co-ordinating halloween crafts.  From cauldrons to skulls, pumpkins to witches, these chunky hand-held stampers work well with paint or ink on autumnal coloured card and paper.

We played outside in the garden with these paints so that we could collect fallen autumn leaves to stick onto the pictures as well.

Yellow Moon stock a massive array of halloween themed craft activities and craft essentials such as these but you may be surprised that they also stock party bag fillers which make great ideas for trick or treat surprises on the night.

Don't forget that you can earn between 5% and 20% cashback for your school on most Yellow Moon purchases - if your school or PTA isn't already registered, why not drop them a hint?

Disney Frozen Craft Kits from Cool Create

Cool Create is a selection of fun craft activities for children from Flair.  The latest additions to the Cool Create Club range are Frozen craft activities and both Lara and Holly have had an absolute ball creating their own ornaments, lights, jewellery and decorations and have enjoyed sharing these craft activities with friends.  This weekend we had visitors on a rainy summer day and it was wonderful for the girls to be able to sit quietly in the front room creating their own Frozen jewellery.

Lara and Holly were sent three different craft activities from the Cool Create Frozen Range.  First up is the Frozen Shaker Maker which is a fun, mess-free way of making plaster of paris models.  Lara placed water and plaster mix into her Frozen shaker along with a mould of either Anna or Elsa and skoke the globe vigarously for about a minute.  The plaster takes just 90 minutes to harden, after which you can paint it with the paints supplied.  Lara hasn't yet quite mastered the art of mixing paints but she spent a long time concentrating hard on painting her creations.  The mould and shaker can be re-used if you can purchase some quick-drying plaster so you can create little Frozen plaques for all of your friends.

Our biggest hit was this Frozen Fun Tiles Jewellery box which Lara and her friend decorated using soft and hard stick-on jewels and decorations.  Inside the box you can store your own hand-made jewellery which the girls made from shrinky materials.  If you've never met a shrinky then you haven't lived.  The girls used coloured pencils to decorate the special plastic and then we cooked it in the oven for a couple of minutes to let the magic unfold.  Each tiny piece of plastic shrinks down to about a quarter of the original size, causing the colours to brighten and the plastic to harden into shiny, sturdy charms.  The kit comes with some ring mounts, a charm bracelet and a dangling brooch to which you can attach the hand-made Frozen charms.  There are lots of different designs suitable for both girls and boys to colour in and Lara spent nearly 2 hours with her friend making their shrinky jewellery.

The jewellery box itself is made from card and was hard for us to open (one of the handles fell off) but nevertheless, Lara loved decorating it with sparkly jewels.  Lara is someone who loves having a pattern to follow rather than making up a design herself.

I let Holly loose on this set of DIY Frozen Fairy Lights which we will put up in the play room.  The kit includes a set of battery powered LED lights and all of the materials you need to turn them into a string of decorated, sparkly fairy lights with a Frozen theme.  You curve the light covers around each bulb and then decorate with stickers and sparkles safe for use with the LEDs.  Holly needed a lot of help as the paperwork for the lanterns is quite delicate but she decorated them all herself and is quite unbelievably proud of her creation.

All of these Frozen craft kits have surpassed my expectations and have provided plenty of entertainment for the girls.  The Frozen Cool Create kits would make perfect gifts for 4-10 year olds.  You can find out more about the Cool Create club on Facebook and Twitter.

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.

Sand Art Play

Lara and Holly have a thirst for creative crafts. Our dining room has been totally repurposed as a craft area for the girls and so I am always on the lookout for new and exciting creative activities for both my 5 year old and my 2 year old that will help them to find a channel for their artistic instincts each weekend. Recently the girls have got really in to Sand Art play.

Lara was sent a Sand Art gift pack which contained 11 different colours of really fine sand along with four postcard designs to make.  The postcards have peel-off sections which are pre-glued.  Each postcard has a design marked onto it so you simply peel off the next section of the picture that you want to colour.

Lara's kit contained 4 ocean-themed pictures as this is something she is particularly in to right now.  She started with this dolphin design.  It took her a while to be able to visualise what the picture would look like once she had completed all of the colours (which is why some of the sections run in to each other).  Lara concentrated so hard on getting it right and despite spending nearly an hour (this is a long time for Lara to pay attention to anything!), once she had completed one picture she was eager to move on and do another.

Initially I was a bit concerned that there wouldn't be enough of each colour of sand to complete out the four postcards in the kit because Lara was very heavy handed when sprinkling the coloured sand on to the pictures.  I showed Lara how to place the postcard over a magazine so that we could fold the magazine and pour the left-over sand carefully back into the tube between each colour.  This was definitely a two-person job and not something Lara could really do on her own.

The sand worked really well!  Lara would use the little plastic pick to lift the section from the postcard to reveal the sticky area and then pour the sand over.  The sticky bit doesn't feel that sticky to the touch but the sand is so fine that it sticks perfectly and gives a really even colour.

My only disappointment with the Sand Art kit was the "laminating" pouches which were really just plastic bags that had to be cut and placed over the postcards to finish them off, before trimming to size. I felt that the cards could have come with a correctly-sized pouch that held the sand in place more closely and in fact Lara prefers the look of the pictures without the presentation covers.

I was really pleasantly surprised to see how much fun Holly also had using the sand art kit.  Of course, being that bit younger, she needed a lot more help from me but this is her work in progress...

... Holly really enjoyed being able to choose which section to colour next, and what colour to choose.  I think she wanted to be in control and very much enjoyed the feeling of being able to make a picture that looked so good (sometimes I think Holly gets frustrated at her own lack of ability to paint, draw and write... she wants to be older!)

Sand Art kits are available from www.sandartplay.co.uk

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!