Fab Mums

I have written about Panduro Hobby’s great craft materials before. Not only they have a good range of art supplies and crafts kits, they are also a great source of inspiration for new crafts. I cannot call myself a knitting expert, as my basic skills go back to my younger days of making colourful scarves for my dolls, but I would give it a go with the quick knit loom, a plastic tool to easily knit without needles. The tool comes in two different sizes, medium and large, for making funky leg warmers, hats or anything with a tubular shape.

The vibrant colours of the eco baby wool and the original leg warmers are certainly very inspiring. One ball of organic wool contains at least 20% of merino wool and weighs 25 grams corresponding to approximately 83m of thread. Instructions to make the leg warmers using the quick knit loom are available on Panduro Hobby.

Tags: Crafts, easy knitting, eco wool, quick knit loom

Ever since my son grew out of his baby car seat, where he used to snugly fall asleep soon after the car was on the move, we’ve had all sort of issues with medium to long car journeys. As he slept less and less in the car we had to be inventive with entertaining him during the outbound journey, games, songs, I spy games (with both parents in the car, not recommended when driving alone with the child!) you name it, we have done it. The return journey is all a different story. Tired after an eventful day, he falls asleep almost immediately, but the seat belt was very uncomfortable by the side of his neck so we solved the issue with a soft seat belt cushion. The Great Little Trading Company has a nice velvety cushion that easily slips onto the seat belt strap to stop children nodding uncomfortably when they doze off in the car. I especially like the removable washable cover, which makes it easy to keep clean.    

Tags: car journeys, car safety, seat belt cushion, travel

Often the secret to a good kids’ party is a well thought party bag. Back in my day we didn’t even know the meaning of a party bag, birthday parties were a straight forward affair with friends coming over at your house for cake, soft drinks and lots of playing. Today organising a kids’ party can be as complicated as you want it to be, from choosing the venue, giving out cute invites and thank you cards; a lot of thought goes into what kind of food to offer because a lot of parents turn their noses to even the tiniest amount of sugar; then there is the entertainment factor and let’s not forget the party bag!

Party bags could be seen as that little extra to do on top of everything else, but if they are cleverly put together they could be the success of a party with enough little things to entertain the children and make up fun games. Planet Apple at Not on the High Street offers a great selection of toys and gadgets for party bags that are well suited to generate fun playing games. I really like the wooden clown whistles, the clown cars and pencils. For girls the old fashioned French skipping elastics with a wooden butterfly are really cute.  

Tags: birthday parties, Gifts, kids' parties, party bags

Teaching children to tie their shoe laces requires patience, practice and a lot of praise.  There are various ways to teach how to tie a bow, so it is important to decide which method to follow and stick to it or the child will get confused and find it more difficult than necessary. Once you have decided the method to use, make a game plan and stick to it; most importantly the child needs to be ready with a fully developed hand to eye coordination. 

A few things to remember before starting:

1. Opt for flat shoe laces rather than round slippery ones

2.  Use two different colour laces to practice making a bow

3. Make sure the child learns facing the shoe as if he/she was wearing it so when you teach make sure the child is sitting next to you not opposite.

There are all sorts of stories and rhymes to help children learn having fun. We adopted the rhyme to the tune of “Splish Splash I was Taking a Bath”

Criss Cross I am Tying My Shoes
Criss Cross and go under the bridge,
Then you got to pull it tight.
Make a loop but keep a long tail,
That is how to do it right.
Then you take the other string,
and you wrap it ’round the loop.
Pull it through the hole,
Now you got the scoop.
Criss cross and go under the bridge,
Now you made a double knot!

Tags: educational, Learning, tying shoe laces

I discovered mooo last year when I was looking for eco-friendly Christmas tree options and I was really impressed with their wall stickers. Since then I have been keeping an eye on their products and I found they have a great range of personalised goods across the board.

Their party invites with matching envelope seals, gift tags and thank you cards are very cute indeed and with so many different types for boys and girls you are spoilt for choice. It’s great to be given complete freedom to personalise the cards from picking the design and the colour to actually typing the details at checkout so you will be sure no mistakes will appear on the invites. Party invites come in different sizes and with the option of a magnet on the back, which I think is a brilliant idea…I cannot count the amount of times invites went missing in our house! Those days are over with the magnet attached to the back of the invite, just pop it on the fridge and it won’t happen again.

I love the wall stickers and decals and particularly those fab chalkboard stickers, which I have ordered by the way and I am waiting for impatiently. I have ordered the jungle animals to go on my son’s bedroom walls to complete the eclectic look we like so much.

But mooo is not just about wall stickers and invites. They also have a fantastic range of personalised canvas art with fabulous designs for boys and girls’ rooms.  A cute range of bags with your child’s name printed on including lunch boxes and backpacks; last but not least they offer a beautiful assortment of personalised tees.

If you need to identify more than a few items of your child’s belongings, why not adopt the fun name tags. At mooo, they understand parents’ and children’s needs alike hence their fabulous range of name tags, colourful, fun, big, small, shaped like animals or simply round, but most of all efficient. They are perfect for lunch boxes, drink bottles, books and pretty much anything else you can think of. mooo’s name labels, school labels and address labels are waterproof, dishwasher resistant and microwave safe. To identify clothing items the iron on labels are easy to apply to most fabrics and will resist washing machines and tumble dryers.

Finally I was truly surprised that their postage charges were not at all expensive; in truth I was prepared to pay a little extra due to the fact they are shipping from Australia, but I paid less than I normally do for a parcel from anywhere in Europe!   

Tags: Cards & Invites, children art, name tags, personalised gifts

If your child is an avid comics’ reader, then you are probably wondering what to do with all that precious paper piling up on the bookshelves. Well, I know one thing for sure comics or not we keep running out of room on the bookshelves so we need to add more shelves to cope with the amount of books and yes comics, which are my son’s new found passion. The need of a new shelf and all that surplus of paper gave me the idea of making a fun shelf covered in comics using a very easy decoupage technique.

All you need to make this funky shelf is an ordinary unfinished piece of flat wood, lots of comics’ cuttings, vinyl glue, a brush, water and non-toxic varnish.

Before starting make sure the surface to cover is dry and clean. Begin at one end and slowly work your way through the whole shelf.

Mix the vinyl glue with water with a ratio of 3/4 glue and 1/4 water.

Apply the glue with a brush onto the surface, then put a piece of the ripped comics’ pages on it and glue over the top. Add another piece randomly to create a collage effect and continue until the board is fully covered.

It is best to do it in stages to allow for one end to dry before working on the other side.

When the board is fully covered and dry, apply a thick coat of non-toxic varnish to seal it and put it on the wall.

For an even funkier effect you can cover the brackets in comics too.

Tags: bedroom furniture, children art, Crafts, recycling

I love the new chalk table with reversible top by P’kolino. I am a huge fun of draw-on/wipe-off surfaces and this table seems particularly good. The modern and simple design typical of P’kolino’s products and their functionality come together here with a reversible top, which is perfect to hide the mess away and quickly turns the drawing table into a clean surface for other activities. Made of fibre board, the chalk table comes with two useful benches.

Tags: bedroom furniture, chalk surfaces, kids tables

Save the Children was one of the first to bring aid to Leogane, a town close to the epicentre of the Haiti earthquake. Since Jan 20th 2010, when this film was shot, Save the Children has set up mobile clinics, distributed medical supplies for 85,000 people and brought food and essential household equipment to families in the area. If you haven’t donated to a charity yet, please consider Save the Children and if you are a blogger please help spreading the word with one of the Save the Children Videos. Thank you.

Tags: Charities, Help Haiti

Learning to tell the time is an important milestone for young ones, even more so nowadays that kids are equally exposed to analogue and digital clocks, which it might be a tad confusing.

I have looked at fun ways to practice to read the clock and I found a great online resource. Timemonsters is a fun website aimed at kids who are at the early stages of learning the clock. After the easy tutorials, which divide the clock in three sections, the engaging set up allows them to test their knowledge with a lot of fun games while monsters and spiders try to attack the clock. On the homepage the wizard explains in a very simple way how the website works so kids with basic computer skills will be able to operate it without any problems.  Then it goes on to teaching  the numbers on the clock, but the clock is attacked by colourful spiders that make the numbers fall off so  the children using the site  will have fun dragging the numbers back onto the clock to their correct spot with the mouse.  Then the wizard explains about the hands on the clock and half past.  Continue Reading »

Tags: educational, kids watches, learn to read the clock, Learning, online learning resources

Kids will absolutely love these light-up balloons.  They can be inflated with air or helium and last up to 15 hours for hours and hours of fun.  iLLoomm balloons are safe for kids to play with and go much further than pretty decorations; they will be the heart of the party. Just imagine the fun kids will have chasing the glowing balloons in the dark.  

Tags: gadgets, kids' parties, light-up balloons