Christmas Crafts @ Love and Lollipops

I love this time of the year, don't you? So on the eve of December 1st (YAY!), I thought I'd dig into the archives and share these with you. Just to get you in the mood ;).

Milk Bottle Santas

Imagine a Santa Ten Pin bowling game with these...

Christmas Cards

It sure is special receiving a homemade Christmas Card. I didn't last year, but I really do want to make some this year.

Bottle Top Snowmen 

Have some fun making bottle top snow people.

Teddy Bear Ornament

Make a teddy bear ornament from two pipe cleaners. I have included a nice tutorial in the post. 

Coffee Filter Christmas Trees

Pretty for some Christmas art work or cards. 

Christmas Tree (Tennis) Biscuits

Easy to make and yummy to eat...mmm

Sock Snowmen

These make for sweet little gifts that the children can make for their friends.

Matchbox Advent Calender

You have one night left to make this :)

A Christmas Sensory Box 

A sensory box filled with Christmassy goodness. 

Christmas Eye-Spy Bottle

I never posted about the bottle seen here, but if you go to the link, I share how I made another Eye-Spy Bottle. This is great fun for the really little ones.

Little Town of Bethlehem Craft (from toilet rolls!)

My favourite Christmas craft of all...this precious little town of Bethlehem. I love how this one turned out...who would have thought that toilet rolls could be turned into something so special?

Have fun preparing for the BIG DAY, but remember it's a season...Enjoy it all :)

Bottle Top Turkey

Happy (Belated) Thanksgiving!

...to all my friends and family in the US :)

Cloud Dough

I've seen around the net that this is called "Cloud Dough", but I actually think that this is closer to the real store-bought Moon Sand than the recipe I shared here.  Either way, you can't go wrong. It's a whole lot of fun.

This "dough" isn't really doughy at all. It's fluffy and light and mold-able. Little One enjoys playing with it with spoons and small containers. It does make quite a mess, so I prefer that we only play with this outdoors.

So the recipe is simple:

8 cups of flour

1 cup of oil (baby oil or vegetable oil)
Please note: Baby oil shouldn't be eaten, so supervise if you use the baby oil option :)

Mix it all up and P L A Y !

I cannot recall where I saw this super recipe for the first time, but there's a nice post with some extra links to what other Mommy's have done with Cloud Dough at Learn with Play at home.com.

Till next time...

Lego catalogue ideas {and a Giveaway winner}

Lego catalogues... they are loved in my home. They are read and re-read until they completely fall apart, but you dare not throw them away.

Big One has always loved lego.  Little One has been playing with the bigger lego blocks since he was very young, but it was about a month before his fourth birthday that the "mini lego switch" went on in his brain. He now plays with the mini-figurines day in and day out. I have felt quite sorry for the cars and construction vehicles that have been so loved up until now. It reminds me to enjoy every stage and phase - it doesn't last forever.

So seeing all these poor falling apart lego catalogues, I decided to give myself a whole lot of work and make longer lasting lego books. To make, I used nice A4 sized coloured cardboard and Flip Files. I cut down the double lego pages and pasted it onto the card and popped it into the book. Now hopefully these special catalogues can last for a bit longer.

After I had made these, I realised the wonderful opportunity that this book provides for language enrichment. Any lego-loving child, who struggles with language, would enjoy looking at these action-packed pages, and it then provides a nice tool for speech therapists to use to engage a child and talk about the picture. You can also use the different scenes to "find things" on the pages. 

And one more idea... I have also converted some of the pictures into puzzles. 

I wonder what else I could do with a lego catalogue?

One last exciting thing before I leave you - I recently had a giveaway and I do have a winner for you! Thank you to my international readers who try as they might couldn't access the Little People's Products Facebook page. I gave you the extra entry for your effort. And the winner...Briana Richardson :). Congrats Briana...I'll be in touch with you shortly. 

Till next time...have fun.