Summer Gnome Giveaway

I am so excited to tell you it's our first giveaway on this blog,

to celebrate these happy summer days.

I have made two cute Summer Steiner gnomes embroidered with golden rays of the sun

and wearing off-beat hats.

They have their own wooden mushroom for a picnic table by the pond

and some yummy needle-felted strawberry plants.

For play or for your "Summer Table".

Anyone can enter and this is how:

1. Leave a comment here and please become a follower of our blog.
See the follower box on the left hand side.

2. All followers can enter once per day.

3. If you kindly mention our giveaway on your blog you will gain 3 free chances.

All entries will be written down and placed in a bowl and chosen

by Big Seed on 18th July at 9am GMT.

You can enter from anywhere in the world,

I am happy to spread the Gnome Love globally.

Good luck to everyone

 x

Amazing Sunshine and Rainbow Suncatchers

These are so gorgeous.

The possibilities for this method of crafting is endless.

Tear some cling film and tape it to your table.

Then draw around a bowl/plate with felt tip.

Tear up some yellow/red/orange tissue (kite) paper.

Take an old/cheap paint brush and paint PVA glue ( Mod Podge) inside the circle.

Stick all the pieces of tissue paper in the circle making sure some overlap.

This is the important bit: Paint PVA glue all over the top of the circle too.

The rainbow uses a different method;

this time we drew a rainbow on a piece of paper and stuck this underneath the cling film.

Here is Big Seed tracing the rainbow shapes.

This time I cut the paper into squares for Big Seed to stick down.

Paint glue on the cling film, stick the paper down and paint glue on top.

Leave to dry until for about 6 hours.

Then magically peel it off the cling film.

The glue will have completely disappeared.

You have a beautiful, fragile, paper sun.

Sometimes there are tiny holes which missed any tissue paper which looks really attractive too.

A radiant rainbow!


Have you entered our Gnome Giveaway?

Beads, beads, beads

Today we did lots of different activities with various bags of beads.

They were all bought from Ebay and cost about £1 a packet.

First Big Seed sorted a whole bag of wooden alphabet beads by colour.

I then picked out the letters in his name and he sorted these.

Then he spelt out his name by himself with the beads.

He then threaded them altogether with elastic which I tied for him.

Great for developing fine motor skills!

Then wore it all day...he was very proud!

So he wanted to make some more...

So he made one for me.

I got out a bag of assorted wooden beads, he chose some,

 and I taught him some symmetry.

And one for Dad of course! 

Do you think he will wear it to work??

We were going to make some for his Grandmas with these,

but the beads are too small for the elastic...so don't buy these beads!

By the way, we did all these things over the course of a day...

I just wait for him to ask to do an activity, that's how it tends to work.

 And yes, he's very demanding! He loves doing these things.

Next I needed a bunch of beads the same colour but different sizes,

so I bought a secondhand necklace.

I cut the string and put them in a bowl for him to sort by size.

I used a muffin tin for something with multiple compartments.

See he's still wearing his bracelet

Here he is spooning from one pot to another with a Chinese soup spoon

which I found on holiday.

A box tray is invaluable to stop the beads rolling everywhere interrupting momentum.

I got the box tray from here in the UK.

Treasure Hunt!

I hid 12 wooden letter beads, one for each muffin tin compartment.

This is very important or he won't know how many to look for.

He loved this so much I had to do it with marbles afterwards.

He also learnt how to use a sieve by himself.

Finally - are you still with me?

He chose 5 wooden beads and then had to draw what he saw.

It helps to have round beads because he can only do circle shapes at the moment!

This is the very beginning of 2D technical drawing if you really want to "big up" your child!

OK, then it was time for supper.

Three fun ideas with a 99p bag of marbles

I bought a bag of marbles last week and thought of these ideas...

First up we mixed colours in a fun way.

We have been mixing blue and green with watercolours,

so this nicely followed on.

I cut paper to the size of my plastic tray.

I secured it with blu-tak.

Put a blob of blue poster paint and a blob of yellow on top,

hold the handles together and let the biggest marble roll all over the place.

It's definitely one to do together or the ball can roll on your nice floor!

Watch the colours mix.

You can let your child handroll the marble but we like the pattern it naturally produces.

The red and yellow mixed into orange made a nice "sun".

The black and white mixed into grey made a lovely "spider web".

Next we sorted them. 

Now this was interesting because they are not solid blocks of colour,

so it was a fun challenge. 

Also there are only 4 compartments so I made him choose

groups for the odd marbles to go in and he had to explain his choice.

This Montessori tray is from here in the UK.

Thirdly we made up a cherry cake game.

Get 2 tubs of playdough and make some flat "cakes"...we made 7.

Roll the dice and place that many marbles on a cake.

See which has the most/least cherries.

Play again and again until he gets bored....4 times in a row!

Featured on Rhythm Of The Home Blog

Hi all,

Just to let you know that while we have been away,

I am delighted to say that I was asked to be a guest contributor on the Rhythm Of The Home Blog.

It features my Sand Sensory Box if you haven't seen it already.

If you have then pop over and see their current seasonal issue of

the Rhythm Of The Home magazine with fantastic pictures of great summer

themed activities and ideas.

While we still unpack...

Going on a break for week

Look what came in the post this morning!

WOW! Grandma Seed knitted some vegetables!

They are gorgeous and so so cute!

She got the pattern from a Jean Greenhowe book from the wool shop.

This food has come at a perfect time because we are going on holiday for a week.

The gnomes have plenty of food to eat now while we are away...

they can make a nice vegetable soup.

If you like the look of the gnomes and their toadstools:

come and visit us when we get back for a cute giveaway!

See you soon xx

Chamomile Bath Bundle

Chamomile is the children's herb.

It's the first homeopathy remedy for babies and teething.

Organic Chamomile tea really chills me out and helps Baby Seed sleep better.

It's perfect for a bath before bed!

It's easy to grow from seed.

This little clump self-seeded in a pot.

Here is Big Seed cutting it with scissors on a sunny dry day.

People normally use muslin but Grandma Seed gave us some old net curtains this week. Perfect!

Draw around a pot and cut out a circle.

Big Seed sewed running stitch around the edge.

 Leave the needle in with plenty of cotton to pull later.

Cut off the flower heads and leaves and place in the centre.

Add a scoop of organic oats.

This is good for softening the water and great for eczema.

Pull both ends of the cotton to tighten up the circle and tie in a knot.

Voila...organic Chamomile Bath Bundle.

Start running the taps and have fun squeezing out milky white clouds in the bath.

Mmmm, smells good too!