Author Archives: TodayWeDid

Unknown's avatar

About TodayWeDid

I spend my time sharing my love of reading, arts and crafts with my four children. I also review children's and YA books.
Dec9

Paper Doily Angels

Posted on by
Standard

IMG_2972

Laying out the wings.

Laying out the wings.

Doilies make pretty angel wings and skirts. We cut a triangular section from a doily, and used this piece as the angel’s skirt, while the rest of the doily was turned upside down and became the wings. We glued the pieces of doily to an oversized pop-stick (like the tongue depressors the doctor uses to look in your throat). This formed the body of the angel.

Attaching the skirt and face.

Attaching the skirt and face.

I cut out circles of white felt to use as the angel’s face, and a third of a pipe cleaner (chenille stick) was bent around to form a halo. The halo was glued to the back of the felt head piece. The kids decorated their angels with glitter glue and glitter paint, and added little googly eyes. The middle angel in the picture above is actually covered in glitter, but it can’t be seen in the photo.

Painting an angel.

Painting an angel.

We stuck the angels up on the window next to where our Christmas tree is.

A halo.

A halo.

The doilies are quite light and will not stay up on their own, and will droop without further support. We used blu-tack to stick the wings to the window, but we could have added another pop-stick (or two) onto the back of the angel to support the wings independent of where the angel was being displayed.

A's angel.

A’s angel.

Dec8

Spotty Dotty Christmas Wrap

Posted on by
Standard

IMG_2990

Foam dabbers.

Foam dabbers.

It’s easy and fun to make your own Christmas wrapping paper, as long as you don’t mind a little mess along the way! We used glitter paints in silver, gold, green and red, and white paint mixed with glitter. The kids applied the paint using little foam dabbers, basically a foam piece attached to a handle for easy use. We could have done similar painting using pieces of round sponge, but I find the handled variety a little less messy for the kids to use.

IMG_2994

L painting a tree.

L painting a tree.

A painting.

A painting.

L used the dabbers to make spotty Christmas trees and lines, while A just put random spots all over the paper. A also made one picture of flowers out of spots, which we won’t use as wrapping paper, we will place it up on the wall instead.

A's lovely flower picture.

A’s lovely flower picture.

Dec8

Christmas Cookies

Posted on by
Standard

IMG_2962

We had a Christmas baking session over the weekend, and the kids helped me make some Christmas cookies.

We used a tried and tested cookie recipe I found on The Organised Housewife ages ago. It is the best cookie recipe we have ever tried, and it makes lots of cookies in each batch. We have added many different things to this simple recipe, but my favourite addition is caramel choc chips!

Shaping cookies.

Shaping cookies.

Adding m&ms.

Adding m&ms.

I let the kids shape the cookies, and then add red and green m&ms to the top of each cookie. The kids hid m&ms inside some of the cookies too. The cookies ended up being all different sizes, but mostly round. I had to keep an eye on them in the oven so that the littler ones didn’t burn.

 

Ready to mix the sprinkles into the dough.

Ready to mix the sprinkles into the dough.

We also added red and green sprinkles to some of the cookie dough to make other cookies. We got the sprinkles from Woolworths in a handy Christmas pack that included the sprinkles, silver cachous and little sugar candy cane sprinkles. Once I had mixed the sprinkles into the dough, the green sprinkles pretty much disappeared, but the red sprinkles were still visible. The kids shaped the cookies, and made some of them very large!

The first batch ready for the oven.

The first batch ready for the oven.

After the cookies had cooled, the kids picked out the ones that they wanted to give to their teachers, and we wrapped them up in pink cellophane. We finished each bundle off with curly coloured ribbons, and gave them to their teachers for Christmas presents.

Teacher presents.

Teacher presents.

Dec7

Pop-stick Christmas Decorations

Posted on by
Standard

Pop-sticks are so versatile, and they can be used to make simple and fun Christmas decorations. We made stars and trees using the regular sized pop-sticks, and some small stars with mini pop-sticks.

IMG_2933

Gluing the pop-sticks together.

Gluing the pop-sticks together.

Triangles ready to be glued together.

Triangles ready to be glued together.

For the larger stars, we made two triangles with the pop-sticks by gluing the ends together. Then we placed one of the triangles on top of the other one, so that one triangle was point up, and the other one was point down. We glued the triangles together like this, and got our star. To finish them off we added glitter glue and once they were dry, I tied a loop of string to one of the points so it could be hung on the tree.

IMG_2936

Christmas trees.

Christmas trees.

Adding glitter glue.

Adding glitter glue.

The Christmas trees were made with a triangle of green pop-sticks, and a natural coloured pop-stick glued behind the triangle to form the trunk. We had coloured pop-sticks, but natural pop-sticks could be easily painted green before construction. Glitter glue finished off the trees. Later, a loop of string was added so the tree could be hung up.

IMG_2923

Gluing mini pop-sticks together.

Gluing mini pop-sticks together.

The little stars were made by stacking the mini pop-sticks at different angles to produce eight points. A small dab of glue was all that was necessary to keep the pop-sticks together. Once dry, we tied some string around the stars to hang them from.

These decorations all look great hanging on our Christmas tree!

 

Dec7

Foam Christmas Spoons

Posted on by
Standard

IMG_2860A found these foam spoon kits in Riot Art & Craft last week. She picked out two for her and two for L (who was not with us at the time). They were only a couple of dollars each, and they gave us an hour or so of Christmas crafting fun.

Each pack contained a foam spoon and all the bits to attach to the spoon to make a penguin, Santa or reindeer.

Sticking on the reindeer's head.

Sticking on the reindeer’s head.

The penguin packs had foam with a sticky backing so all we had to do was peel off the backing paper, and stick it where it had to go. The only problem with this was that the sticky area of the body pieces were much wider than the spoon, leaving the back of the body with nothing to stick to. The reindeer and Santa packs weren’t self-sticking, so we used craft glue to attach the foam pieces to the spoon.

Placing tiny bells on the reindeer's antlers.

Placing tiny bells on the reindeer’s antlers.

L and A very carefully followed the pictures to create their spoons. For some reason A’s penguin pack had two wings the same, instead of a left and right wing! She didn’t really care though, she just stuck the second wing on upside down and told me the penguin was waving.

Sticking on the penguin's beak.

Sticking on the penguin’s beak.

We have displayed these Christmas spoons up on the wall. They are very cute!

 

IMG_2875

Dec7

Strawberry Santas

Posted on by
Standard

IMG_2817

I’ve been seeing photos of these little strawberry Santas popping up on my Facebook feed over the last couple of weeks, and I wanted to try it out.

I bought the largest strawberries that I could find because I thought it would be easier to use for this task. For the filling, I made basic white buttercream, but it would have worked well with fresh cream too, or maybe even creme fraiche or cream cheese.

The cut strawberry.

The cut strawberry.

The kids had a couple of strawberries each. L cut her own strawberries up, but I helped A with hers. We cut off the top to give it a flat base when we turned the strawberry upside down for the body. We cut off the point of the strawberry to make the Santa hat. The kids had a good time spooning buttercream onto the cut top of the strawberry to make the head. I think they ate quite a lot of the buttercream along the way too!

Adding buttercream.

Adding buttercream.

Both of the kids had trouble dabbing a small bit of buttercream onto the top of the Santa hat for the pom pom. The first couple had very large pom poms! They wiped the buttercream off these ones and ate it, before trying again.

Each strawberry Santa got two little sugar cachous as eyes and they were done. These were easy to make and didn’t take too long. The hardest part for the kids was waiting until after dinner to eat them!

Strawberry Santa

Strawberry Santa

Dec5

Quirky Tails by Paul Jennings

Posted on by
Standard

IMG_2805Quirky Tails by Paul Jennings, paperback collection of short stories, 102 pages, published by Penguin Books Australia in 1987.

Quirky Tails is a short story collection from Paul Jennings, an author that I read and re-read as a child. Now the time has come to introduce this amazing author to my eldest daughter.

Quirky Tails is a collection of nine odd tales, all of which will entertain, amuse and surprise the reader. Each story within the collection can be read alone, but I found it hard to stop at just one! The stories are strange with a good twist at the end. Some are very funny and some are a bit spooky, but I liked them all.

Suitable for middle and upper primary school children through to early high school students, this book can be read again and again.

Dec5

Underpants Wonderpants by Peter Bently and Deborah Melmon

Posted on by
Standard

IMG_2804Underpants Wonderpants by Peter Bently and Deborah Melmon, paperback picture book, published by Paragon Books Ltd in 2014.

Wonderpants is the ultimate superhero, flying around and saving everyone with awesome underpants power! Underpants can help in any situation, even when saving the world from an alien invasion.

Underpants Wonderpants is much loved by my preschooler. The story is a bit silly, but amusing, and the language is simple enough for children learning to read. The illustrations are colourful and engaging, my preschooler likes to find the duck on each page.

Underpants Wonderpants is best suited to preschoolers and kindy children, but I get a chuckle each time I read it too. Kids will love what Wonderpants does with his undies. Underpants have many more uses than I previously thought!

 

Dec4

The First Christmas by Rod Campbell

Posted on by
Standard

IMG_2803The First Christmas by Rod Campbell, boardbook, first published as My First Nativity by Macmillan Children’s Books in 2011, this edition published in 2014.

This sturdy boardbook offers a simple introduction to the original Christmas story for toddlers and preschoolers.

The illustrations are simple and appealing for young children, and the language has been simplified somewhat to reflect the intended audience. However, my kids had not encountered a couple of the words, such as ‘lowly’, which I needed to explain. They also had other questions related to the story, so The First Christmas was a good talking point to begin a discussion on the stories surrounding Christmas.

Dec1

Explorers: Insects and Minibeasts by Jinny Johnson

Posted on by
Standard

IMG_2741Explorers: Insects and Minibeasts by Jinny Johnson, paperback non-fiction, 31 pages, first published by Kingfisher in 2011, this edition published by Kingfisher in 2014.

This is another title in the Kingfisher Explorers series of non-fiction for children. The information is pitched well for preschoolers and primary school children, with full colour illustrations and photography throughout.

The layout is simple and the facts interesting. There is lots to learn about bugs and creepy crawlies in this book. It looks at life cycles, insect homes, diets and water creatures. My preschooler particularly liked the pages on camouflage, and defense. She liked the thorn bugs.

As I read through Explorers: Insects and Minibeasts with my preschooler I saw plenty of insects that were new to me, and I learnt right along with her. It’s nice to find non-fiction books that my kids enjoy and that provide us all with opportunities for learning.