Dinosaur fossils

Dinosaur fossils are great fun and  simple to make. They can be used to entertain in so many different ways. Hide them around the garden or sand pit for little explorers to find. Crafty kids can paint and decorate their fossils and make gifts, garden ornaments or jewellery out of them. You could even make a puzzle game and get the kids to match the dinosaur figures to the correct fossil.


We made our Dinosaur fossils using this simple Salt Dough recipe.

1 cup of plain flour
1/2  cup of salt
1/2 cup of water

Mix the flour and salt together in a bowl

Add the water a little at a time until the mixture starts clumping together like the picture above. You may not use the whole amount. (the mixture should not be soggy)

Squish the mixture into a ball the same as you would when making cookies. The dough should not be sticky. If it is add a little more flour.

Flatten a bit of dough with a rolling pin or your hand.

Use some toy dinosaurs and squish them into the dough to make a imprint.

Put your fossils onto a try and bake in a oven at the lowest temperature for 3 hours. Alternatively pop them in the microwave for 3 minutes. If they are still soft pop them in for anouth 30 seconds and repeat until ready. For best results I would recommend using the oven.

Hand print fish

Hand print pictures are adorable and make lovely little keepsakes. We made some bubble print backgrounds and stamped some little hand print fishes,

Bubble Printing 

Bubble printing is a really fun technique using materials you will probably have around the house. 

Using a small container we filled 1/3 of the tub with water and added a blob of paint and washing up liquid. We then blew through a straw to create lots of bubbles/

Next  we placed a sheet of paper over the top to create our bubble piece of art.

Cardboard princess shoes

My daughter like any little princess loves clip clopping about in her play shoes and was mortified to find that her beloved shoe collection were getting too tight. To turn her frown upside down we grabbed the craft box and set about making her some new shoes.


First of all I drew round her feet on a bit of cardboard and cut them out slightly larger.

She then mixed some paint colours and painted them.

Once the base colour was dry she added polka dots :)

We then cut out some straps by placing a strip of card over her feet and cutting it so there was a cm extra at either side to tape underneath.

She then decorated them with foam shapes and feathers.

Easter Potato Stamps

I was cutting potatoes for tea last night and clicked that a potato chopped in half would make a perfect Easter egg stamper. Today we put it to the test :)

Once the paint has dried you could decorate with pens and glitter :)

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Chocolate Shredded Wheat Nests

Easter wouldn't be the same without Shredded Wheat nests :)

Breaking the chocolate up into squares 

Adding shredded wheat to the melted chocolate 

Adding Shreaded Wheat to the melted chocolate 

Stirring the mixture 

Scooping the mixture into cake cases 

Finishing them off with mini eggs and chicks :) 

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Easter ice eggs

 I didn't think I would be saying this but I am a tiny bit disappointed (just a teenie tiny bit) that the snow has cleared in my area.  Expecting a snowy Easter weekend I thought it would be fun to make some ice eggs for a outdoor egg hunt and to play some games with them too.

To make the eggs use a dropper or syringe to put a few drops of food colouring inside of a balloon and fill with water. Give them a little jiggle around so that the food colouring mixes with the water evenly and place them in the freezer over night.

Tip: I used a normal balloon because they are a little thicker than water balloons. Stretch the balloon over the end of the tap to fill with water. 

When the water in the balloon is completely frozen cut the knot off the balloon and peel the balloon  away from the ice egg.

If it is still snowy in your area you can hide the eggs around the garden or have a game of marbles or skittles. You could also make some snow chicks and bunnies instead of snowmen.

Although we wont be using ours for a egg hunt we did find another use for them. We made Easter ice sculptures instead :)

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Fly swatting games

I was doing a spot of shopping today and spotted these funky fly swatters in the pound shop. I thought they would be fab for the kids to play with

Once we got back home I got the pompoms out to use as little flies.

We bounced the flies up and down on our swatters and had a competition to see who could do it the longest without letting the fly fall to the ground.

We also used them to flick flies into a bucket and as indoor tennis sets bouncing the fly to one another. This was quite difficult with the small pompoms so I plan on making some larger pompoms out of wool later.

Unfortunatley I was too busy running around playing to take pics so I will try add more pics later.

I am sure we will find many more ways to use our swatters. They could be used to balance things on  or to play tig. We could have a egg and spoon style race. We could use them in arts and craft and make paint prints. The only limit is our imagination :)

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Traditional St Patrick's Day badges

Here are pictures of  Traditional St. Patrick's Day badges from the early 20th century photographed at the Museum of Country Life in Ireland.

We got our glue sticks out and made our own badges :)

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Volcano Busy Bags

Last week Mount Etna erupted so I decided to do a little volcano activity with the children. I like to use real life events for inspiration for craft projects. It gets the children involved in what's going on around the world and gives them some general knowledge along with all the fun stuff.

I found some videos on You Tube showing the volcano erupting. The kids found them  fascinating.

We made a volcano Collage using tissue paper for lava.

My little boy loved decorating the volcano so I decided to make him a Volcano busy bag.

Firstly I stuck a volcano on a piece of white paper

I then shredded some orange tissue paper and cut out other scenery shapes that can be used to decorate his volcano. I found an old biscuit tin to store them in so he can put them away and get them out to play with whenever he likes.

Here is little mans first creation. 'There's lots of fire, its HOT HOT HOT' he shouts. 'That's why there is lots of smoke'

 'Watch out Mr Dinosaur the lava is coming to get you' 

Add a few more sceneries and items to your box. They can come in handy when you need to occupy them for five minutes or to keep them quiet while you answer the phone :)

Here are some other Volcano projects we have done :)

http://amazinglittleminds.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/erupting-paper-mache-volcano.html

http://amazinglittleminds.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/mountvesuviuserupts.html

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