Home made playdoh for toddlers

Do you know that you can homemade your own playdoh? non-toxic and safe for children

No Cook Play Dough Recipe

• 3 cups sifted flour
• 1 cup salt
• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 1 cup water
• Food Colouring (optional)

1. Mix the dry ingredients together
2. Add the oil
3. Slowly add water to the dry mixture
4. Check for desired consistency as you add the water
5. Knead the dough until it is smooth
6. Store the dough in an airtight container in the fridge

I have tried this recipe and it works just fine, Depending on your countries humidity, it may turn out differently. (add you might have to add more or less water) I find the dough a little grainy due to the salt particles but over time, the particles melt whilst kneading.

If you put it into a fridge, the dough might dry out, so as and when, add some water into your dough mixture so it can be kept for a longer time.

Crayola Kids washable paints for toddlers (2 years old)

I recently bought some Crayola Washable Kids' Paint for crafts.

They came in individual containers like this. and has 10 pretty colours!

First I quizzed K on the colours, when she got them right, I will pour a manageable amount out onto a piece of recycled cardboard paper in the position that she has requested it to be.

Next I give her the freedom to do her our artwork. Either with a sponge or her hand =X 

Messy!

 And some recycled bottle caps as well. You will realise that I love to use recycled materials for children's crafts as I can easily throw them away without any heartache at the end of the activity.

I also did some butterflu crafts with her, in which, I place the paints at various locations on the recycled paper and fold them into half so that the paints will be symmetrical on the opp side.

This is the product of the butterfly craft that we did.

Some drying needed before it can be further used.

I didn't want to waste the paintings that were done, and since teacher's day was nearing I thought why not give it as a gift to the teachers.

They would appreciate it a lot especially when it was hand made by K herself.

I created some cards for teachers' day... 

and up-cycled the artwork that she had done and gave it to the teacher.

 And they loved it!!!!

Think of how you can reuse the materials you have and up-cycle them for special occasions!

Furball sorting game with toddler ( 2 year old )

I recently bought some furry balls from tao bao ezbuy. It was a pack of mixed colour of furry balls of different sizes.

My intention of these balls were to use them as crafts for the upcoming Christmas on Christmas cards(?) undecided!!!

So since it was sitting in my storeroom for a short while, I thought of this game that I could play with K (2yo).

I took out a few Ikea bowls of various colours and asked her sort them accordingly by colour and asked her to name the colours.

This activity can probably last about 10-20mins depending on your tods concentration  or easily they get bored over the same repetitions.

When the sorting activity was over, she was tasked to create some christmas cards for her school teachers.

First some double sided dots were placed in the shape of a christmas tree, next, using the furballs that she has sorted, she would have to fill the christmas tree with as much furballs as possible.


This is the final product!



These glue dots doesn't hold the furballs well! A regular glue didn't work very well either.
I would suggest if you are doing this activity to use a glue gun instead of glue dots.

How to prepare a baby shower

My sister just gave birth to a baby boy end May 2013.

In Singapore, we usually celebrate the baby shower when the baby is 1 month old. And during this 1 month, for the mothers they are called a confinement period, in which the mother will stay indoors to recover from the delivery and there will be lots of confinement food from the timeless braised pig's trotters with black vinegar tto the homemade chicken essence with wine. It is usually low in saly and fat and packed with goodness and great nutritional value. 

Back to the topic! I was tasked to help out with the baby shower with a $50 budget =S, specifically the gifts to the guests and the decorations. In fact, it is my first time decorating for a function!

It wasn't easy working with such a small budget. I started with the gifts as there were no big inputs I needed from my sister regarding the sweets. I went to Phoon Huat to get a pack of 100 cookie bags and the twister to tie the bags.

Next was the titbits. I went to the value dollar store that sells sweets and chocolates at considerably value-for-money prices.

value dollar store

It took a while, trying to work within my budget before I narrowed down to these:

Next for the packaging~ I needed some inputs from my sis whether she would prefer the packaging to be neater or prettier. Personally, I preferred the neater option (as it was easier to pack, of course!). Lucky thing ,she too, preferred the neater option. It just requires some folds, 2 punches from a puncher, twist with decoration wires and tadah~ job done.

prettier

neater

The titbits were individually packed ....

..and sealed with love!

Now for the decorations~ in fact it took a while to understand what my sister really wanted. The colours I can/ cannot use, the fonts that she would prefer, motifs that she would like to include.

These are some that she has commented on:

I like the owl and the colour scheme.

I like the elephant and the colour scheme

I like the bear and colour scheme.

OK I LOVE THIS FONT AND COLOUR SCHEME! And that whale.. super nice!
Can you do "Yuan Kai's Baby Shower" in this scheme? Difficult?

This is a lil similar to number 4. Can follow this colour scheme if 3 is too difficult.

The way they string this is very beautiful. But i am not a fan of the zig zag pattern colour scheme here.

 I don't like this colour scheme so don't use yellow. I also don't like the duck coz no eyes and not cute.

Cute elephant! Nice colour too:D

i don't like this.. very cheapo looking

WOW! I usually don't like green but this colour scheme and layout is simple and nice! The blue thread is beautiful too! Plus the turtle is cute! AND best of all.. the font is so beautiful! Nice combi D:D

After I looked at these photos, my jaw literally dropped. I only had 2 days left to do the deco, plus I was a normal working adult that hold a 9-6 job, plus I had after office activities that I couldn't miss and I HAD to go i.e. hubby's grandfather's bday. You get my dilemma =( =(

And most importantly, I didn't have the tools to do it! The only few miserable craft tools are a paper cutter, an edge-rounder and a scissors! I didn't have time to buy craft paper to do this project as well. But since I promised, I can't back out can I?!?!

Disclaimer: so if you see my end product, do not be too disappointed as they are NOT as pretty as those above! hahaha~

I managed to get some scrap (literally) craft paper from my colleague. And from the font that she has specified in the ideas list above, I choose something that was really close to it and printed on an A4 sheet.

Then, I snipped it out of the sheet and taped it onto plain craft paper. On colours that probably could match the colours that she has not condemned =P

And on some alphabets, I cleverly used the existing patterns to create something more unique.

Once, the alphabets are cut, I tried to match it with the patterned papers I had. Ultimately, I want to achieve a baby block look for each of the alphabets.

Done with the matching~ now with the "S" .

i'm the chosen one! =D

 Next, I matched the background.  I made it in a way that the background lines were downwards and 

Round the edges~ and ~ this is the final result! told ya ~ it doesn't look as fantastic as those seen earlier. hope you didn't have too high an expectation haha~

Next~ what are baby showers without balloons? Due to budget constraints, I bought a pack of 100 balloons and 2 masking tapes for the sticking. The balloons were separated by the colours for easy mixing and matching. Make sure you buy extras in case the balloons burst or has holes during the pumping process!

As for the baby shower banner, I went to the The Party Stuff! to search the banners and shortlisted these:

I went physically to the store to grab it and decided on the solid one. Metallic fridged seems to be more difficult to place on the solid wall.

Down to the real deco~

I spend a total of S$52 (burst the budget by a wee bit) haha~

Hope you enjoyed reading some of my ideas for this baby shower!!