Christmas Tree Plates

Another quick and easy make to occupy the Zebra in this rubbish weather!

I got three paper plates and painted them green. I then let the Zebra loose with different paints 

As our tree is gold and red, we used matching paints 

For the final paper, I squirted on some PVA and gave her the shaking glitter

Once dried, I cut the plates into thirds and stuck onto a strip of cardboard.

As easy as that! 

Christmas Cards

We made our Christmas cards a while ago but I've held back from posting so people could receive them first!

Cut an A4 piece of black card into 3. Bend it in half to make the card, and paint the front with PVA glue and then cover in glitter

Take some sheets of green card and swish patterns of glue all across

Shake glitter across all the glue

Leave everything to dry! Be warned, it gets messy as there is a lot of glitter.. 

Cut the green card into Christmas Tree shapes

Stick the tree to the card, make a star ontop with some glitter glue, and use cotton wool for the snow!

There was much more work from Mummy than the Zebra on these cards, but they look cute and there are many more years ahead for her to design her own!

Christmas Painting

I realised today that we hadn't done any painting in a long time, so this afternoon we had a bit of free-play with the paints. 

Before the Zebra had even put brush to paper, she started to paint her feet!!

This was followed by lots of stomping on the paper. Clearly her foot-painting at nursery had left a favourable impression...

We had to have a quick break from painting so the Zebra could feed her fish! 

With toes totally covered, it was time to move onto hands...

She had great fun just letting loose with all the paints and brushes 

Once I had put the prints up to dry, I realised they would make great wrapping paper for presents! 

I glued one sheet of paper around a toilet roll tube, then pinched in the ends to make a gift box for a little pressie!

Some of the better footprints got turned into Christmas trees...

...adding a bow turned these into mistletoes!

Christmas wreath

A very simple craft to make a Christnas essential!

I had some green paper covered in glitter left over from our Christnas cards. Other than that I just needed some feathers, paper plates, ribbon and glue

Cut the middle out of the plates and cut the paper into little bits

Cover the plate in glue 

Stick on the paper 

Dip the feathers in glue 

Stick the feathers onto the paper!

Cut a piece of ribbon to make a hook and glue on. I pegged it while it was drying to help secure it.

And there you have it! A festive wreath that can be made in any colour

Winter Woods by Rogue Theatre, Tehidy, Cornwall

A truly magical day enjoyed by all - A great way to get the festive feeling in an alternate way!

I had no idea what to expect from this live theatre experinace, and I don't want to give too much away for those who are planning on attending... The one thing I will say is be prepared for mud, and dress in layers. The outside performances are very cold, but the marque is lovely and snug.

The Zebra was mesmerised by the lights and decorations as we wound our way deeper into the forest, entertained by a variety of performers 

The actors were so good, and kept the attention of even the youngest children. They were also a little easy on the eye for the mummies! 

The entry price included free bags of sweeties and hot chocolate! There was also face painting and woodland crafts for the older children 

The main performance was fantastic. A festive tale made up of songs, dance, shadows, characters, comedy, and love

Everything about the experinace was wonderful and felt like stepping into a whole new woodland world. Expect for the toilets which surprisingly were warm, snug and modern!!

I can not recommend this theatre enough, I'm so exited to make this a Christmas tradition and head back again next year. I would also like to explore the cute village of Portreath which lies below the cliffs. However, I don't fancy getting lost again on the step, narrow roads...

Gingerbread Rudolph Reindeers

These biscuits look so cute and are really easy to make - they are just upside-down gingerbread men! 

We are still housebound with chicken pox so had to find a recipe that only included ingredients we already had - which was a struggle! This book had the closest we could find...

Ingredients:

125g butter 

85g brown sugar (we used light brown)

175ml golden syrup

375g plain flour

2tsp ginger (we used mixed spice)

1tsp bicarbonate of soda

******preheat oven to 190*******

Start by adding the sugar and butter into a bowl

Mix it well until it's smooth! We didn't have real butter and used spreadable so it didn't take long at all 

Add in the flour, spice, and bicarbonate of soda

Then get mummy to help pour in the syrup 

Mix everything together until it becomes a dough

It's safe to say the Zebra likes cookie dough!!

Put the mixture into the fridge for at least 30 minutes. I didn't have any cling film so used a ziplock bag

Roll the dough as thin as possible

Using a gingerbread-man cutter, make your biscuits

Pop into the oven for 8-10 minutes. It seems our biscuit were too thick and took 15 minutes to cook. The Zebra kept a good eye on them for me the whole time 

They also got a lot bigger while cooking than I expected!

Once they have cooled it's time to ice - the "legs" of the gingerbread man become the antlers! You can either ice the eyes, or use googley eyes for decoration. 

They certainly pass the Zebra taste test!