Handprint Keepsakes

Initially I was going to make Christmas ornaments with my girl's handprints on them, but as we made them I realised that I wanted to see these keepsakes every day, so they now have a permanent spot in our bedroom. They would make a nice gift for grandparents too, if  you're so inclined.
I simply made up a batch of cornstarch clay with Eden's help (see here for the recipe), divided the clay into portions, and rolled it out nice and evenly. Eden and Ava 'smushed' (E's words, not mine) their hands into the clay to leave an imprint. Once they were in bed, I went back and smoothed the imprints out a little - Ava had dug her fingers in, so hers actually had holes in it! I filled it in and smoothed it out, but retained the shape of her hand. I also tidied up the edges of the shapes - Eden's is on a circle, Ava's is on a square with rounded edges - and poked a hole in the top of each shape using a straw (this is for threading some ribbon through later, so you can hang it up).

Before baking...

Recipe - Cornstarch Clay

• 1 cup Cornflour
• 2 cups Salt (generic table salt works best)
• 1 1/2 cups Water, cold

1. Place salt and 2/3 cups of the water into a saucepan and bring to the boil. Allow to cool.
2. In a bowl, mix cornflour with the remaining water. 
3. Blend the two mixtures together, and knead well. This will form your clay.
4. Once the clay has been molded into shapes, allow it to dry out (air dry).
5. Once clay shapes have dried out a bit, bake them at 100 degrees Celsius for 2 hours.

*Unused clay can be covered with cling wrap or kept in a sealed container.

PLAY TIME ~ DEC 5th-11th

This week, play with WRAPPING PAPER.

At some point this week, try a game or activity with your little one that you've never played before, which involves wrapping paper. I figure that around Christmas time, we'll all have some of that floating around the house.
For a baby, this may be wrapping a box (from your recyclables stash) in some scraps of paper, and then letting them tear the paper off and have a good play with it. For a toddler, this may be teaching them how to wrap presents, or adding their own decorative touches to existing wrapping paper (with a potato stamp? Some glitter paint? Christmas stickers?), or making a crown - like the ones the wise men wear in the nativity scene - with leftover bits of paper and some cardboard. Please post your game in the comments attached to this post, so we can inspire other parents with our ideas!

Pretty Chrissy Ornaments

To make these pretty hanging decorations, I cut out two circles of clear contact paper, one slightly larger than the other, and taped the smaller circle to the table, sticky side up. I also had a little bowl with some tissue paper squares, shiny wrapping paper, bits of ribbon, Christmas stickers, and pictures cut from old Chrissy cards in it.

Ice Treasures!

For my Ice: Play Time Challenge, I decided to put little 'treasures' into a silicone muffin tray, cover with water and freeze. In the morning, they were my ice treasures! I had some shells, a rubber ball and some coins for Eden's money box inside, and it was her task to find a way to get the treasures out.

Scissor Skills

Lately, Eden has been hanging off me every time she sees me using scissors. It's like a moth to a flame. She hovers at my elbow and tries to sneak her fingers on top of mine so she can pretend she's the one cutting. Time to learn how to use them, methinks!

She has a small pair of safety scissors which I bought a few months back, thinking that she was ready to learn back then. Unfortunately, every time she tried to cut paper she got so frustrated by my attempts to teach her 'scissor safety' that the whole undertaking ended up being shelved. When I say 'scissor safety' I mean things like "AAAHHH! Don't cut your hair! Or Ava's! OR MINE!!!", and "Honey, scissors aren't for eating with [instead of a fork]" and  "Put the scissors down BEFORE you dance!"...You see the problem.

I'm an Art-eest, Mummy!

When I was painting some nursery art for a friend, I put miss E. next to me at the table with a little canvas board and some of her own paints so she could do one too. Kids are such little mimics, aren't they? Check out the concentration on her face...