DIY ping pong

A has had it stuck in his head that he wants to play ping pong (table tennis - whatever you want to call it).  To the point that he made the net himself and he kept asking me to buy the bats (paddles? what are they called officially?).  Before I felt like going shopping for them I decided to have a go at making some.

Cut two handle lengths from a sturdy cardboard roll.

Cut slits on opposite sides (just eyeball it). 

 Use something round to mark out your circles.

Cut out the circles. 

Squish the circles into the cut slits on the tubes.

I have to say, these lasted longer than I anticipated.  I think we probably got a good 8 - 10 hours play out of them (over a few days).  If you want them to last longer you could use some duct tape to secure them as well.  I was just buying some time until I went to the shops (and also seeing if the desire matched up with the activity to be honest).  We had a lot of fun using these on our coffee table before we got annoyed with the small size and I relented and bought some bats and we are still using the net on our dining table now.  I have played many, many, many games of ping pong over the last week....

By the way, HAPPY NEW YEAR!  I haven't been in this space for awhile so apologies for that.  I have some health issues I am dealing with but I won't bore you with the details - hopefully it will all be sorted out soon.  Aside from that, here's to a great year ahead!

Busy kids - activity roundup

We have been busy around here lately.

So, after A's fun with his cheerio box dollhouse (inspired by Joel of Made by Joel), Miss E decided to do her own.

and then with residents, dogs of course.

Then she progressed to make up another style of dollhouse with walls and lots of cool details.  She had the ideas and I helped her with the walls - they were a bit tricky.

I love her basin and tap...

the toilet has a downpipe....

and there is a fireplace.  All in all, a lot of fun.

Plus we made a bottle bird feeder.  As a tip, instead of cutting holes in each side to push the stick through, I cut an X.  Makes for a tighter fit for the the stick (I am pretty sure I saw this tip in a Martha magazine at one stage).

We have been playing Double Shutter.

We made a zip line/flying fox for the back door (again, inspired by Joel).

Plus the 'how to draw' books have been getting a work out.

What have you all been up to with your kiddos?

Geo board and popcorn experiments

I will be doing lots of kid stuff this week with both children home for school holidays.  We spent all morning making and playing with a geoboard (I got the idea from these wonderful people).  I have been meaning to do this for awhile so we went and dug an old piece of chipboard out of the crawlspace (we have access from the basement) to use.  I divided the board up into three spaces with a Sharpie and then the kids drew their own dot patterns while I did a grid in the middle.  I didn't have enough nails so not all the dots got covered.  I have to say, don't use chipboard for this!  It was too hard for the kids to do any of the hammering and that was going to be part of the activity.  I would look for some old pine next time so the kids could hammer as well.  The kids really had a ball playing with this for ages.

The other thing we did this morning was popcorn experiments.  I figured that if the popcorn pops in a paper bag why wouldn't it pop in a covered bowl?  Well, I will have to look into the science behind it now as it didn't pop very well at all.  Then we tried a covered plate.  Then a plate with no cover.  You can see our dismal results.  I did get more popped corn than this photo shows but the kids had already retrieved most of it.  They really enjoyed watching it pop and ping all over the microwave though!  I haven't given up on my experimenting in this arena though.  Can oven bags go in the microwave?  I will have to check...

Berry lovely

Take some dead branches (I have been saving them from our autumn pruning)....

Grab a bowlful of mini pom poms and willing children....

Use tacky glue to stick them on said dead branches and voila!  I really like how these turned out.   They look super cute in person and will be decorating a table somewhere for me for awhile.  I kind of wanted just red, orange and yellow pom poms for a more authentic berry look (but really how authentic are pom poms going to look??) but Michael's didn't have them.  So I bought fall themed ones and added red and white ones to it.  They still look cute.

Although, I have to say, the kids tired of it pretty quickly and I was left to do a lot on my own (not that I mind) while they made Christmas cards instead.  I think scrunched up bits of tissue paper might have been easier for them to handle and they might have stuck with it longer.

Carrots on the windowsill

Have you ever done this with your kids?  My Mum used to do this for me and my siblings when we were young and we loved it.  I just remembered it the other day when I was cutting the tops off carrots whilst making dinner. All you do is take the top, put it in a little bowl (or on a saucer or whatever) with some cotton wool and keep the cotton wool moist.  It doesn't take long for the carrot to sprout.  Every morning at breakfast my two ask to check on its progress.  Cheap, easy fun.

Homemade crayons

Look what we made today!  We just broke up a bunch of old crayons and put them into mini muffin tin cups then melted them in the oven on very low.  So easy and the kids have fun doing it and then using them afterwards.  Lord A doesn't often use crayons but he really liked these.

p.s.  Tutorial and giveaway coming up tomorrow!

Holiday activities

We have had our school holidays here for the last week so we spent some of our time making more paper roll owls (these were started awhile ago and have been added to by visiting friends as well)...

(inspired by Matsutake)

and making crepe paper pom poms (that is what we call them in Australia anyway).  I just cut a bunch of crepe paper streamers into even lengths, stacked them, gathered one end and wound masking tape around them to make a handle.  My sister made MUCH better ones for her boys' sports days but I couldn't remember how she made them.  This is my simple hack.

We did another cute sewing craft today.  I will try and get photos tomorrow when the light is better around here.   Hope you all had a lovely Easter!

Play tickets free printable

Here is another free printable. This one is for the kiddies. I have occasionally hand drawn little tickets for my kids and they get so much fun out of something so simple. Miss E used to use one as a 'bus ticket' to school (in our car) and now A likes to collect tickets to allow entry past him at the stair gate at the top of our stairs. I really have no idea why they love them quite so much but it inspired this download and I hope you find a kid who likes them too. Update: I have a great friend who did the PDF for me in the cool font (just in case you visited when the plain font was up - if not - ignore this part!).

You can download them here:

Play tickets - A4

Play tickets - Letter

Some tips for cutting them out. The shape can be a bit of a pain to cut out so just cut them into rectangular strips and use a hole punch to cut out the notches. May not be perfect but definitely the easiest way!

Also, I have a guillotine with a perforated blade that I use for the joins so they can pull them apart themselves. You could also use a sewing machine (without thread obviously) for the same effect. Or just cut them of course....