Small Business Christmas Gift Guide

 Somehow the year has once again flown by and our attention is turning to Christmas. This is likely to be a tough one for many and I thought it would be nice to produce a guide to some of the small businesses and sole traders who are fighting against huge brands to be seen and heard in the marketplace. Many of us would like to support more small businesses, but it's not always easy to find them, so I'm hoping this will be a good place to start. I can update this guide at any time so if you know of a great small business that you have used or think could benefit from a shout-out, drop me a comment or email me via my contact page and I will add as many as I can. 

Over 50 Easy, Cheap World Book Day Costumes

It's nearly World Book Day again and if you've got more than one child, a tight budget or not a lot of free time, you may be having a little panic about this. You don't need to worry though, because this list includes every simple, cheap World Book Day costume you could think of and there's bound to be one that will suit your expectant offspring. They may not be the most elaborate costumes, but they will get you out of trouble last minute, and can be made from items you probably already own. Just pick the one that fits what you have in the cupboards. Easy! 

Beautifully Simple Gifts to Make with Children

Everyone loves a handmade gift, and it's a great way to get children involved with the gift giving process. Little ones don't have much concept of shopping, or choosing gifts for important relatives, so a gift they have made is something that they can personally be a part of. Two problems often arise with crafts though: they can be time consuming and surprisingly expensive. In this post I have some ideas of gifts you can make with household items that won't break the bank, take ages, or make a crazy amount of mess. If you're having a last minute panic about gifts from your children, this might just be the answer!

UK Small Business Gift Guide - Supporting Independent Traders

This year, there has been a lot more emphasis on supporting small businesses, instead of always buying from high street chains, or big internet names. To support this initiative, I have compiled a list of independent traders, who have either been recommended, or who I have nominated myself, so that you can see what's available to buy from great sellers. This is not just a Christmas gift guide, I hope it will be relevant at other times too, and I intend to keep adding to it, so do get in touch via my contact page if you would like to be featured or know a brilliant small business that deserves to be featured.

Ideas for Decorating Holiday Shells

Everyone loves a good day at the beach. Especially me. We spend a lot of weekends at the coast, enjoying the sea air and indulging my favourite pastime of shell seeking. It's a great, low cost activity that everyone can get involved in. The children love seeing what treasures they can find, or dig up. You can tailor it towards their interests, for example looking for pebbles with possible fossils in for dinosaur hunters, or finding shells with holes in, to make into jewellery. Decorating holiday shells is a great craft, with the added bonus of using up old nail varnish.

How to Make Quality Party Bags for a Fraction of the Cost

For an 11 year old's birthday party, the preparations can be tricky. A long way past the many cartoon characters and children's favourites that adorn the majority of party supplies, they still want to have fun and enjoy themselves. When I went shopping for party bags and supplies, I was disappointed at the high cost, limited range available to buy. In the end, I went my own way, with a design for home made party bags, which I think have a lot more appeal and work out around £1 each, although you could probably reduce this further, by shopping in advance and grabbing some bargains, instead of leaving it until the day before, like me! 

Easy Crafts for Mother's Day

Mother's Day is the perfect time to grab the glue sticks and get out the glitter, because most mums love their children's handmade offerings. If the very idea fills you with dread, however, I've rounded up the most ingenious and super-simple Mother's Day crafts from some of my favourite bloggers, as well as some from our own archives, to give you some low-mess, fairly quick options to entertain the little ones and delight mothers and grandmothers too. They are worth far more than anything you can buy, and hopefully you will have fun making them too. These easy crafts for Mother's Day, are so simple, even I could do it!

How to Make a Gift Box using Simple Origami

Sometimes, it's good to get creative with children, especially when it comes to gifts for friends or relatives. Creating a handmade gift is so much more personal than a shop-bought one and it's lots of fun to do, too. However, once you've created your masterpiece together, what do you put it in? You can buy a gift bag, but, to add a personal touch, it's not that difficult to make your own box. I have made a video tutorial to show you, but thought it would be good to have some photos and written instructions too. I've been making these for years, so I've found it quite tricky to translate it into a guide, but I hope it will all make sense. If you want to make a bigger gift box, use a bigger sheet of paper and to make a lid, you simply make another one, exactly the same. Happy folding!

Father's Day Craft; Make A God's Eye Decoration

This is a craft that The Husband suggested. I had never made one before, but they are surprisingly easy to do. So easy, in fact, that even he can do it! What makes them especially appropriate for Father's Day, is that you can alternate the colours, so they can represent a football team, or the colours of a flag. Anything that makes them individual. The process of making them is actually really relaxing and I can't recommend it enough for unwinding after a stressful day. 

Toilet Roll Crafts with Nouvelle

If you are very eagle-eyed, you may have spotted some of our craft efforts involving toilet rolls on Twitter and Pinterest. We love a good reuse and recycle craft project and have been working with Nouvelle over the last few months to create some really fun makes. I had no idea toilet rolls could be so versatile! The @nouvellesoft  #LittleAcorns project has almost come to an end, though, and I thought it would be nice to put all our projects together in one place, for those who don't follow on Social Media. If you would like to have a go at any of the projects, I have included the craft sheets as well. You can also find them on Facebook and Twitter, where there are lots of other examples of finished projects, to give you some more ideas.

An Enderman Costume for World Book Day!

This post was originally published for World Book Day, but I thought it might make a cool last minute Halloween costume for a Minecraft lover. Minecraft continues to be very popular with children of all ages and is equally appreciated by boys and girls, so this easy costume could be the answer to your costume concerns. All you need is a good size cardboard box, some black binliners and black clothes for them to wear. You will also need the head, but if you can't buy an official Enderman head, you can always paint a cardboard box. Also, before you say it, yes Minecraft does count as a book! Ok, maybe not in the traditional sense, but L is happy and it's meant to be fun, so there!

Make a Kite

Kites are a cheap and easy way to while away an afternoon. You wouldn't believe how much enjoyment my children (and the grown ups!) get from watching a little square of plastic soar above the rooftops! There's a real sense of achievement from actually making the thing fly, but it's actually not that hard. The smaller and lighter the kite is, the easier it will fly, which is why I always buy really cheap kites. It also has the added advantage of not being the end of the world if they get lost or end up stuck in a tree. If you don't have access to a cheap purveyor of kites (such as Poundland) or need one in a hurry, it's pretty easy to make one. This is my husband's 'recipe', just in case you think I am the owner of those hairy hands!

Make a Peg Bag from Baby Clothes

I originally came up with this idea when my son was a baby. I'm not claiming credit for it, there are probably other versions out there, but it all started, when I realised he would be my last baby. And my
only boy. So, I was kind of sad about throwing out his little tiny baby clothes. There was one item in particular that I was not keen to cast out, and crammed him into it for as long as I could, and that was his very first football shirt! I wanted to hang on to it, but I didn't want it to languish in a box in the loft. So I needed something practical to turn it into, so it could be used and enjoyed! This pegbag is so easy to make, and every household needs one.

Homemade Bird Cake

I don't know why, because it still feels like the depths of an Antarctic winter to me, but our nesting box already has residents! No babies to show you yet, but above is a picture of the blue tits we had in 2009! The new arrivals this year look a little familiar and I'm pretty sure they're the same coaltits we had last year, but anyway, they were queueing up eagerly in the tree for breakfast this morning. We have had nesting birds for the last few years and the children love it. The first year we had them, they flew the nest and made their way into the world, only for the local children to keep bringing them back to us! Two little girls even knocked on our front door and asked if they could have one! It's always good to get children involved in nature and show them how precious and wonderful our world can be, but it doesn't have to cost a lot! Today, I bring you... a bird supper, on a budget!