This week I offered a little of my spare time to take care of a friends little girl. Since this was my first time sitting for her, I thought it might be wise to go armed with a few creative activities to keep her entertained!

After browsing some creative kits, I decided to buy a ‘make your own jewellery’ set from the Early Learning Centre.  I’d heard from Maya’s mum that her little one often begged to sleep in her ‘dressing up’ jewellery, so I thought this one could be a winner. (And I’ll admit, I quite fancied a little jewellery making myself.)

As soon as I arrived and gave Maya her gift, she spotted the pictures of wooden ladybirds on the box and wanted to get started. The pack contained:

• An array of wooden beads including ladybirds and flowers
• A coloured elasticated wooden bracelet
• Glue
• Elastic cord
• EVA foam and templates for cutting shapes.
• Plus instructions

The pack had enough to make 2 wooden bracelets, a ponytail clip and a necklace.

Like most three year olds, Maya wasn’t mad keen on working to instructions! She began by picking her favourite beads and together we began to glue them onto the pre-strung cuff bracelet. After a couple of demonstrations, she was away and happily glued the rest of the beads herself.

This is what we made. Maya loved it!

Next, she wanted to make another bracelet. I cut a length of cord for her and she chose other beads and threaded them onto the cord herself, naming the colours as she went. She was really focussed on this and seemed to really enjoy it. The results were very cute.

I then suggested we made the hair clip together, which involved tracing stencils onto UVA foam and cutting them out. Maya seemed less interested in this part (this may have been because we had already been playing for one hour or perhaps because she was unable to do this part independently). The stencils were quite small and fiddly to draw around and the foam needed sharp scissors to cut.

It was at this point she got a little bored and suggested that perhaps we have a princess tea party instead – I was happy to oblige! I do hear from her mummy that she has requested to sleep in the bracelets! So all in all, I’d consider the jewellery making kit a hit! A great present for a three to five year old girl.

Thank you for reading…AML x

Perfect Royal Jubilee Party Food

Stuffed Strawberries

I love a Royal party! I had never really seen myself as a Royalist until the Royal wedding last year of Wills and Kate. We had a big garden party with all our friends and it was great fun. We hung out the bunting, opened up the Pimms and everyone turned up with a dish for the table. Good memories. So now we have another planned for the Royal Diamond Jubilee in June 2012. Any excuse for a good old knees up! 

These little beauties are a great idea for party food, not only are they very patriotic for a royal party, they are ideal for busy mums on the run, as they are super quick to whip up, really tasty, relatively good for you because they are mostly fruit (urmm?) and they look pretty impressive too. Plus kids love them! It’s a win win solution for a quick and easy party dish.

The ingredients

The ones I’ve made are literally:

• Strawberries
• Whipped cream with icing sugar to make it a bit sweeter & a drop of vanilla essence
• Blueberries

But other ideas for fillings are:

• Cheesecake mixture – cream cheese, icing sugar, vanilla essence
• Chocolate mousse
• Crème fraîche

And other ideas for toppings could be:

• Crumbled biscuit
• Chocolate – melted, crumbled or buttons
• Crumbled meringue

How to make stuffed strawberries

Cut off the tops and bottoms of the strawberries and hollow out the tops.

Use a mini muffin tin to help store the strawberries

Pipe in your choice of filling with a piping bag and nozzle, or you can just use a sandwich bag with the corner cut off. Then top with your chosen topping.

Also brilliant for dinner parties

If you’ve tried these, I’d love to hear your suggestions, recommendations or what you thought.

Some great little Jubilee party food ideas…

Thanks for reading….AML x