Homemade Birthday Cards

We have an abundance of art materials taking up every nook and cranny in the house: pompoms, plasticine, paper, crepe paper, tissue paper, sugar paper, stickers, feathers, glitter...you name it, it's lying around unused in the hope that one day I'll come up with a fantastic idea for it, other than just endlessly and often extravagantly adding to this futile collection.

Well today I realised it is Grunny's birthday soon. Tomorrow actually. My options: last minute ecard from Funky Pigeon or somewhere similar, last minute bunch of flowers from inter flora (working out at approximately 5 euro per leaf) or adorable belated home made card, with love and uniqueness hopefully cancelling out the lateness.

As It happens I would normally go for option 1 or 2 but thought I'd be all thrifty and creative for once and get the kids to make a card. We used coloured card, green art straws and coloured felt and some dots of glue. I cut out the shapes (probably shouldn't admit to that) and Boy stuck them on. I was actually quite impressed that he has progressed from random stick-everything-to-anything-for-30-seconds-before-losing-interest to actually making a recognisable picture, staying focused for a record breaking 7 minutes (approx.). He even clapped himself afterwards and said "wow".

Girl was keen to get in on the fun, so I spent the next ten minutes removing crayons, felt and glue from her mouth while she made a slightly more abstract card for Grumpy, whose birthday happens to be this weekend. It's still pretty cool though. And the art straws I bought last year have finally been opened for an artistic purpose. I think I heard a little squeak of excitement when I opened the box, but it might have come from me.

Stuffing the cards in an envelope and taking them to the post office was, in my mind the icing on the cake of an educational enterprise activity, but for some reason Boy found this part supremely boring. Maybe older and/or wiser children would like that part better.

These cards were so simple and quick to make and I really think they are a lot more personal than online card websites. If only I could smush them into my computer and email them so they'd get to Grunny's in time...

The Messiest Cupboard in the World

Recently I was asked to run arts and crafts at one of the local weekly parent and toddler groups. So this morning, laden down with cereal box cut out hearts, I celebrated a quick weight watchers victory (congratulations! You're back down to the weight you were a month ago - you know, that weight goal you celebrated by eating chips for the next three weeks) and hurried off to the Parent and Toddler group.

This group is held in a soft play centre, so I was surprised when so many little faces appeared in the craft corner just minutes after I arrived. On opening the art cupboard I felt, for the first time ever, an odd sense of smug pride that someone somewhere was indeed capable of maintaining a messier cupboard than I. After raking through shelves and shelves of half finished creations, crunchy paintbrushes and a surprising number of empty crisp packets and raisin boxes (ick) I finally scraped together three Pritt sticks (two of which where completely dried up) two broken red crayons (itched to steal for my collection, but resisted), five tiny scraps of red felt and a few sheets of pink sugar paper. Good enough!

If I do say it myself, the project was a resounding success. So much so that all the decorated hearts and Valentine cards were made and taken away before I got a chance to snap them. (The one below came from Boy, made at crèche). Now let's be clear: we are talking about 2 year olds here. It was a resounding success for about 9 minutes. 11 if you count the kids who showed up after everyone else had finished. But a success nevertheless. Especially considering I was competing with a bouncy castle.

I spent the next half hour clearing out one section of the Messiest Cupboard in the World. Externally I was tutting and shaking my head as any tidy, organised Supermammy should. But inside I was beaming with pride and couldn't help thinking, "imagine if Grunny could see me now?"