Hello, just a quick note to say I hope you all had a fabulous weekend! We ate way too much chocolate and I had to stash away half the Easter eggs as Miss K was getting a bit greedy and turning into some chocolate monster!
We spent the weekend relaxing with family and friends and I loved watching how excited Miss K was when we did the Easter egg hunt. How did you spend your weekend, did the Easter bunny visit your place too?
Well February has been a fun month for us, with lots of trips to the beach while the weather is still so good! We also had our friends visiting from Australia for a week which was just awesome and Miss K got to catch up with one of her best friends!
There has also been a bit on in Auckland this month, we took Miss K to check out the speedway racing one weekend and on Friday evening we had a great night with my family checking out the Auckland Lantern Festival!
Here’s a few Instagram pics from all our adventures, hope you are all having a great week! If you are on Instagram then leave me a comment below with your username 
This year as a little Valentine gift for family and friends I thought we would make some Bon Bon’s and fill them with chocolates. This is a fun craft for the kid’s to make and Miss K loved getting involved!
To make these you will need:
We grabbed most of our supplies from a discount $2 shop and supermarket. To decorate them I used some puffy fabric hearts I found but you could decorate them however you want, maybe even wrapping them in some free Valentine’s printables would look really cute!
It only takes a few minutes to put them together. First we wrapped a square of tissue around each roll and held it in place with selotape. Then popped some Hershey’s Kisses in each roll and twisted the paper at each end, holding in place I tied the ribbons and then stuck a little heart on the front of each one. It’s that easy!
This month I am linking my Valentine’s Day post up with the Collectively Creative “Lovey Dovey” edition run by Kelly over at Cobwebs, Cupcakes & Crayons. Be sure to check out all the other blogs involved for some awesome “Lovey Dovey” posts!
One of Miss K’s fave things to play with is play dough, she likes it so much at the moment that I reckon we have been going through tubs of it on a regular basis!
I was getting a bit tired of spending so much money on the stuff, I kept getting all this cheap and hard play dough that just dried out and could only be used a couple of times before it was ready for the rubbish bin. When I was a kid my mum always made our play dough for my sister and I so I went on a search for the best play dough recipe and I think I found it!
Ingredients:
Method:
This recipe makes a ton of play dough, its soft and if stored properly doesnt dry out at all! Miss K and I made a batch and it has been keeping her busy all week. I will definitely be making our own play dough from now on, I only wish I had done it sooner!
Well there have been some super cute crafts for Valentines Day popping up on Pinterest lately. Some of them are such sweet ideas so this week I thought I would share a few of my favourite pins with you. If you are interested in trying some of the crafts with your kids just click on the links below. Hope you all have a fun week!
Valentine Tic Tac Toe- alphamom.com
Stain Glass Sugar Cookies- oliversonposse.com
Yarn Heat Cards- parents.com
Valentine Butterfly- iheartnaptime.net
Valentine Printables- shepaperieblog.com
Matchbox Valentines- parenting.com
Window Hearts- squidoo.com
Well this months Instagram recap does seem to have a bit of a Christmas theme to it. December is definitely my most favourite time of year and we have had an awesome month spent with family and friends. Just the other day we also took a trip out to the SPCA animal shelter and picked up “Maddie” who we fell in love with the moment we saw her! I’m so happy we have been able to give her a new home. I cant wait to see what 2013 has in store for us! If you are on Instagram you can find me @ carlydb I’d love to link up
This year for our Christmas cards I thought we would try the “Wrapped In Christmas Lights” idea. I did wonder if Miss K would actually stand there wrapped in lights for me but luckily she thought it was good fun and went with the idea.
I took a whole lot of photos so that I had quite a few to work with and then narrowed down to my final four. To make my photo collage I uploaded the photos to PicMonkey and edited them online.
I decided to turn the photos to black and white as the colour ones were not very good quality. On PicMonkey I adjusted the size to 7×5 inches so when they were printed it was a standard card size. I took the finished photo into a printers and asked for the image to be printed on to 7×5 greeting cards and they even supplied the envelopes. Here’s how our personalised Christmas cards turned out!
This month I am also linking up with other bloggers in the Collectively Creative “Joyful” edition. (If you scroll down you will see the links) Head on over and check them out for some other neat Christmas ideas! Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas! xoxo
So I’ve been working on a few little projects for the new house in my spare time. This is an easy DIY pinboard I made for Miss K’s bedroom wall so she can pin her artwork on it. I found a few old frames at a thrift store and then bought some corkboard and fuchsia pink spray paint.
First I made sure the frame was dust free and cleaned. I put the frame on some newspaper and because I was throwing out the old glass I just left it in while I spray painted. I didn’t bother to sand back the frame I just spray painted straight on to it. Over the day I probably did 8-10 coats.
Next I measured the old backing board and cut my cork board to this same size so it fit into the frame properly. Then I clipped it in place and taped around the edges so it couldn’t move.
Once it was all done it was ready to hang on the wall and decorate! What do you think? Using a pinboard is a cool way that your kids can display their artwork and pin new things from kindy or school
Hi guys! Well I just realised we are already a couple of weeks into December and I had completely forgotten about November! Time has been flying and I can’t believe its only a few weeks to go until Christmas, I guess it’s a busy time of year! Anyway here are a few of my Instagram shots from November. If you are on Instagram you can find me at @carlydb
1. Japaneese at Renkon
2. Miss K wearing my sunnies
3. Artwork from kindergarten
4. Green fields North Auckland
5. Angry Birds
6. Mini Pecan Pies
7. The Estuary
8. Flowering trees in our garden
Here’s a DIY Christmas wreath we made that is a bit different from the usual ones! (Kids can help to make this one but adult supervision is required as you use a hot glue gun.) It’s an easy and colourful craft for Christmas and Miss K loved making her very first Christmas wreath
To make one you will need:
There is no particular way to do this, we just went for it sticking the pom pom’s on bunching them up side by side. I tied the ribbon on before we finished it so that we could glue pom pom’s over the top of this, hiding the knot in the ribbon. Anyway here’s how it turned out, very bright and all! Are you working on a wreath this Christmas? Or do you think you might give this one a try with the kids?
