Shaving Foam Paint/Chaos

This is part two of our Budget Play Time series part one was the Ricetastic Airport this is a great lazy day activity although it looks crazy messy the cleanup is a wet cloth.

Fen Tiger wanted in on this one!

You Will Need:

Shaving Foam,

Paint, We use crayola paints as they are currently the only ones I've found that don't stain hands or clothes (if washed quick).

A Tray (we used a baking tray)

All we did was squirt the foam in a baking tray and add a few squirts of paint then I left lil dude to it!

I had originally planned this as an art activity but we made a big mess on the paper and lil dude was more interested in sludging and spreading the foam so I let him take the lead.

Salt Dough Aliens

Well today is UFO Day....But of course you knew that ;-) and what better way to celebrate those visitors from afar than making our very own Salt Dough Aliens!

You Will Need:

1 Cup Plain Flour,

1/2 Cup Salt,

1 Cup Water,

Few Drops Food Colouring

Random pieces of foam, sequins, pom pom's... whatever's in the craft cupboard.

To make a basic salt dough mix a cup of plain flour with half a cup of salt, a few drops of green food colouring then add water until it blends nicely I usually chuck in half a cup then add till its a good play dough texture. Knead for a while until mixes nicely.

I set out a tray with a bundle of exciting little pieces and let lil dude take the lead.

Shockingly the diggers got in on the action that's when he started to bore slightly so mummy jumped in and suggested we make aliens!

That idea was a hit we were soon rolling and making little faces and curling hair....what you don think aliens have hair weeeell this one does!

This one was lil dudes own creation.

I wish this were a video as during this picture he was squeezing his mouth making the alien say "hello I'm an alien" very cute moment!

This was such a low budget easy activity and was great fun once we got into it. I love the activity's that are left a bit open as its great to see lil dudes imagination run with it!

Dino World

So as you may have seen we have already done digger land in the garden and as it got closer to summer those little plants at the edges kinda overtook so we turned it to dinoland but lil dude is going through a daft stage with bugs and those flowers attracted sooo many bugs. A rethink was in order!

Then I saw fun at home with kids dinosaur garden and inspiration hit she used blue gravel for a "water feature" and it looked so so amazing. I have to say have some serious green eyed monster of Asia's garden and home she has play areas that I could only dream of. If you get a chance take a look at her blog (but allow a couple of hours!) I loved the idea of adding a whole new level.

Well I'd already seen this volcano aquarium decoration and was itching to buy it but hadnt made up a reason yet (lil dude loves volcanoes almost as much as dinos) So here was the reason and also went to pick up the stones....they were nooooot cheap the blue ones came in a tiny bag and were expensive so rethink! I had brought some sea coloured marbles a while ago and not got round to using them as anything more than loose parts so improvised and used them instead and it looked pretty cool!

We have a gravelled edge to our patio which went perfect with the prehistoric theme also it is in clear vision to my kitchen window so I can wash up/make lunch while he plays and keep an eye on him.

Mr Pteranodon loves to perch on the old fence which adds a cool upper level to the area.

A few bigger rocks placed around the "lake" for the dinos to sunbathe on.

And the centre piece... a real volcano. Although it goes a bit against the natural play ideas I am leaning towards it adds a great dimension and lil dude loves filling it with stones and dinosaurs.

Ricetastic Airport...Budget Play Time Week One

This is Week One in our budget play time using toys around the house or cheap to source to create fun play concepts. This post cost me nothing as had the bits all round the house if you want to backdate the rice cost 40p and the play tray £1 but I must use the rice on average once a week and the tray more often than that!

You will need-

• Some Cardboard from the recycling bin
• Rainbow Rice- We made this a while ago using happy hooligans recipe.
• Tray
• Toy Planes (or if your feeling creative some laminated pictures of planes)
• Sharpie
• Few cones/barriers if you have any from other digger or race car sets etc

Lil dude got some little plastic planes free with a magazine recently and they are flavour of the month apparently they are a red and green arrow :-) twinned with a very well timed fly over by the real red arrows recently on route to an airshow lil dude is in plane mode soo what better than making an airport for him to play with.

Construction consisted of cutting a long strip of cardboard and drawing the lines then cutting to size. I made a small hanger to fit the plane in by folding the same cardboard and sticking down the edges with tape. A couple of squares with H's drawn on the and we were set.

Lil dude had been playing with his rainbow rice that day so I just stuck the bits in the rice added some random cones we have in the toy box and popped the planes and helicopter in. The box we use is a pound land kitty litter box as advised by Happy Hooligans and it gets used "a lot."

This may not be the most glam small world but I wanted this blog to be more about affordable play ideas than ones that look stunning but are currently out of my price range. One day I dream of owning every type of toob (yep that's the dream!) but until then budget play ideas is as far as we can get.

The Airport needed some work done apparenty so the diggers had to be brought in. I'm yet to create a small world that the dinos or diggers dont get involved in!

If you liked this take a look at Hidden Art Station for another budget crafting session.



Icy Dino Dig

Well a big thankyou to www.happyhooligans.ca for todays activity it was fab and we had loads of fun recreating this one!!

A while back I filled an ice cream tub with water, mini dinos, fossils and stones and left it to freeze. It then stayed in my freezer for aaaaages as the temperature was certainly not ice play recently.

Looks cool doesn't it!

Well today the weather was strange humid warm but chilly winds. So we cooled of in the house with this. I put some normal salt, some garden salt, and warm water in containers mixing in a lil food colouring as I went. Poured a bit of warm water over the icecream tub and the block of ice just tipped out.

 I explained that we were going to have a Dino excavation and be paleontologist's. Well lil dude was sold as soon as he saw a Dino spike peaking out and after a quick explanation of how salt and warm water will melt the ice and free the trapped dino's he promptly started scooping salt on. Well he soon realised a spoon full wasn't cutting it so on went the entire cup of salt.
I really have to remind myself of his age sometimes my inner perfectionist wants it all to be done carefully while watching each reaction the realist part knows lil dudes limits and to enjoy it thoroughly I have to step back and embrace the chaos! Do you ever find yourself going to correct your kids and having to check yourself because in reality that's how they learn and why should they do it like that anyway because we say so?!? I try to give lil dude the freedom to do things his way to learn from chaos but like I said it goes against my upbringing and includes a fair bit of tongue biting!

So the poured on salt made some wicked cracking sounds and made a great mess to mix and get lil dudes hands into.

He then used the lil tools I provided to hammer saw and jab (In little hooligans she uses better tools to free but I could see younger lil dude loosing a finger or worse so we limited it to plastic toy tools and teaspoons) he realised the hot water was the best Dino freeing device and sent me running back and forth to the tap. He almost forgot about the poor trapped souls as pouring the water became priority number one!

Then back to the digging for a final burst and the were all free!!! This was a fab activity and will be recreated again I may do a smaller ice block next time as without the proper tools the mass of ice was a challenge to say the least! Minimal clean up and cheap as chips to create! Lil bit of advice if doing inside the garden salt is sharp on lil feet we learnt this the hard way after spilling a bunch on the laminate and as soon as lil dude walked he yelped at they spiked the souls of his little bare feet. There was no injury's but next time I'll keep this one for the garden or at least pop some shoes on him.

Down On The Farm

So a great day on the farm a couple of souvenirs and a lil boy with farm animals on the brain led to the creation of another small world. While the lil dude had his nap I put together some lolly stick fences using a glue gun (adapted this from www.funathomewithkids.com her small worlds are fab!

Left them out so lil man could see them when he came down and as predicted as soon as he woke up he started inspecting the new creations. Once explained what they are he dragged me out to “make a farm”. I had planned to do it on the grass but the good weather had made the grass pretty hard and tough to break with a blunt lolly stick. We had a change of plans and invaded the flower beds. I had planned to make a field and road for the tractor but about 10 seconds after this picture was taken he saw a few ants and the world ended. I guess my next project will be overcoming his myrmecophobia (oh yes I looked it up and there actually is a name for fear of ants, admit it your impressed) so the farm has been shelved till I find a cure but hey ho the pictures good

Diggerland

With the sun making a much needed appearance we are dusting off the cobwebs and hitting the garden ahhh my lovely garden it’s such a treat with patio, flower beds and pergola. Our old house had a square of lawn which was open to next door and had nooo play opportunities whatsoever. Well as soon as I saw those mud filled flower beds I started plotting. All over blog land I have seen beautiful fairy gardens and boy would I love one! My lil dude on the other hand nooot so much he really is a boy!! Pair that with my darling hubby who was highly unimpressed with the kitchen I purchased lil dude I thought a fairy garden really would push the limits! Lil dude loves his diggers so I rolled with that and we came up with digger land. I started off using a long flowerpot and filling with stones compost and diggers and if you have a restricted space this would be a great option (would recommend a play mat underneath). I found this was slightly restricting and there was compost all over the patio. So digger land was relocated to the flower bed and am so glad it was it’s a fab addition to the garden and encourages lots of Independent play. This idea then lead on to Dino land in another section of the flower bed which is a working progress but similar concept.

Our Rainbow Rice

Today’s entertainment has been the fantastic rainbow rice and boy was it a hit I have seen this all over blog land but the recipe came from one of my fav blogs happy hooligans. If you haven’t come across it yet it’s a must just fantastic!!!
The rice was sooooooo simple took a zip lock bag half filled with rice then put a tbs of vinegar and a few drops of food colouring. I mixed it well by shaking and mushing (wow can’t you tell I spend most of my time with a two year old lol). Some like the blue I had to add more colouring than the others too so would advise you to mix and then add more as required. I was heavy handed with the yellow and that took a long while to dry plus has a vinegar scent to it. It’s not off putting but would recommend you don’t copy that mistake. Once all mixed I popped onto a baking tray to dry and returned a few times to mix. They clumped a bit at first which worried me but after the first couple of stirs they were perfectly separated.
I placed the baking trays on a towel with a tray in the middle and gave him spoons, bottles, funnels, pans etc… He had a great time scooping crunching and pouring them mixing the colours as we went. This activity lead to so many play opportunities’ he was a fountain of ideas which made my day! The following he came up with in one morning:
Pouring colours in bottles through funnels making patterns (like coloured sand ones this looks amazing and I’m deffo on the lookout for an unusual vase that we can fill together in the future for the dining room!)

Making shakers by putting a few bits of rice in little plastic pots.
Dinoland he started sorting dinos at first green for herbivores blue for swimmers red for carnivores etc. which was great then it all got a bit chaotic (as it usually does with lil dude) and ended up in a dinosaur war zone resulting in several poor souls getting buried by the remaining colours being chucked in all together. The days entertainment ended up in him requesting we make a movie so I dug out the phone and recorded lil dude acting out a mini story I read aloud. The movie will win no awards but lil dude loves watching it over and over.
A quick tidy up later leading me to a piece of advice…. A towel is not big enough protection would advise a double duvet laid out or a messy mat. It wasn’t a big clean up but to save the hovering the mats are ace plus can scoop it and reuse.
I’ve kept the rice and will use again and again this is a cheap days activity for us and I’m sure will be used again and again

Pasta Dig Site

So this is one of my cheap and easy chuck in a tray and go activities.
I brought lil dude a baking tray from Asda for 80p I planned to use it for a magnetic play tray for his letters etc. Well we had a pretty hard day with a seriously grumpy teething toddler and desperation to get the dinner done drew me to the kitchen cupboard. Poured a bag of leftover dried pasta in the tray and chucked a few diggers in.
I was not sure this would hold his attention but he was fascinated by it and the tray was left in our front room for a few days with various toys added and some amazing scenarios played out. I was pulled in to assist with bulldozing and then building a playground followed by moving in the dinosaurs to drive the diggers. Ok so not very romantic an idea and yes I could have spent a lot more time developing a small world scene but I find sometimes in times of need these simple ideas are the best!!

If you liked this take a look at Digger Land