Chocolate Chip Muffins And Sweetie Jars For Daddy

  
The way to a mans heart, especially my husband’s is through his stomach. So what better Father’s Day present than lots of yummy food!

First up we made some scrummy white chocolate chip muffins.  Here’s how:

  • 140g Self Raising Flour
  • 140g Melted Dark Chocolate
  • 75g Cocoa Powder
  • 3tsp Baking Powder
  • 1 Egg
  • 200ml Milk
  • 150g Broken White Chocolate
  • 1tsp Vanilla Extract
  • 100ml Sunflower Oil

Preheat the oven to 200c/Gas Mark 6.

  
Mix together the flour, baking powder and cocoa powder.

In a separate bowl mix together the oil, milk, egg and melted chocolate.

   
 

Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix together the the white chocolate chunks.  Do not over mix the mixture.

Place into 12 muffin cases and bake for 12 mins.

   
 

Once cooked, remove from the oven and cool on a wire rack.

  
Once they were cooled I placed them into an air proof tin all ready for tomorrow.

Next up was a very simple pressie.  All I did was get a couple of glass jars with screw top lids.  I filled them with hubby’s favourite sweets whist number three made some gift labels with handprints.

  
I threaded some ribbon through the gift tags and tied them round the top of the jars.

  

The children love making gifts for people and I find that people always find a homemade gift far more thoughtful.

Along with their cards I am sure that is going to be one happy Daddy upon receiving the wonderful gifts.

  

  

Quick And Easy Fathers Day Cards

Who doesn’t love little ones tiny hands and fingers, so what better way to decorate a Fathers Day card than to use their wriggly little fingers!!

A simple handprint makes a lovely picture and is wonderful to compare year after year.

  
I love to supplement my posts with pictures but tonight’s was hands on for me too so I’m a bit short on the picture front tonight.

For number five we just used the traditional way to hand print by sticking his hand in a blob of paint to cover the hand and then place the hand print onto the folded card to create the picture.

For number for we made a multicoloured hand by painting his palm and each finger a different colour.  Again we then placed the painted hand onto the folded card.

   
 

I waited for the cards to dry and then added a caption to the front and let the boys help me write a message inside.

The eldest two would sadly rather buy a card now and number three opted to write on the front of hers about the things she loves about her Daddy.

  
I would much rather have a thoughtful, handmade card from the children and I’m sure my husband is going to agree!!

Retro Crafts:Potato Printing

  

With a basket full of soft potatoes and some bored children on a rainy day I decided to go a bit old school and make some potato print pictures with them.

I can’t remember any of mine coming home with any potato printed items and I cant recall doing it myself since I was at school.

It’s such an easy craft activity that requires very little equipment or preparation.

  
We simply cut a few potatoes in half and number three then used her imagination to carve out some great shapes from the potatoes.

  
She created mainly raised shapes. Squares, triangles, simple lines and a little house.  There was also a heart that she dug into the potato thus using the outside of the potato to create the picture instead.

Once the shapes had been made we rolled a large piece of paper across the table and put some blobs of paint onto some paper plates and then left them to get creating.

   
     

It quickly turned into hand a finger painting too, but it’s great to give them free reign to produce whatever they like.

  
Number three and I are going to try some more intricate designs soon and hopefully make some snazzy wrapping paper.

What crafts do you remember from your childhood?

  

Mother’s Day gifts For Nanny

My Mum truly is one in a million, and goes way beyond her motherly duties for all of us.  My children have a very special relationship with her and she deserves to be treated by all of us on Mother’s Day.

My older two now prefer to go to the shops and select a special gift for her; but the younger ones still love to do something homemade which I alway feel is more heartfelt.




With paints at the ready we got out some coloured card and placed blobs of three different coloured paints on three paper plates.  Number 4 then covered his hand in the paint and placed it on the card to form a bunch of flowers.  He then took some green paint and painted three green lines to create the flower stems.


We did ours as a picture but this could easily be turned into a card with wording added.

The plan was to then for number 5 to make a card with an owl on the front using his cute little feet.  Once taking off his socks I began to immerse his feet in the bright purple paint which I had visions of him loving.  How wrong could I be!  He took a massively high pitched scream, kicked away the plate and covered me and the kitchen in the paint!


With number three back from drama we set about making the fingerprint necklace.  I chose DAS air drying clay on a recommendation from a friend as it is softer than most clays and will show up the fingerprint the best.  We took about half an iches worth of clay and rolled it into a ball.  We then used a pen to flatten it into an oval shape and then gently press her finger into the clay to create the impression.  Just above the fingerprint we made a hole with a toothpick to pull the thread thought once it was dry.  It took about three hours for ours to become dry enough to tread.  We pulled the length of thread so that the ends were together, they were then put through the hole from the front to the back and bought back through the loop to complete the necklace.




With everything completed and kids all tucked up in bed they can’t wait until tomorrow to give the special lady in their life the lovingly prepared gifts.

How will you all be spending Mother’s Day?