Valentines stick dolly gifts

I finally got my act together and set up some Valentines craft for the girls. I was inspired by these gorgeous wooden stick dollies created by teawagontales. She made them with decorative washi tape and markers. I wanted to make some with the girls. They would make lovely Valentines gifts for friends and family.

I have no idea where to get washi tape in Australia (shop owners look at me strangely when I ask for it). I substituted the washi tape with patterned scrapbooking paper and a gluestick, which was suggested by Christen, one of my lovely facebook followers.

What you need:

• large wooden sticks (as wide as possible)
• patterned or coloured paper strips
• markers
• gluestick
• heart hole punch for a Valentines feel

I cut the paper strips. The girls chose their dolly's outfits and glued them on the sticks They added details with the markers. Cakey gave one dolly a little baby – my favourite of the set.

I made lots of these dollies with the girls. It was fun coming up with funky dolly ensembles. We added hearts cut from a heart-shaped hole punch to our dollies for a Valentines feel. Boo was (and still is) obsessed with the heart hole punch. On the back of each stick we wrote the name of the person who will receive the dolly on Valentines Day.

For more Valentines inspiration have a look at my Valentines Pinterest Board.

If this is your first visit to At home with Ali – welcome. If you like it, you can follow along via email, RSS, google+ or facebook. You can also find me on Pinterest and Instagram. Cheers Ali



Linked to Kids Get Crafty, It's Playtime, Tuesday Tots and The Kids Co-op

Fairy Apartment Block

I love arty projects that you can do over a few days. This was one of those projects..... a fairy apartment block. Now for the fairy purists out there – I know that fairy houses are supposed to be made from all natural materials rather than man-made materials. We have a copy of the book Fairy Houses by Tracy Kane which is a great resource for natural fairy house building. BUT we live in the city and our fairies are quite urbane, so we thought they needed a luxury high-rise apartment block.

Day 1
We found an old wooden CD rack at the side of the road. We dragged it home and gave it a good wash with sudsy water. Then we let it dry.

Day 2
The three of us had a chat about the apartment block colour scheme. We started painting. Cakey painted a lovely picture of flowers on the outside. Boo and I painted and splashed paint on the inside of the apartment block. Then we let it dry.

Day 3
We took our dry and colourful fairy apartment block down to laneway garden and set it up for the fairies. We decorated the rooms with flowers and small boxes filled with playdough and little animal friends. The fairies visited their apartment block and played.

We do make natural fairy houses too. Cakey loves to build little fairy tents from sticks. Boo is good at collecting seed pods and flower petals. I was going to write a post about this as it keeps the kids very busy in our local park but all the photos look like this......

It is hard to photograph a pile of sticks

If this is your first visit to At home with Ali – welcome. If you like it, you can follow along via email, RSS or facebook. You can also find me on Pinterest and Instagram. Cheers Ali



Linked to Kids Get Crafty, It's Playtime and The Kids Co-op

Herb and Flower Tea Party

I have written about making pretend tea and coffee in the garden before... and I am writing about it again because my kids love it. Our ceramic tea set bought from a charity shop is still going strong! I always set up their 'cafe area' on the grass to avoid breakages. The kids have been making lots of herb and flower tea. I simply supply a tub of water, some spoons and bowls of loose leaf tea. They do the rest scavenging the garden for herbs and flowers to add to their 'herbal tea'.

Cakey enjoys the imaginary aspect of this game and I get to 'taste' tonnes of herb tea. Yum! Boo just loves the chance to stir and pour. This is a fabulous summer-time water play activity. We play this in the winter too.... I use warm water in an attempt to offset the cold.

For more outdoor activities check out my Pinterest board Outdoor Fun for Kids

If this is your first visit to At home with Ali – welcome. If you like it, you can follow along via email, RSS or facebook. You can also find me on Pinterest and Instagram. Cheers Ali



Linked to Tuesday Tots, Monday Kid Corner, It's Playtime and The Kids Co-op

Holiday activities for kids

How do you feel about colouring sheets? I would prefer my kids to draw than colour in pre-drawn scenes. I provide lots of opportunities and materials so that drawing is part of our everyday life. But you know what, I liked colouring sheets as a kid and my kids like them too. We don't use them regularly and I am not a fan of highly detailed colouring books. Thankfully there are many free printables available that give a little prod but don't do all the work. When my kids are a bit lack lustre about drawing, an inspirational colouring or activity sheet can do the trick.... and they are perfect for travel.

A couple of months ago we went on a holiday to the Gold Coast. We had lots of activities planned but I knew that there would also be plenty of time spent in our apartment. I remembered reading about a friend's Big Book of Crafty Goodness where she bound together a stack of kid-friendly printables as gifts. Brilliant idea.... I got to work and made two printable packs for my kids. These were loose leaf packs held together with paper clips and this is what they contained:

• Town colouring sheet by Lessons Learnt Journal. This printable is made up of stacked rectangles and triangles with lots of scope to add in your own detail.
• Printable Drawing Shapes by Picklebums. A whole variety of open-ended circle based printable sheets.
• Monsters by Picklebums. Cute monster shapes to cut out and play with on a vacation.
• Sample pages from Susan Striker's Anti-Coloring book. These are fabulous drawing prompts.
• Alphabet colouring pages by Mr Printables. I included the letters of my kids' names just for fun.
• Printable mazes. Cakey is just beginning to enjoy the challenge of a maze.
• A couple of abstract swirly doodles which you can download here and here.
• My fish printable. A simple fish outline perfect for kids to add fishy detail.
• My flowers and rainbows colouring sheet.
• I also included some coloured paper with random holes and shapes cut out of them, this was inspired by a post by The Artful Parent.
• Had I seen this post before the holiday I also would have included this awesome googly eye drawing prompt.

I also took away a set of pencils and markers as well as our watercolour tray. The kids chose to paint most of the printable sheets. When we returned I bound together the painted sheets as a holiday journal. On the back of each page I wrote a few notes to remind us of all the things we did on our family holiday. 

If this is your first visit to At home with Ali – welcome. If you like it, you can follow along via email, RSS or facebook. You can also find me on Pinterest and Instagram. Cheers Ali





Linked to The Kids Co-op, Tuesday Tots