Our First Paperchase Project!

We’re so excited to share our news that we are now going to be working with high street stationers, Paperchase, on their recently launched blog, The Journal. We are probably the two biggest fans of Paperchase out there (we both recently bought a whole load of matching stationery from there… losers!) so to be working with them makes us really happy.

They asked us to create a half term project for kids using their Spectrascope range of paper and card. So we created a paper train to be made with the help of your little ones. For the step-by-step tutorial, check out our post over on The Journal.

If you like what we do and have two minutes spare, we’d love it if you could vote for us for the MADs (Mum and Dad Awards) for Best Craft Blog. Click on the picture below, enter a blog of the year first, then enter us for Best Craft Blog. Thank you!!

~ Laura & Tia xx ~

Life In Pictures

Life in Pictures is our weekly mini-gallery of what we have been up to over the past seven days. This week we’ve been enjoying getting out in the sunshine and playing in all the parks and gardens we could find. 

 

A BIG Thank You

Yesterday we found out that our blog has become a finalist in the Brilliance in Blogging Awards (BIBs) for Best Craft Blog. When we found out via twitter, we did a wiggly, jiggly dance and texted each other with a OMG!!!!!! We are so grateful to everyone who voted for us to get this far, anyone who comments on our posts and for turning up in the first place and reading our blog – we wouldn’t be here without you (we’d like to give you all a big hug). We’re up against so really fantastic crafts blogs and feel very privileged to be among them. Click here to have a look at the finalists.

 And, erm… if you feel like voting again (you know you want to!) then nominations for the Best Craft Blog in the MADs (Mum and Dad Awards) are still open. We’d love to make this year a double whammy and reach the finals. All you need to do is click on the picture, enter a blog of the year then select us for Best Craft Blog. 

 Thanks again, we’re still pinching ourselves.

 ~ Laura & Tia xx ~

Mrs Flowerpot Lady

We love a challenge, especially a craft one! Hobbycraft set us the challenge of making something out of just a few items selected for us, and we decided to make a lovely little flower pot lady. Mrs. Pot is easy to make, takes very little time and is the perfect craft to do with little ones. For the full tutorial on how to make her visit Hobbycraft!

 ~ Tia & Laura xx ~

Gluten-Free Chocolate & Raspberry Roulade

This is definitely not the quickest cake in the world, but I’ve never made a swiss roll or roulade before so it was interesting to give it a go. I learned two things, first, there is no butter or oil in roulade (until you ram it full of cream of course!) – there is chocolate in this one, but you can make it without. Secondly, its really easy. Just not so quick. But that might be me.

Here is how you make it – you will need a 33cm x 23cm (13in x 9in) Swiss roll tin.

Ingredients

• 175g/6oz plain chocolate, broken into pieces
• 175g/6oz caster sugar
• 6 eggs, separated
• 2 level tbsp cocoa, sieved

For the filling

• 300ml/10fl oz double cream
• 3tbsp raspberry jam

For the Chocolate Sauce:

• 100g chocolate
• 200ml double cream

Method

1. Lightly grease the Swiss roll tin and line with baking parchment. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4.

2. Melt the chocolate slowly in a bowl over a pan of hot water. Allow to cool slightly.

3. Place the sugar and egg yolks in a bowl and whisk with an electric whisk until light and creamy. Add the cooled chocolate and stir until evenly blended.

4. Whisk the egg whites in a large mixing bowl until stiff. Stir a large spoonful of the egg whites into the chocolate mixture, then fold in the remaining egg whites and the cocoa.

5. Pour into the prepared tin and give it a wobble to level the top. Bake in the preheated oven for about 20 minutes until firm to the touch. Remove from the oven, leave in the tin to cool for a few minutes, then flip it out onto some cling film. Roll it up, incorporating the cling film as you go. Leave to cool completely. This will help the cake to not crack when wrapped with the cream.

6. meanwhile, whip the cream until it just holds its shape. Once the cake has cooled, unwrap it and spread the jam and cream on top. Roll it back up, this time without the clingfilm!

7. Finally, make the chocolate sauce. This is so easy, simply heat the chocolate in a glass bowl over a pan of barely simmering water. When it starts to melt, add the cream then stir until it has all melted and combined. When you are ready to serve the roulade, pour the sauce on top. Delicious!

Life in Pictures

Life in Pictures is our weekly mini-gallery of what we have been up to over the past seven days. This week we’ve been hanging out with Grandparents, enjoying the lovely bluebells and making said Grandparents take pictures of us in them!

       

 

Nap time crafts: Polymer Princesses

For another project, I’ve recently been making a lot of very cute and girly things that I haven’t been able to give to Amelie. It’s made me feel so bad, she comes into my craft room (I say craft room, I’ve basically stolen the conservatory and renamed it. Anyone else find that craft stuff seems to just breed?!), she gets all excited and I have to quickly remove her from the area before she creates damage. So I decided to make her some little princesses from fimo. I gave her some lumps too (small ones, this stuff is expensive!) and she made some grotesque looking warped princesses too.

These are really easy to make, and take about 15 minutes per doll. These ones are only tiny, about 5cm high, but you could make them any size.

You will Need (Per Princess):

• Polymer clay (I use fimo soft) – about 1cm lump of skin tone and 2cm in your chosen dress colour
• Super Glue
• Embroidery thread for hair
• black and red permanent fine liner

1. Thoroughly clean your hands and dry them on something non-fluffy. Odd as that might sound, this stuff picks up dust and fluff and quickly looks manky!! Begin by rolling the lumps you need. From pink, roll a pea sized ball for the head and two thin sausages, about 2cm long, for the arms. Then take the body lump – here I’m making Belle (obviously…) so I’ve used dark yellow. Roll the lump into a ball, then a sausage, then roll one end so that it is slightly narrower at the top. Press the bottom on the work surface to flatten and make it stand.

2. Press the arms onto the side of the body, and the head on the top. You can learn from my mistakes here as I didn’t secure the head enough (it popped off on first play and had to be glued back), so really make sure the pieces are adhered to one another, you can use a cocktail stick or a knife to blend the edges together.

3. Place the princess(es) on a lined baking tray and bake in the oven according the manufacturers guidelines. Whilst they cook, prepare the hair. Create a loop of embroidery thread around your fingers, about 10cm long, and wrap the thread around 6 times. Cut through the loops to create strands. Once the dolls are out of the oven and cooled, place some glue onto the back of the head and stick the strands on one by one, starting from the front and working your way down till there are no more bald bits!

4. Tie or plait the hair however you like, then take a fine permanent pen and draw on a smiley little face.

Here are the some of other dolls I made:

  

Can you work out who they are?! I liked the Anna princess best – I just added a cape and rolled it in place, put a bit of white thread in her hair and plaited it. Snow White’s body was made from two lumps of clay rolled together, with red thread for the hairband.

Tia xx

PS. If you like our blog, we would love you forever if you could take a tiny two seconds to nominate us for the Best Craft Blog at the 2015 BIB awards… click below on the picture to vote. Scroll to section 12 on the form and select us. Thank you!

x

The Final Few Days To Vote

First up, we want to say thank you to everyone who has voted for us recently. We’re so lucky to have been shortlisted for the Brilliance in Blogging Awards later this year. We’re up against nine other great sites for Best Craft Blog. If you like what we do, we’d be so grateful if you could spare a teeny tiny two minutes to vote for us. All you need to do is click into the form, scroll down to section 12 and select us, Little Button Diaries. Voting closes Friday. Thank you once again!

 ~ Laura & Tia xx ~

How to Turn your Toddler into a Pirate

Arrrrrrrr! Coming up with costumes for parties can be tricky. We were invited to a pirate party at the weekend and instead of buying a costume I decided to make a few pirate accessories to transform my Little Button into a little scallywag. After grabbing a white top and black leggings from her wardrobe I added a length of stripy fabric around her middle, and made a felt parrot, cardboard telescope and duct tape pirate boots. For my Littlest Button I made some fabric parrot wings. Who’s a pretty boy then!

Felt Parrot

For this project you will need:

• One sheet of felt in red, yellow & blue
• Scrap pieces of felt in black & white
•  Toy Stuffing
• Glue and red thread

1. Begin by cutting out your pieces from the felt. You need two of each – one for each side of the parrot.

2. To make the wings cut one in red as per the template. Then cut another in blue, one third smaller, and trim the bottom and side with pinking shears. Repeat with yellow and red pieces as per the picture. Stitch or glue together at the top.

3. Glue your parrots together so they are mirror images of each other.

  

4. Cut a belly piece (as above) and sew the two body pieces together using blanket stitch.

 

5. Use a safety pin or a few stitches to attach to the shoulder of a piratey looking top.

Cardboard Telescope

For this project you will need:

• Cardboard tube
• Paper cup
• Gold paint
• Masking tape & doubled sided tape
• Black and gold card
•  Pirate stickers

 

 

1. Draw around your cardboard tube on the base of your cup. Cut it out.

 

2. Make centimetre-long snips around the bottom of the tube. Push the tube into the hole in the bottom of the cup. Bend back the snips and secure with masking tape.

3.Paint your telescope gold by applying several coats.

4. Decorate with black and gold cards and pirate stickers.

Duct Tape Boots

 For this project you will need:

• Welly boots
• Black duct tape

1. Very simply, wrap strips of duct tape around your wellies! This is a brilliant way of jazzing up boots as the tape can be removed without marking afterwards.

Finally, if you have a baby in need of a pirate-related costume then these parrot wings are simple to make (even though it can take a while to cut out all the wing pieces) and they are easy to sew. For our full tutorial click here.

  

If you like our blog, we would love you forever if you could take a tiny two seconds to nominate us for the Best Craft Blog at the 2015 BIB awards… click below on the picture to vote. Scroll to section 12 on the form and select us. Thank you!

 ~ Laura xx ~

Life in Pictures: The best Plaice in town!

Sorry about the rubbish fish pun. I couldn’t help it. Yesterday we were very excited to go and sample the food at English’s Seafood Restaurant in Brighton. It’s such a lovely old Seafood restaurant (the oldest in Brighton actually) and they’ve just brought out an adventurous new children’s menu.

The food is so delicious and it isn’t full of your usual boring fishfingers and beans. Kids can have scallops and squid as well as the more usual goujons and fishcakes. The battered plaice was totally delicious, I don’t think I’ve ever had better. Plus I had my first ever oyster which was…. well, I’m sure it was a very good oyster, everyone else thought so, but I don’t think I’m an oyster person. Sorry. I tried.

If you’re local, or popping to Brighton for the day with kids, we would really recommend this place.

        

Thanks to English’s of Brighton, 29-31 East Street, Brighton, BN1 1HL