During the school holidays I try to purchase some cheap crafty kits. Many of the dollar shops and the like have plenty of them around, and I can normally get different ones each holidays. What I should do is start putting together a box that sits in the top of the wardrobe, and the next time one of my boys says they are bored I will get it out.

Anyway our local shops has just gained one said dollar shops … and it actually is quite a good one, I hope that it lasts! Last week when I was with the boys I picked up these neat glitter and sand art sets .. they looked at me like I was crazy and you could see that they really weren’t that enthused …

Well, they got them out on the weekend … and did not stop doing them for hours … then got them out on the next day .. and the next .. and well you get the idea. They were completely enthralled. Unfortunately now our house is covered from top to tail in glitter, but they have had a ball. I want to get some frames for the finished products so I have to measure them, they look slightly bigger than A4, but that may not be an issue, if I can trim them without losing too much of the picture.

I haven’t taken any final pictures yet, will do that when all three boys have finished both their pictures .. but here are some of the working shots …

As usual, in the school holidays, we try to have a number of crafty projects on the go  .. here are some snippets of what we have been doing today.

Jordan and Tom were creating something .. in the end I think it turned into weapons, but I must admit they all played well. Like something out of an Adventure Game for quite a while, no injuries and no tears, so thats a good thing!

Then we discovered some fantastic Toilet Paper Roll Pokemon characters to make, Will & Tom are totally immersed with Pokemon at the moment. It is amazing that  something that was created some 14 years ago is still so popular with kids. A whole new generation of them that are Pokemon Crazy! Anyway at DLTK, they have these fantastic templates for creating these fabulous Pokemon! They also have templates for a heap more animals and other critters .. DLTK is one of my favourite sites, for quick and easy craft activities and templates.

These templates come in coloured, or black outline, and Will has had great fun with both!

And lastly some modelling clay, as always is quite popular!

With a sick little chook at home, who is starting to feel better, and now that he is taking paracetamol, I have found it necessary to organise activities that keep him fairly quiet and still. Trying to explain to a 6 year old, that he is feeling so much better because the medicine makes his body forget that its hurting is a little hard.

Anyway, they have loved dinosaurs this holidays, so I dug around, found the lids of some old archive boxes, dug up some bits and pieces from the bits & pieces box and we went about creating our Dinosaur lands. It was a lot of fun, and being lap size meant the William could play with them in bed!

Can you spot the lady bugs on each island? hehe I made those out of plasticine. There are butterflies and flowers from my scrapbooking stash, , cellophane, straws, toilet rolls, pom poms etc .. I reckon we can change these around quite easily, add different animals etc. In fact as I type, Tom just took his to add things to it so there may be another post later with the updated version!

The lids of these boxes were fantastic for lap/bed play though. Things don’t fall off, and they are quite sturdy to carry around! A definite winner!