Cornish Mama

Who doesn't love a rock pool?! Yesterday, we made salt dough creatures and last night I painted them using acrylics so today I put them to goos use and made a rock pool invitation to play for Zach for this weeks #yesbebemission !  I used Josh's Ocamora Techniques (I bought them for his Birthday as a present from Zach so they could do them together)  buy them here!  and made a circle out on the around a bunched up blue sensory silk! I then placed the salt dough creatures and stones in the middle and placed around!  Zach loved it and was straight in there, picking up all the animals, exploring the rocks and telling me what they were! He was particularly fond of the fish and starfish as he loves looking at fish (we have a fish tank and its his favourite thing to do) and he loves shape of a star! It didn't take him long to work out there was two star fish's and 2 fish so he liked pairing them up!  Zach also enjoyed stacking the salt dough cre...

This weeks #yesbebemission is based on the sea so as well as some awesome stacks, we today have made some salt dough creatures (for an ITP for tomorrow) & some sea blue slime! Yes Bebe shared a recipe for salt dough yesterday on their IG post so I made some this morning, my son helped to mix it and my cousin (who i look after once a week during summer) made some creatures! Zach loved playing with the dough and found it really fun to roll up and pat together, to be fair he liked it more than I thought he would! We made a combination of animals and some pebbles so that tomorrow I can create a rock pool! We made a jellyfish, crab, a couple fish, an anemone, some starfish, snail and some pebbles so there was a good mix just like you'd find in good rock pool. I've been painting them this evening using some acrylics to bring them to life! We also made a slime mixture today which was a huge hit with the 9 year and Zach loved playing with it after it was made! The textu...

We are going on a bug hunt, we're going to catch a big one!  Today we went to Tehidy woods here in Camborne, Cornwall and we took our trusty bag (which I made from Frugi fabric) full of some of our favourite toys, perfect for a bug hunt! We pulled our wellies on, stuck our waterproofs on and off we wandered, Zach loves a puddle and in all honesty, he would've been really happy just in one puddle but we walked around and explored a bit as we were with family! The toys we took with us! We took our Lanka Kade bugs, Bee Happy Ned, Tickit Magnifying glass and a MDF camera shape which I painted myself as Zach loves taking toy photos! These bugs I think may be Zach's favourite Lanka Kade range for stacking and playing with as I think they're quite small and therefore easier to balance! He loves to find a log, balance them all on it, move them along it and then knock them all off and he literally spends ages doing that!  We also took Bee Happy Ned who ...

This weeks theme for #WonderPlayDiscover is Stacking! Zach loves stacking, he will literally stack anything! Loo rolls are a firm favourite in our house, if 2 or more loo rolls were in the bag, they're probably now in a tower curtesy of Zach HAHA! The first proper wooden toy we bought him was the Grimm's waves when he was about 10 months old and he enjoyed demolishing that more than anything but he did really enjoy it, for his 1st birthday my in laws got him some grinds pebbles and he loves stacking then but the proper stacking started when he got his 36 grimms cubes for christmas! He loved them (and so did Daddy who spent Christmas Day trying to see if he could stack all 36) and could probably do 5 blocks by a couple of days, he however then managed 7 after a couple of months and can now easily do 10 high!  He often stacks his animals and does prefer Lanka Kade for stacking however seeing as this was a challenge from the wooden play den, we stacked our Holztiger and N...

Okay, so this was one for the big kids! The Ned's went to see Lion King the Musical I am friends with two wonderful ladies who's children are buddies with Zach, well I say buddies but they're more like siblings because the love each other but fight like cat and dog, and they're both into wooden toys too! First it was me and L, when she first came I noticed her daughter was in a cloth nappy and she noticed Zach was in LGR clothes, then we started a talk about how cute Ned was and how much we both needed one, then we got more involved in the church and helped out together with the scenery for the nativity! Basically by the time it got to Christmas, we were best buddies, chatting Babipur, Maxomorra and Ned then we started a craft group and out came R as a serial crafter (honestly, she has no limits on her crafting ability) we all bonded over craft and crochet as a common interest and then we drew R into the "rainbow side" (like the dark side but obviously...

Ned is our favourite toy in the house!  The day he got his Ned (Excuse the allergy shiner) We got Zach's first Ned back in January and we got Dino Ned and Walnut Ned (although the walnut was mainly for me) and it was love at first sight, he carried that dino ned everywhere he went!! He is the perfect little travel companion for Zach, he is ideal for fiddly little hands which Zach loves as he sits in the car or the buggy and as he's wooden, you can hear him if he falls HAHA! We then also got Bee Happy Ned and the rainbow Ned a couple moths later although Dino Ned is still Zach's favourite, he even takes him to bed. Ned is a very versatile toy and if you love wooden toys and haven't got one yet, then I cannot recommend him enough, he is a perfect little addition to your toy collection. He is Zach's buddy, a phone to call Daddy, he likes to wave goodbye to everyone using Ned's hand, set him up with other toys, its limitless! He loves using them...

Moon Landing Tuff Tray This week I did two tuff tray set ups based on space to celebrate and learn about the 50th anniversary of the moon landing, it was also part of the #WonderPlayDiscover challenge set up by The Wooden Play Den I started by making a slime, Zach loves playing with Slime but I find it a bit of difficult sometimes as he likes to eat it and I have to keep such a close eye on him that it sometimes ruins the whole child-led-play idea! But I found a recipe (it was on Instagram but I can't remember where from so if it was you, please let me know!) so here it is: 1/8 cup of chia seeds 1 cup of water Soak over night together (you can add food colouring to the water if you wish but i wanted it to look like the moon so i kept it white) Add Cornflour, I reckon I used about 2 cups but just add slowly until its not sticky to touch anymore, the texture is between slime and obleek and is incredibly satisfying! I don't have a huge range of 'space ...