We love going all out with our crafts and getting out loads of messy materials when we've got lots of time and energy, but now that Ethan has started school we're sometimes looking for easy crafts too.  So we are loving the Halloween craft kits from Baker Ross as they're super fun and easy to do too.



The Halloween Dotty Art was our absolute favourite!  The set comes with various Halloween designs and loads of different colours and sizes of round stickers.  The kids then get to choose the colours and match up the sizes to make their Halloween creature. They absolutely love stickers so this was perfect for us.  It can also keep them busy for ages and it is so compact that it could easily be taken on holiday or out to restaurants to keep little hands busy and happy in confined spaces.


We also coloured in some cute little Day of the Dead bags.  The kids love colouring and were happy to make these bright and colourful.  They make perfect little treat bags for the kids to fill up and give to their special friends for Halloween.



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* This is a review post, we were sent some Halloween crafts from Baker Ross to play with and write our honest opinions about.*

We are so lucky to live in London, but sometimes I think we don't appreciate all of the amazing things that we've got right on our door step.  So when 365 Tickets offered to organise a fun family day out for us in London we jumped at the chance to be tourists in our own city!


We started our day by picking up or tickets for the The Original Tour and were so surprised that the kids each also got a little kids pack to bring along with them on the bus tour.  It was a lovely little pack with a couple of activity books for them to do.  One was a passport style book for them to keep track of where they had been and the other was a story book with lots of facts about all of the things that they would see on the bus.  They were great for keeping the kids busy during the day between activities, when we stopped for meals and on the way home on the train.


Both of the kids absolutely loved The Original Tour buses, just being on one of the open topped double decker buses that we always see driving around was so exciting.  They could really see everything from up there and loved pointing out the other Original Tour buses that we passed and waving at all the people.


I love that this is something that both children can appreciate at their own level.  Ethan was ready to learn a bit of history about all of the buildings that we were passing, while Ivy was just happy to watch the world go by and marvel at the experience of being on an open topped bus!  They absolutely loved it and couldn't get enough, when we got to the Southbank they didn't want to get off the bus, but we were ready for our next adventure!


Next we went to the London Eye which the kids were thrilled about!  It's something that we often see and walk past it all the time, but it was the first time that we actually brought the children on it and they couldn't wait.  We picked up our tickets and joined the queue, which can get quite long but we were lucky that it wasn't too bad that day.  We were ushered onto our little pod and away we went.


I was a bit worried that it could get tricky keeping Ivy in a confined space for half an hour (the length of time that it takes the London Eye to make a full rotation) but she was absolutely fine.  She loved looking out all of the windows, walking all around the pod and seeing the different views and watching the boats pass by on the river.


Finally we finished our day off with a boat trip on City Cruises which was actually included in our Original Tour bus ticket.  We had seen the buses passing by while we were on the London Eye so the kids were already excited to get on board and ride down the river.


The boat was very crowded as it's obviously a very popular experience, but we were lucky enough to find some seats at the top so we could enjoy the views to their fullest.  


They give a fantastic and informative commentary on the City Cruise boat tour describing in great detail the buildings and sights that you pass and a little bit of history about them.  I also got to point out a few of my favourite sights, like Shakespeare's Globe Theatre and tell the kids all about it.  They really do pick up a lot from these experiences and getting to see historical buildings first hand in a fun way!


We had an incredible time on our family day out in London with 365 tickets, the kids had so much to talk about afterwards and loved every experience.  We'll definitely be making more of an effort to be tourists in our own city more often!

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* This is a review post, we were given tickets to all of the attractions from 365 Tickets in order to write our honest review.*

We were lucky enough to be invited to a PlayStation Showcase over the weekend, and got a chance to play some of their games.  Ethan has just turned five so we don't have a lot of experience with video games, so this was a great introduction (and a possible window into my future with a little gamer in the house!)



The setup of the event was great, there were comfy seats all around and big tvs with lots of big displays to show the games and characters.  The first room that we walked into had a lot of sports themed games and racing games which Ethan and I had a lot of fun playing.



The second room was Ethan's favourite though, because this room had two different Lego games and he is a serious Lego fan!  We spent most of the morning playing Lego Dimensions and Lego Star Wars.  I'm not the best video game player, but luckily there was lots of help on hand to show Ethan how the games work.  



Do your kids play video games?  At what age did you buy them their first games console and how do you manage screen time?  Lots of questions for our future!

Here's a Parent's Guide to PlayStation that is really helpful for answering lots of questions that you may have about your little ones starting to play video games.

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* This is a review post, we were invited to the PlayStation Showcase event in order to play the games and write our honest opinions.*

It's space week and we're celebrating by giving away a fantastic rocket wall sticker and stars from Stickerscape!



Enter below for your chance to win.  You can also get 20% off any space wall stickers with the code SPACE16

Where would you put your wall stickers if you win?

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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* We were provided with wall stickers from Stickerscape to review as well as give away.*

We have been lucky enough to take a peek at the new book 30 Halloween Crafts for Kids by Kate Williams who also happens to write one of our favourite crafty blogs, Crafts on Sea.  It couldn't have come at a better time as we are just starting our Halloween crafts this year, and the kids love to fill the house with as many as they can!



We are absolutely loving this book so far, my favourite thing about it is just how easy the crafts are to do for young children and how most of them use materials that you already have around the house, which is our favourite way to craft!  There's nothing in here that is too difficult for my children to do at 2 1/2 and 5 years old, and Kate even gives tips on how to modify the crafts for older and younger children.

We can't wait to try all of these crafts, but we started with the adorable Paper Plate Ghosts as they're something that I haven't seen done before and such a cute idea for decorating the house for Halloween.


I was able to let Ethan have a go with the scissors and cutting the paper plate himself, and I helped Ivy along with her cutting.


Then I gave them some markers and let them draw on their own spooky faces.


Finally I popped a piece of string through the top so that we could hang our ghosts up and scare our Halloween visitors!



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* This is a review post and also contains an affiliate link, we were provided with a copy of 30 Halloween Crafts for Kids in order to try out the crafts and write our honest opinions.*

We love learning about space!  The kids find it absolutely fascinating and it is so much fun to pretend to fly through space whilst learning about it.  It's a great topic that so easily lends itself to learning about counting and about the world around us.



We have done a lot of space activities in the past and will definitely spend this space week doing plenty more, here's a few of our favourites:

• play dough constellations
• cardboard box rocket ship
• rocket ship craft
• glowing rocket fireworks
• star stained glass craft
• star reflections
• Star Wars crafts
• Space Sensory Bin

This year we're also lucky enough to have a few extra items to help with our space play.  We have this fantastic Space Mixed Name Label Pack from Stickerscape that includes both iron on and stick on labels and comes in a great envelope to store them in.

We have also got this lovely Pink Flying Rocket Wall Sticker that I've put up in Ivy's room for the kids to play with.  I decided to put it down at their level so that they could really play with it, rather than having it higher up and only be able to look at it.  I have to say that I never realised that wall stickers could be so easy to apply, but following the instructions from Stickerscape made it simple, and even Ivy could help to stick them onto the wall and peel away the backing paper.




Once we had placed the rocket, the alien and all of the stars on the wall we were ready to play!  Ivy was touching all of the stars straight away and pretending that she was zooming off into space with the alien inside.




We're having so much fun with our wall stickers, and you can too!  If you'd like to order some space wall stickers from Stickerscape this month just use the code SPACE16 to get 20% off your order!


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* This is a review post, we were provided with space themed labels and wall stickers from Stickerscape to use and write our honest opinions about.*

It's space week, and we're celebrating with a really simple to put together space sensory bin that toddlers and young children will have so much fun playing with and exploring.

• plastic bin
• aluminium foil
• black beans
• glow in the dark stars
• space toys (rocket and astronaut)
• any scoops or little containers

I set up the space sensory bin by lining a plastic container with aluminium foil to make it shiny (and to give a lovely texture and sound) then filled it up with black beans for the darkness of space.  Then I added some glow in the dark stars and a few little space toys.  I also found some little star shaped cupcake liners that worked really well for scooping and pouring.


This is one of those sensory bins that needed no introduction, as soon as I placed it in front of Ivy she was straight in there.  She loves scooping things up so she went for the star cases first and filled them up with the beans and began pouring them back out, this activity alone kept her busy for quite some time.


Then I encouraged her to have a look at some of the other things in the sensory bin.  So she started picking up the glow in the dark stars and hiding them under the beans (this would be a great thing to do in a darkened room, trying to find the glowing stars).  She also counted the stars as she pushed them down into the beans.  She also played with the little astronaut and his rocket ship, putting him inside and having him zoom around through the spacey bin.


Even clean up can be part of the activity!  I always find with sensory bins that Ivy gets to a point when she's tired and she's just had enough, and that's when she starts to throw things around.  Whenever she does this I quickly pick up the bin and move it out of the way (before she can tip the whole thing over!) and then give her a smaller container to use to collect all of the bits that she has thrown.  This is great for her fine motor control as she is picking up individual beans from the mat.


Then our sensory bin is put away and ready to play with again another day.  If you would like to give it a try another time, then pin this idea for later:


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