School holiday or rainy day activities

We are almost at the end of the Summer holidays so I thought I'd share a few of the (craft) things we have done.

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As you know if you read my blog, I tend to not do a lot of stuff away from home with my daughter as it wipes me out so much & I end up suffering for days afterwards. It often leaves me bedbound which then makes me as useful as a chocolate teapot. Thanks M.E!

I do go out sometimes though as if I didn't I think it would drive me insane. But I need to decide each time whether it's worth the suffering because if I go too far, the travelling takes a big toll on me before we've even got there. Then whatever it is we are doing will affect me almost instantly & flare my symptoms up. If I am up to going out in the first place, as long as it's somewhere close & doesn't involve doing much, I will be ok for a little while. Using a wheelchair isn't always practical though so sometimes it's just easier for me to stay at home (which always makes me feel rubbish mentally but that's a whole different post & I'm sure I've talked about it before!) & leave them to it.

So given all that, we do a lot of stuff in the house. It wipes me out still but at least I can go & have a rest rather than wait until I've gone past the stage of rest even remotely helping! I've talked before about some of the games & things we play - post here - but we love getting all the craft stuff out & making a mess! Using imagination is always fun.

We got some new paints from Aldi as all ours had pretty much dried out. They sell 4 bottles for £1.99 in various colours & it is really good.

Painting is always a big hit with children but this time I had saved a few paper towel rolls which I cut down & made into stuff for painting. I had seen the ideas online somewhere & my daughter loved it. One of them was to put bubble wrap around the roll & cover in paint before rolling onto paper. Easy peasy!

I then asked her to choose a shape (she went with triangle) & we cut bits away around the bottom of it. She painted the triangles & used it to stamp with. Again very easy!

She mixed some of the colours up & of course we added some glitter too... she was very pleased with her artwork!

Another thing we decided to do after she realised one of her teddies had a birthday (thanks to a Build-a-Bear birth certificate which she discovered!) was to make some stuff for a party. I suggested making some paper cupcakes. We had some paper towel rolls left (they come in so handy!!) & we just used a few sheets of the paper to wrap around them & folded back into themselves. She coloured them in & hey presto...

We used some pipe-cleaners to make a candle & felt balls to use as sweets. She asked if we could make a Pass the Parcel game so she put a pack of mini playing cards in as the prize & used paper towels to layer it up. So cute!!

She had made some bunting using string & some napkins that we had left over from a previous (real) birthday party. She was happy with her party planning! We had to then sit & play Pass the Parcel with the teddy bear. She even got her CD player to use for the music!!

I love spending time with my girlie. It's always fun when we get stuck in to crafty stuff. I think I'm a bit hard on myself sometimes too & don't realise that she will be remembering all these things we do together as much as she will being at the park or whatever. I remember so many things from being little & only today I had a flashback to being really small at my grandma's house as we made some rose perfume from roses my neighbour brought me from her garden a few days ago. The smell instantly took me back to being 5 years old & it's stuff like that I'm hoping my little girl will have fond memories of too ♡

What have you been up to in the holidays? Would love to hear new ideas to save for next time!


Ali
xx