Golden Snitch Valentine's Favor Printable

Another Valentine printable for you! This one lets your Harry Potter fans make a 3D "golden snitch" card (four to a page) for their BFFs. The free printable is available for download over at Alphamom.com 

 

 The snitch itself is made from wrapping a lollipop in gold wrapping paper. I didn't think about it until yesterday, but if you want to make non candy valentines then you could easily wrap those little bouncy balls that are sold as party favours, and hold the twisted end in place with tape once it's poked through the card. Those things are about as hard to catch as a snitch anyway!

I know I've been posting more printables than crafts lately, but that has been because I'm still recovering from a difficult pregnancy and birth. I do have an actual craft/game being posted some time today or tomorrow, so I'll give you a link to it when that happens. Good news is that in about five weeks I should be discharged from my physio appointments, and able to handle the rest of my recovery myself. I gave my crutches back to the hospital just after Christmas, and things are getting easier every day. We even had a moment of relative calm in the house yesterday. Everyone was chillin' and doing their thing. I was starting to wonder if that was ever going to be possible!

Happy new year by the way! Chinese and Gregorian. I think I forgot to say that, but then there's been a lot going on ;)

Ultimate Souper Star Valentine

Helloooo! Valentine's Day is fast approaching again. Where does the time go!?! I just made an easy peasy lemon squeazy printable valentine for classmates. And it's punny! I love cheesy puns. This is a soupy pun though.

You will need to get a bunch of mini Necco wafer rolls to wrap up inside these valentines. Easier to come by them in the US than here in the UK, but I went for these because the tradition of classroom valentines isn't really done here in the UK, but is very popular back in the States.

Because the Necco wafer rolls are only about three centimeters tall, these are teensy little soup cans. If you want to make a few then pop over to the post here on Alphamom.com and download the free printable there.

Here are a load more Valentines themed bits and bobs from Filth Wizardry's past to save you searching through my badly organized archives.

• Hershey's Kiss lighthouse printable.
• Plastic bag iron on valentine's patches.
• Giant lolly pop Valentine's card.
• Candy friendship knot printable and instructions.
• Cardboard valentine's crowns.
• Toilet roll tube valentine's necklaces.
• Crepe paper rose tutorial with video.
• paper plate hats (heart ones, but many others too).
• Kitchen paper and baby wipe kanzashi flowers.

Awesome baby is still awesome and is going to be three whole months old tomorrow. .Like I was saying... where does the time go?!? The littlest big sister is absolutely besotted with him.

In other news... A year and a half after our move from the US to the UK we finally unpacked the "slot together panel" one twelfth scale doll house that we made of our old American home. We waited all this time so that the kids were settled and happy and it wasn't going to make them sad to see it, and miss the old place too much. They were very excited to see it again, and as Delyth was so young when we first made it, it's totally new to her and she loves it! Hooray!

I should show you what the kids had made to use as a doll house during the time that this one was packed away, because it's pretty epic. They took custody of a bunch of the boxes we used to move, and constructed a massive upright doll house against their bedroom wall. I helped them get the structure they wanted and we hot glued and taped it all together.

They kept adding to it throughout the year that we were living at that house, until it was really quite elaborate and well decorated.

I don't have a photo of it in all it's completed glory sadly, and when it came time to move house again last August, we had to pull it apart as it wouldn't fit through the door, but they enjoyed it while it lasted. The last photos I got of it were about six months before we moved and they had done a lot more on it by the time we took it apart, but you get the idea. The old poster tube was an elevator that stopped at the different floors.

 

One side was meant to be a Polly Pocket Condo, and the other side was a Transformers base. The Pollys got on reasonably well with the Autobots. Not so well with the Decepticons though. Starscream kept using the roof to launch himself from.

3D Printable Christmas Tree Card

Hello! I have a Christmas printable I made for you! I made a baby too, but I'll show you him in the next post. Anyhoo, this printable card thingy I made, it's over at Alphamom.com and if you like colouring in then you're going to love it. Lots of little decorations to colour! All you need is card to print it on, colouring pencils, scissors, and glue. We filled ours with sweets to give to the kid's teachers at the end of term. 

Also, here are 15 of our Christmas time posts from current to years gone by (list and links below this image) in case anyone is looking for a few extra ideas of things to do with the kidletts.

 

• 3D Christmas tree card printable.
• Star of treats advent calendar (save your wrapping paper scraps and loo roll tubes to make this one for next year!)
• How to make 6 pointed snowflakes with a nifty simple folding technique.
• Printable gingerbread house holiday card with opening door to reveal a family photo.
• Candy cane sugar cookies that hook on the rim of your cup.
• wrapping paper printing with laser cut felt ornaments.
• printable Christmas set designed to be coloured in and stoof up with Legoes.
• melted plastic bead tree decorations.
• Paper plate wreath decorating and cheap wreaths from newspaper.
• Giant cardboard trees to decorate with stickers.
• Easy paper plate angel.
• Slackers advent calendar.
• Salt dough tree decorations
• tissue paper and condiment cup advent calendar.
• Freaky snowmen "decorations" (I still giggle looking at these)

Oh go on, you've twisted my arm, here are some photos of the cute baby with his sisters (I'll tell you more about him soon) Now that we have four kids, Paul has started nicknaming them "Eenie, Meenie, Mynee, and Mo." He's 6 weeks old now and completely rad!

Happy Holidays 

my fellow filth wizards!

Father's Day Printable and Update on the Filth Wizards

Hellooo! Nearly Father's day! I've drawn a Super Dad illustration that can be coloured in and have a photo of dad's head glued on, plus a little fill-in-the-blanks greeting to go inside that is a bit silly, but fun. You can find the printable over at Alpha Mom here.

I've been a bit slow with the blog the last couple of months because I've been feeling rough as a badger's bum. This is because I am manufacturing another family member! So, come the beginning of November there will be four little filth wizards. We're currently all crammed into two bedrooms, so there's a house move on the horizon too, hopefully in the next month, and that way we can have the seven and eight year old sharing a room and Del (who is two on Saturday) and the new bairn sharing when the baby is big enough.

I'm feeling less exhausted and nauseous now that I'm nearly half way through this pregnancy, so hopefully I can get some more projects up on the blog soon. The kids have made a massive cardboard thing that I really want to share with you! Also, school holidays start here in a few weeks, so we're looking forward to lots of extra time for making messy things, especially now that it's staying light outside until 10.30pm! The house we're hopefully moving to has quite a dilapidated garden, so I figure letting the kids make another junk town this summer is on the cards.

In the mean time, have a lovely father's day weekend! I think we're taking the family to the roller disco on Sunday night. I will resist the urge to crowbar my pregnant self into some gold spandex Kylie Minogue hot pants for the event. Maybe Paul can wear them over his trousers for the full Super Dad look!

Battle of Hoth Ice-cream dessert printable

Star Wars Day is coming up on Saturday (May the Fourth be with you), so that's a perfect excuse right there for me to indulge in some Rebel Alliance themed geekery with the kids. If you fancy making your family a nice cold dish of Battle on Hoth, then pop on over to my post at Alpha Mom, where I've made a printable template that you can download.

And if you think a sci-fi themed battle dessert is a little odd, you're lucky I didn't go with my original plan, which was to make an upside down cheesecake pit of Sarlaac. Yeah. Nobody wants dessert that looks like vagina dentata, so, you're welcome.

In other Star Wars news... We met some of the Rebel Legion UK at the Newcastle Maker Faire last weekend, and the kids were very happy to have their pictures taken with a storm trooper and an X-wing pilot. They took great delight in telling the X-wing pilot about the Helmets they made a couple of years ago, and the storm trooper mask too.

We had a fantastic time at the UK Maker Faire, and are really looking forward to the Manchester Mini Maker Faire that's going to be taking place in August.

Here's a link to some of our other Star Wars themed posts from the archives (It seems there have been quite a few!) May the force be with you!

Welsh cake recipe and printable

Happy St David's Day! Or Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Sant. I have another post for you over at Alphamom today. I've mentioned St David's Day on this blog before a couple of years ago, in this post. We do try to do something little to celebrate each year (partly to try and share some traditions from home with the kids while we were in the US, because they only really saw St Patrick's day being celebrated there), but this is the first year in almost a decade that we've actually been back in Wales for March 1st! and for the kids it is their first St David's Day in the country!

We made Welsh cakes for the family this year, and I have written about it over on Alphamom.com, where you can find a free printable recipe that is very kid friendly, along with a lot of photos and tips on changing up the recipe if you want to suit your family's tastes. Del can't get enough of them! I love them because they are delicious, so quick to make, and freeze really well too. There's also an example of a savoury "not really very welsh cake" that my kids love too.

Check out the old St David's Day post if you fancy making some kitchen paper leeks for your imaginary grocery store.

I'll be back very shortly with another post, because we just made a dragon costume out of two plastic milk jugs, tin foil and newspaper. It's way cooler than I thought it would turn out, and the kids were really into the messy papier mache and painting. I was making it up as I went along, so hopefully I have enough photos that it makes sense when I write up how to do it. In the mean time, here's a picture of a little Welsh baby in a Welsh field with a bunch of Welsh sheep.

Last thing... Exciting for everyone here...Ffion lost her first baby tooth last week and we had a visit from the tooth fairy again (you can read about the first tooth fairy visit for Carys in this post). This was our first UK tooth fairy experience, and Ffion decided to make her a little Lego chair to rest on, with a little drinking fountain, after she'd dropped her miniscule tooth into the box of Lego and freaked out that she would never find it ever (we found it).

Weirdly, the Conwy Tooth Fairy Co-operative use the same stationery as California Tooth Traders Inc. I went with a reader suggestion from the last post about tooth fairies and Ffion's fairy's name was Enamelie. The pixie fire stone mentioned was a tiny pendant that I've had for years and never worn. Ffi thinks it's awesome. It was so small that it could be taped to the bottom right hand corner of the letter and folded up in it, and the letter is only two inches wide.

We've got a total of four wobbly teeth in the house at the moment, so I have my work cut out! Anyway, hope you're tempted to try cooking a few Welcakes :)

Hershey's Kiss Lighthouse Valentines

I've designed you a printable to make these sweet little lighthouse valentine favors. You sit a Hershey's Kiss in the top of it as the light and then, if you are my kids, you make a "SQUEEEEE!" sound because they are "so tiny and cuuuute!" The message reads "You light the place up!"

You can find the free printable and easy instructions on how to put them together over here at my post on Alpha Mom. Each printed page makes three lighthouses.

Hope you have a lovely love day!

Candy rope friendship knots.

Happy new year! Am I the last blogger out there to wish you that? At least it's still January eh! Only just though! Anyhoo, I have a printable and craft for the kiddos to make this valentine's day. I know we're in the UK now and over here we don't give valentines in class, but I figured we'd do it for our first year here just as a little novelty (the kids are still very much the yanks in class, and the accents have only faded very slightly after six months).

These friendship knots are really easy to make from any sort of rope candy, and I've made a print out that you can download to make cute little bag toppers with instructions for tying the knots, so that they look like more of a little gift.

The full instructions and printable download are here on Alpha Mom, so pop on over to have a look and see if these will work for your children. Ideal for both lads and lasses, as I'm pretty sure all children like candy and tying things in knots. I know boy scouts sometimes use this knot if they haven't got a woggle handy, but it makes me think of holding hands like this...

I've got another craft here ready to post too. It's something that my mum used to do with me, using left over Christmas cards after we'd taken them all down. Do any of you actually have left over holiday cards lying around anymore or have they all been recycled by now? I guess it's handy to have the idea for next year though right? I'll get to posting that tomorrow!

In the mean time, here are a few links to older Valentine's day projects that we've done here in the past...

Giant lollypop valentines

Toilet roll tube valentine's necklaces

Plastic bag iron on felt valentine's patches

Mini crepe paper roses instruction video

Kanzashi from baby wipes and paper towels.

Paper plate heart hats (and other designs)

Awww, I can't believe that photo above is almost a year old. Del looks so teeny! She's nineteen months old now and is all over the place running and climbing and jumping! Her hair is as wild as she is too :)

I hope you all had a lovely winter break. My epic mission to cater Christmas dinner for both sides of the family worked out in the end. Space was tight, so I did two sittings. Yes, that's right, I cooked Christmas dinner on Christmas day for one side of the family and then did it all over again on boxing day for the other side of the family! Our tiny little oven didn't know what had hit it! Then we started off 2013 with some wild and wooly Welsh walking over by Llyn Idwal. We've had a photograph of Llyn Idwal on our wall in America for years, and this was the first time we had taken the kids there. They have seen that photo pretty much every day of their lives, so it was fun for them to figure out where it was taken from.

Here's hoping that the rest of 2013 is just as lovely!

Star of treats advent craft

Wow, welcome to December! That snuck up on us didn't it! As usual I'm a last minute kinda crafter and yesterday we put together our advent calendar for this year. It's fabulously cheap to make and you can re-use it next year too, so it may be entirely possible that next year I actually have this advent calendar thing all sorted without the usual night before flurry of glue and recycling. Yay! It's a double sided star with 24 little containers that can be opened and closed again.

I've posted all about how to make it over at Alpha Mom. Here's the link. There's a printable that I made available over there too, so you can print out the numbers to go on it and also the little center circle that the kids can decorate. You can't see the numbers on the photo above because they are hidden in the tinsel (you have to hunt for the number that you are opening each day). You can see the numbers in the photo below before I put the tinsel on.

I'll get to posting some links to a few of our older Christmas/winter crafts in the coming week, but in the mean time, here are a couple of advent calendar posts from years gone by...

Tissue paper and condiment cup advent calendar from 2008 (first saw this idea by Brenda Ponnay as a November calendar on Alpha Mom, years before I started writing for them, Brenda still writes for Alpha Mom by the way, and did her own advent calendar craft for them this year as well, link here)

Last minute count down calendar for slackers (see, I don't even manage to get my act together for Dec 1st some years!)

Happy Holiday planning you guys! Now that we're back in the UK, this will be the first Christmas that we can have our parents and siblings over to our house for the holidays and I can't wait! There will be grandmas and grandpas and aunties and uncles and cousins. Question is, can I rise to the challenge of Christmas dinner for all those people? Place your bets!