Mariangela G. posted an article on Fab Mums, busy mums and their kids - Jan 24, 2012, 9:27 am
To explain the surface tension to kids you can do a simple experiment. You need a glass, water, an eyedropper and a paper clip. Fill the glass with water to the rim, and then add more drops slowly using an eyedropper. You will see that the water won’t poor out of the glass thanks to a soft skin t...
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Mariangela G. posted an article on Fab Mums, busy mums and their kids - Jan 19, 2012, 9:59 am
I love all things Lego and these storage boxes not only look great but they are very functional too. Great for storing Legos or other toys these bricks are fantastic for playing too and making large constructions. In addition to that, they can be stacked, which is great for compact city living.
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Mariangela G. posted an article on Fab Mums, busy mums and their kids - Jan 9, 2012, 6:54 am
At the weekend we had a good clear out so you can just imagine the amount of potential crafts we are going to do with all those unwanted goods. We started our crafty upcycle with an old pair of jeans which we took apart for today’s project for which we needed only one leg so we kept the rest for...
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Mariangela G. posted an article on Fab Mums, busy mums and their kids - Jan 6, 2012, 6:29 am
Here we are again at the start of a new year, Happy 2012 everyone! We have been a little quiet at FabMums over the holidays, but we are back now and what better way to start a new year of blogging than a quick upcycle craft. I have a lot of round plastic containers where my sachets of washing dete...
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Mariangela G. posted an article on Fab Mums, busy mums and their kids - Dec 24, 2011, 9:00 am
Good wishes for a very Merry Christmas to all our lovely readers.
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Mariangela G. posted an article on Fab Mums, busy mums and their kids - Dec 20, 2011, 9:21 am
I am very excited about the transformation of this used envelope into a Christmas gift carrier. To make this Christmas gift pouch you need a used bubble envelope, Christmas wrapping paper cuttings, glue, scissors, a hole punch, acrylic paint and a brush, ribbon. First we gave the envelope a coat of ...
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Mariangela G. posted an article on Fab Mums, busy mums and their kids - Dec 15, 2011, 8:56 am
Every year we make new Christmas decorations to hang around the house. This year we made some hanging stars cut out of discarded cardboard boxes, which we painted silver on one side and gold on the other. The central star is large and different from the others as it is only the outline of a star. T...
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Mariangela G. posted an article on Fab Mums, busy mums and their kids - Dec 9, 2011, 5:45 am
This old style blow football game is the perfect stocking filler for young boys. Each box contains two cardboard goalies, pitch, blow football and straws. Move the ball by blowing through the straw instead of kicking it. Adults will enjoy joining in the action too! This game is available from Not on...
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Mariangela G. posted an article on Fab Mums, busy mums and their kids - Dec 2, 2011, 4:56 am
Kids love sleepovers and they love dinosaurs so a sleepover with dinos at the museum sounds like the perfect treat for 8 to 11 year olds. The Natural History Museums organises monthly sleepovers for kids and the next one taking place on the 17th of December is packed with fun activities and it even ...
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Mariangela G. posted an article on Fab Mums, busy mums and their kids - Nov 25, 2011, 6:05 am
Today’s upcycle project is the transformation of a basic piece of cardboard into a useful colourful ring folder. The project is very basic so school kids should be able to carry out alone, but if not the help of an adult can make it a fun joint project. Materials: piece of cardboard, colourful ti...
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Mariangela G. posted an article on Fab Mums, busy mums and their kids - Oct 31, 2011, 11:27 am
Snakes and ladders is one of our favourite games so we often adapt it to special themes and Halloween seemed like the perfect occasion to slightly modify it. Our haunted snakes and ladders is very easy to make with a piece of black card and coloured markers including a white one. The ghosts work lik...
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Mariangela G. posted an article on Fab Mums, busy mums and their kids - Oct 25, 2011, 6:44 am
To complete our homemade set of Halloween lights this year we made a Frankenstein lantern to join the pumpkin and vampire from last year. Only this time instead of painting the jars we opted for green tissue paper. Maggy over at Red Ted Art made some fantastic Halloween lanterns so I followed her v...
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Mariangela G. posted an article on Fab Mums, busy mums and their kids - Oct 18, 2011, 4:39 am
Every year IKEA gets together with UNICEF and Save the Children to raise money for children in need and enable them to access quality education with the Soft Toy Campaign. For every soft toy, kid’s meal or children’s book sold in store between October 24 and December 23 the IKEA Foundation dona...
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Mariangela G. posted an article on Fab Mums, busy mums and their kids - Oct 17, 2011, 8:14 am
This is probably the easiest craft we have ever done, yet it is so effective. All you need to make these ghosts are white paper bags, black marker and a pair of scissors. Draw the eyes and mouth at the top and cut an uneven shape at the bottom to give the idea of a white sheet moving around and youâ...
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Mariangela G. posted an article on Fab Mums, busy mums and their kids - Oct 11, 2011, 5:38 am
Pumpkins are not readily available where we are so this year we turned a washing powder container into our jack’ o’ lantern.  The process was fun and the skill necessary is definitely less much less than what is required to carve a pumpkin.  All you need is a round container, paint and brushes...
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Mariangela G. posted an article on Fab Mums, busy mums and their kids - Oct 7, 2011, 8:51 am
Looking around for Halloween songs I landed on a fantastic website Science with Me where you will find songs, science movies, games and fun experiments for kids to learn about science. Whilst I was attracted by the Skeleton song/story that teaches the appropriate names of bones in relation to the mo...
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Mariangela G. posted an article on Fab Mums, busy mums and their kids - Oct 4, 2011, 5:44 am
To celebrate Book Week I looked at the books on our shelves with a particular theme in mind: the dinosaurs. Dinosaurs have been popular in our house for quite some time so I found a good range from preschool and fantastic stories to the most recent ones that are more factual based and fit for an eig...
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Mariangela G. posted an article on Fab Mums, busy mums and their kids - Oct 3, 2011, 5:17 am
At the weekend we had so much fun making this abstract art with only a little paint of different colours, water, straws and paper. We sprinkled drops of paint mixed with water on the paper and blew through a straw in various directions creating abstract images. As you mix the paint on the paper, t...
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Mariangela G. posted an article on Fab Mums, busy mums and their kids - Sep 23, 2011, 4:21 am
I would like to welcome Visit Britain’s new video on board. The video on the right hand column is part of the Itinerary series that explore holiday destinations in the United Kingdom and show you how to visit each of them in a day. The video we have here is all about Stratford-Upon-Avon, Shakespea...
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Mariangela G. posted an article on Fab Mums, busy mums and their kids - Sep 22, 2011, 4:14 am
Pretend play seems to be my son’s favourite activity right now; in particular he likes to pretend to be a restaurant owner/chef who welcomes customers and serves them food. After a few times of playing this game I encouraged him to turn it into creative play and make a restaurant set with people, ...
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Mariangela G. posted an article on Fab Mums, busy mums and their kids - Sep 19, 2011, 5:29 am
Often in the attempt of tidying a messy shelf I encounter old craft projects that are just too precious to dispose of, but unfortunately this does not help to keep my house tidy because what goes off one shelf lands somewhere else.  This morning I found this cute C made with circles of constructio...
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Mariangela G. posted an article on Fab Mums, busy mums and their kids - Sep 15, 2011, 4:58 am
This summer we went to Rome for the first time and it was spectacular. I knew this unique city had many sights and we were pretty organized with our time and even purchased our tickets online to avoid queuing, but it is not until we actually got there that I fully understood why people say that the ...
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Mariangela G. posted an article on Fab Mums, busy mums and their kids - Sep 14, 2011, 5:08 am
During the school year I found many games to help my son learning the times tables. We have used songs, online games and a variety of iPhone apps that make learning easy and most importantly fun. Tomorrow is back to school day so in the past few weeks we have been doing a little revision which was m...
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Mariangela G. posted an article on Fab Mums, busy mums and their kids - Sep 5, 2011, 9:38 am
We have been a little quiet over the summer, but we have done a lot of stuff some of which we have shared with you already and lots more is still to come in the coming weeks. Recently we have been invited to so many birthday parties that we got our creative side going and started to make our own gif...
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Mariangela G. posted an article on Fab Mums, busy mums and their kids - Aug 23, 2011, 7:06 am
After a period of silence we are back with yet another set of homemade musical instruments, which were fun to make and are even more fun to play with. During one of our summer evening strolls we were inspired by the Peruvian musicians who perform on street corners and sell their handmade musical per...
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Mariangela G. posted an article on Fab Mums, busy mums and their kids - Aug 9, 2011, 5:19 am
Lately I have been looking at kits to recycle paper to make your own as a fun activity to do with my son. There are many kits that are very affordable and that will probably give better results than our coarse paper, but we wanted to try to follow the basic procedure without the use of readymade kit...
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Mariangela G. posted an article on Fab Mums, busy mums and their kids - Jul 27, 2011, 4:21 am
The colouring placemats by Dwell Studio bring together the appeal of design with the practical side of an item that needs to be safe and useful at the same time. The reusable placemats made from hand silk-screened silicone are great to take travelling, out to restaurants or to simply use at home. Th...
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Mariangela G. posted an article on Fab Mums, busy mums and their kids - Jul 22, 2011, 5:15 am
My son loves baking and helping me in the kitchen so some months ago we made a jam pie. I must admit we didn’t make the pastry from scratch; it is straight out of a pack so this recipe is not particularly difficult but it is creative as we made the top of the pie the shape of the island where we l...
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Mariangela G. posted an article on Fab Mums, busy mums and their kids - Jul 20, 2011, 7:34 am
Clearing up my son’s room last week we found an old toy guitar that was well passed repair. It used to be a cute mini acoustic guitar with real chords that you could actually play, but sadly now 2 chords are missing and it looks like it has just survived a stampede alive but without hope for com...
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Mariangela G. posted an article on Fab Mums, busy mums and their kids - Jul 14, 2011, 6:24 am
We are very proud of the way this dragon puppet turned out. It took a little bit of work and fine tuning but in the end we managed to put it all together into a functioning puppet. To make this dragon puppet you need cardboard, a scalpel, thread, thick string, scissors, acrylic paint, paint brushes...
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Mariangela G. posted an article on Fab Mums, busy mums and their kids - Jul 12, 2011, 6:20 am
When it comes to crafting people have their favourite materials, things that are always present in their art box. We are particularly fond of recycled crafts so we tend to use any junk we can find, but if we had to make a list of the things we are never out of then we’d say masking tape, vinyl glu...
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Mariangela G. posted an article on Fab Mums, busy mums and their kids - Jul 7, 2011, 5:44 am
Loo rolls are great to make characters and animals with children. We made a bee with a loo roll, acrylic paint, adhesive tape and a strip of flexible bolster wood. First we covered one of the extremities with construction paper, and then we traced some stripes with masking tape and painted the roll ...
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Mariangela G. posted an article on Fab Mums, busy mums and their kids - Jul 5, 2011, 6:44 am
A for Apples is another alphabet craft from the past. Apple printing has remained one of our favourite activities and we usually revisit in autumn when the abundance of the seasonal fruit fills us with inspiration, but this craft is yet another alphabet printing craft from a few years back. Lots of ...
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Mariangela G. posted an article on Fab Mums, busy mums and their kids - Jun 30, 2011, 5:30 am
This is a craft from the past, back when my son was learning the alphabet. In one of my few attempts to put some order in the piles of stuff we have accumulated during years of crafts I have come across one of my favourite   letters L for ladybird. We made this letter on green construction paper w...
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Mariangela G. posted an article on Fab Mums, busy mums and their kids - Jun 22, 2011, 2:06 am
Shoe boxes are fantastic to craft. With a little imagination you can make anything out of boxes and we have. Among the rest we made bookshelves, storage boxes of many shapes and sizes and a double-decker bus. Today we have something much simpler, but very effective that is sure to provide a lot of f...
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Mariangela G. posted an article on Fab Mums, busy mums and their kids - Jun 20, 2011, 10:46 am
We love making things out of stuff around us. Working out how to connect things together is part of the fun, but often glue and tape are just not enough to convert your idea into a functional object. That’s why I am so excited about a new product I found browsing the Internet, MAKEDO is a set of c...
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Mariangela G. posted an article on Fab Mums, busy mums and their kids - Jun 14, 2011, 5:39 am
Today I have a nice little recycling project that turned out to be a functional toy.  I am in recycling juice cartons mode at the moment so I decided to make a dumper truck from a juice carton and 4 water bottle lids. To make this truck you need: 1 juice carton, 4 plastic lids, two kebab wooden sti...
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Mariangela G. posted an article on Fab Mums, busy mums and their kids - Jun 9, 2011, 5:37 am
Pegs, pegs and more pegs. Today we have a very simple raft put together with wooden pegs, glue and construction paper. We glued seven spare pegs side by side with the flat side facing up and another two across and under to solidify it. Then we attached another spare half vertically using strong hold...
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Mariangela G. posted an article on Fab Mums, busy mums and their kids - Jun 8, 2011, 12:21 pm
Lately I have grown fond of making things with broken wooden pegs. After the success of our rocking chair decorated with comics we made a raft, which actually floats, and a not so scary crocodile. To make the crocodile we used broken pegs and garden wire for the feet as illustrated in the photograp...
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Mariangela G. posted an article on Fab Mums, busy mums and their kids - Jun 6, 2011, 5:12 am
 I am crazy about new ideas on how to reuse before recycling and as much as I often come up with some clever ideas of my own I am regularly inspired by the brilliant works I see online by other amazing crafters. Last week I have come across to a fantastic pencil organizer made out of an orange juic...
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Mariangela G. posted an article on Fab Mums, busy mums and their kids - May 31, 2011, 5:17 pm
Our craft this week is a fun construction that actually floats and it’s bound to provide hours of fun in the water on windy days. We made a catamaran with two small plastic bottles, one plastic lid, a wooden stick, garden wire and a plastic bag. First we attached the plastic lid to the bottles us...
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Mariangela G. posted an article on Fab Mums, busy mums and their kids - May 26, 2011, 5:03 am
I love the modern twist of the toadstool night lamps by White Rabbit England. I have had a browse through their catalogue after seeing the animal nightlights. The bone china White Rabbit nightlight, the owl nightlight and the dog lamp are gorgeous. They are simple enough to fit in any décor and sup...
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Mariangela G. posted an article on Fab Mums, busy mums and their kids - May 25, 2011, 3:25 am
To complete our magazine themed table set this week we make some napkin rings with a kitchen roll tube and magazine cuttings. First we cut the tube into rings of the same height and we cut a lot of magazine pages choosing the most colourful pieces. Then with a mixture of glue and water we painted t...
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Mariangela G. posted an article on Fab Mums, busy mums and their kids - May 18, 2011, 6:55 am
I started this craft with the idea of making flowers using the colourful cereal packaging we have collected and some wooden sticks. I made one to try it out and then suggested to make some more with my son who had different ideas on how to use these materials and made the face of Mickey Mouse instea...
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Mariangela G. posted an article on Fab Mums, busy mums and their kids - May 16, 2011, 5:35 am
I have recently come across some fabulous activity books by The Secret Seed Society that encourage healthy eating  by getting children hands on to grow their own vegetables.  These books are beautifully illustrated and have characters such as Rudi Radish, Tommy P.Tato and Peter Parsnip who go abou...
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Mariangela G. posted an article on Fab Mums, busy mums and their kids - May 11, 2011, 7:20 am
After an elaborate kind of craft, today we have something much simpler, which not only is suitable for kids of all ages, but it is also a lot of fun to make and to use. We made a couple of maracas with the plastic containers you find inside the Easter eggs with a surprise. We filled the container wi...
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Mariangela G. posted an article on Fab Mums, busy mums and their kids - May 10, 2011, 3:08 am
Today’s craft is for older kids who have reached a good level of manual ability to construct things and decorate with precise skill. We are really on a mission here to use all those old comics piling up on the shelves so after decorating a couple of ice cream pots with them, we moved on to decorat...
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Mariangela G. posted an article on Fab Mums, busy mums and their kids - May 5, 2011, 4:52 am
Lately we have developed an addiction for Morello cherry ice cream that comes in particularly sturdy tabs.  As you all know I love to turn junk into useful and pretty things so I started collecting these tabs that are made of plastic rather than the more common paper based container, which make for...
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Mariangela G. posted an article on Fab Mums, busy mums and their kids - May 3, 2011, 5:07 am
For a paper craft addict like me the recent Etsy find was a breath of fresh air. The most adorable paper craft projects from Fantastic Toys turn cardstock into the cutest toys. All you need is a printer and the ability to follow the PDF instructions to make a funny Nutcracker and mouse, a Pinocchio ...
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Mariangela G. posted an article on Fab Mums, busy mums and their kids - Apr 26, 2011, 7:10 am
Each holiday is always font of inspiration for our crafts, before and after. We made a lot of things on the lead to Easter and now that the day has passed we are left with a lot of chocolate wrapping paper and with the plastic container the Easter egg surprise came in. After staring at it we thought...
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