We've Moved!

Hello lovely readers,

Thos of you who follow me on Twitter, Instagram or anywhere else may already have noticed this, but for those who haven't, WE'VE MOVED!

Yes, the blog has migrated to Wordpress and has a nice short address now

http://threesonslater.com

Please do pop over there and have a look at the new design. All the old posts and images have migrated too, so you won't be missing anything.

Looking forward to welcoming you at threesonslater.com!

Fionnuala & the boys x

This Is Motherhood #023

Counting Down To Easter With Kids - Coffee Filter Bunnies

Over the last few years I have seen these coffee filter Easter bunnies made by our kindergarten kids and by the school children at our primary school too. I find them really cute and they are quite simple to make. 

When making these with small children, your best bet is to draw and cut out all the pieces first before getting the children involved. Thier patience probably won't stretch to watching you prepare the paper shapes.

For older children (4 years and upwards), let them draw their own rabbit ears, head and paws. They will probably need help with the eggs and the basket. 

What you'll need for this activity is:

Paper or card in various colours - brown, beige or grey for the rabbit fur, pink or white for inside the ears, brown for the basket and whatever colours you like for the eggs.

A pencil for drawing with

A black felt tip pen for drawing the face

A scissors for cutting out with

Glue for sticking 

A coffee filter (or some card or wallpaper cut to the right shape) for the body

Step 1: Draw the head, paws, feet and ears on the colour of card you will be using for the bunny's fur, as shown in the photo above. Then cut them out.

Step 2: Draw the inner pieces of the ears and a little heart shape for the nose onto another colour of card and cut them out.

Step 3: Draw the basket (a circle with a smaller semicircle cut out of it) and some eggs and cut them out. The eggs look very pretty is you cut them out of patterned paper.

Step 4: Assemble all the parts, as shown in the photo below.

Step 5: Before gluing the parts to the coffee filter, draw a face onto the bunny and draw two short strokes on each of the paws, as shown in the photos below.

Step 6: Draw a woven pattern onto the basket, as shown in the photo below. Then turn the basket over and stick the eggs in place.

Step 7: Glue all of the parts together. Now your bunny should look something like the one in this photo.

Step 8: Now you can decide what to do with your bunny. They look quite nice as a window display, attached to the window with tack or double-sided sticky tape. 

Alternatively you can stand your bunny up by cutting a toilet roll insert in half and placing the open coffee filter over it. 

Now your bunny is finished and ready for Easter to arrive. 

Counting Down To Easter With Kids: Grow Your Own Easter Grass

You know when you look on Pinterest or in a magazine and you see beautiful Easer displays with lush-looking, thick grass? And you think, doesn't that loook gorgeous? And then you look outside and see the miserable excuse for a lawn that your children have trodden to bits? And you sigh and flick to the next page, looking for inspiration for decorations you are more likely to be able to reproduce for Easter Sunday and that you could maybe involve the kids in?

Well stop right there. Here is how you can grow your own lush and juicy looking grass in just two weeks with very little effort. In fact, you can get your children to do it for you, it is that simple. And it grows so quickly, they will love how they can almost watch it grow, hour by hour.

Here's  what you need:

Water

Wheat grains (the kind brown bread is made from, but whole not shredded. You should be able to get them in a wholefood shop or a garden center)

A flat-bottomed container, preferably shallow or made of glass (I'll explain why further on)

Wheat grains like these are what you need to start your grass off. Don't be concerned that they are dry. So are cress seeds or any other seeds you buy. The wheat grains I used were bought in October and, in our house at least, usually get milled and and added to brown bread when I bake it. They have worked perfectly for grass.

Day 1: Place a layer of grains into a wide, flat-bottomed dish. Water the grains with just enough water to dampen them. Keep the dish somewhere where it gets lots of light. I keep ours on the landing under the skylight.

The reason you need a shallow or glass dish is to allow plenty of light to get to the grains to allow them to germinate and grow.

It doesn't have to be the dish that you intend using to display the grass in when it is grown. Once the grains extend roots, the roots intertwine and form a base beneath the grass stems.

Day 2-3: Water with just enough water to dampen the grains. Keep an eye on them to make sure that they don't dry out completely. The first of the grains will start to sprout. 

Day 4-7: By now most of the grains should have sprouted and the blades of grass will grow quite rapidly. Keep watering the grass daily with a small amount of water.

Day 8-10: By this stage the grass should look something like the photos below. Keep watering.

Day 11-14: By the time two weeks have passed, your Easter grass should be looking long and thick, and be a nice bright shade of green.

All that remains to be done is decide on how to decorate. Adding little chicks, foil-wrapped chocolate bunnies, painted or dyed eggs, snowdrops or miniature daffodils are some pretty ideas you could try.

I'll be posting more photos as and when I set up my own decorations. But for now here's a sneak peak at a version I was working on the other day.