Crafts Archives - Mamma & Bear

Make a nature inspired Summer time hedgehog

Posted on October 18, 2019October 18, 2019 by admin

Summer is finally here and Cape Town is boasting the most gloriously sunny days.

We took advantage of the good weather today and went on a small nature walk to collect leaves and flowers to decorate our card hedgehog.

To make your own you will need :

🦔 Card

🦔Scissors

🦔clear packaging tape

🦔marker

🦔glue

🦔Google eyes

🦔 some flowers and leaves you collect

Instructions

On the card draw a hedgehog shaped and cut it out.

Cut a square out the centre of your hedgehog.

Place packaging tape on the back, sticky side up.

Glue on the eyes and add details with a marker.

Go for a wall and collect pretty leaves and flowers to decorate the sticky tape area.

The leaves and flowers will dry over time, but this is a nice activity to celebrate Garden day with little ones this Sunday.

Brands we love, Health & Wellness, recipes

Do Good and Save Food This World food day

Posted on October 16, 2019October 16, 2019 by admin

World Food Day 2019

Do good, save food with GLAD

Every year people from around the world come together to declare their commitment to tackle global hunger on 16 October, World Food Day.

World Food day provides an opportunity to shine a light on food waste, our environmental footprint and most importantly the 870 million undernourished people across the planet – and to reaffirm one’s commitment to ‘save good food, from going bad’ exactly like the GLAD slogan.

It is estimated that as much as a third of all food produced goes to waste, in South Africa this is equivalent to a staggering 201kg per person annually!

A portion of this happens during the production cycle and is why ‘odd-shaped’ fruit and veggies are being reintroduced by some grocery stores.

With these figures alone, it is clear, that we need to act in our daily lives to make a difference in any way we can to reduce this number.

Let GLAD help you be the hero to stop good food from going bad:

Begin by planning your meals ahead of time and shop accordingly. If you buy in bulk, portion and then store in GLAD Zip Seal Bags or wrap using GLAD Wrap or Press ‘n Seal and freeze, defrost as needed. For example, if three meals require broccoli, separate the large pack into three portions to store. Do the same with your fresh herbs, nuts, meat, chicken, fish and other perishables.
Organise your fridge, keeping items with the earlier expiration date in the front and the longest behind. Naturally use in this order too.
Love your leftovers! Instead of scraping leftovers into the bin, keep them for another meal, by storing in a GLAD Zip Seal Bag in the freezer. They are transparent, allowing you to see immediately what’s inside and they have a printed white strip already on them, to write the contents and date stored.
If you don’t eat your leftovers, share them!
Understand the dates on your food. After the “use-by” date food is not safe to eat, and you need to dispose of it. Add fruit and veggies to your compost heap. “Best Before” dates only indicate when the item is at its best, if it has been properly stored it can still be consumed after this date.

For GLAD, every gram counts, and we’d like to invite you to join us in being more aware this World Food Day (and beyond), to save good food from going bad. As all GLAD products are made for your convenience with the purpose of keeping your food fresh for longer.

Please visit www.glad.co.za for more information and follow ‘GLAD SOUTH AFRICA’ on Facebook; All products are available in the GLAD aisle of most supermarkets

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Crafts, Events, Family Time, Parenting, preschool, recipes

World egg day …. 4 fun family egg activities

Posted on October 11, 2019October 11, 2019 by admin

Eggs are not just a great source of protein, they also feature quite a bit in our activities throughout the year.

I thought I’d share a few of our favourite ways to play with eggs today on World egg day.

1. Marbled eggs

Breakfast is the perfect way to introduce eggs , whether you like your eggs fried, poached, scrambled or boiled….there’s an egg for everyone.

One of my favourite ways to serve eggs to the kids, as I had some fussy eaters, was to give them dinosaur eggs.

Our dinosaur eggs are actually just boiled eggs that have been given a marble look using food colouring.

You can read how we make them here

You could also use the boiled or fried eggs to create pretty food pictures like we did with this egg-stra special breakfast

2. Egg and spoon races

When my eldest, now 27, was about 3 years old we did our first egg and spoon race. Just her and I and a dozen eggs that cracked very quickly. 🤣

There was a lot of mess, a lot of giggles, a lot of fun and the biggest lesson to a little girl that it’s ok to make a mess ….we can clean it.

Over the years we’ve had countless races with friends and families.

3.Blow eggs and paint them

Blowing eggs is a lot of fun and my boys always enjoyed the part as the egg sploshed and slithered out the little hole.

We wash the egg in soapy water, dry and paint using craft paints or undiluted food colouring.

You can also draw on them with markers. One of the easiest ways to work with your egg as you try decorate it is to place it on an empty toilet tube. You can also leave it on here to dry.

We once attended a holiday camp where the eggs were painted with icing sugar coloured in food colouring.

4. Egg rolling

For this you give each child an egg outside and let them roll it to an end point without breaking it.

We once gave the kids wooden spoons and fly sweaters to see which worked better when moving the eggs with gentle taps to the end.

( it’s a good idea to keep extra eggs for tuse little hands that may be a bit too excited)

How ever you choose to celebrate eggs today we hope you enjoy an Excellent day

recipes

Happy banana faces

Posted on October 9, 2019October 9, 2019 by admin

Thursdays are for smiling and what could better to make you smile than a healthy fruit dessert?

I made Hamish this happy face today as desert for after lunch.

Turning his meals into crazy creative creations is at least encouraging him to be a bit more excited about food, try new foods and eat better.

I’m also involving him in the cooking process which has him really excited about being a chef.

To make your own banana face you will need :

Half a banana
3 jelly tots or dried fruit bites
Lavender sprigs
A quarter of an orange sliced up

To make up your face :

Cut the banana in half

Place jelly tots or dried fruit bites as nose and eyes. (I prefer to use dried fruit.)

Place a piece if fresh lavender as a mouth.

Position orange quarters as hair.

Add on a sprinkled lavender crown.

Enjoy

recipes

Ocean inspired sausage octopus

Posted on October 3, 2019October 3, 2019 by admin

When I first started Fun mamma SA I remember seeing this cute receipe online somewhere and excitedly tried it out.

Kerri and Ronan loved them.

It’s been many years since I last made a few and Hamish, has been really fussy lately so I decided to make a few for supper tonight

The receipe makes 4 sausage octopus.

You need :

2 Vienna sausages

16 sticks of spaghetti

Mayonnaise

Tomato sauce

To make up

Cut the sausages in half so you now have 4 pieces

Break the spaghetti sticks in have.

Into the end of 1 piece of sausage stick 8 pieces of dry spaghetti

Do this for all 4 pieces

Boil until the spaghetti is soft

Decorate with tomatoes sauces mouths and mayonnaise eyes.

recipes

Orange and lavender infused water

Posted on October 1, 2019October 1, 2019 by admin

One of the things I often miss about a more rural farm type life is how close we were to nature and how we relied more on the things around us for food.

It’s become normal for me to just buy a flavoured water but at one stage we were just too far from a shop.

Today I decided to get into the summer spirit and make a jar of infused water.

You can make your own with any single fruit or fruit combinations.

I like :

Strawberry
Strawberry and mint
Litchi
Lavender and lime
Orange and lavender
Cucumber and mint
Watermelon
Mixed berry
Blueberry
Apple and mint
Apple and mixed berry
Mango and melon

To make your own you need :

Jar or large jug

Fruit , sliced or diced. I usually use 1 cup of fruit per 2l of water.

Instructions

Into your jar or jug place water to the top.

Add fruit.

Leave in fridge to chill and infuse overnight.

Enjoy

Crafts, preschool, recipes

Chai seed slime

Posted on September 25, 2019September 25, 2019 by admin

This recipe makes a generous amount of slime and has a very grainy consistency because of the chai seeds.

YOU NEED:

1/4 cup of chia seeds
1 3/4 cup of water
Food coloring
3-4 cups of corn flour (mazina)

INSTRUCTIONS:

Mix the chia seeds, water and food coloring together.Cover and refrigerate overnight.Uncover and add the corn flour a little bit at a time. Mix until you achieve the desired consistency. It should feel slimy but can easily be taken off your hands.Store covered in the refrigerator. You will need to add a little bit of water each time you take it out to use it. The water will reactive the slime.

babies, Crafts, preschool, preschoolers, recipes, Toddlers

How to dye pasta

Posted on September 25, 2019September 25, 2019 by admin

Coloured pasta is very versatile. You can use it in sensory tubs or to do a vatiety of crafts.

Here is how to dye pasta

YOU NEED:

Dry pasta

Vinegar

Food coloring

Parchment paper / wax wrap

Baking tray

Instructions

For every cup of dry pasta in a bowl, pour 1 tbsp of vinegar.

Add a few drops of food coloring

Mix together until all the pasta pieces are fully coloured

Place a sheet of parchment paper/ wax wrap on the baking tray and pour the coloured pasta on top.

Lay out the pasta in an even layer and let out to dry for a few hours in the sun.

Tip – Try to not have any of the pasta pieces touching when you spread them out to dry.

recipes

No Bake MilkTart Recipe

Posted on September 24, 2019September 25, 2019 by admin

As a young girl I remember my Grandmother making milk tarts each Sunday.

The cinnamon topping would waft through the air as we impatiently waited for the melt in your mouth tarts to cool.

She always used a no bake recipe, which I must admit I have only tried to make once.

INGREDIENTS

PASTRY

2 cups flour
1 egg
½ cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
125 g butter
pinch of salt

FILLING

4 ½ cups milk
⁠3 tablespoons cornflour/ maizena
1 cup sugar
3 eggs
pinch of salt
3 tablespoons cake flour
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
15 ml butter

INSTRUCTIONS

PASTRY

Cream butter and sugar together and add in the egg mixing well.
Add all the other ingredients to make a stiff dough.
Press into round cake pie dishes.
Bake blind for 15 minutes at 180°C.

FILLING

Bring milk to a boil.
Whisk eggs well and add in the sugar, cake flour, cornflour/ maizena and salt.
Mix well.
Pour boiling milk into the mixture and stir well.
Return to stove and stir for 10-12 minutes on medium heat until the mixture thickens.
Add butter and vanilla essence and mix well. Pour milk into cooked shell.

Allow to cool and set in the fridge.
Sprinkle with cinnamon.

Happy baking

babies, Life with my bears, preschool, preschoolers, recipes, Toddlers

How to make Pirate bananas

Posted on September 23, 2019September 23, 2019 by admin

Each year on the 19 September we celebrate International talk like a pirate day.

To celebrate this year Hamish dressed up in his pirate mask and ran around shouting “Arrrr! Me matey!” as he pretended to be Jake from the Neverland Pirates before we settled down to a breakfast of Pirate bananas.