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A Week of Positive Things – Sabrina’s Tips for having a more Positive 7 Days at Home

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A Week of Positive Things

Sabrina’s Top Tips for having a more Positive 7 Days

Everyone seems to be feeling a bit low lately, it’s bound to be the Winter Blues mixed in with everything to do with the Pandemic. There are so many people who have found themselves working from home again, and many young people who are studying at home again too. With all this time stuck at home there are lots of anxious feelings and negativity, so I’m here with some suggestions to try and put a positive spin back into your home environment!

So here is my solution to tackle the blues, try to take half an hour out of your day as a family unit, every afternoon for the next week, after work is over and after the schooling is done for the day. Pick one of these ideas of mine to do together, a different one every day in any order you like.

I guarantee they will have you feeling more positive by the end of day 7! You can do them in any order you like! Or do one of them twice if it’s a hit! If you play along please comment on this post or on my socials at the end of the week and tell me which activity your family preferred and whether these activities did in fact work for you and increase your family’s positive attitudes.

  1. Go for a Walk (Weather Dependent) and play a game as you go! Ideal for parents with younger children who are still enthralled by the nature of “eye spy”. But the fresh air and endorphins combined should make all of you feel better too. Older children may want to go for a jog or a bike ride if that’s more your thing, so long as it’s half an hour outdoors with your family, all together.

  2. Watch a Funny TV Show or Cartoon. Laugher really can help you to feel better, even for a brief moment, so why not stick on a tv show or a favourite cartoon that never failed to make you laugh and giggle together. Tom and Jerry is a good one!

  3. Bake or Make Something Delicious! I have a ton of recipes on my blog and some don’t even take that long to do. So why not make some chocolate crispy cakes or even some rocky road, something simple and even something that doesn’t require baking to save you time! Then you’ll have a tasty treat for a few afternoons to come! See what you’ve got in the cupboard! Here is my baking section HERE.

  4. Get Creative. You can do one of two things with this creative activity depending upon the age of the people in your household. Either, do a rotating draw-off where by you each start with a piece of A4 paper and one coloured pen (all varying colours) and you keep rotating the papers every minute, do this until 4 minutes is up. Everyone should’ve drawn on each of the pieces of paper. No talking! See what you’ve come up with! Share them with me on social media! #SabrinasCreativeCrafts
    OR
    You can play the Sentences Game. The idea is to make up a creative story, it should be funny, and you once again rotate the papers. This time you want long strips and not A4. Cut a vertical A4 in half twice or get your strips. Once the first minute is up and the first sentence has been written, you all fold over the section and pass it on. When the time is up you each open up the papers to find a story.

    For example;
    There once was a man who couldn’t find his shoes.
    I think I want some KFC he thought.
    He headed off in the direction of the sunset.
    In the end his dog ran away and joined the circus.

    If you have teenagers then you could play the game another way, this is called CONSEQUENCES, you start by writing on each of the papers the following things, add extra if you have a large family so that everyone will get a go at each section when the papers are passed on. They usually go like this…
    ___
    Met
    ___
    At
    ___
    They said ___
    What happened next was ___ OR The Consequence was ___

    Then unroll it after everyone has had their turn and the sections are completed, then take turns in reading them out. See my photo below this list for an idea of what it would look like when you finished! Warning my examples may cause laughter!

  5. Photos! Another fun thing that would brighten your spirits is to look back at any photo albums that you have or digital slideshows. You could even play a game while you look through them. Every time that your mum is seen with sunglasses on she gets a point, each time someone hasn’t got their hat on when they should you lose a point! First person to spot the water in the photos gets a point. Etc etc! Make up some rules before you start and say that the first person to 10 points gets out of doing the washing up tonight! Or the winner chooses what’s for dinner the next night! Involve one another in every day things.

  6. Write a List of Goals and Aspirations for 2021 – but only write the do-able ones! For example, I want to bake a cake for mums birthday. OR I would like to walk a mile on the next weekend that is dry and sunny. When you achieve something, even if it’s a little thing, you feel so much better about having accomplished it. Setting some realistic goals now for the year might seem silly when we don’t know what’s around the corner, however even if the goals are just for the people in your bubble, it’s still doable. Put them up on your fridge or board and tick yours off when you have completed it.

  7. Make a Meal Together. No matter how old you all are there is something fun about making dinner together. May I suggest something that everyone can get stuck into such as Fajitas, Curry, Sausages and Mash or Lasagne (dietary requirements permitting). I have tons of recipes on my blog if you need inspiring! But making and preparing food together before you eat it can be a real bonding experience, and it can also be important for teaching younger children where foods come from or that by mixing this with that you achieve this outcome. Food is something that has been so important during the first lockdowns so I thought I would continue on with that and try and get you back into your kitchen to make something you love together. Check out my Recipes HERE.
Why Not Try And Make My Delicious Cookies? Click the link in section 3 for the recipe!
The Consequences Game – Imaginative Fun for the older children in your family.

I really hope that you’ve enjoyed this blog post and that you would like to participate in my week of positivity. If you do participate in any of them or attempt to get those in your bubble to do so, then please let me know how you got on! I can’t wait to see if you make anything as well 🙂 tag me online! And thanks for joining me!

✩ Sabrina ✩

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Sabrina’s How To Make Your Own Unique Gift Tags This Festive Season

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I have always had some creative flare, but one thing I had never done before was to make my own Christmas Present Tags! I came up with lots of ideas while spending time at home.

I took the plunge this November and ordered the things I would need to design them. I already had two awesome sets of Staedtler Pens in both fine line and bold. I also had various sequins. But I needed the tags and the string. I tried my best to use natural string and cardboard that was made from recycled materials.

What you could do if you can’t get any of these brown tags, is to cut up some old Christmas Cards and make them into similar shapes like these, add things like sequins in order to sparkle them up.

String Christmas Lights

The easiest of all my tag designs to make, you will need both thicker pens and fine pens of the same colour. The trick is to create the light shape with the finer pen and then colour it in with the same thicker style pen after. Make sure you leave the small crescent shape on one side of each light bulb so it looks three dimensional.

Begin by drawing the lines and bulb attachments with one pen, dark colours work best for this part. Then choose the pen colours you want for your bulbs. Ensure you don’t put the same shades next to one another and alternate colours like Red and Green for a Christmas look.

The size of your bulbs will depend on how many you want to do across your tag. If it’s just lights and no writing then you can fill up the space. If you plan to write “Merry Christmas” for example then perhaps do the lights top and bottom of the tag and leave the middle area blank.

Check out my images for some inspiration. Give it a go on a piece of plain paper and decide which way to do your bulbs, before doing them on to a tag.

Snow Scene with Tree

If you aren’t very good at drawing then you can still achieve something like this tag, just take your time and follow my instructions. Check out my videos on my Facebook Page too!

You need a brown pen, the finer the tip the better, and you want to start by drawing the outline of your tree. Fill in the branches afterwards, getting smaller to the ends. Next to add a 3D aspect to your tree draw circles for holes and darken undersides of larger branches and the trunk to add shadows. Use a silver, white or light blue mixture of pens now to create the snow. You could do a snow scene or just do the tree. Be creative and have fun! Look at mine below for some inspiration.

The Christmas Tree

I quite like the abstract or deconstructed Christmas Tree type of tags. Mainly because when I try to draw symmetrical and lifelike trees they never look quite right. If you’re good at drawing trees however, then putting one in the centre of a tag would look really great!

Use a nice dark green pen for your tree. Add either stick on crafty bits and pieces or draw on some festive decorations, or do a bit of both! PVA glue is best because it will dry clear! If you want to do a more 3D tag then glue dots or adhesive squares also work well too.

Me on the other hand, I prefer to do the continuous line and have a sequin star on the top, kind of a tree!

Christmas Sparkle

If you have various diamanté, sequins or sparkles you want to use on your tags then you need to come up with designs that suit them. Check out my tags below for some ideas. Hanging decorations or bauble type designs work best for rounded craft items. Think about when items hang on a tree, what they look like. Window decorations like a line of hanging stars or snowflakes are also very nice.

Sequins can be used on their own or accompanying pen lines. Use your imagination and design your thoughts on a piece of plain paper first using a pencil, once happy with it, you can then transfer the ideas to a tag.

You can purchase the brown tags in most craft shops, online at places like The Works, Hobbycraft and Amazon. Try and pick ones that are already made from recyclable material.

I had previously bought my pens online from Amazon, Sequins from The Works and my Glue is also from The Works too. Other crafty items have been purchased by me over the years from various shops and also Tesco superamrket, they had a nice range of sequins this year too.

Other fun tags include, “Merry Christmas”, Holly, Baubles, Rudolph, Robin, Christmas Trees, Christmas Lights, Snowflakes, Snowmen, Santa Claus, Snowy Scenes, Penguins, Stars and things such as “Ho! Ho! Ho!” and “Let It Snow”.

Thank you for reading this post today, if you do give making Christmas tags a go then I would love to see them! Tag me on social media using the hashtag #SabrinasChristmasCrafts

Have a great Christmas!

✩ Sabrina ✩

You can see my tutorial videos on my Facebook page here…