December 2020 Treatbox Reveal and Review

It’s that time again, but not just time to Reveal a Treatbox, oh no, but also time to Reveal the Christmas month Treatbox! Exciting stuff right? It’s usually one of my most anticipated boxes of the whole year.

This festive season the Treatbox gives us another set of treats and edible delights to enjoy. I was expecting the chocolates because I saw Zoe put something up on Instagram about tossing coins into each of the boxes before sealing them up.

The Items I Found Inside My Box For December Were…

A Lindt Chocolate Teddy
4 Chocolate Coins
Ruby Sheet Mask 4 in 1 Vitamasques
Bakedin Chocolate Brownie Mug Mix
Two Treatbox Original Christmas Cards with Envelopes
A Pair of Joe Cool Christmas Socks – Christmas Bunny
Two A5 print cards that read “three things I’m grateful for” and “Believe in the Magic of Christmas”
“Make the Arcade” Felt Decoration Craft Kit Polar Bear

The socks are adorable! I will always be happy to receive more Joe Cool socks, I have loved every pair I’ve gotten in a Treatbox and they are such good quality. I have a little Christmas Rabbit with a hat on one ear, queue the “Aww!”.

I think the make your own Polar Bear is a particularly sweet idea and really nice to make one cold afternoon in December for you to put on to your Christmas Tree!

There are two Treatbox original Christmas Cards and two A5 Prints. I really like all of these, they are good quality and are nice enough to even frame and stick up around your home this Christmas.

We also have a Brownie in a Mug mix, Ooo! Yum! And a cute little Lindt Chocolate Bear!

And finally we have another face mask this month. I would have preferred no mask this month and seen another Christmassy related item or a Wintery item but never mind! I guess some people manage to do masks every week, I know I just don’t find the time as a single mother, ha! ha!

All in all it’s a good box of treats this month and I’m happy with it. I think if there had been a set of battery powered fairy lights included instead of the face mask, then it would’ve been up there with one of the best Christmas boxes! C’est la Vie!

Merry Christmas to Zoe and her Treatbox UK Team! Thanks for another year of boxes! I’ve been doing this for rather a Looooooooong time now! Years in fact!

Did you know you can view my previous Treatbox unboxing posts in this unique category of mine called ‘Treatbox’ it is specifically for these box reviews and reveals – Severn Wishes Treatbox.

Thank you for visiting Severn Wishes today, I hope you have enjoyed this Review of the December box! Wishing you and yours a very Merry Christmas!

✩ Sabrina ✩

Fun Easter Crafts

HAPPY EASTER FROM SEVERN WISHES

Fun to Make ~ Easter Art and Crafts ~ with Sabrina of Severn Wishes

I have wanted to do this blog post for the last three years, and I have always been too busy to complete it! Mainly because it is a mixture of writing the blog, creating and making the craft items, and then taking the step by step images, processing all of those and then putting the entire lot together in one blog post. It is both time consuming and a lengthy in process too. So what changed this year? Well for one thing, I was more determined to do some more craft this year, but isolation has also made me re-evaluate what’s important, and that is to make happy memories with my son. No matter what is going on outside our home, he doesn’t understand, and it is my job to keep things as normal as possible, so extra fun, extra learning and extra memories are all on the table at the present time. I’m so glad you could join me to hopefully make some memories of your own!

So without any further ado, let’s get our crafty fingers at the ready! Depending upon which Crafty Project you wish to undertake you will need a variety of items. My idea is this, pick an item from the four below, and then match the “You Will Need” items with what you already have at home. Providing you have all the necessary bits and bobs then feel free to scroll down to that Project and then get cracking with my Step by Step guides! Happy Crafting!

1. 3D Friendly Ladybird
2. Wiggly Caterpillar
3. 3D Paper Flower (Can be Framed or Made into an Easter Card)
4. Hand Print Easter Bunny Rabbit

5. Other Craft Ideas

1. 3D Friendly Ladybird

You Will Need
Pritt Stick or Glue
Coloured Paper and / or Card
Circular Objects to Draw Around (This will determine the size of your Ladybird)
Pencil
Scissors
Black Pen
Googly Eyes (if you have some but not essential)

This is the easiest of my crafts today, and will take around twenty minutes to make. You can make it any size, any colour that you like. Why not make one for each member of the family? I am going to make several of them to put around my son’s bedroom. He loves Gaston from Ben and Holly’s Little Kingdom, so my son is the inspiration behind this particular craft project.

Step 1. Choose the Size of your Ladybird. Choose your colour. Draw around a Circular object so that you have 4 Circles the same size, and then you will need a smaller circle for the head, judge this depending upon the size of the body. Cut out these 5 circles and then you’re ready to begin.

Step 2. On the small circle draw a line across the centre, you want to colour the half of this circle in with black pen. Don’t forget to draw eyes on it too like mine, if you don’t have any fun stick on eyes to hand! Then pop this face to one side you won’t need it now until Step 6.

Step 3. Take 3 out of the 4 Large Circles and fold them in half across their centre. Gently crease them with your fingers, take a look at my image below to see how they should look.

Step 4. Take the flat circle and cover it lightly in glue or pritt stick, I always prefer a glue stick when messing with card, less mess! Then take two of your folded circles, stick glue on their side that faces flat, place them back to back and glue them down on to the flat circle so that they make a V shape.

Step 5. Take the remaining Circle that is folded in half and cover it in glue before pressing it down into the centre of your Ladybird body, covering the two below neatly. You now have a finished insect body.

Step 6. You can now glue the head on by placing the glue on to the half you didn’t colour in, make sure you line it up with the V of the Ladybird to make it look right. See my image below.

Step 7. Push down all the flat surfaces of the Ladybird and leave for an hour or two for the glue to dry. Then using a Pen or Marker, draw on however many Spots you would like.

Step 8. Repeat steps for making other colours or other sizes if you have Card or Paper left over. If you need a base for your Ladybird to sit on, why not make him a cardboard leaf! (You need leaves for another of my crafts anyway!) 😉

CRAFT FINISHED

2. Wiggly Caterpillar (munching on a leaf)

You Will Need
Pritt Stick and PVA Glue
Green Paper or Card (Card is better)
A Mixture of Green and Black Pens
Poms Poms! All Colours Welcome!
Googly Eyes or Stick on Sequins
Scissors
A Pencil
A Piece of Cardboard (Cereal box is good!)

This is a fun craft to do with young children. They can make their Caterpillar whatever colour they want. All you need is some Pom Poms! You can follow my Steps or watch my video below!

Step 1. Draw and Cut Out a Leaf Shape (this is your main leaf) from your Cardboard. Then draw around this cut out piece of cardboard on to your green paper or card and Pritt Stick together.

Step 2. Draw your Leaf design on with Green pens. Set to one side.

Step 3. Decide what Pom Poms you want to use and arrange them!

Step 4. Make some antenna and extra leaves and stick your eyes on to a Pom Pom ready to assemble your bug!

Step 5. Using PVA glue stick your Caterpillar together, don’t forget the extra leaves, arrange however you wish, then leave to dry in a warm flat place.

Step 6. Add any additional things to your bug once it has dried.

Caterpillar Video

3. 3D Paper Flower (Can be Framed or Made into an Easter Card)

You Will Need
Pritt Stick or Glue
Different Coloured Cards or Papers
A Piece of Card for Sticking to
Scissors
Pencil
A Circular Object to Draw Around (it’s diameter will be half the width of the flower so choose wisely)

This idea is simple but looks so pretty when complete. It makes a great card.

Step 1. Take a piece of plain card, this will be your base. Draw a Stem or Cut Green Card or Paper and create one. Make sure you leave plenty of room to stick the flower part. Cut out leaves and small circles of yellow paper to create the centre of the flowers. Be as creative as you like.

Step 2. Making the petals next, you need to cut circles of different colours, you will end up with 8 Petals in total per flower. I did two different sized circles to end up with two sized flowers.

Step 3. Fold all of the petals in half so you end up with 16 halves with flat sides that stick up. This is how the petals will look 3D.

Step 4. Using Pritt Stick, stick the sides of the petals down so that they rotate around the centre of the flowers. You want them all to face the same way when you stick them around the yellow centre.

Step 5. Turn the flowers into a card if you like, or make other smaller flowers too using smaller circles, and make a pretty Easter meadow scene picture. Draw or Stick Easter Eggs and Rabbits and other Easter items along the edge like an Easter scene.

4. Hand Print Easter Bunny Rabbit

You Will Need

Paper or Card
Pencil
Hands!!!
Pens for the Details
Scissors
Paint

Paint works well for this one so you don’t have to colour in, unless you prefer to colour of course. It depends how much you’re painting, if you plan to do my hand prints picture (below) then you could do extra on different paper and make them into cute Rabbits!

Step 1. Draw around your hand and / or children’s hands. Or you can do a Hand Print on to Paper using Paint! MAKE SURE YOU LEAVE OUT THE THUMB! You want the shape to resemble a Rabbit head with two of each fingers being the ears! Keep two fingers together!

Step 2. Once dry you can cut the Rabbit shape out.

Step 3. Draw on Nose, Mouth and Eyes!

Step 4. Add any extras like whiskers, inner ears and freckles! Cut it out and hang it up or stick to a handmade card if you like.

FINISHED

Not the best hand print but you get the idea! My son was a bit reluctant to help out yesterday, ha ha!

5. Other Craft Ideas
If you want to just Print some Easter Egg patterns and do some Colouring in with younger children then here are a few that I really like that you can save and print 🙂

Alternatively you could do some Painting of Hands and do some Prints!

Layer the Prints of your Hands to make a nice picture.

Thanks so much for joining me for this blog post. I hope that you’ve had fun, maybe even a laugh at my crafty items. If you made something please share it with me on social media, tag me or my page! I would love to see them! What was your favourite? Would you like to see more Art and Craft? Leave me a comment. Have a wonderful fun and safe Easter!

Best wishes from me!

Sabrina

Fun Crafts With Children This Christmas

Hello everyone, today I’ve gone all arts and crafts on you! Most children break up from school today and I’m sure a lot of you are trying to come up with ways you can entertain everyone without it being Christmas movie after Christmas movie. Hands up if I’m right!

So what about some crafting! You can choose whichever one of these that you already have the necessary items for!
Pick one or do them all over the festive season! They make great tree decorations or cards, and perfect gifts for family members too!

Top Tip: Pop your little ones name and the year in the corner of the decoration if you’re keeping it, make one every year and compare the sizes!

It’s amazing what you can make out of a few bits of card, a pack of mixed pens and some washable paints! Why not give one of these awesome craft ideas a go with your little ones this Festive Season!

I always love the idea of doing cards! You can combine any of the below ideas and then simply cut out your finished design and stick it on to a piece of card.

Reindeer Foot Print
Penguin Foot Print
Snowman Foot Print
Christmas Tree Foot Print


Reindeer Hand Print
Robin Hand Print

What Will You Need:

A Sensible but Fun Adult 😉 with Baby Wipes at the ready!
Coloured Paper and Card
Pack of Mixed Coloured Pens, Glitter Pens are also cool too
Double Sided Tape or Pritt Stick or Glue

Washable Paints in mixed colours – I like the Crayola ones
A few different sized paint brushes or a sponge for skin application.

Scissors (one reason you need an adult)
Stickers if you want to add those or some googly eyes for your print animals

You may need a ruler, a hole punch and string or ribbon if you plan on making anything into a hanging decoration.

Use Washable Paints and some Card to make your very own Tree Decorations or Christmas Cards. It’s easy to do Hand Print Robins, Wreath or Reindeer! Or Footprint Trees, Snowmen, or Penguins!

How To Make It…

Paint your child’s Hand or Foot and carefully press it down on to your chosen card or paper.
Let it dry overnight somewhere warm.
Flatten the design for the next few hours once it’s dry.

Next you need to decide which Christmas theme to go for!
Paint, Draw or Stick on your favourite bits to make your design real!
Get an adult to do any cutting parts that are needed to make it into a decoration or card.

Toilet Roll Snowflakes are great to do too!
You need two toilet rolls per snowflake, glue, scissors, paint and glitter!
Tip One: Paint the Toilet Roll and Glitter it up first and then let it dry before cutting, at least overnight!
Tip Two: Cut all the pieces the same width and arrange it before gluing!
Tip Three: Tie some Ribbon or String to the top and hang in your home!

Thank you for visiting Severn Wishes today, I hope you enjoyed this Arts and Crafts post. Hopefully I will to see you here again soon. Have a great Festive Season!

✩ Sabrina ✩

Reindeer Child Foot Print

Review of a Gift Purchase from Paper Lace & Love

I was recently asked to become a godparent, and not only was I honoured to do so, but I then wanted my godson to have something special to keep and remember the day forever by. I have been waiting to share this post with you all but I wanted all of the family to see the present I gave, before I shared it on my blog. Now that I am able to I’m going to show you the gift that I commissioned and was so pleased with!

After searching the internet and the pages of social media, I decided to go with a company who could fulfill my wishes to personalise a design to be in keeping with the day. I knew the sort of gift that I wanted made, but I had to find someone who would do a design that would fit my purpose.

This wonderful company is run by Caitlin and is called Paper Lace & Love. Specalising in Handmade Papercuts, that are then framed and personalised by her for your own unique circumstances.

I wanted a Christening gift to be specifically made with both my godson’s name and the date he was Christened on it. I was so impressed with the level of detail and also the professionalism of Caitlin for making the changes I requested with no questions or problems. I was more than happy to pay the extra for the alternatives and was very pleased with the final design.

Paper Lace and Love
The parcel arrived on the day it was meant to, and the packaging was both professional and appropriate for keeping the item intact. Wrapped up in bubble wrap and tissue paper, the final look of the frame was excellent.

Here is the gift, professionally framed and about to be re-wrapped by myself to become the present. I chose a blue background, blue for a boy, but Paper Lace & Love stock a variety of styles and colours you can choose from. Caitlin is more than happy to find things for people to make it special and unique to their situations.

Paper Lace and Love One
As you can see in the next image, the level of detail is incredible, and I am in awe of Caitlin’s talent for paper cutting. She must have a high level of patience and a great degree of creativity to make such beautiful pieces.

Paper Lace and Love Two
My chosen gift was well received and will hopefully be loved by all as my little godson Lewis grows up. A wonderful and creative way of remembering a special day for a very special boy.

I cannot thank Caitlin enough for fitting me into a busy schedule, sending my gift to me within plenty of time, and for making the commission fit my needs exactly. I recommend her business highly, and would purchase from her again in the future if I ever need gifts of this sort.

I really hope you have enjoyed my review, and I will leave some links at the bottom of this post for those who wish to look at the other paper cuts available for purchase by Paper Lace & Love.

Paper Lace and Love Three
Thank you for reading this review today.

✩ Sabrina

You can find the Paper Lace & Love shop on Etsy here https://www.etsy.com/shop/paperlaceandlove and on Facebook as well https://www.facebook.com/paperlaceandlove/