Sabrina is a Lifestyle, Parenting and Product Review Blogger. A Writer, Photographer, Reviewer, Home Cook, Crafter & Nature Enthusiast. You will find a bit of all those categories here on Severn Wishes Blog, Welcome to Sabrina's Lifestyle Blogging & Honest Reviews.
Autumn is such a beautiful time of the year, and it should be enjoyed by people of all ages and of all abilities too. But as the cost of living goes up again with our need for heating on and more food, not to mention the loom of Christmas… most people will vote to stay in, worrying they cannot afford to go out.
Well I’m in the same boat as all of you again this season, knowing that money will be tight but I also want to make the most of weekends I have my son. School takes up so many hours of the week, and the majority of children don’t really want to be stuck inside (unless the weather is gale force and torrential rain!). So it’s important to come up with some cheap ideas that will suit everyone and that can be fun of course, so here’s what I do.
See what can you do for free in your local area. Where do you begin to look?
Start off by writing down on a piece of paper the people in your household, their ages and abilities.
Do you need toilets frequently, baby changing facilities or access for a pram or wheelchair?
Once you have established the type of place you need to find you can look up on an online map what is available for free in your area.
Check local free magazines in supermarkets, check out social media by searching in events local to you by so many miles radius.
Some of these things can include;
Public Footpaths. Canal Routes or Designated Walkways. Parks and Gardens. Local Heritage Sites. Castles or Stately Homes. Farms with Free Entry to look at Pumpkins, Flowers or do Maize Mazes. Nature Reserves with free car parking so you can do a Nature Walk to collect leaves. National Trust (some people will already be members, sometimes they have reduced entry fees).
What Can You Do While Out?
Enjoy a walk together as a family, don’t forget to take some photograph’s! Gather items to take home and make art and craft pieces another day. Go for a Nature Walk and talk about what you can see and hear (great for young children). Nature Bingo where you make a list before you go and then tick off the items as you find them. Discuss the life cycle of trees with older children and the importance of renewal each year.
(If you don’t mind spending a little money) Pumpkin Patch Picking Maize Maze or Woodland Trails Local Trust Properties or Heritage Sites
Sabrina’s Top Tip: Take a picnic or packed lunch with you, and drinks for everyone too which will save you money, even if you have to eat it in the car then it won’t matter because it’s still family time.
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Thank you for reading this blog post today, I do hope that I have given you some good ideas.
Have a great day and lots of fun if you take on board any of my tips!
Sometimes we are all guilty of spending too much time on technology, and now that the weather is improving we should all be putting down our TV remotes and phones and getting outside! (I know that you’re thinking about doing that now, as you read this blog post on a piece of tech, but please bare with me as I have some great activities you’ll want to be inspired by I’m sure!)
So where to begin! If you’re not naturally adventurous for the great outdoors it can seem a bit overwhelming! So how about we just start small! I have come up with a range of things to suit everyone, outdoorsy types and not so much! All you need to do is choose one of these to do each day during the school break or even at the Easter weekend and voila you have some outdoor fun, nature related or outdoor activity to enjoy!
Here are my 15 “Things We Can Do” of Fun Ideas to do Indoors and Outdoors…Weather Dependent!
🥚 Use Nature in a Painting – Use sticks or leaves to paint with! 🥚Spot a Bird of Prey – Look up and see what is flying above your head! 🥚Find Some Minibeasts and Draw Them from Memory – Bugs can be colourful and interesting! 🥚Take a Walk in 4 Different Types of Weather – No matter what the weather it can be fun to take a walk!
🥚 Go For a Walk and Find Some Puddles to Jump in – Who doesn’t like jumping in a puddle! Wear wellies!
🥚 Have a Musical Morning, Listening or Playing – Music can help you relax!
🥚 Do Some Finger Painting – Draw the trunk of a tree and make the leaves with your fingers! 🥚Play Eye-Spy on a Family Walk – Eye Spy is great for a range of ages! 🥚Do a Jigsaw on a Rainy Day – Jigsaws can be a fun family activity on a rainy day or a board game!
🥚 Build a Den or Fort Together – Who doesn’t love building a den! Cushions and Throws work well!
🥚 Draw and then Colour in something you’ve seen in Nature on your Walk, a Rainbow, Tree, Flower etc
🥚 Design your own Dream Car or Dream House (for older children to imagine)
🥚 Create Post for a Loved One and Walk to a Post Box to Send it – Draw a Picture or Write a Letter
🥚 Have an Afternoon of MESS with Messy Play or Fun with Paint or Food items – Paint and Rice Crispies…
🥚 Read More! Read as a Family, decide on what your Favourite Book is and why – Books help you learn!
🥚 Nature Hunter Gatherers – Collect some things from in your local area to look at when you get home such as leaves and pinecones, things that have fallen from trees and bushes. Don’t deliberately destroy nature though! Fallen Leaves are great, discover what tree they come from by looking at the shape!
The image above is from when my son and I did a day of Nature Hunter Gatherers. It was a lovely warm day and we spent six hours outside having fun, games and walking. This activity is great for learning about where things come from such as pinecones and feathers. Make sure you do this on a dry day. We took a long walk through our village and picked up things that we found on the ground. Leave them somewhere cool and dry for a few days to dry out and make sure there are no creatures living in them before you handle them again!
I highly recommend getting some coloured trays like these, they were only £3 for a pack of 3 from The Works. Perfect for both Art and Craft and collecting things too!
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Picking Up Litter
If your children are a little older than mine you might want to pop gloves on when you go on your walk, take a plastic bag with you, and do a litter picking up hour in your local village or town. This helps the environment and the animals and birds in your area from getting injured.
🥚 Easter Ideas 🥚
You could also do Easter themed Drawings, Colouring In and Games such as an Easter Egg Hunt in your house or garden this weekend.
Check out my previous Easter blog posts for Art and Craft ideas and Baking fun… Here…
Thank you for reading this blog post today! I hope that I have inspired you to do at least one of these activities with your own family. Let me know in the comments section or on my social media if you get up to anything fun in the next few weeks!
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.
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.
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!
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.
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!
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.
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.
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!
Halloween is one of those holidays where people either love it or loathe it. Whether or not you like Fancy Dress and Decorating your Home, it’s an important right of passage for your little ones to experience the fun of a Halloween.
If it’s their first Halloween then I have lots of ideas that you could achieve easily at home and make some nice memories and keepsakes to show the child when they are older.
With the pandemic still affecting us all, there are many children who would love to be trick or treating and having fun and games with their friends. It’s highly likely not to happen this Halloween 2020, however that doesn’t mean you cannot do things at home.
WHAT IS IN THIS BLOG POST… HALLOWEEN 2020
Fancy Dress Photo Shoot Fun – My Tips and Tricks
Hand and Feet Print Halloween Decorations – Fun Family Keepsakes
Halloween Games with Treats to be Found (at home) – My Lockdown Halloween Trick or Treat Ideas
Baking with Halloween Shapes – Fun Baking Tips for the Family to do together
What Else Can You Do With Halloween Baking Cutters as Stencils!
Fancy Dress Photoshoot at Home
One way in which I always like to remember a holiday event or day is to do a photo shoot. For the last two years I have dressed my son up and surrounded him with a variety of Halloween related items. I got some good photographs doing this at home that I can treasure. If you set it up correctly you won’t need to pay anyone to take photographs for you.
You Will Need
A decent camera or a phone with a decent camera A camera which has a timer if you want to do a family portrait Natural light coming through a door or window is best for colours Fancy Dress items and any props that you would like to include
My Photography Tips
Natural Light is important to get clear and sharp imagery.
Use fairy lights to add depth to your image (supervised around the child/ren of course).
Props are important and make sure you arrange them so they can be seen, if you’re going for a theme try and stick to it.
If you want things to be inside the frame then choose your layout carefully and keep looking through the camera lens as a guide.
A sofa or chair is ideal to sit a baby on or you could even use a ball pit or a rocker with a sheet over it to block out any unwanted branding or colours.
Set up your photo shoot before you get a baby ready otherwise they may get fed up rather quickly if you ignore them to move things around.
If you can get a large pumpkin or a cushion you can sit babies inside or on top, just make sure to always have their necks supported!
If you can’t pull off a Photoshoot then why not use some Free Filters on some Photo Apps. Some of them are highly detailed. We did one to show you just how cool! And if you have older children they might be more interested in that too!
4 WAYS TO USE HALLOWEEN BAKING CUTTERS AS STENCILS
I’m not very good at drawing so using these cutters as outlines was a great idea for me! If you can draw well you won’t need to do this! Ha! Ha!
Halloween Decorations
Halloween Posters
Halloween Colouring In
Halloween Baking
I drew around the shapes and outlined them in pen, then let my child colour it in.
Halloween Decorations
Making Halloween Decorations is easier than you think! So long as you have got some card and some paint. There are tons of ways you can make nice posters or decorations. Here is how I have made mine…
Pumpkins – Apples Halved and Dipped in Paint. Spider – Hand Prints leaving off the thumb so fingers make 8 legs. BOO – B and two hands for the O’s. Ghost – Foot Print (upside down)
I’m planning to cut out the Pumpkins once they are fully dry and hang them up against my window.
You can make a Halloween poster for your window or you can cut the items out and hang them up with string.
Trick or Treat at home won’t be the same, but it can still be fun! Check out my ideas below!
1. Make Every Room A Different Theme with a Different Sweet to Find. You can tailor them to meet the needs of your family, no choke-able sweets for little ones etc. If you don’t do Sweets you could use Numbered Fruit like Apples which result in a Toy prize if they find them all.
2. Make It A Halloween Treasure Hunt with the Treasure being Sweets! Write little clues on paper for the kids to follow. Create traps and fun obstacles for them to overcome, riddles and rhyming works well too! “Where you Sleep, Often Deep, Beneath the Covers is what you Seek!” things like that, E.G Under their bed covers is a Sweet or another Clue.
3. Use A Dice And Clues to Make a Halloween Game of your Own! Using how many rooms you have and how many children, you can send each child off to a room where they have to either complete a task or seek and find the next clue, which once put together with their siblings answers, will reveal their bounty of Treats! E.G Two Siblings, they each find a clue on paper, one reads KITC and the other HEN and when put together they go to the KITCHEN for the next clue etc.
HALLOWEEN BAKING
I have done some step by step baking videos on my Halloween cookie baking and these are available to watch on my Facebook page, I will drop you the link here Severn Wishes on Facebook.
You can use my Cookie Recipe or a Shortbread Recipe to make these awesome Halloween shaped treats!
I bought the set of cookie cutters off Amazon, if you would like the link to those then here that is… Amazon
I always do a Seasonal Bowl on my Dining Table. It is all Autumnal now!
Thank you so much for checking out this blog post today!
Please tag me over on Facebook on my page if you try and of my Halloween things! Baking, Craft or Decorations!
If you like my trick or treat at home ideas, let me know if you use them over the weekend too!
Have a great week at home everyone! Stay safe!
✩ Sabrina ✩
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