FREE OUR KIDS

Well at least this is what Hattie says. And you know what, on most points, I am totally in agreement with her. (Thank you to Charlotte for pointing me in her direction.) The one thing she said that really struck a cord was how much money I must waste buying food items specifically labeled towards kids. Now I'm not obviously saying scrap all of that healthy rice cake stuff and lets get them a mega size bag of flamegrilled crinkle cut crisps. But I am saying hey, all the healthy snacks I buy Stanley, do I really need to, could I make my own at home, save a wad of cash (to plough straight back into the coffee market, hmmm, one step at a time hey) and keep him happy at the same time?! Of course right? Well he's my first foray into recreating all the crap I love to buy.

I'm as much to blame with Stanley sometimes and his eating habits, even though boy oh boy to I like to moan about it to. I am the worst for food bribery, not so much in the highchair to get him to eat, I've gone waaaaaaay past that, more if I want him to do something like go somewhere, leave his precious train set at home or be strapped in his buggy for any great length of time... My bribery of choice has been the goodies fruit bars, he is a crazy baby for one. And it is not like they are bad for him, heck they are good for him. I feel no guilt passing him one to eat other than the money I must be wasting or that really I am lazy for dishing them out so easily. I'm not saying I won't be still occasionally bribing him when I feel I really need to, it is just going to be with the things I make rather than the convenience food I have previously bought.

So I buy them, or did. We have run dry of them and I am determined not to buy any more, ever. again. Or any of the nakd bars I like so much which he also goes nuts for. It is just fruit and nuts whizzed up. I can create that right? He will love my snacks.

So here goes, this is what I did. I mainly looked at a bunch of recipes on line, more specifically this one, this one and this one. And then just went for it, me, the healthy stuff and a blender!

 

So I just whacked all the ingredients into the mixer and hit go. In hindsight perhaps I should have soaked the dates as it took a couple of tablespoons of water to get the whole lot moving and I should have put in the nuts first to whizz to a powder because they got stuck in all the date moosh. You live and learn, and now I've learnt I can tell you! In the end though it made this rather attractive paste. Hmmm.

After I scrapped it out I wrapped it up in the clingfilm and made it into a squarish shape and popped it into the fridge to chill for a few hours.

It was pretty sticky still when I got it out, even after having left it in the fridge overnight, I'm not sure it'd travel too well, you'd be picking up all sorts of fluff after eating it and would probably need a hose down of sorts. So next time I think I'd up the quantity of nuts or else one of the recipes said to add oats which I quite like the sound of. I am going to try it out again so if I improve it vastly (and if you care) I'll bring you an improved recipe! It tasted amazing though and very much like the nakd bars I'm addicted too.

I had to cut stanley's up into tiny bits as he totally flips out if he gets anything on his hands, neat freak!

I enjoyed mine with a cuppa, and Stanley even did a cliche 'Oliver' pose with his bowl completely unprompted. A success I'd say! Let me know if there are any kiddo snacks you can't currently live without and maybe I'll try and re-create them here on the blog. Or if you already have a killer recipe up your sleeve please do share I'd love to hear it. And of course for more of this and to see how Hattie and family get on on their year long journey please do pop on over there to have a good read, or click the link below, it is inspiring.

T-SHIRT PAINTING {part one}

Ok so really I would love to buy pretty much everything from Bobo choses, Mini Rodini, Gardener and the Gang and Nununu to name but a few!! But, I simply do not have the funds to do so at the moment. So instead, I thought I'd use my creative skills and make Stanley some more interesting t-shirts myself...

First up is the grey t-shirt and some bright green ink. I followed the very good instructions on my clever friends youtube channel here to create a Rorschach type image. (If you have time, watch his other clips, they are brilliant, inspiring and funny!)

Step one, iron the t-shirt with a firm crease down the middle and cut the newsprint to fit inside snuggly with a crease that matches up with the one on the t-shirt.

Then pour on the green fabric paint on one side only.

Fold the t-shirt in half and press down firmly.

Peel back to reveal your design!

It's quite addictive as you never know what exactly you are going to get. If I hadn't got other plans for the white one then I'd have ended up doing that one too! I think in trying to take pictures at the same time the ink seeped a bit too much into the paper and made taking it out tricky. I got some ink in a few places I didn't want, however nothing that I'm too worried about for a first attempt!

Then iron over the top of more newsprint to set the ink and then wash. Voila!

I'm a leeeeeeeeeetle bit disappointed that the ink has faded from the wash. Perhaps I didn't set it properly with the iron. I still like the effect, but I did love it more when it was super bright. Still it was a good experiment and one I intend on repeating. All together it cost me about £5 which is a bargain for a one off design! I think it looks like a set of lungs now, at first I thought butterfly, but now I look at it on him I'm thinking lungs....what do you see?!

I think this would be a really fun thing to do with kids a bit older as they would be able to pour the paint on themselves. Maybe next year with Stanley....

{part two with the white t-shirt and a different design is later this week...}