How to make a String Decoration

My children love making these. It can be very messy depending on their age but that’s part of the fun plus the finished result is a decoration for their bedrooms.

We used coloured string but you can also use plain string and leave white for a shabby chic look, or add some paint to your glue for colour.

What you will need:

·         String 

·         Bowl

·         PVA Glue  

·         Round balloons  

·         Scissors

·         Newspaper or something to protect your work surface

·         Paint – if required

1.      Cover your work surface with newspaper

2.      Blow the balloon up to your required size. We use between 5cm and 20cm. Remember the bigger the balloon the more string you will need!

3.      Pour the PVA glue into a bowl. If using plain string add paint if required and mix.  

4.      Cut the string into 50cm lengths. This prevents knots and is easier to handle

5.      Place a length of string into the bowl and coat with the glue. To prevent the string slipping around the balloon, remove the excess glue (glue & paint) with your fingers.

6.      Wrap the string around the balloon. Overlap the string to create a lattice effect. Keep going until you have the desired effect you wish. Remember not to leave big spaces.

7.      Hang the balloon to dry. Leave for at least 24 hours. Check that all the string is completely dry and feels hard. Pop the balloon and remove it carefully from your decoration.

      

     

If you pop the balloon too soon the string will collapse with the balloon. This happened to us! We use coloured string instead plain string and adding paint as my 4 year old gets a little carried away with paint! To re-use the string I simply soaked the string in warm water to remove the glue and separated the lengths again.

Remember if your string decoration gets wet it will also collapse.

You can add glitter to the glue or use some decorative ribbon to make these hanging ornaments or Christmas tree decorations. If you leave a small space when you are latticing your balloon you can fill with small chocolate eggs for Easter. The ideas are endless!

Enjoy crafting!     

Written by Victoria.

Who ya gonna call...? YouTube?!

The majority of people I know, use YouTube as a source of entertainment. 

Funny videos of people falling over or animals peeing over spectators are common, as are music videos, interviews and  movie trailers from all of our favourite artists, and upcoming newbies on the scene.

I, however, mostly use YouTube to watch blogs, and how-to videos.

This really came into it's own last week, when my car broke down, on the school run!

Having 5 children with me at the time, and being due to start my new job that very night, I was somewhat stressed about the whole situation, when one of my Mummy Friends suggested that we could jump start my car. This seemed simple enough, however, having never, ever previously jump started a car, we were at a bit of a loss as what to do!

We found the jump leads, but then came the questions about which coloured end of them to put on what side of my cars dead battery.. YouTube to the rescue! 

Out came my trusty i-Phone, and up popped my YouTube app! After a quick search of how to 'jump start a car', my friend and I quickly found out that the red cable should be placed on the positive side of the battery and the black on the negative. Connecting the cables to my battery was easy, with both + and - signs labeled  however, my friends car had no such indicators *sigh*

I kept watching my selected video, and as luck would have it, the positive side of the battery

"Should always have something red attached to it" 

Sure enough, my friends car had a small red rubber tie around one of the cables coming from her battery, so we went for it, connecting both cars to each other.

Collectively, we had 11 children with us that day, and two complete novices managed to keep track of all of them while learning something new and jump starting a car, all without the help of an AA man! 

My friend had laughed at me before, when I had told her how much I had learnt from watching YouTube. She text me this morning to tell me that she and her husband had just finished laying their new laminate flooring all with the help of YouTube videos! 

So next time you are watching a 20 stone man dance the Harlem Shake in his underpants, or a girl crazily smearing peanut butter over her face, or even a new born panda sneezing and scaring the living daylights out of  Mumma Panda, just remember, YouTube is as informative as it is bizarre!

Written by Kerry.