Jumble House Children, Christmas, Crafts for kids, Creativity, Sunday Challenge, toys

Make a Jumble Tuft Toy – The Sunday Challenge

Have you watched our Christmas Movie ?   No?  Then click on the link below: 

    THE JUMBLES CHRISTMAS MOVIE
It features Lizzie Witch, Jumbles the cat and these cute little Jumble Tuft toys. The JUMBLE TUFTS are really easy  and fun to make.  Even very young children will be able to help. 

Once made they can be used as toys , puppets or as  decorations for backpacks.  If a magnet is sewn into the hat or foot they become even more versatile. Why not make some as presents ?  Children will love them especially when they have watched the Christmas movie. 

          Link to video instructions

Above is the link to the video instruction or you can follow the pictures below: 


 

  1. What you need


2.  Cut a piece from the leg of a pair of tights big enough to make the Jumble Tuft body plus Tufty ears. 



3.  Stuff the centre with cotton wool or stuffing from a pillow. Secure each side of the stuffing with rubber bands. 



4.  Make sure you have left some of the stuffing showing to make the Tufty ears. 



5.  Cut shoe laces to size and stick or sew to the back. 



6.  Add eyes and nose and sew or stick on a bit of hair and then the rest is left to your creativity!  Make a little hat. Add pipe cleaners for arms. Feet can be Velcro or bits of tights.  Magnets can be sewn into hat or feet. 

Insert a wooden spoon into the back and you have a puppet!  There are countless adaptations!  

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Jumble House crafts, Creativity, Toy animals, Uncategorized

Sock Creatures and Christmas decorations 

This week’s Sunday Challenge from Jumble House.


What did you make from the six foam balls?

Watch the video by clicking on the link below to see what they made at Jumble House  and to take part in this week’s challenge.

Click here to watch the video

Jumble House Challenges, Children, Creative Thinking Puzzles, Creativity, Uncategorized

Sunday Challenge. What can you make from …….? 

Last week’s challenge was to imagine what it would be like to be very tiny. 

So tiny that you could live in a hole in a tree or crawl into a snail shell. 

See the link below for some ideas of how the Jumbles tackled this challenge. 

Today’s Sunday Challenge

Jumble House Children, Creativity, Sunday Challenge, thinking

Imagine …..l


SUNDAY CHALLENGE

Imagine what it would be  like to be really small.  So small you could make your home in this empty snail shell.

Or under a rock or in a hole in a tree.


Where  would you sleep ?  What wouid be your table?  Your cups and plates?
How can you create this imaginary world?

Will you write a story or a poem or perhaps make a model or paint a picture.?

Watch the video below for more  ideas:
IMAGINE ……………

Jumble House Creativity, Food, Recipes

Maisie’s Ragu with Pici


Ingredients: 

For four starter sized portions.

400 Grams of lean mince (mixed pork and beef is best) 

One packet of pancetta (smoked is best) 

Handful of chopped mushrooms 

A jar of tomato passata or a tin of finely chopped plum tomatoes or make your own passata by blending a large tin of plum tomatoes

A couple of bay leaves and two teaspoons of oregano  

One stock cube ….if needed 

A stick of celery (only if you like the taste of celery!) and a large red onion

One large or two smaller cloves of garlic

Half a teaspoon of nutmeg and a teaspoon of oregano. Pinch of Chilli . 

A small glass of red wine

Half a cup or small carton of single cream or milk. 

Method: 

Put chopped onion and garlic with the pancetta in a medium saucepan 

No oil needed. Cook on high heat till cooked and good deep pink colour. ..about five minutes

Add meat and cook for a further five minutes on high heat. 

Add everything else except the cream or milk.

Add the wine and then boil for two minutes to evaporate the alcohol.

Add milk or cream and turn down heat.

Put on lid and simmer gently for forty minutes. Keep checking. If it is going dry add more passata

After forty minutes it should be nice and creamy and rich. Taste and season with black pepper. 

If not thick enough add tomato purée. 

Bring a large pan to the boil. Add a teaspoon of salt.

You will need about 2/3 ozs  of Pici per person as a starter.

Drop Pici in bubbling water for about fifteen minutes. Keep testing.

When al dente transfer directly from water into the pan of sauce. Stir gently and heat for two minutes until the pasta is well coated.

Serve with grated Parmeasan cheese. 

Enjoy! 

You can watch this being made here:  ( please subscribe to our channel!) 

Maisie’s Ragu and Pici


Do visit our channel for more delicious recipes and art and craft and science and travel and …………… ! 

The Jumbles Channel

Jumble House celebrations, Crafts for kids, Creativity, Halloween, Uncategorized

Bewitched Halloween Party Bags 

Make  these fun (and tasty) witches and ghouls in the blink of an eye ! 

Ideal as decorations and perfect for Halloween party bags. 


All you need are a few CHUPA CHUPS lollies, some circles of fabric,  small elastic bands or hair elastics. 

Instructions: 

 Place the lolly in the centre of the fabric. 


Secure with an elaśtic.  


Stick on a couple of eyes and the ghoul is finished.


For the Witch make a little hat from black card or felt. 

If you want your witch to have a broomstick you can make this from a simple stick of liquorice or a cola stick wrapped in black wool or pipe cleaners. 


We pushed two liquorice  spirals onto the lolly sticks for balance so they stayed the right way up when hung from the beam. This is also a nice touch for those  children  who want to keep their lolly ghoul intact as they can  still enjoy a sweet treat! 

J

Jumble House celebrations, Children, Crafts for kids, Creativity, Early Learning, Halloween, Lizzy Witch

Make a cute Jumble Spider for Halloween

Halloween is only a month away and it’s never too early to start preparing AND it’s fun! 

Make this cute spider for virtually nothing ….  it’s made from a small section of a pair of black tights so you could make enough  for a class of  kids from one pair of tights.  You do need to use the thick 80% denier tights because the stuffing will show through the finer variety.   It took me twenty minutes to make and it can be easily made by a child with supervision. 


1. Cut a section off a leg off the tights and lay on the table.  

2. Put an elastic band around the centre of the four pipe cleaners and then pass through the piece  of tights.


3. Take a small elastic band or hair elastic and wrap it round one end tightly leaving about 1 inch of the fabric free. 


4. Take a big handful of stuffing and push into the centre of the tights.,


5. Secure the loose end with another elastic band or hair elastic.


6. Trim off any excess fabric.


7. Glue on the eyes,  Nose and mouth. Add hair if desired or stick a bit of fluffy stuffing on top. 

8. That’s it! 

Jumble House Creativity, Lizzy Witch, Science

Make a cloud in a jar

What IS a cloud?  Where do they come from?  What do they feel like?  Can you sit on one? Can you catch one ?  

Children ask lots of difficult questions!  

Often they require more than just a verbal answer and that’s when Lizzie Witch comes to the rescue!  The Lizzie Witch Science Programmes explain the most complicated of scientific concepts with easy-to-understand and fun presentations.  They motivate children to ask even more questions, to investigate the world around them and, I hope, to develop a love of science! 

In this programme Lizzie explores the subject of ‘clouds’



                ​​Click here for the science lesson on clouds




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Jumble House Creativity

Too much, too many, too often! 

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This week I have:

  • Eaten far too much Ricotta Cheese !
  • Drunk far too much red wine.
  • Recycled far too many magazines.
  • Used far too much glue
  • Got drenched with rain far too often.
  • Spent too much money at Marino fa Mercato
  • Become weepy far too often!

So, to explain!

The Ricotta Cheese. For some reason Ricotta is a new taste discovery for me. I know this is very strange since I’ve been visiting here for yonks and have owned a house here for fourteen years. But it IS a new discovery and it has turned into a kind of love affair! I can’t leave the stuff alone! I have all these amazing recipes for cannelloni and ice-cream and cheesecake but never get round to making anything. I buy it. Put it in the fridge. Then the next day it’s gone!

 Guilty! 

Recycling magazines? A while ago I produced a Sunday Challenge programme for children demonstrating how to make pencil pots and picture frames from rolled magazine pages. (If you would like to catch up with this just click on the link below)

                  Making a Picture Frame from Recycled Magazines 

Its a very relaxing craft and fun for adults too. I enjoy using the technique to make clocks and yesterday I produced the biggest, craziest one yet! Designed to drive people who love order and symmetry mad and made entirely from the pages of small shiny magazines plus lots and lots of glue which brings me on to the next excess.  Making clocks this way is easier than it looks.  I will post some instructions over the next week. 

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I use ordinary white glue to make the tubes but stronger stuff is needed to stick them onto the board. Where do they make the tubes these days? I know what my husband would say. Somewhere beginning with Ch!! Once upon a time a tube could be carefully rolled up from the bottom to extract the last, tiniest droplet cleanly and precisely. Now? The tube itself gives up the ghost before I’ve even used two thirds splurting glue from a zillion tiny holes all over me and the floor.

Marino fa Mercato! Fellow Trasimenians (is there such a word??) will now have that irritating little jingle going through their heads!   ‘Merino …. Fa ….Mer ..Car …tow! 

For those who don’t know what I’m talking about, Marino fa Mercato is our local big store, tin-shed, ‘magazine’ that sells everything and anything. Cheaply!

I love it and so must thousands of others since the car park is always full. Once nicknamed ‘the fridge’ because it used to resemble one during the winter months, it is like an Aladdins cave. I depend on it for art and craft materials and plants and stationery and cat food and cleaning materials and pots and pans and bedding and gardening things and, and, and …..!

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Unfortunately last Monday they were just unpacking all their Christmas stock and there in font of me stood the cuddliest, jolliest, cutest Father Christmas! He is the reason I spent far too much money at Marino Fa Mercato!

Become weepy far too often? This is probably the fault of Marino fa Mercato too! Seeing all though Christmassey things brought this song into my head.

                                         

               Watch video track of song here.

Its my favourite Christmas song and it always makes me weepy. Why? It’s the nostalgia. I love Christmas. But Christmas is about families and, as the the years go by we lose the people who made those days so special and there’s nothing like a song to bring back the memories. When I listen to Nat King Cole I feel my cheeks hot from sitting too close to the fire. I smell roasted chestnuts and see my dad raking glowing red coals.

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Getting wet far too often?  Well this is partly because of Lizzie Witch . I’m always having to mop up spills and water is the easiest! But this week its the rain, whatever has happened to the weather? These grey, wet, cold days are more reminiscent the North West of England.


 

 

                          The red wine probably doesn’t need any explanation!

 

Jumble House Creativity, Families, Food, Healthy Eating, Recipes

Sugar!!!!!!!!

                     Read the BLOG here.          

We cut sugar out  this week because we wanted to get rid of our coughs and colds.  BUT after reading this very open, informative and funny blog we will be looking at that sweet monster a little bit closer!  We knew that bad bacteria find sugary foods very yummy but there’s a lot more to it than that! 

There’s some great tasting recipes there too.