I remember back in the distant days of the 1970s when kids were used to making do at Xmas time, there was no expectation of a new games console, a haul of DVDs or even a new mobile phone. No, life was simple and if you didn’t have money to spare you could use your craft skills and make something instead.
How times change, eh? Whilst I’m not suggesting that parents suffering from the fallout of the credit crunch should resort to walnuts and tangerines to cheer up their offspring come December 25th, there are certainly many things you can do to cut back on Christmas holiday spending costs.
It’s obviously a problem shared as there’s a whole forum thread dedicated to how to tell the kids Xmas is being scaled back on Martin Lewis’ MoneySavingExpert website.
So if you’re looking for DIY craft gift ideas why not embrace the western theme (you’re reading this blog after all) and try your hand at creating a Covered Wagon Pencil Holder, an Old West Memo Holder or a Cowboy Can Cooler.
MakingFriends.com has some superb ideas for kids and anyone who enjoys creating a hand made gift - best bit is they also ship to overseas customers. If you can’t wait though there’s always the UK high street specialist HobbyCraft and their ideas library.
Happy gluing!
If you’ve got kids you’re bound to have heard of Steve Cole, the creator of Astrosaurs, a funny space-meets-dinosaurs series of books. My son (and many of his friends) will read those and Horrid Henry books for fun and have recently started getting into Cole’s other series ‘Cows in Action’.
Cole has combined the intrigue of spying (the ‘CIA’) with the magic qualities of time travel allowing him to set the books in any period of history he fancies. So I have to mention this entry into the series: Cows in Action: The Wild West Moo-nster.
If you’ve seen the movie Timecop featuring the mulleted Jean-Claude Van Damme you’ll understand the perils facing a world living with time travel technology. It’s a million times more dangerous than what’s portrayed in Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure!
I’ll leave the Amazon.co.uk reviewer to reveal the full threat in this book, just to assure you it’s child friendly and bound to appeal to 5 to 7 year olds:
Professor McMoo is a very clever cow - so clever, in fact, that he has managed to build himself a time machine from discarded farming machinery. He and his two cow friends, Pat and Bo Vine live on the Barmer farm, in fear of the hideous farmer’s wife, Betty. But they are also star agents of the CIA - Cows in Action, a crack team of cow commandos! In the future, cows live peacefully with humans as equals, not as food. But some cows in the future try to use the technology of time travel to interfere with history - and the Prof has to help stop that!
It’s a goldrush! The CIA have been sent back to 1860s America where a ter-moo-nator and his shifty sidekicks are trying to get their hands on all the unclaimed land in the Wild West. With all the local cattle going missing and a sinister monster on the loose, can McMoo, Pat and Bo stop the FBI and save history as we know it?
Top titles by Steve Cole:
