A super easy idea I originally saw in the supermarket. No need to pay lots of money for a kit when you can easy make them yourself at home.

Ingredients:

• Card
• Rice crispys
• Chocolate
• Icing sugar
• Decorations
• Paper straws

Instructions:

• Make a cone shape from your card securing with sticky tape.
• Melt the chocolate and mix together with the rice crispys. (I used the chocolate ones so they were the same colour as the chocolate)
• Pour the mix into the cone and place a paper straw in the base. Lolly sticks would work just as well.
• Set in the fridge for several hours.
• Remove the paper cone and decorate. I used white icing as tinsel and little round decorations as baubles!

You can change the size of the trees depending on the size of your cones. Try mini ones without straws!

I bought one of these amazing lens pets from Mandee Franee in the US earlier this year and it is a great way to help your children look at the lens instead of gazing over the top at you! They are great for distracting little ones and if you use bright colours or black and white for newborns, they can focus a child's attention towards the camera. There are lots of versions on Etsy and you can make a basic one with an ordinary old hair scrunchie. Who knew you could recycle an old hairband into something so fab! You could make a mini one for a compact camera by using a smaller scrunchie.

Simply tie your pipe cleaners around the top of the scrunchie into antler shapes. I used 2 pipe cleaners per antler.

Glue your wiggly eyes and pom pom nose to the space between the antlers and you are good to go!

I would definitely recommended the more professional versions though, I made a reindeer especially for the festive period but have my eye on this little baby on my new year wish list if I get some Christmas money!

I found this great photo checklist on Simple as That blog. Wow - I know I take a lot of photos but I think there may be a few I have missed! If you want to download it go to the blog post here.

Don't take any notice if family members roll their eyes when you are constantly snapping away over the festive period. You can't get these times back and photos are the most wonderful way to capture those happy memories!

How sweet are these! Amazing what you can do with tubes of 3D fabric paint and a chopping board. There are a few US tutorials on Pinterest using parchment paper but I can tell you grease proof paper does not work!

Best to draw your shapes free hand onto a plastic chopping board and leave to harden for at least 24 hours. (You would be amazed how long this stuff takes to dry!) I added some glitter to the Santa beard for extra sparkle!

We had so much fun and you can reuse them over and over again. Just peel off and stick to a mirror or window.

We went outside and they peered through the windows!

Afterwards we came inside and stuck them to a mirror and learnt all about our reflections. Did you know it is often not until a baby is 2 years old that they will understand the baby in the mirror is actually them! A developmental milestone! You can test your baby (just for fun!) by putting a mark on their face like a red nose with lipstick, if they see themselves and touch their nose, recognising they can see the lipstick mark, they understand it is a reflection!