With Miss M being a huge fan of anything craft related, we were really pleased to receive the new Craft It Up – Around the World book by Cico Books.  The chapters are broken down into continents with themed craft ideas for a selection of countries within each continent.  Each craft is beautifully illustrated over a couple of pages in a high quality book.

With Miss M having just finished her foundation year in school, one of the major topics she covered in the final term was different countries and cultures around the world.  This book gave us lots of talking points and ideas which not only broadened her crafting skills but helped build her knowledge of the world and different countries.

We had a look through and were inspired by many ideas – we have a constantly growing list of ideas that Miss is keen to try from the Greek Paper Crown Wreath, to the Snowman from Finland and the Austrian Paper Dolly Choir.

The idea that Miss M most wanted to try first was the Coins in the Fountain, an idea inspired by the Trevi Fountain, Rome, Italy.  This was quite close to my heart as I had visiting here with daddy before the children were born, so I dug out some pictures and we had a little talk about Rome and Italy and some of the famous sites you can see there.

The idea of this craft is to make Salt Dough (using just salt/flour/oil – all of which we had in the house) and then cutting out some coin shapes to represent the coins that you would normally throw into the Trevi Fountain.  These are then painted and can be used for any sort of imaginative play or for number work – a key thing for Miss M right now as she is learning the basics of addition and subtraction.

First of all we mixed the ingredients to make the dough, then rolled it out before using a cutter to make the coin shapes.  We then used the blunt end of a small paintbrush to create holes and number designs across the coins.  Once completed these were baked in the oven until hard.  Miss M absolutely loved doing this and was totally enthusiastic eager to be involved at every stage.  She did let me help with the numbers but did instruct me what number to put on each coin!

Once the salt dough was baked and cooled we then had the exciting part of painting it.  Miss M decided that she wanted rainbow coloured coins so set to work painting her designs.

Once they were finished and dry, I have to admit that they did seem quite impressive.  Miss M had spent a whole day crafting to create them.  They are quite strong and should last with reasonable play.  Miss M intends on using hers for maths and adding up the numbers on the coins.  She has also laid them all out across the floor to make number lines in order and the five times table.

I love these salt dough coins.  I have never tried salt dough before but am impressed with how easy it was to form a dough, and think that it’s a great idea to bake it to create permanent artwork.  Our coins are brightly coloured and Miss M loves using them to practice her numbers and simple maths.  A great craft that I’d never have done without the inspiration from the book, and salt dough is definitely something you can use to make other crafty pieces.

The book Craft It Up – Around the World is full of inspiration from around the world of things to make that your children will love.  We have a list of things to make next and love that there’s an educational aspect too.  With each new project, is a new country, bringing new topics for Miss M to think about and she is always full of questions about the topic we are covering.  We’ve love the Craft Around the World book from Cico Books and it will continue to inspire us for many further months.

All reviews are my own and my family’s opinions. We are not paid for reviews although we do receive the product to try out and enable us to write the review.