Two of the things that we love to do as a family are crafts and getting outside and into nature. So the Mud and Bloom seasonal nature craft and gardening boxes sounded great to me. I loved the concept of combining nature with crafts and that someone else would have thought of the idea, got all the bits together and provided us with everything we needed. Usually when we are going to do crafts I scroll through Pinterest and find something that the kids want to do only to realise that we don’t have the right card or glitter; cue an expensive craft shop trip and kids who have lost interest before we even start. And so the Mud and Bloom subscription boxes totally appealed to me and I was delighted that they gifted us their November box to try and review. They have also given my readers a 15% discount until 11th December so check out their website www.mudandbloom.com
Mud and Bloom Gardening and Nature Craft Box
I actually opened the box when it arrived whilst they were all at school so that I could see what the activities were and make sure I headed off the kids just ploughing in and creating chaos. The boxes are aimed at age 3-8 years and so are just perfect for the tribe here as they are 3-7 years old. At the weekend I finally revealed the box and its contents to the kids and they couldn’t wait to get started so it was welly boots on and out to the woods to collect the bits and pieces we needed from nature. This was great as all the kids could get involved. The girls were busy collecting leaves and the boys were engrossed by the mushroom search. Since we live in London I was amazed that we managed to find examples of all of the mushrooms. We had had a particularly rainy few days in London so we loved a reason to get everyone out and about. They were muddy and messy, but very happy to be outside.
Each of the boxes are created by qualified teachers and support the national curriculum with influence from Forest School, Steiner and Montessori education. They contain seeds or in our case, bulbs to plant, instruction cards for each activity, 3 craft activities with all of the necessary glue etc… and a quiz/ spot it card.  In short there is loads to do. With the trip to the park and doing the crafts I think the kids got around 3-4 hour of fun out of this. It was great for us as different activities appealed to our different children and their ages/ abilities for example our eldest loved doing the peg people, but my younger son found that too hard and had way more fun planting crocus bulbs and pressing leaves for the lantern.  All in all there was something for everyone and for £7.95 per month including postage I think this is more than worth it.
What craft activities did we do?
- Peg People – we made people using pegs, twine and the things we found on the common. The kids loved the outcome of these so much that they have suggested that we refresh the poeple’s clothes in a few weeks, add some glitter and include these on the Christmas tree.
- Leaf Lanterns – we are still working on these as they involved collecting and pressing leaves and then sticking them onto the provided paper and using their template. I think they will look really effective once they are finished and the kids loved the look of them.
- Pine Cone Owls – we happened to have some fabulous large pine cones collected in the summer so we are very happy to have something to do with them and my 3 year olds were very engaged with doing this. We cut out the shapes for them and then they were able to do this largely by themselves
What do I love about these boxes:
I love that they are craft activities in a box and that they come with everything you need apart from what you will find in nature (and perhaps a pot or two for planting). I love that the box fits through the letterbox and that the instructions are really easy to follow.
I also love that it is suitable for the differing ages of my children so that we can all get involved and most of all I really love that it gets us out into nature with a purpose and engages us as a family with outdoors. I love that the box includes something that they can plant in the November box this is crocuses. It will be great to watch them grow. Finally I love the price as I think it is great value. We were gifted this box, but I will be subscribing as I was so impressed with how much we all got out of the experience of using the Mud and Bloom November box.
