Kutsuwa Clay Kit Review: Donut Accessories

I wanted to make this clay Donut kit all week, but managed to wait until the weekend. This kit lets you make clay donuts and cakes, and then use them to make key chains and phone charms. I'm looking forward to my move to Korea, when I will most certainly need to charm my phone or risk being socially shunned.

 The contents of the box were similar to the contents of the cake jewellery kit, except this one contained 3 key chains and 2 phone charms instead of the rings and necklaces included in the cake kit. This kit had moulds of different kinds of doughnuts and bakery goods, which were super fun!

This kit make a LOT of doughnuts and I had a lot of clay left over so I experimented with making some  ice creams and cakes with the colours from this kit but using the mould from the previous kit.

I sort of want to use some of the doughnuts to create a doughnut necklace. I've only got one kit left to make: the Cake Accessories kit. After that I'll look at all the charms I've made and decide which ones will become rings, necklaces, phone charms or key chains.

Play Dough Castles

In in my classroom we've been learning about different types of sculpture and today we made this traffic light coloured play dough, with added glitter. I taught the kids how to make castle towers and walls and we all went to town making our own castles (long pointy sticks optional).

 See those yellow things at the front in the picture above? They're protective crocodiles!

Making play-dough models with kids is such a happy way to spend an afternoon and everyone was most impressed with the castle they built.

The Coolest Insects Ever

I often see really cool insects around the school. Usually by the time I go and fetch my camera, they have flown off, but here's a couple that i managed to capture. A beetle and some sort of fly with wings. So beautiful and unlike anything I've ever seen!

Paint By Numbers!

Almost everyone I know attempted a 'Paint By Numbers' set as a child. But I don't know of anyone who has ever completed one. I bought this paint by numbers of a giraffe and am about halfway through beating the challenge. It IS a bit boring, but only in the same way that a jigsaw puzzle is a bit boring (you already know how the picture will turn out).

 I'm DETERMINED to finish it. Anticipate a photo of the finished result some time within the next week and the next month!

Hedgehog Baby Gets Bigger!

Remember my post a little while back about the baby who looks like a hedgehog and who I invited to my wedding? He's back! And look how big he got! Do you still think he looks like a hedgehog? I'm not convinced. I think he sort of looks like a baby!

Bee Bots!

I wish they'd had these when I was at school. Programmable robots called BeeBots! You punch in your directions on the buttons on top, press go, and the BeeBot scoots off on an adventure. You can buy them from Educational suppliers and they cost around 100 pounds each. If you know what you're doing you can make them follow a road map or dance across the room, but most of my class are happy making them go around in circles!

Did you notice all the sweaters? Winter is here! It's rainy and cold and our roof is leaking in four places.

Kutsuwa Clay Kit Review: Cake Jewellery Kit

Whilst in England I was very excited to receive these three Japanese craft kits in the mail. They are all from Kutsuwa, and the idea behind them is that you use fuwa-fuwa clay to create decorations and jewellery. I opened the first kit today and made it in about 4 hours. It was so much fun!

This is what came inside the box: 4 colours of clay, some moulds, ring backs and necklace chains, jewellery hooks, glue, and sparkles. Also an instruction sheet in Japanese, which my husband helped me to read. All you really need to know: after making them let them dry for two days, and when inserting the hooks, put glue on the hook first.

 The kit also required a toothpick (I used a kebab stick) and some vegetable oil to stop the clay from sticking to the mould.

 It was pretty easy: I am sure an older child could do it, like a ten year old. I spent a long time making sure all of them came out looking perfect: the clay is soft, so you can roll it up and try again if it doesn't look beautiful.

After the charms were made I added the hooks and the sparkles. There's a few without hooks: those ones will become rings. In total the kit made 18 mini ice creams/ cakes, which is more than it shows on the box, and pretty much enough to make everything twice.

Now I have to wait two days before transforming them into jewellery: I'll post pictures of the finished necklaces and rings! The next Kutsuwa Clay Kit I make will be the Donut Accessories kit. It really is a great way to spend a rainy afternoon!

Arusha Bombing

I try to keep this blog quite upbeat, but I had to share my sadness over the church bombing this weekend, just down the road from where we live. Arusha is considered to be a safe city, but tensions between Christians and Muslims have been rising in the region and this attack, for which 4 Saudi's have been arrested, follows similar ones in Zanzibar and Mombasa. You can read about it here.

No Internet :(

On Tuesday a man came to my house and cut my internet wires. Apparently the school network is being rewired and it is taking FOREVER. It is certainly not going to be fixed this weekend but I'm hopeful that it will be up and running by early next week.

I'm writing this from my husband's phone. It's been a great week and I have lots of exciting posts ready to go once the internet service resumes. Sometimes living in Tanzania is REALLY ANNOYING in terms of technology: this is one of those times!

See you soon,
Amy x