This special guest post is written by Heather, a teacher and mum of two small boys who blogs over at www.pret-a-mummy.com

All year most children have been looking forward to their summer holidays, indeed most teachers are too! When they do come, it can be really difficult to think of interesting and easy to arrange activities so here are my tips and ideas of what you can do to amuse your little ones this summer.

If you have a garden and it’s nice weather, that’s the obvious place to start! Children love playing in the garden, though sometimes need a little guidance and ideas of ways to play. I like to set up activities to keep them entertained (and stop them arguing with each other!), that are very cheap and easy to arrange. I buy a can of cheap shaving foam from the supermarket and fill a large tray with foam. I then drop objects into the foam and tell the children I think there might be some treasure in there and ask them to help me find it. We also use the foam to practice writing our names and forming letters.  This can of course be done indoors, but think of the mess! Children also love den building in the garden. You don’t need any wood or sticks, you just need a clothes horse and some old sheets. Drape them over the top to make a tent type object, then pop some cushions and pillows inside to make it cosy, if you’re feeling brave you can even have a picnic in the den together! Your children will love seeing you getting into the spirit of things and it will give them confidence to play.

Another fun activity that can also be done in the garden or in the house if it rains is making edible paint! Simply mix together some corn flour with hot water until it makes a thick paste, then add some food colouring and voila! This can be used even by small babies with a clean paintbrush to create a masterpiece. Another idea is to use Angel Delight (or an own brand cheaper alternative) to make properly edible and delicious paint! I ask my children to paint a rainbow, then keep adding food colouring to change the colour as we go along.

Summer holidays wouldn’t be complete without at least one visit to the seaside. Spend the day playing in the sand with your children, building sandcastles and making moats together. Collect some shells and talk about them, look at their appearances as a way of sorting into groups. You can also use shells to create a trail in the sand for another adult to follow, perhaps to buried treasure! You can buy a fishing net very cheaply and use it in some warm rock pools, working out where any sea creatures might be hiding.

If you aren’t near a beach, there are lots of free places to visit around the country that kids love, in fact it’s usually the free places they prefer! We love going for forest walks and bike rides and always take a picnic to save money and hassle. Loads of museums and art galleries are now free though it might be best to just focus on one part of the museum when you’re with children, as they can quickly become fed up and bored.

And lastly, with the Olympics coming up, why not make some play dough (loads of recipes online!) to make your own medals, then hold your own family Olympic games! Get Grandad racing against Daddy, run with your own home made Olympic torch and do the relay race together.

The possibilities are endless for fun this summer and it needn’t be expensive. What your child most treasures is just spending time with the people they love.

Thanks to Heather from Pret-a-Mummy for providing her best tips for summer holiday fun. For more tricks and fantastic products to keep the kids happy, ‘like’ us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.

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Kids go wild for Halloween and jump at the chance to dress up, eat sweets and frighten the life out of aunties, friends and neighbours – which is why 31^st October is a great opportunity to throw a petrifying party! Here are our top tips for creating the perfect eerie atmosphere and showing your guests a ghoulishly good time.

1.       Send out some spooky invitations.

First thing’s first, it’s important your guests know about the party in advance so they have time to prepare. Hallmark.co.uk has a superb selection of Halloween invitations that you can edit and personalise. Tell your friends all about your party by changing the text on the cover or the inside. There’s even the option to upload a picture of your face and transform yourself into a witch or a vampire!

2.       Devilishly daunting decorations.

Transform your home into a haunted house. Keep the kids occupied this half term and get them to help you carve the pumpkins, make paper spiders, ghosts and all manner of spooky trimmings. Dim the lights using coloured sheets, or special Halloween lamp shades and remember to decorate the entrance to your house too so that your hair-raising guests don’t miss the party! Check out this link for some great Halloween craft ideas.

3.       Start the costumes early.

The best Halloween costumes require care and attention, so make sure you start yours early. Search for images of your frightful fiend of choice, and recreate the look using old clothes, spare fabric, bin-liners, toilet roll and anything else you can get your hands on! A great way of achieving that loathsome look is by using face-paint, fake blood and lots of black eyeliner. Most face paint sets come with a how-to booklet with images and easy to follow instructions.

4.       Shocking snacks and terrible treats.

Put on a frightful feast for your ghouls and goblins. Eyeball pasta, vampire blood punch and monster cupcakes are all possible ideas for your Halloween buffet. They’re fun to make with the kids as well. Encourage them to write a menu and supervise the little chefs while they whip up a storm.

5.       Set the mood.

Create the perfect playlist for your party. Make sure you include classic spooky tracks like Michael Jackson’s Thriller to lure in the zombies. The Addams Family and Ghostbusters theme tunes, and I Put A Spell On You are also frightful favourites. You can also purchase creepy sound effects now on iTunes so you can frighten your guests on arrival.

6.       Ghoulish games

 Classic Halloween games such as Apple Bobbing never get old and are a fun, cheap way to entertain the kids at your party. Simply fill the bath with apples and let the kids take it in turns to try and lift them out with their teeth. Make sure you have some spooky treats on hand for the winners! You could also do a witch hunt by making mini cut-out witches, hiding them all over the house and giving prizes to the ones who capture the most.

Visit Hallmark Cards now to browse our petrifying party invitations and creepy cards…

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Here at Hallmark HQ, we love the summertime but understand its hard keeping the kids entertained, so we’ve put our heads together to come up with top things for kids to do this summer. With any luck these activities will keep your little monkeys out of mischief and keep you from checking the calendar to see when school begins!

1. Camping –The excitement of sleeping in a makeshift bed and eating beans from a can may not sound the most thrilling for some, but kids relish the opportunity to roast marshmallows on the fire, set up home somewhere new and go on a bear hunt. So why not pack up for the weekend and set up camp at one of the UK’s family friendly campsites, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/activityandadventure/5323968/Ten-of-the-UKs-best-family-friendly-campsites.html . With beautiful views and cosy pubs camping can be fun for parents too, but if that still doesn’t sound tempting send dad and the kids packing while you enjoy the peace and quiet at home.

2. Make a time capsule – Entertaining the kids doesn’t have to be expensive, making a time capsule is both fun and free. Encourage your kids to dig around for souvenirs, keepsakes and funny photos to build their very own time capsule. Write down the unsealing date and who should be present when the capsule is unsealed. Use an old biscuit tin or plastic Tupperware box to store the memories and make the container airtight. Let the kids find a spot to hide or bury their capsule, just make sure they don’t ruin the lawn! Don’t forget to get your child to write down the location of the capsule and store it in a safe place. NB. This is a sneaky way to get the kids to tidy their rooms too whilst scavenging for mementos!

3.  Nature Trails – Kids tend to fancy themselves as secret agents, snooping in your handbag, listening in on phone calls, relieve them of their detective instincts by sending them on a nature trail or treasure hunt. The Woodland Trust provides a downloadable treasure hunt pack, with trails, scrapbook, scavenger hunts, certificate and even a cut out pirate hat! http://www.naturedetectives.org.uk/packs/treasure.htm  To make a proper day of it bring a picnic, take a rest stop, admire the beautiful views and munch on a cucumber sandwich! http://www.treasuretrails.co.uk/walking-trails.html

 4. Make a herb garden – This may not sound particularly appealing for kids, but making a herb garden can be surprisingly fun and educational too. First get your kids to draw up a plan of the suggested herb garden, let them get creative with colouring pencils and paints. Take the kids to your supermarket and get them to choose their herbs. Remember to check the packet and note their eventual size, so you don’t end up with an overgrown, unruly garden. Mint recovers quickly if your children tend to run riot in the garden, as does thyme which also releases a lovely scent whenever toys are driven over it! Find a sunny spot in the garden and make sure the soil is neutral to alkaline with good drainage, and then get planting! Suggest planting herbs in patterns or so they spell out your child’s name and encourage your kids to take a taste and smell their choices. Remember this can be an on-going project, ask them to trim and water their herb garden and get them to pick herbs for tonight’s dinner. Not only are they helping you with the gardening, but the cooking too! http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/pasta-with-five-fresh-herbs-10000001087106/

 5. Set up a lemonade stand – Bring out the entrepreneurial spirit in your kin and suggest they sell lemonade. Buy plenty of lemons and granulated sugar as well as disposable cups and locate several large pitchers. Help your kids to juice the lemons and combine with cold water, and then dissolve the sugar, adding according to taste. Stir briskly and drop in some ice cubes to keep it fresh. Lend your kids a table and chair and suggest setting up trade at the foot of your driveway or somewhere where lots of people or cars pass by. Make a large sign and price your lemonade and they’re ready to sell! This project will keep your children entertained for days if not the whole summer. Encourage them to go into business with brothers, sisters and friends and to replenish the lemonade supply as the traffic demands, to keep them on their toes!

Finally, if the summers drawing to an end and those last few days with the kids are proving difficult, get them to make a scrapbook of everything they’ve done and all the activities they’ve enjoyed this summer. This should keep them busy enough so you can have a few days to yourself!

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This is a guest post from our Twittermantic Competition Judge William Clarke.

We all love a limerick. Grey-headed grandparents or giggling school girls, it hits the spot. A short, funny, sometimes saucy verse with a  punch in its tail is the perfect poetic form for light-hearted romance. It can also convey some pretty deep and serious feelings too.

With the Hallmark Twittermantic competition proving so popular, now is the time to brush up your poetic skills.

HOW TO WRITE A LIMERICK

This cute verse form has five lines and a standard rhythmical pattern. The best way to learn is from examples. Read the following with feeling:

A romance can turn one to two.
Its magic can happen to you.
A boy and a girl
Once gave it a whirl
And found that their love had come true!

Some parts of words are stressed more than others. The “ro” of “romance” is stressed more than the “mance” part. From the pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables we get rhythm. A good limerick follows the pattern above. Read it slowly and exaggeratedly to find the stresses. They follow a short (u) long (-) sequence: “u – u u – u u – “ for lines 1, 2 and 5. The lines 3 and 4 follow  “u – u u –”

Little variations on this can work but it is good to know the best pattern. For example, the word “once” can be left out of the above without altering the meaning and it has a speeding up effect.

Lines 1, 2 and 3 rhyme with each other and so do 3 and 4. Stick to that and you won’t go far wrong. Try to make the last line witty or unexpected to give it a climax or punch. Reading lots of good limericks stimulates your own writing. A free limerick checker can be downloaded here.

HOW TO TWITTER A LIMERICK

The above verse  has 137 characters and meets the twitter limit of 140. But as always there is a snag. To enter our competition you need to add @HallmarkUK and reply to them with your verse. This takes it to 147. So you can use text speak to reduce the length. This gives your ingenuity a test.

Dropping punctuation and even running the words together can be used if necessary.

@hallmarkcards A romance can turn 1 2 2
Its magic can happen to u
A boy and a girl
Gave it a whirl
And found that their love had come true!

Giving a comfortable 138.

The important thing is to have fun and let your imagination run riot. Then edit your rough draft to a slick, emotionally-potent verse. Strong, genuine sentiment for a loved one should shine through.

TOP TIPS FOR GOOD LIMERICKS

1. make it rhyme
2. give it rhythm
3. emotional content
4. clever word use, puns, alliteration
5. Good punch line
Now lets have some fun with a few examples!

A lover by boat, with devotion,
Had rowed halfway o’er the ocean.
He carried a rose
But it got up his nose,
And caused an almighty explosion!

More can be found on my website. William Clark is the author of "700 Limericks and How to Write Them" and discoverer of the true origin of the word “limerick”.

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