Christmas Butter Biscuits

You know why I love baking? 

It always makes my clients happy. The feel that they can use their hands again and also they will taste after a few minutes what they made. Most of them feel very proud of theirselves. 

Even if they don't remember what to do with your sapport they will feel satisfied. Give them to break the eggs, to mix or decorate. You will be impressed how many great things they can do! 

For this simple receipe you will need: 

• 100 gr butter
• 100 gr icing sugar
• 1 egg 
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 300 gr all-purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp soda
• 1 tsp salt

Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees. Cream together butter, soda and sugar. Add egg and vanilla and mix well. Beat in the flour and salt.  Roll out dough between 1/4 and 1/2 inch and cut into shapes. Bake on ungreased cookie sheet for 15 minutes or until very lightly browned on the bottom. 

If you want to decorate them you can make some icing etc. 

Colouring Pages - Make your self-portrait!

Colouring pages is a childish activity. Mainly the colouring pages showing cartoons and comic characters. I am always trying to find cars for the men such as BMW or old fashion cars and for the women animals f.e cats. Sometimes if their vision is not good I will try to find a colouring page that shows only one thing and doesn't have many details. Complicated drawings are "crowded" and hard to see for people with problematic vision. 

An idea that I had is to take a picture of the elders, edited on a computer and give it back to them to colour their self-portrait! This can also be a good idea for birthday cards! 

Many of the elders liked that idea, colouring their self-portraits!

You'll need:

• Paper
• One picture - portrait
• A printer
• Photo editing software such as Photoshop or even Microsoft Word. 
• Crayons, colour markers or pencils or watercolours 

Instructions: Scan the picture and take one with a digital camera. Open microsoft word, or photoshop and use one of the filters to transform the picture to a comic picture. There are also some oneline services that you can use. such as: http://www.befunky.com/ , http://www.cartoonize.net/ . 

As soon as you cartoonize the picture, print out the image and start the colouring! 

P.S Please feel free to contact me to help you with the software! 

Glass case with felt

I am always trying to find art and crafts activities that the outcome will be something useful for the eldelry. That's why I am suggesting those glass cases since most of the elders wearing glasses. 

You'll need:

• Felt
• Scissors
• Needles
• Cotton
• Bits and pieces for decoration 

Instructions: Cut a square piece of felt as long as your glasses are. Sew the bit and pieces that you will use for decoration. Sew the three of the four sides. Your glass case is ready!!!     

Halloween Pumpkins

You'll need:

• Paper plates
• Orange and Black paint or water paint 
• Corrugated Green paper 
• A stapler

Instructions: Paint your plates orange. Cut your corrugated paper in leaves shapes. As soon as the plates are dry, paint scary faces and use your staple to staple on them the green leaves. 

Halloween Ghosts

You'll need:

• Silk maple leaves, or other similarly shaped leaves
• Black and white oil paint or water paint 

Instructions: Paint or your leaves white and as soon as they will dry you can draw different scary faces with the black marker. 

You can staple the leaves on a ribbon and create Halloween girlandes. 

P.S If you collect the leaves and they are wet, try to dry them. You can leave them for a few hours on a radiator for example.