All posts by Leo

How to Make Snowman Soup

What is snowman soup?

Basically, it’s hot chocolate with a little extra oomph! You make a normal cup of hot cocoa, then add extra chocolate and white marshmallows – which are what give it its name. Some people also add extra milk or cream and just for fun, the whole thing is stirred up with a candy cane. It’s also becoming increasingly common for the raw ingredients for snowman soup to be put together as a gift for people to take home. A snowman soup gift set usually consists of a sachet of hot chocolate; some extra chocolate to stir in, such as buttons or stars or kisses; some white marshmallows; and a candy cane to stir it all up.

If you want the snowman soup poem featured in the video above, click here.

If you want the snowman colouring page featured in the video above, click here.

Snowman Soup Printables

We’ve written a couple of snowman soup poems, both of which are available for you below. We find parents like to print one, roll it up, tie with a ribbon and place it alongside a steaming cup of snowman soup or with a snowman soup gift set. (A snowman soup gift set usually consists of a sachet of hot chocolate, some extra chocolate to stir in such as buttons, stars or kisses, some white marshmallows, and a candy cane to stir it all up.)

 

Please note that the copyright for all our snowman soup poems belongs to Rooftop Post. They are only for your own personal use and may not be used commercially.

 

Top Ten New Printables

Yep, the fairies have been adding new resources again…

…and for all you who want a quick top 10 of the latest printable treats, here they are:

 

Pantry Label: Herbs and Spices
Pantry Label: Herbs and Spices

10. At number ten is a group of resources rather than one, in the form of our Herbs and Spices Pantry Labels.  Not one we were expecting to be this popular, but we’re glad you find them useful.

 


 

Vintage Tooth Fairy Certificate: Award for Losing Your 1st Tooth
Award for Losing Your 1st Tooth

9. One of our new vintage Tooth Fairy certificates, an Award for Losing Your First Tooth is already at number nine, in spite of only having been created a couple of days ago.

 

 


 

Cupcake Wrappers: Pink & Cream Floral
Cupcake Wrappers: Pink & Cream Floral

8. Eighth most popular among our new resources are our Wedding Cupcake Wrappers.  Not that you have to limit their use to weddings, they’re great for any party.  That said, all our best wishes to anyone tying the knot!

 


 

Vintage Tooth Fairy Certificate: Award for Brushing Daily
Award for Bravery at the Dentist’s

7. Another vintage Tooth Fairy certificate comes in at number seven: Award for Bravery at the Dentist’s.  Clearly these types of certificates are going down well.

 

 


 

Cupcake Wrappers: Pirate Treasure
Cupcake Wrappers: Pirate Treasure

6. More cupcake wrappers at number six, of the pirate variety.  Shiver me timbers, we’re glad you’ve enjoyed them.  Arrrr!  

 

 


 

Printable doorhanger to tell the Tooth Fairy there's a tooth ready for collection
Tooth Fairy Door Hanger

5. Number five sees a Tooth Fairy Door Hanger come into the spotlight.  This is an old design recently revamped.  The new style is a great match for our vintage Tooth fairy certificates, so next time your child is expecting a visit, why not bear it in mind? 

 

 


Award for Losing a Tooth
Award for Losing a Tooth

4. Yet another vintage Tooth Fairy certificate has made it into this list at number four and this time it’s the “Award for Losing a Tooth“.  This certificate is useful no matter which tooth has fallen out – a great general Tooth Fairy resource to suit any child.  Don’t forget that if you want to type your child’s name directly onto the certificate, look underneath it for a “personalise” button.  

 


 

Identical tiny Tooth fairy envelopes for teeth and money
Tooth Fairy:
Classic Tooth & Money Envelopes

3. A bit of a surprise at number three with our classic style tiny Tooth Fairy envelopes.  These are great for exchanging teeth for money, though we didn’t expect them to be so high up this list.  Mind you, they sure are pretty! 

 


 

Fairy Certificate of Beauty
Fairy Certificate of Beauty

2. Rising swiftly to number two is another resource from the fairies, our Fairy Certificate of Beauty.  As the certificate says, it’s for girls who are beautiful inside and out – sweetly sentimental and a good one to hang on the nursery wall.  Don’t forget that there’s also an editable pdf version of this resource, which you can type your child’s name straight onto.


 

letter from the monster who lives in your house, saying that he's moving out.
Letter from the Monster in Your House:
“I’m Moving Out!”

1. And finally, at number one is a new resource for all the family – our latest letter from the monster who lives in your house, saying he’s moving out.  We’re not surprised this one has been popular, it’s funny and magical all at the same time. 

 

 

 


 

The Cupcake Wrapper Craze

little-girl-with-a cupcakeHave you noticed?  They’re everywhere.  Turning up at children’s parties, popping out of  picnic baskets, lurking in the bakery sections of the supermarkets…

 

Cupcakes, it seems, are back in fashion in a  big way.  Why?  Well, first they’re small.  You can eat one and you don’t really feel as bad as if you’d had a slice of cake.  Then of course there are the kids.  They love them!  And if you’re feeling brave, (not to mention energetic enough to clear up the mess it makes), you can even let them bake a few.  Finally, there are the little cupcake cases, ensuring a perfect shape every time – not to mention that those too lazy to fetch a plate can use them to catch the crumbs.  Yep, all in all cupcakes are a joy of a snack and they come in so many flavours and forms that it makes your head spin. 

 

kids-party-craft-cupcake-wrappers As if that’s not enough, we at Rooftop Post have recently had mounds of requests for “cupcake wrappers“.  We should be honest here, when we first got an email asking if we had any cupcake wrappers to print, we’d never heard of them.  We had to rush off to Google to find out what they were… and lo and behold, there were hundreds.  And hundreds of people crafting them.  So we got to work immediately and created some of our own. 

 

For anyone as out of touch as we were, cupcake wrappers are brightly coloured strips of paper which you wrap around the case of your freshly baked (or in our case freshly bought!) cupcakes to make them look even more fabulous and delicious than they already are.  They look great at children’s parties and can be very useful say at Halloween or Christmas, when you’re trying to present all your baking within a seasonal theme.

Here’s a list of the wrappers we’ve got to print so far.  If they prove popular, we’ll add more: 

 

 

It’s VERY early days, but the most popular choice by users of this site so far seem to be the fairy cupcake wrappers.  Mind you, we’re guessing this will change with the seasons.  We really hope you enjoy our wrappers and wish you all the best in your cupcake baking endeavours. 🙂

chocolate-cupcakes-in-homemade-cupcake-wrappers 

Kitchen Crafts: Pantry Lables

Pantry labels to print for your kitchen
Kitchen Crafting: Printable Pantry Labels

Hello there…

It’s been a while since we’ve posted, but we’ve been busy in the background making new printables and coming up with new crafting ideas.  The latest additions to this site are a range of printable labels for your pantry.  Great for those of you who like to organise your kitchen… and if the kids are around, you can get them to help.

 

We’ve arranged the pantry labesl into the following categories: 

Flour Labels Sugar Labels Pasta Labels Cereal Labels Oil Labels Fruit & Nuts Labels Herbs & Spices Labels Jam Labels

We reckon we’ve covered most basic pantry items, but if we think of any more we’ll be sure to add them.  Each label has been uploaded to this site as a large high resolution image, so you can resize them to suit your own particular containers and jars. 

 

Which pantry labels are the most popular?

It’s early days but so far, we’ve found that our jam labels have been the most popular… we didn’t really expect that but we hope all you jam lovers out there are finding them useful. 

 

What crafting tools do I need for this?

It goes without saying really, but to use our labels to best effect you will need:

  • a printer;
  • some scissors;
  • and some double sided sticky tape or glue. 

For resizing your labels, most of you will already have some sort of basic drawing or photo-editing package on your computers, but if you haven’t there are plenty of free ones you can download such as Paint.NET, Google’s Picasa, or, if you’re looking for something more advanced GIMP

 

Top Ten Tooth Fairy Printables

People often wonder which of our Tooth Fairy resources are the most popular… and of course, so do we. 

Well, we’ve consulted our stats and here they are, our top ten most popular Tooth fairy printables of all time (or at least for as long as they’ve been around).  They’re in reverse order.  Enjoy.

10. At number ten is this lovely little Tooth Fairy note, “Thanks for Being Asleep!”  We can see why it’s popular, it has a charming turn of phrase and obviously, it’s always good to reinforce the importance of being asleep when the Tooth fairy comes round.

9. A Tooth Fairy Door Hanger has made its way to number nine – the one with the cloudy sky design.

8. It turns out our Tiny Tooth Envelopes are at number eight, which we’re quite surprised about as they are a brand new resource.  The idea here is that you print and make two tiny envelopes, one for a tooth and one for a coin.  You give the first to your little one for his or her tooth, then you secretly replace it with a matching envelope containing a coin.  In our house, it produces squeals of glee!

7.  This “Well Done for Cleaning Your Teeth” sits firmly at number seven.  What can we say?  It does what it says on the can.

6. Our sixth most popular Tooth Fairy printable is this Tooth Fairy Note Envelope.  We love this resource, but those Tooth Fairies among you who have taken the trouble to read through this list might like to know a secret.

5. Another Tooth Fairy note comes in at number five: “Thank You for Another Tooth“.  An obvious choice perhaps, but from our point of view we’re always happy to see we’ve got it right and created something useful.

4. Our “Award for Losing Your Second Tooth” is at number four, perhaps unsurprisingly considering number three.  (We’re glad you’re coming back to us for more!)  Tooth Fairy certificates are always something we’re looking for more ideas for, so we may well now do a couple more for fourth and fifth teeth.

3. At number three is our “Award for Losing Your Very First Tooth“.  This little certificate has long been popular and is a lovely way to commemorate that special first tooth losing moment.  If you’re using this certificate, don’t forget that there’s also an editable pdf version of it, which you can type your child’s name straight onto.

2. This one was a bit of a surprise: “Sorry I Forgot to Pick Up Your Tooth!”  It’s another Tooth Fairy note of course, and we only created it as a just in case resource.  Goes to show you never can tell what Tooth Fairies may need.  (And if you’re a Tooth Fairy who has forgotten to pick up a tooth, take heart, you’re definitely not alone!)

1. And finally, at number one is the all time favourite – our plain old “Thank You for Your Tooth” note.  As far as most Tooth Fairies go, it seems simple is best.

 Top 10 Tooth Fairy Printables in a Gallery:

Want a quick view of all the top ten Tooth Fairy resources above?  Just use the gallery below:

Witchy Wall Spells!

witch-balancing-on-her-broomstickThis is just a quick post for all of you who like to keep an eye out for our latest printable resources.  Once upon a time when our website was young, witches weren’t particularly popular, but since the advent of Harry Potter, we’ve seen demand for them go up and up.  We’ve long had requests to extend our witch-themed printables, but it’s not always easy to know what to make.

Witchy wall spell hoping you live happy ever after.
Witchy Wall Spell

However, this February, one of our illustrators put together a couple of witchy rhymes to print out for children’s bedroom walls.  We’re calling them Witchy Wall Spells, the idea being that you can pop them on a bedroom or playroom wall for a bit of decorative fun.  They’re affectionate, gentle and will hopefully bring a smile to any child.  So far, we’ve got a witchy wall spell for a boy and a witchy wall spell for a girl, but we hope to add more before the end of this month.

As with all our resources, our witch-themed printables have no religious content in them whatsoever and are intended only for entertainment purposes.

Don’t forget… if you scroll down to the bottom of our newest resources, you can usually find a “Download as PDF” button to make printing easier.


 

Latest Free Stuff

artist-drawingLooking for the latest free printables we’ve made? 

 Well, it’s it’s been a bit of a slow start this January as most of the artists who donate resources to this site tend to either be really busy at this time of year or off taking a holiday. 

 However, we do have a few new printables for you to kick of 2013.  We hope, as always that you’ll find them useful and if you want to know which ones we ourselves like best… well, probably those on our new dragon page.  (We also hope to add to these further very soon.)   Anyway, please find our latest printable resources in the list below:

  • Note from the Easter Bunny – This little note will be useful for those of you who are hiding your children’s Easter Bunny eggs around the house for the children to find in the morning. 

 

  • Under the Sea Envelope – We’re not quite sure how this one will be useful, but it’s pretty and we’re sure those of you who like it will come up with something.  It would be an ideal envelope for anything to do with mermaids of course… we don’t have any mermaid stuff on this site at the moment, but it’s definitely an idea to add some, so we’ll bear it in mind. 

 

  • The Alphabet in Dragonish – We love this one.  Just love it.  It’s such a lovely bit of magic  to get the children working out how to write their names in Dragonish and so on.  Great for a rainy afternoon when they’re fed up with colouring in.

 

  • Dragon Friend Certificates – There are two of these, a certificate for a girl and a certificate for a boy.  They’re another of our favourites, such fun for any child who loves dragons.  They look especially nice in a little frame on a child’s bedroom wall.  If you want to type (rather than hand write) the names of your children onto these certificates, make sure you scroll down to underneath the certificates and use the green download button to get an editable PDF.

 

Before we wind up this post, we also want to mention that sady, the Rooftop Post shop has not survived the recent recession.  We will therefore be closing it shortly.  This means that you will not be able to buy full-length story letters for Christmas 2013.  On the upside, we will continue to deliver as many free printables to you as we can.

Don’t forget that instead of having to check on our website all the time, you can find out what new printables we’ve added every couple of months by signing up for our newsletter.


 

2013 – Printables Planned for the New Year

Well, here we are, another new year.  Doesn’t time fly?  Christmas is over, the children are back in school and 2013 is well underway.  So, what new printables are we planning to add to the free area of our site next?  Well, between now and the end of March, we’ll be asking our artists for resources of the Easter kind.  As you may know, all the resources on this part of our website are supplied by volunteers… so we can never be quite sure what they’ll come up with and when, but we’ve definitely heard Easter Bunny Note noises from one or two, and Easter Colouring noises from another. 

What else?  Well, in case you haven’t noticed, we’ve already added “Dragon Friend” certificates and a printout of the Dragonish Alphabet this year.  We’re thinking that if dragony things turn out to be popular, (we can tell via our stats), we’ll look at creating more.  We also want to build up our fairy page, which hasn’t had our attention for a long time, so fingers crossed for that.  

Once Easter is over, we’ll be looking at expanding summer resources of all sorts of course, ready for the holidays.  (Apologies to those in the southern hemisphere for whom that time of year will be winter – we do tend to run to a UK season schedule!)  The most popular summer resources we have at the moment are our Keep Cleaning Your Teeth This Summer tooth fairy note and our Good Behaviour Over the Summer Holidays certificate from Santa, but we plan to add more.  It’s also the time of year we look at non-seasonals such as chore charts and party invitations, so we’ll do what we can there.  Finally, we’re very much hoping we’ll be able to introduce  few “birthday fairy” reources around August – one of our artists has said she will have a go at some – which for us will be a first.

By the time Hallowe’en rolls around we’re usually preparing for Christmas already, but if any of our volunteers send us some spooky resources over, we’ll be sure to add them for you to enjoy. 

And so to the subject of Christmas.  Goodness, at the time of writing (January) it feels like such a long way away!  Still, there’s no doubt that we’ll be adding new printables for Christmas from September onwards, (or indeed tidying up old ones), because we always do.  We hope by then you’ll have had a lovely year, along with your loved ones.

Wishing you all the best for 2013,

The Rooftop Post Team x

P.S.  Don’t forget that if you want to hear about our new free printables, you can subscribe to our newsletter.  We send it out roughly every four to six weeks, so it’s not too invasive.  Also, rest assured we  definitely won’t be passing your email address on to anyone else. 

 

Top Ten Printables

Ever wondered which of our printables other visitors like best?  Well, we thought we’d put together a list of this month’s top ten for you to browse.  We hope you find it of interest.

1. Tooth Fairy Note: Thank You for Your Tooth! – This one didn’t surprise us.  It’s a basic Tooth Fairy note suitable for just about any little one who has just lost a tooth.

2. Tooth Fairy Certificate: Award for Losing Your Very First Tooth – We think this one’s probably so popular because it’s an editable PDF.  That’s to say all you have to do is type your child’s name straight onto it then print it out.

3. Halloween Party Invitation – Ah, well this will be due to the time of year. (Can’t believe it’s October already!)  We suspect it will slip off the top ten list as soon as the 31st has been and gone.  Oh, and while we’re on the subject of all things seasonal, British visitors who like our party invitations might like to check out our Bonfire Night one before November 5th.

4. Tooth Fairy Envelope – Of course, once you’ve printed a note, you need a little fairy envelope.  Makes sense.  Don’t forget though, there are other fairyland envelopes too.

5. Tooth Fairy Note: Lost Tooth – Ok, this one surprised us.  Who would have thought there were so many lost teeth?  Then again, if you think about it, it’s probably pretty common for teeth to fall out at school or at friends houses or just about anywhere where they’d easily go astray. We’re glad this little note’s of help.

6. Tooth Fairy Note: Sorry I Forgot to Pick Up Your Tooth! – It doesn’t surprise us that this one’s popular, it’s a bit of a lifesaver and we’ve used it ourselves.

7. Tooth Fairy Note: Visiting the Dentist – It’s good to see this here.  It’s such a sweet, reassuring note if you’ve got a child who’s a bit nervous about a trip to the dentist.  Always makes us smile.

8. Blank Fairy Notepaper (pink) – Glad to see this in the top ten.  We had no idea if there was any call for it, but it seems quite popular, which is always nice.

9. Santa’s Magic Mirror Writing – It seems that Christmas is creeping in!  We’re sure this one will top the list before the year’s out, it’s always popular.  It’s a magical way to encourage children to be good as Christmas gets nearer.  Clearly some of you just can’t wait… and we don’t blame you!

10. Junior Pirate Certificate – Another editable PDF here, nice and easy just to add the date and your young pirate’s name.  Arrrr!