Mrs Rackley
Home is my absolute favourite place to be! Nothing beats that feeling of coming home at the end of a long day and sinking into the sofa, especially when you’ve got the weekend ahead! With summer just around the corner and the lighter, brighter days ahead, here are my favourite fun things to do at home with family and friends:
1.DIY Movie Projector Screen
Build your own at home cinema with a projector, fabric screen (or even a large white sheet) and lots and lots of sweet treats! We used copper pipes and pipe joints from a local DIY store to build an inexpensive frame for the fabric screen – you can find the full tutorial on my blog.
We can now project our favourite movies back to back on the large screen, surrounded by popcorn and sweets. And when we do eventually get some sunshine, the screen is also easily portable to create your own outdoor cinema in the garden – build a cosy area with lots of cushions and blankets for a movie night under the stars.
2.Board Games
Who doesn’t love a board game? We’ve got a small collection that we pull out at gatherings and they always go down well. Our favourites include classics like Monopoly, Scrabble, Twister, Cluedo and recently a bit of Rapidough or Cards Against Humanity (one for the adults only).
If you’re feeling particularly creative, why not create your own? You can find lots of templates online to inspire you.
3.Have a Bake Off
Bake and choose whose cakes taste or look the best. This is a favourite with younger members of our family – have a box full of different sprinkles and icing pens to let their imaginations run wild on the cupcakes or biscuits they’ve helped bake.
4.Hold a Picnic
Put those cakes from your bake off to good use and set up an outdoor (or even indoor) picnic. Lay out a blanket and prepare some sandwiches, cakes, snacks and some tea for an afternoon tea party. If the weather’s not great, hold it indoors and string up some fairy lights instead.
5.Get Cooking
We love to cook! Choose a cuisine and cook up a storm of foods from that culture. Give everyone a task e.g. one makes the starters, while the other starts on the main or smaller tasks like mixing ingredients for younger members. An example would be an Indian food night, we made samosas, lamb rogan josh, pilau rice, saag paneer and garlic naan all from scratch recently with family – our kitchen was chaos, but it really brought everyone together with lots of laughter.
6.Grow Your Own Ingredients
We use a lot of herbs and vegetables in our cooking so have started to grow our own in the garden. Get the family involved and plant your own herbs, fruits and vegetables and make it a collaborative task to look after them and pick them ready to use in your cooking.
We’re not particularly green fingered but have found growing herbs particularly straight forward even for beginners – we’ve got rosemary, thyme, mint, parsley and lemon thyme at the moment!
7.Photo Shoot
It’s not always easy to get photos of everyone together without a special occasion so make your own photo session at home, include some props, pull silly faces and make some lasting memories with your favourite people in the comfort of your own home. You can order photo booth kits online or even download and print them yourself for some added silliness.
8.Spend Time in the Garden
We’ve been working on our garden for the last year and are really looking forward to spending some time outdoors. Get people round for a tasty BBQ on a sunny day or gather round a fire pit to toast some marshmallows on a cooler day.
We’ve also recently invested in an outdoor pizza oven which has been a real focal point for family time – create a pizza topping station and get everyone to make their own pizzas for another fun way to cook together.
9.Pamper Time
Sometimes all you want to do is relax, so do just that! Turn your phones off, warm lemongrass oil, light some candles, play relaxing spa music, dim the lights, stick on a face mask (you could even make your own with recipes online), give each other manicures and spend some time unwinding together.
Follow this with homemade smoothies and practicing some yoga for a complete feeling of zen!
10.Cocktail Making
Practice your cocktail making skills and experiment. Try to recreate your favourite drinks or invent new ones if you’re feeling adventurous. This is also great for younger members with mocktails as they love mixing drinks together like it’s a science experiment. One piece of advice, never add the fizzy elements of the drink before shaking it – it will end up all over your kitchen, as we found out!
