0 Love Books Exchange : The Tantalizing Turtle's Tall Tale :

We received our package from A Spoonfull of ideas - An awesome pairing fitted to the "T" to the non-crafty Bubble Ink. Like we said in this post, A Spoonfull of ideas is one of those crafty-blogs we have been pinning and bookmarking for the simplicity in her craft ideas. The blogger being India based, the craft supplies are also easily available and all her activities seem so doable and are creative too.

We received Turtle's Tall Tale* and 2 activities in our package. 
*Buy your copy here on Amazon or on Flipkart
The Book:
A lovely story by Aimee Sald and illustrated by Lisa Kerr - a story of a turtle who loves exploring in the ocean and is always on adventure journeys. The turtles friends dismiss his adventures and explorations as "Tall Tales", till one day they decide to follow him and are surprised with the Sun Fish . From that day on, they indeed start believing his stories. 

The book with its repetitive text and the bubbling's love for fishes was a great hit. We loved the beautiful illustrations too. 

The Package:
The package was very well planned with 2 activities. 

Make your own turtle with Walnut shells:

We got 4 walnut shells( to give us enough tries to break the shell in exact halves) , green foam, googly eyes and a turtle template to make this one. The Bubble Ink got to eat the walnut too with the bubbling dismissing it , being eager to do the activity. 

With the bubbling so much into googly eyes these days, this activity was an instant hit and she waited patiently holding those googly eyes for me to cut the turtle template. 

Foam sticker activity:
This went perfectly with the theme of the books, with octopuses and fishes as foam stickers to take off and stick on to reproduce an ocean scene. With a little help, the bubbling was all engrossed and finished an octopus and a fish at one go.


A Spoonfull of ideas had it all right with the bubbling - Her love for fishes, her recent fascination with googly eyes and her i-never-get-bored approach for stickers. We loved every bit of the package. 

It was a lovely experience packaging something like this for another kid - a surprise package, that too a one involving books and activities for them to enjoy! This was part of the Love Books exchange 2014. See all other packages here to get do them at your own home. 

See a Sneak Peek of what we sent to On Board the Mommyship -  blogger, story teller and a superb crafter herself - See her work here.

0 Love Books exchange : Sneak Peek - Because it's all Good

We @ The Bubble Ink love books and have been always been a teeny-bit guilty of giving other equally enjoyable things a lesser priority - one of it being Crafts. While we bookmarked and pinned a host of websites - we didn't get down to doing them as often as we would have liked to. One such website was The Educators' Spin On It. We really love how they make books, activities and the whole deal of bringing up toddlers - so enjoyable. The website really creates that vibe in you to get you enthused about kid-lit and craft related with children.

When I came across the Love Books that they have been hosting - I was interested in participating in it even cross country - By making arrangements to deliver and receive my package through close family living in the USA. I wrote to them and to my surprise, they agreed to host an exchange India, provided I get a few interested bloggers in India. [Kim had agreed to host it even if there was 1 other person to play exchange with me]. But, when I have these awesome bloggers in my network like A Spoonfull of ideas, Cuddles and Reads, Parenting Mantras, On board the Mommyship, Chooku Booku and Prajakta - All of them book lovers and most of them even story tellers. It was a super response and the exchange happened for the first time in India with 7 participants.

More than half of the participants were those with whom we have already been exchanging books especially Parenting Mantras, Chooku Booku and Cuddles and Reads. So we wished to send it to the awesome story teller, lovely crafter and a blogger:  "On Board the Mommyship" from Golpo whose blog and articles on Parentous I have been following for a over 2 years. The wish came true, Kim paired me with her.

We love what Golpo is doing - the choice of books, the stories, the craft - the pictures say it all. 

Our package :

The child to whom we are sending the package is around the same age as the bubbling - So we chose to send the book which was an instant hit and is still her favourite. We also believed the book can serve as a great choice for Golpo sessions, if On Board the Mommyship prefers it to be. The choice of the book was an easy one, we were lucky to find a copy easily too. Every day, since the last 1 week - making the package has been at the back of the mind. I had been mentally planning this throughout last week - with each day giving me a new idea. With On Board the Mommyship, being an awesome crafter and a creative story teller herself, we wanted to make it extra special for her. Hope she and her son enjoy the package as much we did making it for her.

Here is a sneak peek of what we sent, We just have one statement to say,
"Because it's all good"

A note of thanks to The Educators' Spin on it for this idea - It is such a lovely gesture making a package like this for a kid! -

Now does anyone want to guess the book!