Spending more time at home is a brilliant opportunity to learn new skills, read more books, and have more fun with the family. So we asked our teammates to see how they’ve been busy indoors, and to ask what activity tips they have for keeping happy, staying healthy, and getting creative with their bonusprint photo products.
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Have a daily workout
Everyone we spoke to for this blog agreed that keeping active is a very important part of their day. Afke, one of our Senior Recruiters, likes to start her mornings with a YouTube yoga class and then takes a walk during lunchtime. Getting out for a brisk walk or jog is great, but you have to be a little bit more creative when you need to get the kids exercising too. To get the kids involved, Customer Care Operations Manager Ann and her family tune into a live workout with a trainer on YouTube. It’s an easy way to keep kids of all ages active and engaged.
Explore online storytelling
Our Senior Graphic Designer, Camille, has found online audiobooks a great way to enjoy bestselling novels with her daughter. They’re ideal for keeping the kids occupied when you need to carry on with other things around the house or when you just want to sit back and relax. And with some children’s authors reading their own books, the kids can really get a feel for the story — plus, it’ll save you having to worry about putting on a whole book’s worth of different character voices. But if you’re stuck for ideas on which book to listen to together, our Lead Quality Engineer, Sajnikanth, also told us his eldest child discovered a clever trick with Google Home. Simply say, “Hey Google, tell me a story”, and the home system will read one out for you.
Get cooking
Whether you’re looking to cook whole meals or simply bake some delicious bread at home, getting creative in the kitchen is a great way to switch off and relax. And providing you don’t mind the mess, cooking with the whole family is a really fun way to get the kids exploring new ingredients and learning new skills too. If you’re looking for some kitchen inspiration to get started, then Mischa, who works in the Brand Team, and who’s finally getting around to reading all the cookery books he’s bought, recommends ‘The Food Lab’ by J. Kenji Lopez-Alt.
Create a photo book of your family holidays
Your last holiday might feel like it was a long time ago — all of our holidays certainly do — so why not get creative with the pictures you took on that last family getaway and make a photo book together? Upload all your favourite snaps, then you can add in borders, frames, text, and try out multiple layouts to create a perfect book of your trip. Our editors are so simple to use you can even get the kids involved too, so give everyone their own pages to design and make it a full family effort. For tips and ideas on how you can make your photo book extra special, check out our handy guide here.
Get creative
When you find yourself at home with more time than normal it’s a great opportunity to get creative. There are plenty of free tutorials on YouTube to help you learn new skills, whether you’ve always wanted to try your hand at magic, give calligraphy a go, or pick up Photoshop. You can always get creative offline too and make art with the little ones, try sewing or knitting your own clothes, or build something with the kids. Wendy, our UX Designer, helped her daughter design a cosy living room fort, which wasn’t only a great bonding experience, but it’s given her daughter somewhere to enjoy her own personal space.
Stay connected
Although we can’t always see each other face to face, there are so many easy ways to connect via video chat, from using your smartphone to chatting to lots of people at once on your computer. Jean-Philippe, who’s our Head of Data, Analytics and Pricing, has been showing his four-year-old how to video conference with his friends so they can talk about the trucks they’ve drawn. Remember that staying connected is an offline thing too. There are so many ways to offer support in your neighbourhood, from making sure to buy from local stores and restaurants to keeping an eye out for your community. Marieke, our Product Marketing Manager, for example, has been making sweet notes and drawings for her older neighbours to brighten their days.
Play a game
If there’s one thing that families know how to do it’s to play games. You can take over the whole house with a classic game of hide and seek or get around the table and play a board game. To soak up a bit of sunshine, you could even take the games to your back garden or balcony. Our Plant Controller, Jo-an, has installed a dartboard in their garden to have a little bit of family fun in the fresh air.
Stay organised
Keeping a daily schedule is a really good way to ensure you’re getting the most out of every day. It’s also a handy visual marker to have in the house so everyone knows what they should be doing. Ticking things off it is also a great feeling. Jessica, who’s a QA Engineer, has cleverly utilised bonusprint’s acrylic wall art as a planning board for the upcoming weeks. By turning it into a personalised whiteboard, she can keep tabs on the tasks she’s set for her kids. Another great idea, this time from Audrey in our Country Marketing team, is to make a list of activities to complete each week and make sure to do one of them per day. By creating a list of fun things like painting, baking cakes, playing games, and self-care sessions, she’s ensuring that there’s always something the whole family can look forward to every day.
Clean the whole house
Now’s the perfect time to have a proper spring clean of the whole house, a particular room, or even that wardrobe you’ve been meaning to do for a while. One of our Content Specialists, Gabriele, says that he’s finally had the time to clear up and reorganise his balcony. Or maybe it’s time to give the walls in each room in your house a fresh, new look; you can create fantastic wall art in a range of sizes and finishes with bonusprint. It’s such a simple way of brightening up a space without spending all your free time redecorating — just check out this guide for making the best wall art for every room to see how it’s done.
We hope that these tips from all of us here have sparked some ideas for you to get creative with your bonusprint photo products, pick up some new hobbies, but most importantly, to keep having fun and spending quality time with your family. We’ll leave you with this one last tip from Diana on our Country Marketing team, on how she’s dealing with the extended time at home, which is simply: “take it as it comes and make the most of now.”