10th Birthday

In our house we celebrate going into double figures as an extra special birthday. So my M turned 10, we had a party, it was a big success and remarkably relaxing, mind you she had planned everything before hand and presented me with a to do list for the day, just in case I forgot anything! Luckily our to do lists were the same, so both happily crossed of our to dos together. So our morning past with very organised birthday prep and I don't think we missed anything out.

She had originally said she wanted a craft party but then couldn't decide what crafts, so when I suggested cake decorating she loved this idea. So she and her friends created her birthday cake.

I was very pleased with how the cake turned out.

I baked 10 butterfly shapes, one for each year of her life, actually I made more than 10 as I thought my minded children would love to decorate some on Monday.

I then iced them all with white icing the night before,

Then I collected up a mixture of edible icing pens, tubes of icing gel and a mixture of sprinkles, so on the party day the girls could all decorate a cake each.

Then all 10 butterflies were arranged on a blue board to represent the sky and a candle was put in each cake, everyone loved the result  and a very happy birthday girl :-)

We also had a lovely birthday tea and some yummy home made bread and for the puddings we had mixed fruit and I made a couple of homemade fruit jellies, couldn't resist a photo, they were lovely and so easy to make.

So a big thank you to all our friends that made her day so special and to my lovely minded children for making today special as well.

Ice Chalks

At last we were finally been successful with our ice chalk recipe. It has been a bit of a trial and error, the first lot separated and we were left with a watery layer on top of the cornflour, second lot went lumpy, third lot too thick,  so on our fifth lot we got it just right :)

So to make these beautiful chalks, you need to boil some water first (you need hot, not boiling water as you'll get the wrong consistency).

In a jug add 7 heaped tea spoons of cornflour and blend with some cold water to a very thick paste.

Then make up to 200ml with the hot water and stir, you should have a lovely thick white mixture, that doesn't separate or goes like cornflour gloop.

Pour in an ice cube tray and mix in your food colouring.

Place in the freezer, when frozen, pop out of tray and have some fun. Please note for some reason unlike the ice paints and home made finger paints this will stain fingers.

The ice chalks will slowly melt, so some patience is needed to begin with and when they have finished and the water has evaporated you are left with lovely chalk pictures. The children were really interested in the different textures you felt as the ice chalks slowly melted. Another lovely creative, cooling activity for a hot day and all ages enjoyed.

We did discover that to get the best from the chalks, it's best to use them when the patio is hot, as the chalks melt better as you can see from the different pictures.

Bunting

Well M and I have had a lovely couple of days sewing, having sorted out the fabric scraps for the patches on the tent the other day, I decided we could use some of the fabric to make some bunting, something I've wanted to do for a while. So today we did and we are very happy with the results.

My triangles were 20cm wide by 22cm high, that seemed a nice size once you have sewn the seams. We made just over 3 metres of bunting.

We spent a while deciding which fabric and in which order they would use, which took a while as L  liked to take pieces of fabric to play with.

We then cut out 2 triangles in each fabric

and sewed them together along the long edges, don't sew across the base as you need to turn them inside out.

M busy sewing, she really has got the hang of sewing nice straight lines.

We then pressed each triangle and then pinned them to some bias binding,we used some that was 25mm wide and spaced the triangles 3cm apart.

Edible Finger Paint

My littlest ones has discovered the joys of mark making but also likes too put everything in their mouth, so this is a very simple home made paint that is ok if they eat some of it!

                                                    Edible Finger Paint

                                                    1/4 cup or 40g cornflour
                                                    1 cup of water or 280ml
                                                    food colouring

Place cornflour and water in a pan and heat, it will start to thicken, go slightly translucent and come away from the side of the pan, as soon as the translucent streaks appear, turn of the heat,  just remember to keep on stirring and it will thicken.
Then pour into your paint container and add food colouring

Ice Painting

Ice painting a perfect creative activity for a very hot day :) Mind you when I picked up the minded children from school and they asked "What are we doing today", they looked at me a bit funny when I answered with ice cube painting but there were smiles as well.

The night before I prepared an ice cube tray filled with water and mixed in different food colourings, it was then put in the freezer.

After 30 minutes they were beginning to freeze and after an hour most were ready to have an ice pop stick put into them and it would stay up.

When they first started  they only got a scrapping of colour

but as the ice slowly melted the colours began to flow

 to produce some lovely pictures, the children really liked the way the paint merged and spread out across the paper.

I loved the muted colours

Pirates and Treasure

We had fun in the garden, making use of our tuff spot, sand and water to create a treasure island, complete with pirates and treasure chest.

They the decided, it needed a castle too, so out came the sand castle moulds

but it wasn't long before the discovered how much fun could be had by rearranging everything

and creating a new scene

then they discovered that really wet sand is great to go walking in!

treasure island is no more but lots of fun had.