Embroidery

This embroidery is a work in progress, I started it not long after L was born and have been doing a little bit in between other craft projects and studying but now I'm determined to finish it before she's 2!

M has nearly finished the bodice of L's dress, she did complain that dress making was a lot harder than she thought and I make it look to easy! Not sure if I do but in her eyes I do, mind you she has had to learn to read the instructions on a paper pattern which is not always an easy thing.

I have nearly finished this playsuit for L, I fell in love with the fabric but hubby says the print and outfit make her look like a clown! I will reserve judgement and wait until I've finished sewing the button holes and buttons and then see what she looks like in. Hopefully a pretty outfit that will keep her cool if we have some hot weather.

In the garden our new raspberry canes are looking very healthy, we planted 10 new canes, we love fresh raspberries so hoping these will do well. Unfortunately the ones we planted up the allotment, several years ago didn't do well at all, not sure if it's because we made the mistake of planting them in the same place the previous allotment tenant had his or just not healthy canes, who knows. All our seedlings are coming along nicely, won't be long before we have a momouth session of planting out.

Crochet Nesting Bowls

A few weeks ago a friend of mine posted some pictures of some lovely crochet nesting bowls she had made and the link for the pattern. After seeing her pictures and having just had a sort out of my boxes of yarn, I thought these would be a lovely way to use up some of the odd balls of yarn I have left. I have only ever crocheted blankets and Christening shawls before so this was something new to try. I was really pleased with how they turned out, only just had enough orange yarn to make the orange bowl. Why after years of knitting etc do I still feel the need to knit/crochet faster if I am running out of yarn?  I know it won't make the yarn go any further but I still have a tendency to do this!

                               

They love to play with the bowls, sorting out our glass pebbles or our tub of brightly coloured buttons, so these crochet bowls are a nice addition to their play. They spend ages putting them into different bowls, tipping one bowl into another, generally having lots of fun.

These bowls have been a huge hit and I am so glad I decided to make them even if it did mean I left another knitting project half done to make them.

Farm Trip

We are really enjoying the lovely weather, even more so as hubby has this week of work. We had hoped to have a couple of day trips but you can never really plan the weather.

Our trip on Monday was to Bucklebury Farm. We made the most of the sunshine and explored the nature trails, spotted a couple of pheasants. My children love to spend time watching animals, doesn't matter what, they just love animals.

We decided to take the tractor ride round the deer enclosures, so they could see them up close

As we leaving the tractor ride area, the driver asked why L didn't want to feed the deer, apparently she was the only one that hadn't, explained about her allergies and was unsure what was in the feed. Apparently he had never been asked about the feed but was of to read the labels so he would have the answers if he was ever asked.

M was very happy that she was able to feed a lamb, luckily L was more than happy to held and watch the feeding.

Ice Decorations

This is something we did last week, the children loved decorating the tree and watching the sun catch the coloured ice. This something I would normally do in winter, especially if we had snow, as the coloured ice against the white snow is truly beautiful but I thought why not try it in the Spring. The day was sunny but not too hot, didn't want the ice melting too quickly! We had been looking at blossom and how pretty the trees looked so I thought this would be a good time to decorate the tree and watch the coloured ice slowly melt.

I had frozen various heart and flower shapes, my soap moulds etc came in very useful, I had put a length of string into each mould so the children could tie their piece onto the tree.

The children enjoyed decorating the tree and then watching them drip as they started to melt. Seeing how the ones in the direct sun melted quicker than the ones in the shade of the tree.

I had one littleone that loved to go back to the ice decorations and feel the ice and then say "cold" and giggle and smile at everyone.

Easter

We made the traditional chocolate nests with shredded wheat

and then we made some syrup crunchy cakes, as we have a variety of food allergies here.

Golden syrup Crunchy Cakes

20g sugar

80g rice krispies

25g maragarine

25g golden syrup

1- Melt the margarine, sugar and golden syrup in a pan over a low heat.

2- When melted stir into the rice krispies and spoon into some paper cases.

We had our traditional Easter egg hunt, I have had some plastic Easter eggs that I have used for many years now, it is always a big hit. They must of enjoyed it as they asked me to hide them again and again!

After lunch we decided to make the most of the lovely weather and I made up some more giant bubble mixture and we all had fun taking it in turns to blow some large bubbles.

We also spent time reading this Easter story and watched this version of the Easter story, there was lots of questions and comments as the minded children remembered some of the bits they had learnt at school. The next day I asked the children what they remembered of the Easter story. I used some story cards I printed from the twinkl website

to help them to put the Easter story in the correct order. We talked about Passover, who celebrates it and why, as well as why Palm Sundays is called Palm Sunday.

 For our Easter crafts we marbled some polystyrene eggs and I was left wondering why out of 5 children was I the only one who came away with stained fingers?

I took the children to an Easter club activity session and the made these eggs with a chick inside and some very tasty pizzas.

Window Decorations

As you have probably gathered I love working with kite paper and making various window decorations. I thought I would make something different from the traditional window stars that I had been making, so I tried making butterflies and tulips for Spring.

To make these window decorations, you will need some kite paper and glue, you can use tissue paper but I prefer the kite paper.  I used purple, pink and green for my butterfly, cut each sheet of kite paper into 4 squares.

Fold 2 pink and 2 purple in half, as shown in the photo below to form a centre crease.

 Fold in the outer points to the crease line and stick with a small dab of glue.

Then fold a small triangle down from the top and glue. Fold the bottom left tip and glue and then the bottom right tip and glue, it should hopefully look like the picture below. Repeat this to make the 4 wing parts of the butterfly.

For the body repeat the above steps but miss out folding down the top tip, so it should look like the photo below.

Then fold the outside edges into the middle again and glue in place.

Assemble the wings and glue the points together.

Then glue the body to the middle of the butterfly.

The tulip was made in very much the same way as the butterfly, take 3 squares of paper. Fold them in half to create a middle crease and then fold the outside points into the middle and glue, then fold the bottom points in and glue, repeat for each of the 3 pieces and it should look like the photo below.

Glue the petals together.

Repeat the process in green paper for the leaves.

Then fold the other ends into the middle crease and glue.

                                      

Then make a stalk, the same way as you made the butterflies body.

Glue together.