Tank top to Xmas Tree

This is a tank top that all 3 boys have worn and outgrown. Rather than throwing it away I decided to make it into a festive decoration. So I cut up a vague tree shape and sewed it together and stuffed it and stitched a stick in as a stem. I decorated with some of the buttons from Nan's old button tin. I just want to finish it by drilling a hole into a log round so the stick has a base.

Advent parcels

This year I realised we had so many Xmassy bits and bobs, like books and DVDs and singing creatures and such like, that as an extension from last years advent calendars (where I popped a note in with their chocolate to say what Xmas related activity we would do that day) I would make a whole separate advent parcel calendar.
So this is what we did. I pop a note in the pocket to say who gets to open that day's parcel.
Here is a list of what the parcels are;
1. Chocolate Advent Calendars
2. Tickets to go see Santa
3. Christingles
4. Cards to write for their friends
5. 3 Christmas story books
6. Snowy Night story book
7. Xmas biscuit cutters (for gingerbread village making)
8. Mr Hanky - the Xmas Poo
9. Santa Claus the Movie
10. Xmas Sticker books
11. Star for the Tree
12. Nativity jigsaw
13. Singing Xmas Dog
14. Sellotape for wrapping their presents to each other
15. Mince pie tin for baking
16. Elf DVD
17. Santa hats
18. Pere Noel book
19. Ho ho ho'ing soft toy Santa
20. Stick man book
21. The Grinch DVD
22. The story of the Nativity book
23. The Night before Xmas book
24. Their stockings

Xmas Tree Biscuits

For the School Christmas Cake Sale, the boys and I made these Gingerbread Christmas Trees with smarties for baubles and vibrant green icing.

Mint Choc Chip Cookies (aka Grinch biscuits)

For the School Xmas Cake Stall I made some of this festive version of the best ever chewy cookie recipe (found here). For this version I added some peppermint extract, chocolate chips and a little green food colouring. Bob's your Uncle - Grinch biscuits.

Hama Bead Christmas Tree Decorations

We whiled away a Saturday morning making these festive tree decorations with the Hama beads. They would make great little presents but I can't bring myself to give them away!

Magic Reindeer Food

Another Christmas Fayre/Fair make. This one is an annual make. I made the label myself as I couldn't find a printable that was quite right. They are the usual mix of oats and glitter wrapped in cellophane.

Reindeer Poop & Snowman Poo

Another make for the School Xmas Fair/Fayre. Reindeer Poo, chocolate raisins.

The Snowman Poo is tictacs

I have lost the link for the free printables I used but google it and there are loads! They went down a storm especially with the boys. Toilet humour reigns strong!

Santa's Magic Key

I made these for the school Xmas Fair/Fayre for fundraising purposes. I got the free printable here. It was the nicest one I could find, although a little American with the cookies but I think they went down well.

I bought the keys Wilkinsons. I didn't intend to buy them as I thought I had a whole pile of old house keys from various residences but no idea which! Turns out I don't have as many as I thought. But these decorative keys were quite bargainous and nice and old fashioned and weighty.

Baby Quilts

I have been very, very busy beavering away making a couple of baby quilts for two very close friends who have both had gorgeous bouncy baby boys. Here are some pictures of one of them.

I made it double sided (in the hope they would like at least one side) and used the clouds as the quilting lines.

I saw the phrase 'Eat, Sleep, Play, Repeat' somewhere when Charlie was a tiny baby and it really resonated with me as being exactly what it is all about! I was very excited to find that a new quilting shop opened in Grantham just a month or 2 before we moved here. I found some great fabrics and can't wait to have another reason to visit. 

Blankets as curtains

When I had the idea for this I Googled it and very little came up so this is for anyone who Googles it in the future!
I really wanted to have woolen blankets as my living room curtains. This was because I wanted to bring a little of our Scottish experience with us in our move back down south but also because they were relatively cheap but beautiful quality material being woolen. It also happened that they were exactly the right dimensions.
So, I found these clip curtain rings and just did it and I love the results. I know using blankets for curtains was what you did in the old days when you were too poor for real curtains or just needed a temporary fix but to be honest I think the result it lovely and I will keep them like this as a permanent thing.

Awesome Witches Brew trick

This is the BEST Halloween trick ever. The kids were totally absorbed and in absolute awe and wonder of the magic. Basically you tell them that you bought this bottle of drink from a witch who was selling door to door. (You buy it from the supermarket, It's fizzy, flavoured water and put a free printable spooky label on it). Then you pour it into the cups and by magic each cup is a poured clear but fills the cup as a colour and then the next cup is even more magical because it isn't even the same colour and the next and the next and they are flavoured not just plain water!

The trick is to set the cups out earlier with ice. Hidden under the ice is a tiny dab of food colouring which when the fizzy water is poured over it mixes up and makes the water that colour.

Total awe and wonder - achieved!

Witches broom sweet parcels

As part of the Halloween party, I made the kids some parcels of sweets disguised as Witches Broomsticks using twigs and brown paper.

Milk bottle Ghost Lights

These decorative lights were made simply with repurposed empty (and clean) 4 pint milk cartons. A hole cut in the bottom to feed fairy lights in (about 5 per bottle) and black paper spooky eyes and mouths stuck on with pritt stick.

We got a LOT of trick or treaters and loads of comments on the cool ghost lights!

Cobwebs - snowflake style!

We made some Halloween decorations. I was thinking how to make cobwebs and it struck me that you must be able to make them the same way you make snowflakes at Xmas time.

I spent a while thinking about what pattern you had to cut out, but figured it out in the end. They looked quite effective.

Halloween feast food

Spider bodies (black olives)

Chopped intestine dip (salsa)

Vampire Teeth (Apple and mini marshmallows)

Sick dip (Houmous with bits of carrot and sweetcorn)

Witches toenails (almonds) and Zombie Bogey Dip (Guacomole)

Bat droppings (chocolate raisins)

Snake Pie (snake shaped sausage roll!)

This year's Pumpkins

A Witchy with a Parsnip nose, hat and a green glowstick instead of a candle

The Witches cat with kebab sticks for whiskers, the stalk for the nose and other cut outs for the ears.

These were from designs the children drew on paper and recreated by their Dad's. The staple gun was particularly successful as scar stitches.

Halloween wreath

The husband asked me to make an Halloween door wreath. I didn't have time to go and get anything so I knocked something together with what I had to hand.
I made the ring with aluminium foil then wrapped it in grey yarn to give it a base. I used some black netting and bunched this around the ring using black thread which I then used to 'weave' a sort of spiders web in the centre for the toy spider to live on.
I felt it needed jazzing up a bit and so used orange felt to write the word BOO. Not the greatest effort but better than nothing I think.

4 types of Brownies

This week I had the first true test of my baking, baking for the W.I. cake stall!!!

Oh the pressure!

So I went for something I knew was a winner. Brownies and then I thought I would mix it up a bit and did 4 types:

Roasted Hazelnut (with a dash of Hazelnut syrup, usually used in our Saturday Lattes!)

Mint Choc brownies ( with a dash of peppermint extract and some green food colouring)

Regular Brownies (with white choc chunks)

Mocha Brownies (with some instant expresso powder)

The good news is that the ladies of the W.I. liked them!

A beautiful late summer salad

Personalised papercut wedding gift

Although I am very happy to buy a gift from a wedding list, I think if you are a key participant of the wedding party (like the best man) it is important to give an additional gift which is a bit more personal. I know some of our most memorable gifts where the ones with a home made element.

So I decided to have a go at doing a papercut in the style of Rob Ryan who is one of my current favourite designers. I have been meaning to have a go at papercutting but was sure it would be super tricky. Turns out it is simpler than it looks all you really need is a nice sharp scalpel & a bit of time!

I am quite happy with the result. I hope the bride and groom like it. I have put it in a frame but I don't mind if they just put it in a scrapbook or photo album.

After we have moved I am very tempted to use this technique for the family tree I have been wanting to make for ages. We will see!

Olive leaf wreaths

We are loving the Gymnastics, swimming and the rowing and, well everything about the Olympics is fabulous; EXCEPT, those silly poncy flower bouquets of garish coloured roses which offend me mortally as an ex florist!!!

So to abate this disgust, I made the boys make some much more classy and sylish olive leaf wreaths!

We made them using green sugar paper strips and stuck on leaf shapes, then backed them with some strong (and trusty) duct tape in a circlet the size of their head. I think the boys look so much better than the male Olympian champions of 2012 with their silly flowers. Much more fitting for men (and women- how good are the women!) of such strength, commitment and endurance.

Opening ceremony feast & flag bunting

This was another of our Olympic themed Mummy school activities. We printed lots of flag colouring pages off the internet and coloured them in. It is so impressive how well they absorbed this information and can now recognise at least 25 flags from around the world!

We joined them together with some trusty duct tape and hung this around the (now very sparse due to packing everything up for moving) living room.

This served as a lovely backdrop for the opening ceremony.

The boys got to stay up late and we had a feast with at least one dish from each of the 5 continents represented by the rings;

Prawn toast & bhajis & thai spring rolls for Asia

Chips and Tex mex dips for the Americas

Moroccan cous cous salad  & biltong for Africa

Cocktail sausages and cheese for Europe

Key Lime Pie for Australasia

Mummy school - Olympic biscuits

This weeks topic isn't very original but still worthwhile and very exciting. It is the Olympics.

We have been busy counting down & preparing for our opening ceremony feast, doing worksheets galore, playing some of the many games on the official Wenlock and Mandeville website and learning all about the countries participating , the history of the games and what games are included.

I will post a few of our favourite activities and this was certainly one. Not exactly in keeping with the ethos of health as they are cookies but they are made with wholemeal flour and malt to attempt to make them healthier than the average biscuit.

We used Nigellas cut out biscuit recipe but substituted wholemeal flour and added some instant horlicks powder for flavour rather than vanilla.

I then used my lovely new colour pastes to make the colours of the rings. Did you know the colours are chosen because every flag in the games contains at least one of these colours? 

We decorated them with our friends, learning that the 5 rings represent the 5 continents (although North & South America is counted as one which is a bit of a cheat!)

BBQ flat bread, with piri-piri chicken and black bean rainbow salad

Barbequed flat bread is my new favourite addition to a BBQ supper. And the great thing is you can add stuff into the basic flat bread mix to make variations. This mix included some chilli flakes and dried oregano but the sky is the limit.

This black bean salad was a marvellous success. It was so beautiful, the photos do it no justice at all. The black of the beans made the colours of the coriander, sweetcorn, red and green pepers and tomatoes so much more vibrant.

Summer Mummy School

So successful has Mummy School gone down in our house and so enthusiastic the boys are for me to put the  Bear down for his sleep, that the other day, Ollie came downstairs dressed like this.....

Saying "I'm ready for Mummy school, Mrs Mummy!"

I thought I would post inks to a few of the sites that I have found helpful in providing free worksheets on all manner of topics.
Here is a few of my favourites;
ISLcollective
www.printactivities.com
http://learnenglishkids.britishcouncil.org
http://www.activityvillage.co.uk
http://www.magickeys.com/books/
http://www.worksheetuniverse.com/
http://www.allkidsnetwork.com/worksheets/
http://www.mes-english.com
http://www.homeschoolmath.net/

Homemade Fruit Leather sweets

So we still have fruit left from PYO. So I decided to have a go at making some fruit leather. It is so simple!

First choose any fruit and blend with a hand blender. I made 2 batches, this is kiwi, gooseberry and apple, and the other was pure strawberries. You can add sugar or sweetner to taste. You could also add any other flavourings like almond essence to cherries or raspberries, or vanilla or cinnamon to apple etc.
Then pour the mix onto a baking tray lined with cling film. Try and make it as evenly spread as possible.
Then place in your oven on the lowest possible heat setting and leave for 6-8 hours or until it no longer leaves a dent when you press it. If it is not evenly spread you may need to moisten the edges with water to make sure the middle is cooked before the edges frazzle.
Remove from the oven and slice as you wish. I made small squares for sweeties, you could make roll ups or use some of the kids playdoh cutters (cleaned obviously) for more interesting shapes.