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/