Saturday, 19 December 2015
Our Adventure's This Week
Well this week has been all sorts of crazy! On Sunday I woke up and I felt terrible, I had caught the bug D had last week and I don't know how he wasn't crying constantly. It was bad, I ended up sleeping 90% of Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. Which really means that we did nothing of excitement ( I actually did nothing!) to sharer over most of this week but I was starting to feel better by Tuesday night and we ventured out to see the local Christmas Lights being turned on and listen to the choir sing some songs. D was more than happy about being there even if it was raining lightly the entire time.
We spent Wednesday getting everything back in order at home as I am sure many of you can relate to being sick and suddenly the whole house looks as if a bomb went off in each room? Maybe that's just me. We got to making my birthday cake after dinner and just before bed.
Thursday came and it was my birthday (YAY!) it was also the day to give out all of our Christmas presents as well as our last family visits before Christmas. It was one very long day! We first visited Granda and D's aunt who we gave the presents to for one side of the family before we set off for nannies where we had to distribute the rest of the families presents and I got a few beautiful birthday gifts too. We spent the rest of the evening in nannies before we came home quite late and all went to bed early.
Yesterday we kind of just lazed around together getting into the festive spirit with lots of Christmas themed family movies followed by reading together and playing games with D to get rid of some of that extra energy.
I completely forgot last week to share with you our reply from Santa which if you remember we sent back in November. This is a service from Royal Mail in the UK and can be used every Christmas. D received this lovely card in the post and still loves rereading what Santa wrote.
Sunday, 13 December 2015
#My Sunday Photo -Waiting For Santa
This week we visited Santa and as many of you know it can be a long wait to actually get to see the big man himself. It is a long line of eager children and parents waiting for the same reason. Usually you just have to wait your turn. Well when you have a toddler that doesn't like to wait you are going to have a bit of a struggle on your hands! This year we visited our favourite Santa who is rather realistic looking. While waiting in line we found a little wooden sleigh for children to play in. There where already children playing in the sleigh but D was more than happy to get up and join in with them. Before long D was the only one left in the sleigh and I got this lovely photo that shows the excitement he was feeling. He kept looking towards a snowman decoration where the snowman had fallen over in the snow while skiing. D thought this was hilarious!
Saturday, 12 December 2015
Our Adventure's This Week
I have been scheduling posts to upload and writing every few days. Once I started this on Sunday night everything was fine. I went on again on Wednesday discover that not only had my posts not went public but they where gone. This has happened before but it quickly rectified itself and I had to write everything again. I sat on Wednesday and wrote the days post. I decided to try again and started writing the posts from Monday and Tuesday Then I was locked out of wordpress for 2 days. I only got back on there now to check if I could get in. I am hoping to get some posts written up tomorrow and I will post these daily myself without using the schedule option' I just now have to hope this work. I am writing all our posts on my phone and tablet as the laptop broke the other week. I do think this is the root of my problem and I will try to fix it as soon as I can. Please do bear with me though as with Christmas coming up it is becoming harder to sit down and just write!
The week started off with D getting sick./ He slept through most of Monday and Tuesday. By Wednesday D was feeling better and we spent the day playing games and having family time. I loved the time we spent together this week.
Thursday was a very busy day. We visited granda before we did a small amount of shopping before we headed to a Christmas party which D loved! There where a few children for D to play with and the lady D spent most of the day playing with his cars with was the same one as last year. He had a lovely time and was more than ready to relax by the time we got to nannies. We didn't stay long this week as we had one more very important visit to make before we got home. It was time to visit Santa!
D was fantastic this year and was more than ready to sit with Santa and say CHEESE! We got a lovely photo which you can see below.
Finally yesterday we got to making some cookies! They didn't quite go right and tasted more like cake with salt added! (YUK!) so I am trying again today.
How has your week been?
Wednesday, 9 December 2015
Handmade with Love - Photo Frames
I have been waiting a good few weeks to put this post up. As many of you may have noticed I love to get busy with my hands and make things myself. This year I decided that since I didn't really know what anyone wanted for Christmas I was going to make something that they would either need or something that they like. In this handmade with love post I am talking about personalised photo frames! I actually started this with the idea of making some plain white photo frames into something a bit more colourful for our hall once we finish decorating it. Once I started though I just couldn't stop and I loved how pretty they looked and suddenly every time we went to a shop I was saying 'that will look lovely on a frame!'. I then decided my mum and sisters and brothers would all love them and so came the Christmas gifts of photo frames.
A few people already know which ones they are getting and my mum knows almost all of them but nobody has actually seen them yet so I do hope everyone loves them as much as I have loved making them! Fingers crossed.
If you would like to make these you can follow along with each frames journey to completion. First up we have the frame which took the longest to finish and was defiantly the most difficult. 'The blinged out frame' to make this one I used a black and a white 5" x 7 " frame which I got in a pack of 3 in B and M bargains for £2.99. I also used super glue ( PVA would be fine I think. Mine need to last through a Royal Mail posting!) and finally 2 packs of gem stones which I got in Poundland.
First I needed to remove each gem stone from the glue backing it was attached to. You can get them already undone online but I just wanted to be awkward. (Not really!) I was not aware of this when I started. You can however just add the gem stones with the glue strips they are attached to if you like. Once I had separated all of the gem stones into colours I got to work on deciding in what order the colours would go and how many colours I would actually use from the pack.
Next I got to work using the super glue to stick down each gem stone individually onto the frame in as straight a line as I possibly could. Once you have the first line down your pretty much good to go! Just keep going and going and going. Yes I am being serious. One of these frames probably took me around 17-20 hours altogether if not more. I did say it was time consuming. The finished results are below and I must say I do love these!
All the other frames are much easier and faster to make.The next frame up is the flowers and butterfly frame. I loved this frame so much that I made myself one when I had finished. This actually took about 25 minutes to make from start to finish. If you would like to make this frame you need some Jute Shapes which I got in Poundland again, superglue and another white frame in 5" x 7". This is super simple! To complete the frame arrange the jute shapes in the way you like. Don't stick anything down before you are happy with the position of them all. Once you are happy use a generous amount of glue and stick each shape to the frame and finish off any flower with a gem stone. Voila you are finished!
After those I got to making the worded frames with bunting. For these I used a pack of lettered beads, a pack of mirrored bunting shapes which are acrylic, superglue and another 2 black 5" x 7" frames.
These where even easier than the last ones and after I had decided what to do I think these took me around 15 minutes to do both. I first added some glue to the acrylic pieces before sticking them on the top of the frames in a sort of bunting line. Finally I added the lettered beads onto the frame to make words. I wrote 'Love and Laughter' and 'Memories' on mine. Here they are!
As a little quick project I made this lovely purple glitter frame using some washi tape I found on eBay for around 60p. This was so simple to make I simply added the washi tape around the front edges in strips of tape and then the same in one long strip around the outer edge of the whole frame. I completed the tape ends with a bit of extra PVA glue and was finished. I like how this one sparkles in the light and has a great professional finish.
Last but certainly not least is the Harry Potter frame and the golden moment frame. The Harry Potter one was made using a book I picked up in the charity shop. It wasn't in great shape in general however I only needed a few pages to make this beautiful frame so I set to work. Firstly I started with the book, a paintbrush, PVA glue and a white 5" x 7" frame. After I had everything I needed I selected a few quotes or obvious parts of the book to use on the frame. I cut them all up into smaller pieces so I could stick them where ever I liked. I also used chapter titles on the frame for the big print and recognisable words/ phrases from the book. Once I had all my quotes I took the PVA glue and used the paintbrush to apply the glue to the books page pieces and started to stick all the bits down where I wanted them to be. It didn't take long to fully cover the frame. I then allowed this to dry before adding another layer of PVA glue to the frame to help stick down the paper which was quite thick. This one can be messy!
I used the same technique to do the 'Golden Moments' frame which in actual fact is a frame covered in Ferraro Rocher Golden wrappers from a box I got as a gift. I love those little wrappers as they are so small and quaint. I thought they would look nice and shiny. I added the glue to the wrapper and stuck to the frame for this lovely look. once both frames had dried I cut off any excess paper that had was just hanging down. . Now you have it. Lots of handmade Christmas gifts of personalised items from me.
Here they are together after I added pictures to most of the frames.
Sunday, 6 December 2015
#My Sunday Photo
Well it is officially the first Sunday of December and I thought this week's Sunday photo was very appropriate. Here it is our Nativity scene!
If you do or don't believe in God you cannot deny how much this story plays a role in Christmas traditions for many people. I do love the story even if we are not Christians. We tell kids fairytale so what is the difference between those and the nativity?
If you do or don't believe in God you cannot deny how much this story plays a role in Christmas traditions for many people. I do love the story even if we are not Christians. We tell kids fairytale so what is the difference between those and the nativity?
Saturday, 5 December 2015
D at 33 Months
I can't believe how fast those three months went by! I don't quite know what is happening with all the time in the days. There is so much to tell you about with D and his development so I will start with his speech
These last 3 months D has learnt alot of new words and he can now count in actual woreds up to 11. He doesn't seem to like th number 7 though as I know he can say 7 and he knows where it goes but he doesn't like to say it. He has also decided that he wants to be a little smarty pants and is teaching himself spanish by insisting on watch Dora The Explorer daily and then copying all of the spanish words then telling me them in english! I must admit I couldn't tell you if he is getting them right or not as I can't speak spanish!
D has developed a love of imaginary play the last 3 months he has loved hiding out under the table creating wonderful worlds with all of his toys and playing out books or TV shows that he remembers. He is getting a great imagination and I think he loves monsters! He is always telling about his monsters.
D is starting to show a great interest in learning to read. He will sit down and try to read a book to himself by sounding out some of
Our Adventures This Week
It has been a long busy week and although I haven't achieved everything I would like to I am starting to get there and to get on top of things again. With dark and dreary days being the theme of December so far I do think that we are all starting to feel the effects of it all.
We spent the Sunday doing lots of crafty bits and pieces together, even Daddy joined in and get busy with helping to make lots of Christmas Crafts. We all really enjoyed getting busy and adding more things to our christmas decorations. We did spend ost of the day doing different crafty Christmas items as I wanted to make sure that we are spending quality time together as a family this Decemeber. It is such a busy month and we all seem to just keep going.
Monday we had a good bit of sorting to still do and I spent most of the day sorting through various rooms to see what we still didn't need. There wasn't all that much but once I start I an't seem to stop until the whole house has been organised properly. OCD much? Once I had got through the whole house it was starting to get towards diner time.So it was time for everyone to sit at the table and make dinner together. Before we watched a film and went to bed.
By Tuesday we had the whole house sorted out and D had lots of activities that where going to keep him happy. Myself and Simon where trying to get other things done throughout the
Thursday, 3 December 2015
November 2015 Competition wins
So last month was a bit of a bust in the competition department. There was so much going on that I just didn't know where to find the time which meant that I didn't. I am surprised I won anything to be honest. However I did still win two competitions neither have arrived yet so I cannot show you a picture.
First up I won a selfie stick and an advent calendar from Total Merchandise on Facebook
And I won a pair of scissors from Sew! Magazine which I am really excited about!
I can't tell you any more about the products until they actually arrive but I will share pictures in next month post for you to see.
It is now December and that means it is time for the advents! The advents are daily competitions run throughout December in the run up to Christmas. This is the busiest time of year for competitions and so I have my fingers crossed for lots of wins this month! Wishing you all lots of luck.
First up I won a selfie stick and an advent calendar from Total Merchandise on Facebook
And I won a pair of scissors from Sew! Magazine which I am really excited about!
I can't tell you any more about the products until they actually arrive but I will share pictures in next month post for you to see.
It is now December and that means it is time for the advents! The advents are daily competitions run throughout December in the run up to Christmas. This is the busiest time of year for competitions and so I have my fingers crossed for lots of wins this month! Wishing you all lots of luck.
Monday, 30 November 2015
Christmas Crafts - HandPrint Christmas Tree and Picture Baubles
This week we got to making a large handprint Christmas tree in our dinning room area. Now we are going to share how we did it with you. This would also be a perfect advent calender for young children and toddlers.
To get started we used
- 4 sheets of A3 green card
- 1 sheet of A4 red card
- PVA Glue
- Blue Tac
- Green, Red and Yellow paint
- Paper plates
- A3 paper (any colour)
- Scissors
- Messy Mat
The first step is to attach the 4 sheets of green card to a wall and to draw a general triangle tree shape on the green card. I used a sharpie to do this but a normal pencil would be fine. I also added the red card and drew a pot shape on.
Once I had the general outline I got to cu
Sunday, 29 November 2015
Our Adventure's This Week
A lot has happened this week that has changed everything we do and I think we are finally getting caught up with ourselves. I appoligise for posting late but do come back as we will be catching up with all our posts this week.
This week the adventure's really started on Monday with two very big events. The first being that Uncle L moved out. He is now living with a different family member. I won't go into to detail about that but it was for the best of everyone involved.
On the same day it was mine and Simon's anniversery of the day we first got together 7 years ago. It was a lovely evening for the both of us with a late dinner after D had gone to be and some time spent together just relaxing and wathing TV together.
Tuesday came around and it was time to do our fortnightly shop and I must say this time it was much more enjoyable as we started with our Christmas extras this time. We do leave our actual Christmas dinner shopping to the week of Christmas.
Wednesday was the really long day where we started our Christmas clear out in real effort. We have spent every evening slowly getting through the house and although there was still more to be done we are almost there now.
On Thursday we didn't get visiting any family members but instead we went for a walk and picked up a few christmas presents for family members who are hard to make anything for.
On both Friday and Saturday I got busy with D keeping him busy with lots of craft activities which are coming up soon. I hope you all had a good week too.
#My Sunday Photo - Celebrate
I Can't believe that we will be in December within the next few days! This month has flew in and although I haven't had much posted this week that is going to change. This week some days will have more than one post going up in a day to get us back to normal and on schedule but today we are joining in with One Dad 3 Girls for #MySundayPhoto. There where some picture this week that I took for the purpose of #MySundayPhoto however I hated them all once I sat down to look at them.
I finallly chose one that I liked from this week and here it is;
Wednesday, 25 November 2015
Handmade with Love - Boy's PJ's
This Christmas I really want eerything we give to say I thought of you. Most of the problems I always seem to have when buying gifts are that I simply do not know what that person will really love. So instead of spending hours scouring the shops for gifts I am on a mission to make my whole family their gifts myself. Most of what I am making will be new but I do have one today that I made from 2 sheets which I picked up in a charity shop for around £6. I used under 1/4 of the two single sheets I bought to do this.
Okay so to get started I used;
- 2 Blue sheets (one light blue and one dark blue)
- A sewing pattern that I got at a local market (originally from sewing world.)
- Baking paper (yes you read that right!)
- Velcro in blue ( I used some velcro cable ties left over from organising the wiring under Simon's desk.)
- White Thread
- Sewing Machine
- Scissors
- Berry Pins (sewing pins)
First I needed to remake the pattern myself onto baking paper. I prefer baking paper as it is much easier to keep as it takes up less space and it also means you can use the right ammount and never be left with small useless end bits of tracing paper. Another plus is that it's much stronger than tracing paper, making it easier to use.
If you want to make your own pair of PJ's but you do not have a pattern you can make you own by turning a pair of the correct sized PJ's inside out and tracing these as your pattern but remember to add on an inch or 2 at the bottom and a good 3-5 inchs at the top for your seams! Also note you need to use a pair that do not strech very much or you will end up with a pair the wrong size..
Once I had each piece from the pattern drawn and cut out in the correct size I then got on with folding my fabric to get the various ammounts of each shape I needed. I used the lightblue fabric for the bigger main pieces of the PJ's and the darker blue fabric for all the smallers trimmings on the PJ's.
Next I took the Fabric and folded the end piece over just enough to fit the largest piece of the pattern onto the fabric while getting 2 pieces of fabric after I cut it. Once I knew there was space to have 2 of each pattern piece I got to pinning down the pattern pieces to the fabric. I did this by using berry pins to keep the fabric in place. I cut each one out indiviualy by carefully cutting around the pattern pieces. To cut out the neck line in the darker blue I folded the fabric again to achieve 4 of each piece for this.
After I had all of the pattern pieces cut out I left them all attached to the pattern pieces only removing the pieces I needed as I needed them. I started with the bottoms.
To start the bottoms I used both the front and back leg pieces. I lay both legs out attached along the inside leg seam with berry pins. Once i was happy that both pieces matched up I started to sew the seam together on the sewing machine. I used a strong stitch as they are for a 1 year old so they need to be durable! Once the seam was done this is how they looked.
Next up I needed to sew the crotch seem which is pretty easy now that both legs are sewn together. I took the edges of each leg and started again to attach these using berry pins. After a few minutes I had the whole seam together. This time I stitched the whole seam in one on the sewing machine. Here is what you should have if you attach both legs together before the sewing.
Now that the legs are almost finished I needed to add one the leg trim. I did this by again folding each leg trim in half. Once it was in half I attached this to the bottom of the leg on the bottom front of the leg. If you are doing this it is important that you attach this with the front of the trouser touching the front of the dark blue trim. I pinned this all the way around the leg piece and stitched using the machine. Below are a few pictures of this process.
After I had attached the trim on both legs I needed to sew up the final leg seam to actually create the legs shape. I pinned the seam together and stitched both legs up. I now had the general shape of the PJ bottoms.
The final thing to do was to create the elastic loop which will hold the trousers up. I use a pair of D's old 1 - 2 years PJ bottoms with elastic. I measured the elastic around these trousers. Once I had the size i stitched this together a few times to be sure it wouldn't come apart. I then added this around the top of the PJ bottoms . I didn't pin this together however if you would like to that is fine. I lined up the first section using my hands and using the sewing machine I stitched this together. I repeated this in sections the whole way around ensuring that the fabric was flat and straight during every section. This did involve repeatedly pushing the fabric along the elastic. It doesn't need to be perfect here but they will fit for longer if you allow the fabric room to stretch. Voila I now have one pair of PJ bottoms! I am really proud of these as my first attempt at this pattern went so horribly wrong!
Right I then had to start the top. This was the harder part as there are lots more pieces and they are a bit fiddly to put together. I didn't manage to get many pictures of this part however the process for everything is almost the same as above. To get started I attached the back and the front of top to each other by pining and stitching the shoulder seams together. Once i had the top seams together I got to work on the arm pieces. I attached the trim on the bottom of each arm using the same process as above for the trousers. I then pinned the arms to the right places on the top. Again using the sewing machine I stitched these in place. Once this was done the out come looked like this.
The final few steps are to attach the trim around the neck line and to sew all the final seams. I started with the neck line pieces by placing them on the table and creating two pieces of fabric from the 6 i started with. I attached the back neckline piece to the two front pieces and repeated the process to achieve two pieces that are the full neckline. I then put both pieces together and attached them along the inside seam which matched the shape of the tops neckline. I then turned the piece in the right way ensuring that the outline edges where clear. I attached and pinned the piece section by section. I attached this by using a pin to fold a small amount of the fabric under the edge on the front. Don't worry about the inside seam as it will not show. After I had the whole seam pinned in the same way I started sewing them together using one long line of stitching.
The next thing I did was to attach the side and arm seams together. Again this is one long running stitching which will sew together the side and arm in one go. I used berry pins to pin them together and stitched them on the sewing machine. the final product should look like this.
Now to make the seam along the bottom of the top itself. I opened the top up and folded a small section of fabric over pinning it in place. Then stitched this in a line stitch all the way along.
Finally instead of using buttons and attaching button hole to the top i used some Velcro. I attached 3 small rectangles of Velcro using the sewing machine on the inside piece that you do not see. I then hand stitched on the other side in the right places using the already attached Velcro as my guide. I carefully attached these pieces to only the first layer of fabric so it wouldn't show through on the front of the top. Here is the finished top and trousers together.
I am very happy to say I made these all on my own! These are my first pair of PJ's that I have finished. I tried to make these before but it didn't work out so well. I do think they look rather professionally made and I hope my mum and brother enjoy them.
Monday, 23 November 2015
Christmas Crafts Paper Snowflakes and Wool bunting
We have been very busy doing these art's and craft's to show you all. As I said before I really want to have a lot of our Christmas decorations this year made by us. I enjoyed doing this weeks art's and craft's activities. Now let's get started.
First up are the paper snowflakes, we are doing these first as these are extremely easy and I am sure many of you remember making these when you where younger. I love this activity as it is great for children to practise their cutting skills. The great thing about making snowflakes is that no two snowflakes are the same and with these paper snowflakes it is close to impossible to make two that are identical.
To get started you will need some paper and a pair of scissors. Yes, that is all you will need. You can use any sized paper you want and in any shape you want. We used regular A4 paper.
To start you need to fold your paper making sure your centre stays on one side and never moves (hypothetically of course. It would be hard not to move it at all!) The easiest way to do this is to fold the page in half, then half again. Once you have a page folded into quarters you need to fold it into a triangle by folding the rectangle in half keeping the centre parts together. You can work from that point or you can fold the triangle in half again and start from there. Once you have your paper folded you can get to making it into a snowflake shape. You can leave it as a rectangle or the original shape of the paper. Change the shape by cutting the end (Not the centre) into what ever shape you would like.
Time to get making your snowflake different. Now that you have a general snowflake shape you can get cutting to make it different from anything else. You can make the original snowflake shapes yourself before getting the children involved if you like. To make your snowflake have a design or to add the holes you need to cut various shapes of all different sizes out of the sides of the snowflake. You can also cut the centre if you like. You need to make sure you don't cut it up into small pieces by leaving gaps between each piece you cut out. This will make the snowflake stay together. D really enjoyed the cutting part as he could do it all by himself and he could do whatever shape of cutting he wanted! He did only seem to like cutting slits into his snowflakes but that is fine.
Once you have your snowflake cut you need to open it back out and you can either attach some string if you would like to hang it from the ceiling or you can add some blue tac to the back and stick them onto a wall or door like we did.
Now onwards and upwards, as they say. It is onto the next activity and be warned this one is messy! This is how to make wool baubles for your Christmas tree. To get started you are going to need;
- Various lengths of wool (any colour)
- Balloons
- PVA Glue mixed with water in a container (A LOT of it!)
- A messy mat or newspaper (To protect your table)
Before you get the kids involved there is a little bit of preparation to do. You need to dip your wool into your glue. After a lot of tries doing this bit I discovered that the easiest way is to get a bunch of the wool pieces in your hand and drop them into the glue. Once they are in the wool you need to push, pull and wiggle them about until you have them completely covered in glue and take the strands out (they can stay altogether if you like) pulling them along the side of the dish to remove some of the excess glue. Lay the pieces down on some plastic your messy mat should do fine. Separate the pieces so each is an individual piece of wool.
Time to get the kids involved! the next thing you need to do is to blow up you balloons. You want to leave them small enough to fit onto your tree. Don't worry too much about the shape of the balloon, however if you would like to make small and very round baubles you can use water balloons instead as they have a rounder shape than normal balloons.
Once you have your balloons you can start. To make the baubles you need to get a piece of wool and start wrapping the wool around the balloon making sure that the wool overlaps at the end and along different areas to make sure the bauble stays together. If you run out of wool just use another piece again making sure the ends are overlapping with another piece of wool. D liked being able do just put the wool wherever he liked around the balloon. It is not often that he can just pull things and play with a balloon and wool!
Set these to one side to dry. Once they have all dried you can pop the balloon. You may need to carefully peal the balloon away from the wool. Don't worry if they change shape during this part, they will pop back into shape once you are finished. Attach a small bit of string in a loop so you can attach it to the tree and your are finished! You can now add your decorations to the Christmas tree. If you attach them to the tree and push a fairy light inside it will create a lovely effect like our blue lights did on one below. Don't worry this is safe!
Our Final Activity today is some wool bunting. This one was rather fun to make I must admit! Be prepared this does have a good bit of preparation before you start. To get started making your own wool bunting you need;
- Red, Green and white wool
- PVA Glue mixed with water
- Scissors
- Cling Film
- I also used green paint as our wool was a weird green colour
- Hairdryer
The first thing you will need to do is to cover your surface in cling film. I literally wrapped half our dining table in it! The cling film just acts as a plastic to ensure you can remove your decoration pieces for your bunting. The first thing you will need to do is to cut your wool to different lengths. for this activity you will need long lengths that are about the size of your forearm. You will need a good amount of this size in white and red and around 9-11 pieces in your green. You will also need some shorter lengths that can range between half and 3/4's of the length of your forearm.
Once you have all the lengths cut you can then use the same process as above to cover your wool with glue in sections of colour and length I used normal glue to cover the white and red wool then added some green paint to the glue to make the green wool look like green as it looked a bit like sick at the start but Simon had bought the wool so it was all he could find.
Next I started to make the outline of the shapes for the bunting using one long strand of each colour. They do not need to be perfect. I made outlines for 3 of each shape. So we ended up with snowmen, Christmas trees, Santa hats, Stockings, presents and candy canes. On the stockings, candy canes and presents I made the main outlines in red then added the smaller outline for white fur with white wool and I added the ribbon to the present in white. I made the shapes by pulling the thread into each shape then slowly pushing the wool out into the right places once I had it all connected. This is fairly easy to do although it is time consuming so I suggest doing this in the morning or while your child has a nap.
Now that you have your outlines all completed you can get the kids involved! Let them add pieces of wool in whatever direction and shape they want. Help them to stay inside the lines and make sure the wool is overlapping and touching the outline in as many places as possible. This is important as there will not be anywhere else to connect the wool and you may end up with separate pieces of wool once they are dry if you don't have them overlapping and touching the edges.
D really loved picking up the sticky, slimy wool and trying to push it into all the nooks in the outlines. He really enjoyed getting to make something completely by himself as I just went through at the end and made sure that everything was touching!
Uncle L on the other hand hated the feel of the slimy wool! Yes , he can be very strange at times.
Once you have the decorations 'coloured in' with wool you can now dry them. Ours took days to dry as our hairdryer has went missing since we moved so I am not sure if it is in a box that I never unpacked or if we left it in our old house. Anyway you can use a hairdryer to dry yours the same way you dry your hair. You may need to use the cool setting every few minutes to prevent the cling film from changing shape or melting. Make sure the hair dryer isn't to close.
Now that all your piece's are dry you can carefully peal them off ( there may be excess glue, you can cut this off with a small pair of nail scissors. ) After all the pieces have been taken off the cling film you will need to arrange them in the order you would like them to go on your bunting. It is best to do this on the floor so you can lay them out the right width apart you want them. At this stage I added in 8 bells which I had bought in poundland, they came in a pack of 9. I put a white or red bell in between each 2 pieces on the pattern then between the pattern repeats I added a silver bell.
Once you have the pattern you like you can start with your wool. I used red wool which I cut to length using the decorations I had arranged on the floor as a guide. I left a good bit of wool on each end to ensure I had enough to make a loop for attaching it to our fireplace. To attach each decoration to the bunting I put the decorations on one by one. Again this is time consuming but you could easily do this once the kids are in bed. I tied the wool around each decoration after I slid it onto the thread to make sure it didn't move once I hung it up. It took a while but once I had finished threading the decorations and bells on I hung it up on our fireplace and I think it looks fantastic!
There you have it, 3 art's and craft's idea to keep you busy this December! Remember to come back as we are doing more every week until Christmas. I hope you all enjoy making these as much as we did.
Don't forget you can find all of our art's and craft's posts in the menu at the top of every page!
Saturday, 21 November 2015
Our Adventures This Week
This week has been a week from hell. I have been stressed out to what I can only describe as sleepless nights. There has been a lot going on and for the first few days there was not much else I could do other than spend the day on the phone and most evening/ nights doing everything I usually do during the day.
However the week did start on a very festive and happy note with it being time for some Christmas decorating! Myself and D started by putting up our Christmas tree. and starting to decorate it with the lights and ornaments. D was really excited to help this year and simply could not wait to get started. Literally! He dug straight into the ornaments box and I had yet to even open the tree! Once we got the tree up and the lights on D was more than happy to start with the decorating of the tree as you can see.
Next we set about putting up our hand-print wreaths (Click the link to make your own!) and our snowflakes (which we are sharing with you on Tuesday so do come back.
That left only the fireplace, Table and the front window to decorate and we did really enjoy doing all three. You can see our handmade garland with bells on the fireplace which we are also sharing on Tuesday!
Our Fire Place
A closer look.
The Dining table. Can you tell I love those lanterns?
Finally the window. I love our snowmen lights!
Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday were spent on the phone to various people or spent waiting on a phone call from said people. It was a very stressful couple of days and I really tried to spend as much time as possible during those few days playing games with D or taking a short walk when it wasn't raining incredibly hard outside. We did spend most evenings snuggled up on the sofa spending family time together.
On Thursday we did go and visit Nanny where D had lots of fun soaking his uncle with a mist spraying fan. It took around an hour but he finally got there just before it was time to go home.
Yesterday I spent most of the day tiding up and getting all of the materials we are going to need tomorrow sorted out as we are having a little craft day and might possibly get around to do some baking also.
How has your week been?
Wednesday, 18 November 2015
A Quick Update
Good evening guys, I am just giving you a quick update. I have had a lot going on this week and I have barely sat down to write this post. I have a lot to catch up on and a few things I need to do before I can put another post up. I apologise but I must put our family life first for this week and I will try to put up our normal Saturday and Sunday posts this weekend but until then I won't have much time to sit down and write.
I have tried really hard to keep posting daily and I do have posts that are half wrote but I want to have the time to sit and finish all the posts that I have before I publish them on the blog. I would like to do this as I do very much enjoy putting quality into each post as best I can.
We should be back to posting as normal from Saturday and I will try to publish all out posts at 12am everyday except on Saturday which might have to be later in the day due to getting time to sit down. I will start on Saturdays post tomorrow evening to ensure that even if I am restricted to time that I can get it all written up for Saturday.
Sorry guys and enjoy your week!
Saturday, 14 November 2015
Our Adventures This Week
This week has been a bit hard to get online we have had a lot going on and with that there has been a lot of events that we have had to make a decision on. I apologise for not posting the last few days. I have barely online this week and when I have it has not been long enough to write a post I am happy with. I honestly feel like I have not stopped at all.
I have also made the decision to stop writing about Uncle L. The reason behind this is mainly that he doesn't want to participate in many of the crafts, cooking, baking or photographs that are for the blog. This has made it incredibly difficult to create posts to put up when there are some posts that will have a high impact from Uncle L being there and changes that will show this. We do have one final post on Monday that will include Uncle L as this decision was made after we had completed the activity but I would still like to share it with you.
This week really started on Sunday when myself, Uncle L and D sat down at the table and got to making a few art's and craft's activities that we are sharing with you on Monday but if you would like to do a bit of art's and craft's you can check out our post on Christmas Wrapping Paper and Hand-print Wreaths for 2 great Ideas which you can make with young and older children. Our art activity did take around 3-4 hours and I was rather surprised by D's interest in staying and completing the task. This is the longest D has stayed interested in anything so we where pretty shocked at that! We did complete 3 activities so do come back to see what we have been doing.
We ended up going out on Monday morning into town where we had a few things we needed to pick up. We ended up spending a good amount of hours in town and by the time we got home there was enough time to have dinner a little later than normal before myself and D got some nursery rhyme singing in. D can now sing row row row your boat and gets pretty excited about it! You can see the video below ( Our first ever video!) We then got baths and it was bedtime!
This Tuesday was our shopping day as normal. We ended up all going shopping and spent most of the day completing that. Once we had all of the shopping done and put away in the house it was finally time to take a trip down to the charity shop to drop in a selection of D's toys that I had already put away over the last few weeks. D is so incredibly kind and after I had told him that his toys where going to a shop where other boys and girls who might not have many toys can come and get them so they can play with some toys too. D wasn't incredibly happy that we where giving his toys away but after I had explained why he didn't need them anymore and somebody else might. He was okay to give them to other little boys and girls.
I had to spend most of the day at the doctors on Wednesday with Uncle L while we waited for his emergency appointment. This took almost 3 hours and after we eventually finished and had some lunch we ended up taking a short walk around a few of the local shops near the doctors before heading home. Once we where home we had time to make a meal together before we got ready for bedtime.
Thursday we did go on our normal family visit with the only difference being we did only visit Nanny as Granda was attending a family wedding. We left earlier than normal due to the darker nights and the fact that we do walk most places. It was a day of dreary weather and it did rain a pretty good amount. We did have a few things I needed to pick up on the way.
Yesterday we had a meeting that lasted much much longer than I had expected and I do think that put us back for the day a good bit. We ended up having a late dinner and spending time together playing games and doing activity books/ magazines together. D is one very smart cookie! He can hold a crayon like we do a pencil and he can follow the dots on paper. He has also got to grips with the number 4 now! Yay!!
The plan for the rest of the day is to get our Christmas decorations up so it is going to be the start of an exciting run up to Christmas for us from now on.
How was your week?
Tuesday, 10 November 2015
Review - Bean Bag Bazaar Giant Beanbag
When we moved in the summer there was a lot of items on out to get list. One in particular was very very high up on the list as we really did need it. We have a very sofa and honestly the seating was fine in our old house. Well that was until some one visited and then it was limited, it's a good thing we rarely got any visitors! I had looked into all of the options when we where moving and I really fell in love with the Giant Beanbag from Beanbag Bazaar. It is such a multi-functional piece of furniture and we use everyday.
I had chosen the Giant Beanbag in aqua to mach the blue colours in the living room as this is where it would mainly be. The experience really starts from the website which is so easy to navigate round and has some beautiful pictures of all their bags in action. It is easy to navigate and there are so many options for you to choose from both with the type of product and then even more when it comes to which colour you want! Checking out is seriously easy too no long winded questions to fill out so you can sign up either. I really hate when a website does that.
Ours showed up within days, yes days! It comes in two large boxes. One containing the bag which is already half filled and another containing the other half of the beans along with easy to follow instructions on how to fill it up with 2 people. However the bag is very easy to fill alone which was how I ended up doing it.
What I really love about the Giant Beanbag is that it is just so versatile! You can put it up in so may positions with many being free standing too. Here are some positions you can use.
Free standing sitting up position, This is perfect for using tablet's, phones or laptops while you sit comfortably. It is also perfect for watching TV.
Sitting up position. This one isn't free standing but i use this when I am reading a book as I can curl up and get really into the book while still being very comfortable and supported.
Almost lying down position which is freestanding. This position is perfect for when the boys are playing games consoles on the big TV in the living room and it is great for watching movies on too!
Finally the Lying flat position which is actually incredibly comfortable and is perfect for lazy days lying together as you really can fit 2 people on the bag!
I must say this has very fast became one of our most used pieces of furniture and is constantly being used in lots of positions throughout the day.
Another reason I choose this bag above all the others is that this can easily be made into a bed type mattress which can be used for any naps that anyone might have during the day. But it also means that when Simon isn't having a great night with his anxiety he can pull this down and sleep on it but still be very close to the exits. This is a regular occurrence and I find that the Giant Beanbag has really helped in shortening the length of time he spends outside or sitting on the cold floor.
The bag is also waterproof and made with good hard wearing material which means you are able to use this outdoors. This is the one feature we have yet to test as we haven't been able to use the back garden due to weather and still working on getting it sorted out. However this also makes the beanbag extremely easy to clean using some soap, warm water and a sponge or cloth. I was really surprised just how well it cleans up especially with D who is constantly finding messy things to do that involve the beanbag! a few wipes and it comes back up like new!
We really love our Beanbag Bazaar Giant Beanbag and I would certainly recommend it to anyone looking for some new versatile furniture that can be easily cleaned and makes a great addition to any room.
You can purchase your own Giant Beanbag by clicking the link. The Giant Beanbag costs £120 normally but is currently on sale for £58.49. An amazing price for a great product.
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