French Knots

Summer fun!

School has finally broken up, I've really been looking forward to the long summer break with the children for the first time. While lots of lazy days will be in order it's also nice to have some plans for those ' I'm bored' moments.

I'm putting together a summer fun jar with lots of activities and ideas written on bits of paper for the children to dip into. I've gathered together ideas from here, here and here. Together with a few of my own of course, all to go into the jar which will be decorated and filled tomorrow

Make potato prints

Paint clay pots

Make treasure bottles, fill plastic bottles with sand and hide little treasures in it

make fimo buttons

play on the water slide

wash the car

go for a nature walk

choose an item from the Pound Shop and play with it for at least an hour

Decorate shoes boxes with magazine clippings

Make friendship pins, ting beads on safety pins

Do some junk modelling

Do science experiments with magnets or dropping pebbles into water filled containers

Make paper windmills

Bake some cakes

Press flowers

Make papier mache

Make a flag

Make a blanket raft and take supplies for the adventure

Have a Teddy Bears Picnic

Grow carrot tops

Put celery in water with food colouring

Do some leaf rubbings

Make pompoms

Make a nature bracelet with brown parcel tape on your wrist and stick leaves etc to it

Feed the ducks

Go to a Pick Your Own Farm

Visit the local museums, lots of summer activities many of them free

Go for a bike ride

Join the library book challenge

Write a story in a homemade book

Play circus, juggling, hula hooping, using a skipping rope as a tightrope

Make sock puppets

Make bookmarks

'Paint' the patio with water

Paint with lemon juice on white paper and hang it in the window

Make a collage with pictures from magazines

Make painted hand and feet prints

Make a garden obstacle course

Make homemade lollies

Make fruit kebabs

Do bubble painting

Go to the cinema on Orange Wednesday

Visit www.freedayout.co.uk, www.kinderart.com, www.artsonia.com, www.uptoten.com www.letterboxing.org/kids/ and   http://www.kidscraftweekly.com/ for even more ideas.

What do you enjoy doing over the summer?

Another birthday

My Little Helper is 4, I don't know how four years went so quickly. One minute he was a tiny little baby nearly scaring us to death with convulsions and a terrible infection and a late night rush to hospital at a week old then sixty seconds later he is a bundle of energy and mischief, chatting to everyone about the fun he has everyday and looking forward to going to school.

He likes to wear his Birthday Crown at a rakish angle!

We had great fun at his Pirate Party

with plenty of  'shiver me timbers' and 'walk the plank' ( which is what they are saying in the photo rather than having a gurning competition!) and little bags to take the booty home in

I'm really looking forward to the summer holidays, roll on the end of term, and have been planning some fun things to do along with lots of lazy, hopefully sunny, days just enjoying ourselves.

Normal service

Thanks you for all your kind comments during my annoyance with the computer. Thankfully the man at the PC shop managed to save all the photos! Hurrah! Favourites are gone completely now but I'm sure I'll gradually find my favourite shopping sites again. As far as blogs go I have decided to use Blog lines so I don't risk loosing everything again. I got off to a flying start with some wonderful help from Kitty Thimble who kindly emailed me loads of blog addresses from her list. I've now rediscovered most of my old favourites and will have a great time visiting and catching up, so far it stands at 81 on Blog lines but no doubt it'll soon be longer!

What a week it's been, Sports Day was squeezed in between the showers and nursery finished in fine style with a Teddy Bears Picnic. We had The Big Sisters Birthday party, she had half a dozen friends round and of course it was tipping it downbut they still managed to have a great time. In fact I couldn't even get them out of the pool with an offer of Birthday cake.

I made some little party bags for going home presents from a sheet I picked up in the charity shop

and also some bunting with her name on

and there's still plenty of sheet left to be repurposed into something else.

One high point of the week was a parcel .....

Can you guess what it is?

I was lucky to snap up one of the wonderful pincushions from Tree Fall Design, she makes them from the selvedge of the beautiful fabrics she uses. Isn't it scrumptious, and it looks lovely against the freshly painted wall of my craft room.

Lots more to tell but for some reason the photos aren't showing in the picture file and it's tricky to pick the right one, so I'll have a fiddle around and catch up some more tomorrow

Drat, bother, *!**!!

Our PC has died, or at least is in need of major surgery, so I'm on the old laptop. The Big Sister got a pink digital camera for her Birthday from her Uncle and Aunt but when we loaded the disc so she could download her photos the PC crashed and continued to do so every time we tried to log in and uninstall the sodding camera software ( when I say 'we' I mean ,of course, my husband doing the work with me standing behind him helpfully wringing my hands!). It has gone to the PC Dr who will try and save the data, most importantly the photos which we have not yet backed up to the external hard disc thingy.

I've also got a  six month old version of my favourites on AOL now - which is odd as they are meant to be kept on their server so I don't know why favourites has gone wrong too...ggrr! So I have my little journal out and am playing 'can you remember the names of all the lovely blogs you have book marked recently and not got around to adding to your side bar '. It's a bit harder than the game we used to play at parties where a dozen objects were put on a tray then covered with a tea towel and you had to remember them, as the list stands at 64 so far! I don't use blog lines as I like clicking on a favourite blog and when there's a new post it's like a little surprise present ( do I sound like a saddo?!) but I do need to find a reliable way of keeping my favourites safe if AOL isn't going to do it for me. Tutorials, shopping sites, wonderful inspiration, cooking, knitting, sewing, gardening and goodness only knows what all gone.

Never mind I have the perfect reason to sit for untold hours at the screen now rediscovering them

Mmmmm....

What a lovely start to the day

It might be raining, again, but the smell of freshly baked bread and a slice of crunchy toast for breakfast is a great start to the day.

A lovely gift

I was lucky enough to win the draw for this fab magazine over at Raspberry

Okido - it has the most wonderful illustrations, I might even share it with the children if they are good! She also included some gorgeous vintage buttons, a Moo note card and some daisy ribbon. I bought one of Alice's linen shopping bags recently which was decorated with the daisy ribbon, as daises are one of my favourite flowers, how kind to send me some extra Thank You Alice! The Moo note card is great and I think I'll order some for birthday cards.

Not much creating over the weekend as Saturday was our school fete and as I'm on the PTA it was a very busy day and on Sunday we went over to Anglesey. I did manage to get these made for My Little Helper's birthday party ( which is the weekend after his sisters)

Pirate Treasure Maps! X marks the spot where I'll be having a large glass of wine when the fun is over!   

Twins

Typepad does not want me to post today as it has already lost this post twice...let's hope it's third time lucky!

I was asked to make a shadow box picture for twin girls which was great as it gave me the opportunity to try out some new ideas as the frame needed to be larger to fit in both girls' names

I drove over to Dad's today and came home the back way, one moment I was enjoying the cow parsley and rose bay willow herb on the verges and the next it went dark and the heavens opened. I had to slow right down as I could hardly see a thing, the roads were soon awash as the ground is totally water logged. So glad I've planned an outside party for The Big Sister's birthday next weekend, but as it's a pool party they'll be wet anyway!

Excitement

Great excitement over the last couple of days, a friend of a friend who has a shop asked to see some of my work. What to take, what to charge, would she like it??

So I put a few of my favourite things in a little suitcase and set off this morning, despite my nerves it went well. I forgot about things like a price list and or an invoice but fortunately she was really nice. We had a great chat and I was there for over an hour, she placed a small order so French Knots feels like it might be a fledgling cottage industry. More so than when friends order things from me somehow, not sure why one of my tshirts hanging in a shop seems more like a sale than a direct sale at the school gate, more formal perhaps.

I have an idea for another child focused item but need some nice towelling, I've been searching on line but with no luck. Does anyone know a supplier of attractive towelling by the metre?