Little Sweetpea turns 4!

I can hardly believe it, little Sweetpea is now 4 years old.  It only seems like yesterday she was using my ribs as her own personal exercise machine (oohh she was a good kicker!) and now she is 4.  It is not only me that is shocked by how quickly time is flying by, she got several cards with 3 on them and that made Mr Sweetpea and me make sure that she really was 4 :-)    I still remember so vividly this precious moment in time just hours after she was born ....

So what cake did my little princess ask for this year, well this time round it was a sweetie bag.  I thought it would be easy to create but it wasn't as easy as I thought.

 

It came out OK and the Sweetpeas had great fun getting the pick and mix sweets to fill it with :-)  I got slightly stressed when making this - well to be fair I was stressed about several things that week - my own fault for trying to make too many things whilst also helping at pre-school.  One of the reasons I got stressed is that I had to make it when all the little ones were awake and wanting to help as I had to complete a pressie whilst they slept.

Eldest Sweetpea made a mini version from the left over icing and sponge - I like his better than mine - so cute!

oohh and this is the other reason I was slightly stressy, when I put a jar slightly heavy handed on the shelf  ..... this happened  .... yep the whole shelf fell down!  Eldest Sweetpea whisked everyone out of the kitchen at this point saying that he thought I was getting rather angry - bad mummy moment :-(  I blame the full moon and my hubbys horrid shift work which meant he wasn't coming back until late every night :-(

All the stress was worth it seeing her blow out her candles and her big smiley face when the cake was all light  up.

She got some lovely gifts from her friends, grandparents and auntie.  I thought I would photograph them all so she can look back at them when she is older.  Loving the flamenco outfit!

She also got a new furniture set for her house which her and her Auntie played with (not sure who is having more fun here lol).  Auntie Sweetpea got her a ladybird money box, a labybird wand and also a trip to the Zoo which they all really enjoyed.

We got her a wheelbarrow as little Sweetpea loves the garden.  She has been collecting leaves in it already.

I also made her a nature satchel which I will share more photos with you next time as I want to photograph some other lovely handmade gifts she received.

As I couldn't muster the energy to throw a full on party for little Sweetpea this year we took cakes to each of the groups she goes to during the week.  I batch baked a lot of cupcakes last week and froze some ready for icing the day before we went. 

Middle and little Sweetpea loved decorating them, not sure how many cakes actually managed to leave the house :-)

Oh little Sweetpea how I love you so.  You have only just started sleeping through but I still love you with all my heart even after all the sleep deprivation.  You have made me laugh and smile each and every day since you were born.  I hope you grow up to love life as much as you do now , even when you are as big as the clouds :-) xxx

Homemade Puffy Paint

I  recently saw an idea on the Internet for making your own puffy paint at home and just had to give it a go with the kiddies.

We tried two recipes out and found this one from Play at Home Mom worked best.

You need:
1/2 cup of flour
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp salt
food colouring or coloured paint

Put the flour, baking powder and salt into a container and then add some water to make them into a paste.  Then add your colouring.

Now get your brushes and have fun - it works well on cardboard :-) Pop it in the microwave for 10 - 30 seconds and voila, puffy paint !

The kiddies loved this and spent ages creating puffy paintings.

Other art that has been happening here which is quite interesting is little Sweetpea's drawings.  She has been drawing little people for some time now in quite some detail but she always creates them upside down.

I am not sure how she does it really as it is quite hard to do when you are used to creating them the right way up :-)  I am not telling her to create things any differently as this is the way she does it and is happy doing it but it is rather unusual.

This piccy is of her Auntie and Uncle, Mr Sweetpea asked if I had looked in detail at this piccy then I realised she had added some personal anatomy down below lol.  When I asked how I knew which was her Uncle she exclaimed 'he has a willy!' - well really :-)  They have sad faces because Eldest Sweetpea said she was drawing them the wrong way round and moved the paper round for her - hence smiley faces are showing as sad faces as she draws up-side-down.

Thanks for all your lovely comments, I have been trying to message each of you back personally unless you have no e-mail attached to your bloggedy blog. x

Crafting and sorting

Hi everyone, I hope you all had a fab half-term week last week.  Ours was a lovely chill out week (well once the older Sweetpeas got used to being with each other all the time again :-)).  I really must make sure we enjoy the next break too as Eldest Sweetpea is getting to the age where he wants to go out with friends so we may not see so much of him in the Summer term :-(  He is then off to College in September and I am hoping I don't lose him completely then :-(

During the last couple of weeks I have had a little play with knitting, my work mate decided I should learn knitting before teaching me any more crochet - not sure why but it has been fun.  This form of knitting is different from the UK knitting technique, I had thought it was Russian knitting but then talking to another work friend who is Lithuanian I now think that it must be a wide-spread version of knitting and maybe the UK uses a different technique to everyone else?   Basically you have the loop on your knitting needle and hook through the wool from the back and pop your new loop on your other needle.  I will have to try and blog some piccies of how you do it.  It is quick to do but I am not sure if the knitting is more loose with this style , it may however be due to my lack of skill :-)

I got going and made little Sweetpea a scarf - she picked out the colours she liked and away I went :-)  As you can see it is not fantastic but she seems to love it.  It looks a bit like Bagpuss wrapped round her neck lol.  On finishing it I realised I didn't know how to get it off the hook so my Mother-in-Law taught me along with the help of You Tube :-)

I have stalled slightly on my Crochet.  This little square was created with a lot of help from Bears Footprints the other Friday.  I really must try another one as I am sure I have forgotten it all already :-(

Middle and eldest Sweetpea joined in with some felt fun during half term.  They made their own little brooches and hairclip designs.

We have also been painting.  I got the watercolours out, lots of lovely vibrant colours and this is what little Sweetpea above created - hhhhhmm a lot of black!

Eldest Sweetpea then bought the above painting home from school, should I worry about my children and their fascination with black lol :-)  They reminded me of the comedy Spaced where Brian the artist is inspired by black and of the comedy below:



Spring Cleaning

I have been in a real de-clutter mood lately, most cupboards have been pulled out and most things put back in again.  I do think I have a bit of a problem with saving too many things - just take a look below at some of the things I have saved from things I have been posted over the years !

 

 

That is just some of it :-o  I just can't bring myself the throw things away if I think I can re-use them, the problem is where to store it all???  Any ideas?  

Nesting & Family ....

Hi, I hope you are all having a great week this week.  Thanks for all your comments on my last blog post, if you make pretty things and want to be featured on my blog, or even do a giveaway here then feel free to message me :-)

It was rather a strange week here in the Sweetpea household as my Mum had to go and have a heart operation last Friday.  hhhmm things like that do put your brain into a funny place, you think positively but then every now and again a scary thought pops up :-(  The operation didn't quite go to plan as the surgeon said she has a 'unique' heart - I could have told him that before he even started! :-)  I am happy to say that she is home safe and sound though, phew.

How I missed her on Friday, we always meet up Friday afternoon for a catch up and wine time :-)  Luckily I had Little Lambs with Sweetpea on Friday morning and the lovely Bear's Footprints came along for the first time.  It was lovely to see her and we chatted about craft stuff and the lovely Kathryn showed us a quick crochet demo at the end.  Then Friday evening a friend came to pick her daughter up and drop my son off (we did a kid swap, always works really well swapping kids lol) at about 6.30pm.  She stayed and chatted about thrifting & crafts and I did a quick lesson on how to use some functions on her camera, before we knew it it was past 8pm :-)  Distraction technique certainly is lovely!

More distraction was needed on Saturday as we were hoping Mum would be home mid morning but she had to wait for an echo cardiogram (or however you spell it) which didn't happen until 8pm :-( .  Time ticked by slowly so the girls and I made a carrot cake.  So scrummy and another good distraction :-)  I finally got to see Mum on Monday (as I work Sunday until late) - it was so lovely seeing her in the flesh.

Nesting

Well I don't know about you but this near year has really made me want to have a clear out and tidy up of my house.  Mr Sweetpea was panicking I was expecting another baby due to my nesting ways :-)

Sideboards have been tidied, cupboards and been cleared out, things have been put up in the loft and lots of bags have found their way to charity shops :-)  Does the house look any less messy or cluttered - nope !

One thing I really wanted to sort out was the kiddies art stuff.  We used to store it all in a cheap chest of drawers but then the drawers started to crack under the weight of it all.  Well that piece of furniture got shipped off to a friend and then everything was put into bags.

It took months to get our bums into gear and get some shelves for it all.  I hated having it all in bags, it was so limiting on how often we could create things as starting a project meant rummaging in bags for ages :-(  I got these shelves from Argos (I did want to go to Ikea but couldn't face the trip really) and then I got some wallpaper samples (cheeky I know :-o), measured them up and popped them behind the shelves.  I really love the way they have turned out:

Now all their art stuff is in one place and in full view.  I must remind myself not to buy any more art stuff as the shelves are packed!  I used old coffee jars, food containers and thrifted jars for storage of beads etc.

Then after seeing Sew Liberated's little one tidying away his playdough I just had to create something similar for little Sweetpea.   I popped to homebase and found some great little wicker baskets on sale,they are perfect for storing items for activities and I have taught little Sweetpea that she can get her playdough or writing basket out and do it whenever she wants.  All she then has to do is tidy it away afterwards :-)  She loves them and especially loves folding up the mat after she has finished.