Yey I am back :-)

The bonkers Sweetpea family :-)

Wow that was a bloggy break I wasn't expecting, it seems like ages since I have been able to do a blog post :-(  It has been rather hectic here in the Sweetpea household with a family wedding, 3 birthdays and also making some more creations since I have been away - oh that is on top of the school hols :-)

A few weeks back my cousin got married, goodness it made me feel a bit old, I remember the day he was born and when he was little attending our wedding in a cute little suit.    Now I  am not really a fan of formal events like weddings, christenings etc as I am more of a welly wearing lady rather than a posh shoe lady and I am not really into all the pomp and circumstance of it all (it makes me feel uncomfortable for some reason).   I got a bit stressed on the run up to the day frantically trying to find outfits for all the kiddies as all the bloomin summer clothes had been removed from the shops but it was worth the stress as it was such a fun day.  Oh how I hate clothes shopping - I only really like charity shop shopping now, probably why I haven't bought myself clothes for ages.

This is me and my gorgeous little sister - can you tell she is wearing heels!

I asked her to do a 'Versace' pose here lol - she is so beautiful but doesn't know it!

This is my parents with my sis and I.  I think we all scrubbed up rather well - especially as after all the looking for clothes for the kiddies I just grabbed stuff out of my wardrobe for the day.  At the beginning is a blog of the Sweetpeas.

Now I am not sure why I was worried about this event being very formal with my family involved in it, we are not renowned for being the most sensible family :-)  Above is a photo of middle Sweetpea and Great Grandad Sweetpea with my Sister's tash bag, this went round the room for everyone to have photos taken with it.   There was also a pair of plastic glasses with a willy nose doing the rounds too - goodness knows who bought that with them but the photos are very funny indeed :-)

The next day was Eldest Sweetpea's birthday.  I was off work as I was feeling ill (not drink related I might add as I was the driver back from the wedding) so we all chilled out for the day.  I hadn't planned a party for the day of his birthday as I was meant to be at work so we were going to have a party later.  Well Sweetpea got bored and was playing up a bit so I said he could go out with his mates (rather than sending him to his room on his birthday) and this is the result, a broken wrist!  I wish I had sent him to his room now :-(

Poor dot was in goal playing footy with his mates, a ball was kicked at him to save only to push his wrist right back.  We were called from his mobile and rushed to get him, we initially thought he has pulled a muscle but then when he went into shock I drove him to A&E (well two A&E's as one didn't have the x-ray machine on !) as there was obviously something more wrong.  He had a buckle fracture on his wrist and now has a funcky blue cast on which we can take off ourselves in about a weeks time so he needs it on for 4 weeks all in all which isn't too bad.

I finally got to make his cake quite a few days after his actual birthday and he didn't have a party in the end :-(  He did however love his fishing cake complete with his dog ted in the back of the boat and he got enough birthday money to buy a really good BMX bike that he wanted.

He has gone off to secondary school today - this boy is growing up far to quickly for my liking.  How can I have a child who is at college when I am so young myself (I am 25 in my head :-)).  He seemed very happy going off, not too nervous at all which is wonderful, I hope he loves his new school.  I managed to sneak a little kiss on him before he ran off for the bus, he is nearly too old for kisses :-(  Little Sweetpea and Middle Sweetpea are under strict instructions not to grow any more :-) 

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

Truly Scrumptious Cupcakes!

I thought I would share a recipe that I tried recently for some very scrummy cupcakes.  Not only do they have strawberries, cream and sponge but there is also a hidden area of strawberry jam in it :-)

A friend of mine gave me one she had made recently and after getting home and eating it I NEEDED the recipe :-)   Luckily it was in the local Summer Spark mag that is given out at schools at the end of term which I had at home so I gave it a whirl.
 
Ingredients:
110g softened butter
110g caster sugar
110g self raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
2 large free range eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract

Topping:
300ml double cream
1 tsp to 1tbs icing sugar to taste
Strawberries
Strawberry jam

Pre-heat the oven to 160 deg C fan oven/Gas mark 3/180 conventional oven or 350 degf.   Pop 12 cupcake cases in a 12 hole tin.

Put the butter in a mixing bowl and beat until smooth then sift in the sugar, flour and baking powder.

Add eggs and vanilla extract and beat until smooth.

Pop the ingredients into 12 cupcake cases, they suggest using an ice cream scoop so they are all the same amount.

Bake in oven for 20 mins or until golden and springy.

Whilst you let them cool start on the topping.  With a whisk whip the cream and icing sugar (I think less icing sugar is more with this recipe otherwise they become a big sickly) until the soft peak stage.  Be careful not to over whip.

Now your cupcakes are cool get a knife to cut a little scoop out of the top of them (as you would with fairy cakes), pop some jam in the hole and then pop the sponge back on to hide it.

Take your cream topping and spoon some on your cake, then top with a strawberry.

Get a cup of tea, a fav mag and a quiet spot and enjoy your scrummy cupcake :-) x

Tandem Reveal ........

Thanks for all your lovely comments regarding little Sweetpeas skirt, if any of you have any good book or website recommendations for learning to sew I would greatly appreciate them.  Oh and also any recommendations for equipment like scissors etc (I used kitchen scissors for the skirt, not the best for cutting).  We have one problem with it however, it is now day 4 of the new skirt and she won't take it off!  I think I will have to make another just so I can wash that one lol.

Now back to this post's title, some time ago some of you may remember that I was given a lovely 1964 Hercules tandem by my Nan and Grandad.  When we got it it looked like this, not the cleanest of bikes but in great working order.

Well we sent it over to a lovely chap across the road who loves restoring and doing up bikes.  Whilst it was there I rummaged about on the internet to find its original colour and I also looked in family albums for the photo of my parents sitting on the bike on their wedding day, my Mum was only 18 in this photo :-)  I am loving the fact that their wedding reception was in my Nan & Grandads garden along with tents put up for the party and guests to stay in afterwards.

Well a few weeks later here is my gorgeous grandparents with their done up bike!  My Grandad was particularly chuffed, he was like a kid at Christmas, his face just lite up and he couldn't stop looking at it.  I was a bit worried that they may be upset that I took it to do it up as it has been used a lot by them and all of us in the past so they have many happy memories of it.   As I walking them over to see it I found out that they didn't have it from new but had swapped it many years ago for a record player :-)  They then used it to cycle to France with all their camping gear on the back and all our Aunties and cousins also remember the bike very fondly.

This photo was taken in our neighbours garden (the chap who did the bike up for us) - what a fab garden and just look at those smiles!

There is a little speedo on it but it gets stuck at 7mph - I am sure we go faster than that lol.

These photos are back in our garden again,  the bike looks great now and certainly makes people smile as we bike past them.  Mind you they may be smiling as my socks are tucked into my trousers and Mr Sweetpea and I are giggling away whilst peddling around the village on it - this bike just makes you have a huge grin on your face :-)  I still have to master starting off without wobbling around on the back for a few seconds and Mr Sweetpea telling me to stay still but I am sure that will come with time.

We have only managed two bike rides on it so far as obviously we can't leave little Sweetpea on her own (or the other two as they may kill each other lol) but here is to many more years on this fab bike :-) x

Yey I did it!

Back in May I was lucky enough to win a meter of fabric from the lovely Claire's Patch Fabrics facebook page.  As I am still borrowing my friends sewing machine I really wanted some fabric to make little Sweetpea a skirt out of.  Claire was not only kind enough to give me the fabric (click the link above, she has some scrummy fabric) but she also gave me a link to a skirt tutorial that she said was easy - click here for info.

So the fabric arrived and it was gorgeous, in fact it was too gorgeous as it has taken me this long to pluck up the courage to cut into it :-)  Well last night was the night I decided that yes I could cut the fabric and yes I could get that sewing machine whirring !

I printed off the instructions, read them, re-read them, tried to make sense of some of the sewing jargon and got on with it.  It was quite easy, I think the hardest part was trying to get everything straight and then adding the ribbon at the end (which I would personally add at the beginning in future - not sure if there is a reason why it is added at the end as I am no seamstress :-)).  Also another hard part was getting little Sweetpea to stay still to check the elastic was the right length for her ickle belly - she ran off when I was trying to do this and nearly bungeed back down the corridor whilst nearly breaking the stitching I had just done!

It came out really well (well for someone who has never sewn a skirt before),  and I love the ribbon detail at the base of the skirt.

My sewing was pretty straight but I do need to work on those endings where you have to go back and forth to lock in the stitches, they are rather hard to get perfect.

This is where the elastic went in and the bungee incident happened lol, not easy holding an excited youngster still whilst checking the elastic length.

But this is one happy little girl.  Last night I finished it at about 10pm, first thing this morning she was up with her jim-jam top on and her new skirt, she had to put it on right away! :-)

I am really chuffed that I finally did it !

They just keep on growing :-(

Well it is the end of term here and the end of an era with Eldest Sweetpea moving up to Secondary School in September.   We had end of term school productions where he played an entrepreneur and then he had his cycling proficiency test in the last week too (he passed unlike me who must be the only person in Britain who didn't much to Mr Sweetpeas amusement for many years!).

We also had SATS results and school reports sent home.  I was incredibly proud that Eldest Sweetpea did really well in his SATS especially as I didn't send him to any of the after school classes he was asked to attend.  I must say the SATS process really did annoy me, we were told that the children were not going to be put under any pressure for these tests and then came letters home re parents meetings regarding them and extra lessons for the children after school.  I stuck to my instincts (which is really quite hard when you get all these 'no pressure' invites from the school) and didn't go to any meetings or send him to any extra lessons.  I knew that if I had attended meetings I would have accidentally put pressure on him for a test that really is to do with how the school is performing not him, also the extra lessons would have put pressure on him too and then he would have frozen when the tests did take place.  In the end he was very chilled out about the tests and did his best and did very well indeed, especially in his favourite subject Science :-)  Middle Sweetpea and Little Sweetpea did very well in their reports too - one chuffed Mum !

Thursday night there was the School Disco and I went to help, goodness I nearly cried several times watching all the Year 6 kiddies together - thank goodness it was dark!  Eldest Sweetpea's year has been a lovely year group, nearly all have them have known each other since Pre-School and I know them very well.  Friday then saw his last ever walk to school so we all took a trip there together ....

In the afternoon they had a last assembly which was held in the village Church, I really was in two minds as to go or not as I knew it would make me upset.  I asked Eldest Sweetpea if he wanted me to go and he said 'I am not bothered really' so I asked him again telling him the only reason I didn't want to go was that it would make me cry and he then replied 'Oh, if you are going to cry then I want you to come, I never see you cry' ...... well really, what a loving son I have lol.

Well I got over my own feelings (after feeling low all morning, blimey I didn't know it would upset me that much) and went along to the Church.  Thank goodness for little Sweetpea, Bear and their little mate Harley for distracting me with their giggles, cushion arranging and dancing to the Year 6's songs. 

Above is a photo of Eldest Sweetpea being presented with a RSPB book that he had picked as one he liked - he was really happy with it as it also had a CD with bird songs on it :-)

It was a lovely event and I am really glad I got over my worries and went along.  I held in most of my tears and only became dewy eyed for a little while.  Luckily I had these lovely and rather apt tissues in my bag that Emma Bear Forever gave me some time ago - see bloggers to the rescue :-)

Still addicted to Crochet!

Thanks for all your comments on my last blog post, I hope you all get to see the butterfly life cycle, it really is amazing.   If you only want to see one or two caterpillars turn into butterflies you can always potter around the garden and collect caterpillars, make sure you check what food you took them off and feed them until they are ready to turn into cocoons - they will hang in a J shape when they are getting ready for this.  Eldest Sweetpea has done this a few times but as this project is for a pre-school and has to run in term time so all the kiddies see the magic we buy the kits.

As you may know from reading this blog I recently wanted to learn crochet.  I bought this book to start me off:

and created quite a few things from it whilst learning the stitches ...

Above is me learning a chain, single crochet, double, half treble and treble crochet.  The circle is to learn increases in stitches and the wavy one is a pattern in the book that could be used for edging.

I then gave granny squares a go, loved making these.

And here are a few flowers and a pattern that started as a circle but ended up looking like an Ammonite (see the one of the right - eldest Sweetpea's fav as it looks like a fossil lol).  A lot of mistakes were made on the way, a lot of growling at the wool not wanting to do what I wanted it to do but slowly and surely I got there.

I then went to our local library to see if there were any good books there and wow was I amazed!  There are loads of fab crochet books there and if they aren't I can look them up on the Library stock list on-line and search for a book I want and order it - how fantastic is that!

I picked this book up from there, it is full or lovely flowers and ideas.

I then created these cute flowers from a pattern in the book ..... well actually you won't find this exact flower pattern as I made a mistake creating the flower (due to getting muddled with US/UK crochet terms)  but then preferred my bodged flower design so kept going with it :-)  You can see a bigger photo at the top of this post of the flower ...... hhmmm I might do a tutorial for it as it is my own bodged design :-)

I have made a few of them now, not sure what to make with them but I love them.

I also got this book, it has some lovely throws in it.

I especially like this one:

Not sure I am quite up to that standard yet but practice makes perfect I suppose, I just have to get my head round the more complicated patterns :-) 

I hope you are all well and life isn't too hectic for you all - thanks again for your comments, they really are appreciated.

x