Take an old container ........

Little Sweetpea loves nothing more than sitting at her little writing desk doodling and created lists so I thought it was about time she had her very own little pen pot.

After finishing the latest tin of scummy hot chocolate I decided to turn it into a pen pot for her.  It is such a simple project which I know will make her very happy when she returns from school later today :-)

I thought I would write a little tutorial so that if someone else wanted to make one they could, so here goes.

First wash the tin out so it doesn't cover the pencils in chocolate (although that would make them smell very lovely indeed).

Then measure around the tin and measure the length of the tin to determine the paper sizes needed.  Cut your pretty paper to the right width and length and stick around the tin.  I used double sided sticky tape (Blue Peter Stylee) do to that.  Then maybe add a border in the middle ....... get creative .....

Now take some pretty scissors and cut some ribbon or cute pom pom trim to give the tin some bling !

Loving the pom pom trim ....... reminds me of my Nan's vintage lamp shades :-)

Then add any other items you want, let your imagination run wild!  Now pop it on the table for your little one to find and watch the big smile on their face (this is the most important part of the project ..... those smiles are so precious :-) ) ..... or keep the tin for yourself :-)  You could even decopatch the tin, newspaper print would look pretty cool.

Happy creating.

Flower Bombs - Guerrilla Gardening

For the last couple of years the kids and I have been doing a bit of guerrilla gardening around our village.  On the first year we planted sunflowers in random places - this wasn't very successful as we had a very dry Spring so most of the sunflowers didn't survive.  Last year we pop seeds around with variable success.  This year I came across the idea of flower bombs via a blog (sorry I can't remember the blog name :-() and had to give it a go :-)

 I had a rummage in the children's art cupboard for any old paper that wasn't very useful ....

I popped it into a blender with some water and blended it up.  My Mum popped over to visit at this point and did look slightly concerned that little Sweetpeas wakings were finally getting to me until I explained what I was doing :-)

We squeezed the wet paper out so it was damp rather than soaking and then mixed the seeds in (a mixture of seeds I collected from our flowers last year).  We then made them into little balls and left them to dry naturally overnight.  They did fall apart slightly so I may try making the compost and clay version next year.

 We then went for a walk round the village .....

and flower bombed random areas :-)  I will be going round with the children and planting cosmos in random places in a month or two, these plants seem perfectly happy if not watered and look so lovely.  I hope the bombs work and we see flowers popping up around the village :-)

We will plant these later in the year.

Also last week we were very excited to receive our caterpillar delivery for the pre-school.  We love watching them grow each year and turning into butterflies.

On the chick front, I am afraid to say that poor Bubbles at the front of the photo passed away :-(  Bubbles hadn't been too well for some time and I am glad he/she went of their own accord rather than Mr Sweetpea having to put him/her out of their misery.  Tiny is doing very well and is still happily chirping away thank goodness.

xxx

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?  

Recycle your roses, chickens, Skibby and sewing - random post warning

Firstly thanks for all your good wishes for Skibby.  He is still with us and has had an antibiotic injection, is on antibiotic tablets and also has local antibiotics which we have to pop in his eye.  He has a abscess on his eye (probably scratched it on a twig in the garden) and if it doesn't heal and goes through the eye he will have to be put to sleep as that could lead to meningitis :-(   His breathing is a bit laboured today so I am hoping that won't get worse - he is too cute to leave us even if he is an old man.

Roses

Mr Sweetpea bought me some roses a couple of weeks back and now they are coming to the end of their life it reminded me that many others may have roses that may be thrown out soon.  Instead of throwing them away why not recycle them?  Last year we went to a wedding in June and instead of buying confetti I got some rose petals off our roses and dried them, I put them in a cute little paper bag and they worked wonderfully as confetti (if you buy that sort of confetti in shops it costs a fortune!).  Not only did it look lovely but it bio-degrads after a little while so is a great eco style option.

You could also dry the petals and pop some rose oil on them for a lovely potpouri.

Chickens
 
We have had a very rare couple of lovely sunny days here in Cambridgeshire.  Oh how I love to hang my washing out on the line and potter around the garden.  This week I was joined by our chickens, they absolutely love the sunshine and sit basking in it.  They also had great fun having mud baths together, Mr Chicken was making sure the girls joined in :-)  Ironically they do this to clean themselves and get rid of any mites that might be on them.

I flung the doors open to let the fresh air in but I did have to keep an eye out for unwanted guests arriving (although they are great company they do tend to poo on the carpet!) :-)

The two old ladies of the group weren't so interested in going out, they were enjoying some peace and quite indoors.

Even the African Greys were loving the sunshine and wolf-whistling the day away.  My husband bought these when he was in his teens and thought they were a pair (both male and female of this species look nearly identical).  We sent a blood sample off for DNA testing some years back now as they do a mating ritual but have never settled down together, it came back that they are both males :-)  They love each other so much however that they have stayed with us as a pair.

 

Sewing

I have managed to get a couple more sets of hairclips made recently which I really enjoyed doing.  They seem to be very Spring like - Spring is in the air yey!  I have popped them in my bloggy shop :-)
 

 

Middle Sweetpea has been creating with her felt and sewing kit that we bought her for Christmas, I just love the bright colours she used :-)  The frog is a little pin-cushion, so sweet!

I hope you are all having a lovely week.

xxx

Cleaning and corsets :-)

Thanks for all your lovely comments on my last blog post, sorry I can't reply to you all individually, time just seems to be so limited lately :-(  Not sure why but the time just speeds past - ggggrrr how dare life get in the way of my blog love :-)

Now this is a bit of a random blog post.  During last year I started in earnest to try and get rid of chemicals in my house that I use for cleaning etc, this is something that I want to do more of this year.  What with more articles in the press about links with certain cleaning products to things like breast cancer and also seeing the reaction that things have on my little sweetpeas skin it makes me think before I buy.  We also had a scare when middle Sweetpea was little and I caught her munching on a toilet gel thing that hangs over the toilet bowl - that was the first and last time I bought any chemical scenting products :-o

I thought I would share with you some of the things I have found out whilst doing this.

Below is a picture of my yukky sink, we get quite a lot of soap build up on the bathroom sink due to buying bars of soap rather than pump soap.  We don't use pump soap due to it causing our hands to get really dry, middle Sweetpeas hands used to bleed they were so dry then we changed to more natural brands of bar soap and the problem went away within a week or so.  We also live in a hard water area so have real problems with limescale build up.   

I have been using soda crystals and vinegar with a drop of tea tree oil to clean our sinks and bath.  Tea tree oil is meant to be a good natural disinfectant.  Just pour some soda crystals in the sink and add a little vinegar and the tea tree and scrub as usual.  If you have limescale around the taps then soak some toilet roll in vinegar and the wrap it round the tap (as in top photo) - leave for about 20 mins and wash away.

It really cleans the sink well and the limescale completely disappears when treated with vinegar a few times.  This is due to limescale being alkaline and vinegar is acid which breaks down the alkaline.

Vinegar can also be put down the toilet (I won't expose you to a picky of my toilet :-)).  We had some limescale down the toilet pan and I tried the coca cola idea but that didn't work.  I then poured vinegar down the pan and left it overnight and voila it was gone in the morning.

Vinegar is also a good fabric softener - pop some in your conditioner draw and it softens the water for you.

For washing up I have been using ECover washing up liquid which is fab and I also use their surface cleaner for the kitchen sides.  Method also make some lovely natural cleaning products but are quite expensive so I wait for special offers on them.

I would really like to get rid of all our chemicals eventually so any tips or recipes for home cleaning products or shampoos etc would be fantastic!

Photo from BBC Website

Now on to corsets, see I told you this post would be random :-)

I watched the new Lark Rise to Candelford last night on BBC1, oh how I wish we still wore such beautiful dresses.  I love this programme not only as it is really well made but the lighting of the whole programme is just lovely, almost sepia sometimes and the clothes - well they are just exquisite!  The way the dresses nipped in at the waste and then flow out, so feminine.  Those lovely collars and puffy shoulders ....  and then there is the gorgeous fabric used to make them .....  I can dream but think I may look a bit odd walking to school in one of those gorgeous dresses :-)

Recycled Baby Jars - Tutorial

Thanks for all your lovely comments on my last blog, glad you loved seeing my crafting space at home :-)  One day ... yes one day I will have a lovely garden studio in my garden or a proper area in my home for me.  Thinking about it though I do love sharing my crafts with my kiddies so the dining table is great for us at the moment.

As many of you may know I am a bit of an eco warrior at home.  I recycle as much as I can, I don't like to throw things away (my poor mates are always getting stuff from my house just in case they find it handy :-)) and if I do think of throwing something I first ponder on what I can use if for.

This brings me to baby jars.  A long time ago I found a tutorial on Craft Pudding on how to turn a baby jar into a pin cushion with the bonus of being able to store ribbon/buttons/beads in it.  I wanted to make one but little Sweetpea didn't really ever have baby food from jars so I updated my status on Facebook asking for baby jars (yes my mates know I am bonkers so weren't surprised by my random request :-)).  A lovely lady called Kathryn came to my rescue delivering me some baby jars - thank you Kathryn !

So I got to work.  First I picked a pretty fabric and cut it to 5 inches diameter.

I then did running stitch around the circle.

When I had sewn all the way round I added stuffing (you have to use stuffing and not cotton wool as I first tried as the fibres are too thick and it won't let pins be stuck into you pin cushion :-() and started to pull the thread tight.

When it is fully tightened make sure you knot it to secure into place.  Tilt head to see next couple of photos - blogger playing up again - ggrrr why does blogger do that :-(

Use a glue gun or super glue to stick this to the jar lid.

Pick some co-ordinating ribbon.  Glue around the rim of the jar and then add your ribbon.

Ta da - some fantastic little things that look lovely and are also useful.  Plus you get the feel good factor of using up old jars.  I use my little jar all the time - it is fantastic!

Giveaway 

Just a reminder that my giveaway entries finish on 30 October so get your name on this blog post (click on link) for the chance to win lots of lovely goodies :-)

Easter Holiday Projects Part 6 - Stained Glass Windows

I like to recycle 'rubbish' if I can in my house and had some sweet wrappers left over from Christmas.  I also bought some e-cloths recently and pondered on what I could re-use the packaging for.  On looking at these items together stained glass windows jumped to mind (I am a bit strange like that :-) ).

I cut out the two clear panels of the e-cloth boxes and gave one to the oldest and middle sweetpea, and one for me of course.  Little baby sweetpea decided she wanted to bypass this project and go straight into painting so she did that instead.

We then drew designs on paper and cut out the sweetie wrappers to fit the shapes in the drawings.  Eldest sweetpea got annoyed at this point and decided he wanted to paint on some canvases I recently bought for them so he did that.  Just two of us left :-)  Middle sweetpea and I carried on and made these:

These were fun but very fiddly to do.

Now these are some old watercolours I had when I was younger, all the sweetpeas loved trying these out!  I bought some canvas from Wilkinson's, 4 square ones for £4 and they had great fun trying the paints out.  Amazingly most of the paints were still OK.

Baby sweetpea did get a little carried away however - I looked away for about 2 mins and there was a blue tongued monster staring at me :-)  It seems watercolours are quite tasty !