May 2nd 2015 - Royal Baby and pirate hand hand puppet

May 2nd 2015 - Royal baby and pirate hand puppet

CONGRATULATIONS

I send my congratulations to Kate & William (and all their family) on the arrival of their baby daughter today, the new Princess.  I hope that all is well with Mum and baby.


Pirate Hand Puppet

As part of my story sack with the family learning we were told we had to make a puppet to go in the sack.  We were all given a plain white hand puppet like this:

which we could decorate how we liked as long as linked to our book.  Well as my book is about pirates in underpants I decided I would make the puppet as a pirate in underpants.  This was all well and good saying so but not as easy in practise.  I could have drawn the design in fabric pens but me being me this wasn't going to look good enough!  So I got material out of the cupboard and started cutting and stitching.

Here is the start of the pirate with his top on:

From here I made a bandana for his head and gave him some hair (flash hit the face part making him look yellow):

I then added denim from an old pair of jeans to make his trousers - this are at the side of where the pants are visible in 1st pic.  I didn't get a pic of this stage.  From here I made a pair of pants from grey skull material and stitched them over the top of his "jeans" so they look like pants are over top of them. 

I think he's pretty good and i'm really pleased with him so far.  Obviously he's not quite finished as still need to add his face and his eye patch.  Only thing i'm not happy with is his hands - they were a very pale peach pen but they have come out quite orange but nothing I can do about it sadly.

May 1st 2015 - Pallet Bench

May 1st 2015 - Pallet Bench

Me and hubby have made a Pallet Bench to go on the decking similar to that of the pin - except we only have 1 part and no back on it.  We are going to make a 2nd one as well.  But the wind got up and was really cold despite the sun shining.

We also ran out of metal mending plates to hold them together so cant do anything until we get some more.  It also needs varnishing but this can wait until they are both made.

We added extra pieces of wood (from the pallet) into the gaps so that the top is a solid seat as more comfortable than the gaps in a pallet.  We cut it down so it's only as wide as the 1 section of the 2cross bits (see pic as they form front and back piece of wood).  The legs were made from the bottom part of the pallet.  it's no higher than a normal garden chair.

April 30th 2015 - Hedgehog craft

April 30th 2015 - Hedgehog craft

Today I was looking for "wild animal" activities for Badgers (St John Ambulance) for next week as part of their Wild Badge.  I came across this Hedgehog, but as we are in spring i'm not going to find many brown leaves about.

But it gave me an idea - Hedgehog shape on paper and glue brown triangles to it to look like spikes.  I set about cutting triangles from brown parcel paper and brown craft paper (darker).  I then covered the hedgehog template in glue and stuck the triangles on overlapping themso thepoints were not stuck down.

It looked really good and was very easy to do. This is the image I have used  as the base, the face and feet can be coloured with felt tips or crayons.

April 29th 2015 - Book Quotes

April 29th 2015 - Book Quotes

As part of the story sack for family learning I decided that I would add a Dr Seuss quote to the bag, which has been printed on t-shirt transfer paper for me to iron and and then the small book from felt with Book quotes on each page.

I hunted the net for ages trying to find some quotes that the kids would understand.  I choose the ones that are in the link (I made the pin of them).  Each quote has been written out in pencil on a small piece of material and I am back stitching the letters on each one.  This is taking longer than I thought it would but never mind, will look good when it's done and they are fixed to the felt book.

Here is 2 of the quotes - 1 drawn in pencil and the other that has been sewn

April 28th 2015 - Toadstool table n chairs

April 28th 2015 - Toadstool table n chairs

Today me n hubby nipped out to a garden centre 15mins up the road as I want a Lemon Grass plant as wasps don't like the smell of it.  They hadn't got any and didn't know what I was on about!

Well we came back via a small market town, we've been there quite a bit as they have the Factory Outlet Store.  We nipped in.  This was a BIG mistake (in a way) as cost me an absolute fortune!

Outside the front of the store was garden furniture and things and amongst it was a Toadstool Table n Chairs.  It was lovely!  We mis-read the label and price.  We walked round the store and picked up few bits and it was as we got near the till we decided we would get the toadstool table n chairs even though it meant we couldn't get any wood to do the decking this week.  The sacrifices I make for my kids!

Well we thought it was £40 for the table and chairs...... errrr no, £40 for the table and £25 per pair of chairs!  OMG!!! (bearing in mind this is NOT RRP but cheaper!)  BUT they did have an offer of table and 2 chairs for £59!  So we got them.

They are really lovely and we have been and cleared the weeds from in front of fairy garden for them, not sure if this is where they are staying permanently or not, but where they are going for now.  If they are staying here we will have to level thee ground properly and possibly put some more of the purple stone chips down.  I think we have to re-think the entire fairy garden and re-make it bigger like where it was before (where the mud is to) and place the table n chairs at the back by the fence, with the fairies and toadstools at either side.

April 27th 2015 - Golden Pants Trophy

April 27th 2015 - Golden Pants Trophy

To go in my story sack for family learning I decided I would make and add a Golden Pants Trophy like the one the Pirates are hunting are hunting for.

I picked up a pack of trophies in £1 shop, this is one of them:

I painted the bottom part and the stem with gold glitter nail varnish - I think it had about 5 coats in the end to get a nice thick gold colour.

I then hunted the net for a pattern to make underpants and found this one:
 

As you can see I cut it in half to use as I would have had problems fixing an "all in 1" pair round the trophy because of the stem etc.

I had some gold sparkly/sequin material in the cupboard which I thought would be great and look really like a gold trophy:

I drew round the pants template and cut out 2 pairs of the pants.  I also added a piece of material across the top of the 2 pairs of pants but this didn't work so I had to remove it.  I stitched the pants together leaving the crutch area open so that I could get it onto the trophy.  I added some goldish ribbon to the pants to make the "Y-front" markings.

I stuffed the middle of the trophy with pillow stuffing and wrapped some all around the handles and the outside of the trophy.  I then very carefully (and hard) got the pants onto the trophy where I added more stuffing to them to make sure the whole of the pants were stuffed and the right shape.

I finally sewed the bottom of the pants together and the finished Golden Pants Trophy looks like this:

I'm really pleased with how it turned out and so are the boys who the story sack will be for.

April 26th 2015 - Bird House

April 26th 2015 - Bird House

I bought 2 Bird houses similar to these from poundland the other week, I'm not sure what size birds they are meant for as the hole is smaller than a 2p coin.  I had talked about covering them in shells before they went into the fairy garden but lil man has decided he wants them in it as they are.  He has placed them on top of an old tree stump and said that they are neighbours.

He is so happy to have his little fairy garden and apart from the wind knocking 1 ornament off the fence (luckily it didn't break) nothing has been broken or stolen.  Which is really good.