May 6th 2015 - Polar Bear craft

May 6th 2015 - Polar Bear craft

Tonight with my St John Ambulance Badgers they are continuing their Wild badge and we are talking about wild animals, last week we talked about pet animals.

As well as a few written sheets to fill out we are going to make hedgehogs from cut triangle of paper and coconut polar bears.  I was very close to not being able to do it as I tried everywhere yesterday to get desicated/ground coconut with no luck.  There was only 1 shop we didn't try and hubby went there today and they had some.

Here is mine to show the kids what they are doing:

This is a very easy craft to do - print pictures of polar bears out, cover in glue and then cover the glue in coconut, shake the excess coconut back into the tub.

May 5th 2015 - Pain

May 5th 2015 - Pain

NO idea what has happened BUT the past few days the pain in my knee jas gone through the roof again! I've not done anything to make it worse.  Pain killers don't seem to be helping much either.

I'm back where I was before I had the operation a year ago, well not quite as I can walk without crutches, although not very far without pain.  I am still getting heat patches (like when you rest a cup of coffee on leg), I am still getting shooting pains up thigh and down calf, I have constant pain under and around knee, my muscles twitch loads, resting doesn't help walking doesn't help, heat and cold don't help!

I have just about had enough of this now 2.5yrs of constant pain is beyond a joke!  But I no if go back to docs they will refer me back to surgeon and i'm not sure if I really want another operation on it as 1st one hasn't helped much!

May 4th 2015 - Matching pairs game

May 4th 2015 - Matching pairs game

As part of my Story Sack for family learning I have made an Underpants matching pairs game.  The idea was from the link which is linked to the Aliens love underpants book.

Rather than using that 1 I went on the net and found loads of bright, colourful,patterned underpants and put them in a grid so that I can cut them out and laminate them.  I then realised that the images could be seen through the A4 white paper so I printed out the image from the cover of the book in the same size grid and stuck them to the back of the pants - making them non-visable.

There are a total of 24 pairs of underpants that I have made for the game, and they will be going in a mini bag to keep them safe and together.

May 3rd 2015 - Iron on transfer

May 3rd 2015 - Iron on transfer

As part of my family learning and the making of a story sack we had to design the sack as well.  Most of the group used fabric pens and drew their design on or used bits of material or a printed a picture laminated and glued on but were linked to the book they have chosen.  I decided that I wanted my story sack to be universal and able to be used for any books.

I asked my friend who did me some iron on transfers the other Christmas if she still had any and if she would do me one to go my sack.  She agreed and posted it to me, thanks Col!  It didn't arrive until after I had been to the school last Wednesday, not that I know HOW I would have ironed it on at the school anyway. Lol!

Then when I went to iron it on the other day I hunted the house high and low and couldn't find the iron!  Me and hubby remembered that it went in the bin after it burnt/melted my sons shirt and we hadn't replaced it.  (I don't iron very often and when I do it's usually shirts for going out.)  So I had to wait until yesterday to go to town and buy a new iron.

The quote that is going on it is from Dr Seuss.  Here is the pic with it printed in reverse (so that it's the right way once ironed).

The next pic show it turned over and the "printed bit" is now facing the sack ready to be ironed in place.

Here I am ironing the image into place on the sack.

Here is the sack with the ironed quote in place.   

My story sack is almost complete now.  I just need to finish fixing the quotes into the felt book which I am going to stitch onto the front of the sack under the Dr Seuss quote. 

Most of the contents of the story sack are complete as well.  I have the book - Pirates love underpants, a Golden pants trophy that I made, a monkey in underpants that just needs a banana making, a pop up pirate game (bought) and a few other bits.  I'm not saying all as I want some of them to be a surprise for my children.

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.