May 14th 2015 - Pirate Treasure Chest

May 14th 2015 - Pirate Treasure Chest

Yesterday at family learning at the school I was given a wooden treasure chest to use as part of my story sack.  It was plain wood and not decorated.  I did the edges in a grey felt tip and coloured the box in brown.  When I got home I went over the grey with a silver sharpie pen and added "plank lines" with a darker brown sharpie.

I covered it all in clear nail varnish.  (maybe I should do a post 1 day of my many uses of nail varnish!!!)

I painted the inside of the box with a pale gold nail varnish and then added a gold glitter nail varnish over the top.

 I then added glitter/sparkle nail varnish to some gems left over from last years pirate party, and added them, a ring and various pirate coins to the treasure chest.

May 13th 2015 - Food chains

May 13th 2015 - Food chains

Today's pin is linked  to food chains.  This is what the Badgers at St John Ambulance will be doing tonight as part of their wild badge.  We are talking about food chains and life cycles.  I phave made some sheets for them to fill in linked to both.

May 12th 2015 - Tried it but didnt like it!

May 12th 2015 - Tried it but didn't like it

A few weeks ago I was sent a free packet of lime rice and quinoa.  Sounded and looked quite nice.  There was a receipe idea on the back to have it with salmon.  So we decided that we would try it.  We bought some salmon today and cooked the rice stuff and salmon.  And served it.

Well all I can say on it was the quinoa looked like frogspawn, my hubby thought it looked like loads of eyes!  Not a good start.  The lime flavour with the rice and salmon went well together and is something I will try again, BUT it will be without the quinoa!  I didn't like the taste or texture.  I can safely say I have tried it but didn't like it.

May 11th 2015 - Making underpants (for a parrot)

May 11th 2015 - Making underpants (for a parrot)

Yes you read that right I am making underpants for a parrot!  Not a real one but a hand puppet, well it was bought as a wash mitt/flannel, but wont be by the time I have finished with it.  This is linked to the story sack I am making at family learning at the school.  The book Pirates love underpants has a parrot in it as well as the monkey.

My kids don't know about the parrot puppet, they have seen most bits that are going in the story sack but I have kept the parrot from them as well as few other bits.  I used this underpant template as the basic idea to make them, but the parrot in the book has shorts as underpants so I had to alter the shape to make them work.

I have sat and stitched the underpants and then stitched them to the puppet.  I plan to add feather to it at the school on wednesday to make it look better.

I think my kids are safe in the knowledge that I wont be starting to make their underpants as it's not that easy!!! LOL!

May 10th 2015 - Planting sweetcorn part 2

May 10th 2015 - Planting sweetcorn part 2

About 6weeks ago me and lil man planted his sweetcorn.  Well we still have nothing grown and it says should grow by 21days!  I have dug around in the soil where we put them and cant find anything.  So today me and lil man are going to plant some more sweetcorn.  Hopefully the tips on the pin will be of use to us.

The packet does say if the seeds fail they will replace or refund, so if these ones dont start to grow I will be taking them up on this!

May 9th 2015 - Sock heat bag

May 9th 2015 - Sock heat bag

My knee is causing me lots of pain at the moment, and I have no idea why as I haven't done anything.  The most annoying thing is that I can't find my microwave heat bag to put on it. So I went on pinterest to see if I could how to make one.

I found a pin about making a a heat bag from a pair of socks and some rice.  I followed the instructions and filled 1 of the socks with rice,tied a knot in it, placed it inside the other sock and then heated it in the microwave, the pin says for 1minute 40seconds, but after 1minute it was already boiling hot, not sure if my microwave was higher power etc.

But it worked as a heat bag, although the rice doesn't stay as hot for as long as my wheat bag.  But until I can find it this will work as a short term one.

1 bag of rice

1 sock

put rice in sock

tie knot in sock

place inside other sock

May 8th 2015 - Don't back down.....

May 8th 2015 - Don't back down......

.....When you know you are RIGHT!  This matches today's pin which is a quote :

"I love proving people wrong, 

because it proves what I 

knew all along - 

I was right!"

This is very apt following today's events.  I spent over 3hrs on the phone and internet chat to a company trying to sort out the bill they had sent me that made no sense.  In this time I spoke to a total of 8 people, 5 of which were total muppets and didn't listen to what I was saying/asking, told me their was no managers available when I asked for one, dropped calls (I got the message "the other person has cleared the line") and couldn't understand why I was slowly getting more and more annoyed!

When I got a call back I asked for a manager and was put through to the insurance department!!!  LIKE REALLY???  they don't even sound the same (maybe if you say them both 10times really quickly when drunk they do - but i'm not trying it and i'm not drunk!)  Anyway the nice man in the insurance department was like "can I help you?" So I explained all of what had happened and that I asked for a manager got him, he couldn't understand as customer policy is a manager is asked for the call handlers have to try and find one or arrange a call back.  He put me through to one.

The poor manager got the brunt of my temper as I explained the previous people I had spoken to, the mixed information of yes its disconnected/no its not, calls being dropped, the extra charges on the bill, the fact the price had gone up from £23.98 owing to £54.63, the insurance was still on it when should have been cancelled in January.  She said she would look into it all.  I knew that the amount they were saying was wrong as when I spoke to them in April it was £23.98 owing to them.  However, I worked it out that they owed me nearly £60 in charges that they had taken since January that they shouldn't have done.

At the start of the 3hrs I owed them (according to them) £54.63 and they owed me £60 which according to maths meant that there was £5.37 owed to me.  My figures that they had given me in April was I owed them £23.98 and they owed me £60 which means there was £36.02.  After loads of discussions and umming and arring, they cancelled the insurance that should have been done in January and are going to credit my account - except I no longer have an account with them.  The manager agreed to send the money to my bank, but we were still not agreeing on figures, she reduced her figure to £37, I was still not agreeing as she couldn't tell me where the extra £14 had come from since last month!  I stayed on hold, she went to sort things out and eventually came back to me that I was right and they owed me more than I owed them!  

What a turn around, in the space of 3hrs it had gone from me owing them £54.63 to them owing me £45.88 and the difference was being wiped due to the inconvinience.  They also confirmed the problems had come about because the account wasn't fully disconnected in January like it should have been.

IF you know you are right on something don't give up!!!