August 4th 2015 - Mr Maker has nothing on Mummy!

august 4th 2015 - Mr Maker has nothing on Mummy!

Today the local food bank had a viking day.  Lil man said he wanted to go dressed up.  Now if you have followed my blog you will remember how I made a Viking Tunic from a bath mat for world book day for middle son and also a viking shield.

So we were half way there for today.  I had hoped to use the knights helmet altered to make a viking helemt BUT we couldn't find it anywhere.  So I looked on pinterest and found this hat that can be made from cardboard and duck tape......cue my next problem the recycling was taken by hubby first thing this morning and I have no silver duck tape!  Ok not a problem, I sent the boys upstairs for the army hat, I started to cover it in white gaffa tape and then it came to me - tin foil!!!

This was my next yell at the kids, find me tin foil and sellotape.  They found them and gave them to me.  I covered the hat with tin foil and held in in place on the inside with selloptape.  From here I managed to find a small box that I could cut horn shapes out of and I covered them in white gaffa tape and stuck to the sides. 

From start finish was about 10minutes in making time, just before we charged out of the door!

Here is lil man as a viking:

and here is lil man, his brother who the viking at the food bank dressed up and the viking:

They had a really nice afternoon, it was very informative and they enjoyed being able to touch and look at things that the vikings would have had.  Thank you North Lakes Food Bank, Cumbria for hosting this event.

August 3rd 2015 - Making party bags

August 3rd 2015 - making party bags

Everyone buys the plastic party bags for treats etc to go in, well I wanted to be different!  As lil man is having a Thomas tank themed party the plastic thomas bags are over £2 for 8 and i have 12 kids going to be there.

I bought a roll of thomas tank wrapping paper for 99p and found a link on how to make party bags on pinterest.  They are actually quite easy to do once you get the hang of them and I guess with more practise they would  look much neater, but lil man thinks they are ok for his birthday which is fine by me.

You need a box the size of the bag you are making, another box you can cut up, scissors, glue or double sided tape, paper, hole punch and ribbon.

Take the box that you are using for the size of the bag and using 1 end draw round it onto the other cardboard (do this for as many bags as you are making) and then cut them out.

These will be used later to re-enforce the base of the bag and make it stand up.

Next you need to cut the paper so that it is bigger than the box you are using - you need about 2" more than the distance needed to wrap around the box and about 3" extra in the length of the box.  These extra inches are so that you can make the folds etc so the bag looks nice.









From here you need to fold the edge over about 1/2-1" (depending on size of bag your making - smaller bag = less fold).  And also fold down the top edge as it's easier to do now before the bag is assembled.  Once you have the folds you need to add glue or double sided tape to the fold on the side.  Place the box on the paper and cover like you would to wrap a present.  Before you stick the folded side to it you need to get it on the shorted edge (depth) of the box as it will look better.

You now have a part-wrapped present, you need to move the paper from the bottom part of the box so that it over hangs and you can fold the bottom.  Again do it as you would a normal present and glue or double sided tape it together.  Remove the box from the wrapper carefully.

Take the small rectangle of cardboard you cut out at the start and add glue or double sided tape to one side of it (the box I used had writing on one side so I put the tape on this side.)  Then push it into you bag and down to the bottom.

 From here you are almost done, you need to pinch the top at the sides and fold inwards so that you get a crease shape like shop bought bags have.  Crease them hard with your fingers on both sides.

You can now put holes at the top of both sides and add the ribbon as handles.  I'm not adding ribbon to mine but going to staple shut once they have the goodies in.  As you can see the bag is complete and stands up.  You can also fold them over so that they lay flat and take up less room if you need to store them or transport them anywhere.










I will certainly try and make them in the future rather than buying them.  I do think thicker paper will be easier than thin birthday wrap, but as I wanted thomas ones I had to use what I had.

august 2nd 2015 - pin update

August 2nd 2015 - pin update

I cant believe we are in august already.  This means that I have done well over half of the pins a day challenge.  Yay!!!  I wont lie some days have been hard and I didn't know what to do, others have been really easy. 

I decided for today that I would do a pin update on my pin boards and how many new ones I have added.  The last time I did this was in February:

the original figures of January 1st were as follows:
2 accounts with a total of 121 boards (58 of these are linked to the SJA courses),
121 boards have 7,016pins (681 are on SJA Account)
6,316pins on main account to do 365

A month into the challenge and the figures look this:
2 accounts with a total of  126 boards
126 boards have 7,741 pins (825 are on the SJA account)
6,916 pins are on the main account

now 8months into the challenge and the figures look like this:

 2 accounts with a total of 142 boards (57 are on the SJA account)
the 142 boards have 9,845 pins (1,154 on on SJA account)
8,691 pins are on the main account.

so since January I have done a total of 228 pins (some days had multiple pins used) so I still have the choice of 9,617 pins to finish the year from.    I have added an extra 21 boards but removed 1 from the SJA as was a duplicate and have added 2,829 new pins!!!

I think it is safe to say that I pin more than I actually do!  However, saying that I do know that there are loads on the "indoor camping" board that I have actually used and printed for the Badger Day Camp, but I still don't think it equals the extra amount pinned!

August 1st 2015 - Cardboard box car

August 1st 2015 - Cardboard box car

We had given the kitten a large box as her bed, she didn't go in it.  So I said lil man could turn it into a car.


1 box, alread had flaps cut off for cat.

4 "wheels" cut from another box (not very circular but they do whats needed)

wheels pinned to the car

Lil man added his own decorations  to the car (using 1/2 roll double sided tape! lol)

The finished result lil man sat watching tv in his cardboard box car.  How to keep a 5yr old amused for a few hours!  I think I will have to let him have his tea in it.

July 31st 2015 - Painting gnomes

July 31st 2015 - Painting gnomes

I saw on facebook today that 1 of the churches  a few miles from us had a free craft session for children, it was painting a gnome.  I asked lil man if he would like to go to it.  He said yes as 1. he likes crafts and painting and 2. he can put it in the garden with the fairies.

We got the bus there and were abit early so we went round the chairty shops first.  In 1 of them we found a leprechaun salt & pepper shaker set, he thought they looked like gnomes and was upset when I said were leprechauns, but was quite happy when I said he could have them and I would make them a rainbow rock house that they could sit infront of.

We went off to the church and he made hisgnome, which he has called Gordon.  He joined in the mini treasure hunt round the church and got sweets and then joined in with making music and using differrent instruments.  (charity shops aside) it only cost me bus fare for an afternoon of fun for lil man.

They asked if we would be going over next tuesday for the viking afternoon, lil man wants to go, i'm not sure about the older 2 though.

July 30th 2015 - Kitten toy

July 30th 2015 - Kitten toy

When I first had sorted that we were getting a kitten I asked my friend if she could make me 1 of these kitten toys.

Lil miss starla has not been bothered by it since we got her but today she has played with it loads and batted it round the floor.  So now she is a bit bigger shes happy to play with it.

I missed the photo of her playing with it and shes now asleep but will get 1 later.

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July 29th 2015 - Library

July 29th 2015 - Library

Whilst going through lil mans book bag I found a letter about "the record breakers reading challenge" at the local library.  For this he has to read 6 books over the summer and he gets stickers and things as he goes along.  We got the bus to town and walked round to the library.  We spoke to the lady at the desk and got him his own library card.  We asked the lady about the reading challenge and she sent us to another desk to sort it.

The lady went through the paperwork and told us what he needs to do for it.  We took the paperwork and went over to the children's book area and started to look for books.  Lil man wasn't sure what he wanted so we headed to the learning to read section where we found a nice big pile that were suitable, we sat on 1 of the seats and went through them to see which ones he wanted to bring home.

He choose 3 learning to read and a bigger children's book from 1 of the boxes.  He has the books for 3 weeks but has already read 2 of the 4 he brought home.  The reading of 6 books isn't going to be a problem for him to do.  We have said that we will take a picture of him with all the books he reads and print them out so he can show his teacher when  he goes back to school in september.