August 7th 2015 - Making mini marshmallows

August 7th 2015 - Making mini marshmallows

I found this marshmallow toss game on pinterest, it is played with real marshmallows.  However, I was really dubious about this incase any of the children put them in their mouths after they had been on the floor etc so I decided to make some mini marshmallows from material.

The other day I had bought some pillows to make a big marshmallows for a smore race, I only used 1 of the 2 pillows so this is what I have used for the mini ones.  I have done them in the same way as the big ones.  I cut open one end and removed all the stuffing, now with the paper material cover I have cut it into strips about 1 1/2 " wide and then pinned and cut the strips into squares:

From here I have stitched 3 sides and then stuffed them with original stuffing.  The first 1 I did was just stuffing but when we threw it it didn't go very far so I undid part of it and added some rice to it to give it some weight for throwing, this worked much better.


I have a big red box that is coming to camp (it has chairs n things in it) and this will be used as the marshmallow toss game instead of the bucket like picture shows.  I have printed and laminated a picture of fire and the words marshmallow toss to be stuck on them as well.  We also have a small red spade from the sandpit to throw them with.


Although the image doesn't tell you how to play the game it looks very simple - you have a bucket that has fire/flames on it and marshmallows and a spade, I assume that the marshmallows represent water and you need to throw them into the fire to put it out.  The way we are going to play is each person has a turn with all of the marshmallows to see who can get the most in the bucket.

August 6th 2015 - Seascale

August 6th 2015 - Seascale

A few days ago a friend posted some pictures on facebook of her children at a park, it looked really good so I asked her where it was.  She told me and I looked it up, I had heard of the area but wasn't sure where it was.  Well google said it was half hrs drive from us up the coast.

We loaded into the car and set off up the road to Seascale.  Upon arriving hubby took the money for parking and came back with it - the car park was free thanks to the "local residents".  So the afternoon started well.

We went down onto the beach and the sea was quite away out.  I told the boys they could go in it as long as they rolled up their trousers above the knee and didn't get wet as we had no spare clothes with us.  Here are the 3 of them in the sea:

They also spent ages on the mini pier:

 

 and were fascinated that some of the gaps in the pier were filled with rocks:

The tide came in really quickly and we had to leave the beach so they went to play in the park:

A nice afternoon was had by all.

august 5th 2015 - making smores

august 5th 2015 - making smores

.....but not the kind you can eat!  The smores I am making are for a smore making race for day camp.  The idea is meant to be done in teams but as I only have a few coming to day camp they can do it individually.

I had to go shopping for pillows to make them:

I then cut the pillows in half and then into quarters, as these seemed to be a good size to be the marshmallows for the middle of the smores.  I stitched up the open sides:

I have 4 marshmallows like this:

 

Whilst I was making the marshmallows I had my son cutting squares of cardboard to use as the biscuits/crackers, they are a nice brown on both sides and dont need painting:

 

I also got him to cut out some thin cardboard cereal boxes and backed the shiny sides together, these will be the chocolate of the smore once painted dark brown.

The way the race will work is each player has 2 crackers, pieces of chocolate and a marshmallow.  These are placed the opposite end of the room to players.  On go they need to run to their pile and pick up a cracker and run back to the start, place cracker on floor and then go get a chocolate and place on top of cracker, then go get their marshmallow and place on chocolate, get the next chocolate to go on top of marshmallow and lastly the cracker on top.  IF any of it falls down before you get the next piece on it, you must put the new piece back, rebuild your smore and then go get the next piece.  the first person wins.

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.