August 11th 2015 - Minecraft papercraft

August 11th 2015 - Minecraft papercraft

Following our trip yesterday to the Rheged for the minecraft event, we have spent today making paper mincraft bits.

I have found loads of them, copied them all to word documents and printed them out - the kids wouldn't share them so I have had to print 3 copies of everything!  (how to kill printer ink!)  The older 2 were able to cut, fold and stick their own but I had to help lil man with his.

Some of them have turned out better than others, and some the glue has held others have had to have tape on.

Here are a few of their makes:

a torch, house red creeper, cat, 3 small and 1 big block.  They do have pages upon pages of others that they can make as well.

August 10th 2015 - Rheged Centre

August 10th 2015 - Rheged Centre

The Rheged Centre is an hours drive from my house.  Over the summer holidays they have a minecraft event on.

Today we took the boys, we hadn't told them where we going but they needed to get up, have breakfast and get dressed ready to go.  Once we were all ready we set off.  Sadly the weather was really naff and was raining all the way there.  This isn't a problem in itself as the Rheged is indoors but would mean they couldnt play in the outdoor play area.

Upon arrival the boys saw the big minecraft signs outside the building and the older 2 were really excited.  We went in and I took a few photos of them with the figures that were downstairs and they stood infront of the minecraft wall with minecraft heads on for pics.

It looked like it was going to be a really good event.  We followed the signs up to where it was and still looked good.  However looks are deceiving, we were there a total of 45mins!  The boys looked around had a few photos taken, tried to make paper figures but the glue was too runny it made the paper wet and not keep shape.  They were unable to play with the lego as it was really busy, so they coloured a minecraft figure and we left.  You exit through the shop which was very expensive, items were more than what they are in the shops in town!

They did enjoy looking at the models and pictures  but said its a shame there wasn't more to do.  We came home and they played minecraft on their devices.

August 9th 2015 - Camp Blanket

August 9th 2015 - Camp Blanket

For many years I have had a camp blanket, it was pale blue and a really old blanket and quite rough.  I helped my Dad make it when I was a brownie (i'm now in my 30's).  I remember "helping" to sew the blanket stitch around the sleeves and neckline.  I'm sure my Dad went and re-did most of it!!!

Well it was used a lot when I was involved with guides and the odd beaver cubs camp that I helped with.  But after leaving guiding and scouting and sticking with St John Ambulance it has been quite redundant as most of camps are in buildings not tents.

I got my blanket out the other day as I needed to sew some badges on to it before my SJA day camp at the weekend.  I was really saddened to find that it had marks on it (no idea what they were but seemed like oil) and some of the badges that had been loose in it were no longer recognisable as badges but disintegrated bits of material. :(   so I sat and unpicked all the badges (going right back to when I was a rainbow) and have been and bought a new purple fluffy blanket.

I spent yesterday stitching the sides together and cutting/stitching a neck hole. I now have the mammoth task of sewing my badges onto a new blanket before the weekend and plan to take it with me for round the campfire. I am waiting on badges in the post as I was able to work out which ones had been damaged.

August 8th 2015 - Pillow spray

August 8th 215 - pillow spray

A few years ago I bought a bottle of peppermint & nutmeg pillow spray from boots to help me sleep.  I was a bit skeptical as both of the ingredients were active oils and aimed at rejuvenation and such.  However, this spray really did work and helped me sleep.

I was very disappointed when I found out they had stopped selling it and replaced it with a lavender spray.  Yes lavender is meant to help you sleep unless you are allergic to it and it makes you very sick!  I'm not talking about being ill but hugging the toilet for a few hours sick!

I have looked around for a replacement pillow spray to help with sleep for nearly 3years and found a blog that had directions on how to make your own pillow spray using peppermint, nutmeg and water mixed in a spray bottle.  YAY!!! i'm so happy and I will be even happier if it works.

I bought a pack of bottles from £1 shop the other day and ordered peppermint and nutmeg natural oils off ebay which arrived today.  I am going to mix it up and spray my pillow and hope that it helps me sleep.  I will add an update tomorrow as to whether it did or didn't work.


UPDATE

well I made it, sprayed it and slept. woo hoo!

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.