September 25th 2015 - Pumpkin game

September 25th 2015 - Pumpkin game

For Halloween my friend has asked me to sort out the games for the party.  This got me thinking of what we could do that wont involve lots of things needing to be taken with us.  I was also thinking along the lines of normal party games that we could make "halloweeny".

I had the thought on musical chairs - we don't have much room or enough chairs for loads of kids BUT we do have cushions, and from here came the idea of making pumpkins from paper for it.  I found a pumpkin template, asked my friends to help with orange paper/card as I didn't have any (2 of my friends were able to help).  I printed the pumpkin image and cut it out, and used it to draw round on the orange paper.  These were then cut out and the extra lines added, the pumpkin stalks were made from brown paper and glued on.  From here they are going to be laminated so can be re-used.

 Although this may look big it was cur out of A4 paper, and its not as dark as it looks its a real bright orange.

The idea is that of musical chairs, each child will start with a pumpkin on the floor and they will dance round them etc, when the music stops they need to stand on a pumpkin.   After the first round 1 pumpkin is removed so there is an extra child to pumpkin.  therefore when the music stops 1 child will not have a pumpkin to stand on and will be  out.  Another pumpkin will be removed and play will continue.  The winner is the last child that stands on the single pumpkin out of the last 2.

September 24th 2015 - Halloween party bags

September 24th 2015 - Halloween party bags

Yes I know there is over a month until Halloween but you can never be too ready for it.  I had a bit of  a panic the other day as there was  a poosibilty that the party was ggoing to be at my house and not friends, I wasn't going to be able to do a theme as hadn't got the time, it wasnt going to be as good as last year and I didn't know how I was going to sort it all with my knee being bad.

Well my friend rang me, she has decided she will be ok to host it this year but can I help her with preperations, party bags for the kids and the games.  I agreed as these are not major, she has said that she will cover the costs that I incure for buying stuff.

Well I know that I had pinned this pin linked tohalloween party bags with the goodies being in a glove but I am unable to find it so had to re-pin it today.   I have had a very halloweeny day today, we started off by getting EVERYTHING out of the loft and making a new inventory list as we couldnt find the 1 we had.   Then I started on the party bags with what I had.

Take 1 first aid/medical glove:

 an assortment of halloween novelties - eye patch, spinner, rubber hand (also had spiders, finger puppets etc) and a mini puzzle:

Put all bits in gloves and set aside until you get the sweets next week to shove in the fingers - we are going for the gory body parts and eyeballs etc.  Then the gloves will be tied off at the top and ready to go in the box with party bits.

September 23rd 2015 - Memory foam mattress

September 23rd Memory foam mattress

Today I have been married to my hubby for 9years.  We celebrated the other week as we had appointments and were not available to go out today.

However, our new memory foam mattress arrived and we opened it out.  We wern't sure how it was going to be as was only £69.99 but had an RRP of £199 so we hoped it would be good.  Upon opening it and placing on bed it spread really quickly from being rolled and after 2hrs it was really nice and soft.

I laid on it for  a few minutes and my knee didn't hurt (YAY!) and it didn't feel like a spring was digging in it like the old mattress did.  I couldn't wait to go to bed.

September 22nd 2015 - corticosteroid injection in knee

September 22nd 2015 - corticosteroid injection in knee

Today I was at the pain clinic about my knee again.  I can't say that it was a pleasant visit in the slightest.  I left in tears and in more pain than when I arrived.  The doctor wasn't very nice and that didn't help.

He went right back to when I first had knee problems at age 4 and how things had progressed (so to speak) over the years.  What treatments I have had and all sorts.  We talked about what I want and why I am there.  He didn't seem to believe me about the pain until he started prodding it and poking it and I yelled out as it hurt.  He tried to tell me the pain is in my head which upset me even more - I wish it was all imaginary.

Well he decided that he would do the corticosteroid injections into my knee.  The nurse saw that I was already upset and came and gave me a hug, and asked if I would like to hold her hand during the injection, she yelled out as I squeezed her hand, which the doctor said its normally the patient that yells.  And then he had to do the 2nd injection and that hurt just as much as the first.  But thats probably because of the size of the needle they shove into you and under your knee cap. 

My knee has hurt since and feels numb, i'm hoping that it does ease it.  he also gave me pain patches to use and said will see me in 3 months.

I don't like needles at he best of times but this has made m dislike them even more!

September 21st 2015 - Lip balm

September 21st 2015 - Lipbalm

Having spent today inside a very hot building my lips are very dry and cracked.  Therefore I have gotten out my hemp lip balm from the body shop.  It has a very acquired smell/taste to it and isn't liked by many people I know. 

I like it and have done for over 15years.  I really hope they dont stop making it.  Because it works very quickly, and you usually only need a couple of applications for lips to be back to normal.

I have a couple of these in different coats/bags/drawers etc.  And when I got home today my boots order was here which has a new lip balm in it :)

September 20th 2015 - from cute n fluffy to nasty

September 20th 2015 - from cute n fluffy to nasty

If you have been following my blog you will be aware of the monster feet I picked up in a chairty shop the other week and how my youngest son wanted an outfit to go with them for halloween.  I made a post about winning a cute and fluffy dog outfit that I planned to alter.

This was the cute and fluffy dog:

NOT very halloween or scary monster is it?  No, that's what me and lil man thought BUT it was brown and grey which are 2 of the colours in the monster feet, the 3rd is a dark blue which is why I started making spikes the other day to sew on it down the back.  This is what it looks like:

 It's a start on making it not so nice and cute.  The next step was to shave round the eyes so they were not so fluffy and would be easier to sew on.  Lil man said he wanted big red eyes, so out came the greaseproof paper (had no tracing paper), so I could get the shape of the eyes.  I then cut out my template and drew round it on red felt.  The hardest part was getting the eyeball in the right place.  But I didn't give up and I stitched the red felt eyes onto.  Whilst I was doing the eyes lil man asked if he could have some fangs from its mouth, so I did them from felt at the same time.  Here is the now not so cute looking dog. 

BUT it does still have a dog look about it, because of its long floppy ears, these seemed to be our biggest problem. 

I said I could try and stuff them with pillow stuffing in the hope that they would stand up slightly, so that is what I did.  BUT it didn't make it any less dog looking.  (And 1 not happy lil man as it still looks like a dog!)

SO the big question was what to do next to get rid of the last cut dog look.  My eldest said to cut the ears into a point (errrr thanks couldn't you have suggested that before I cut, stuffed and sticthed them???)   So I took my fabric scissors and just through the ears much to lil mans shocked face!  I then started to make some points for them from spare blue material and they looked like a reindeer (this was getting worse not better and I didnt take a pic of reindeer). 

I then cut the multiple points into singles and stitched them at the end of the now cut ears, inally they looked more monster than dog. (YAY!!!)

All that is left to do is to add the spike onto both shoulders and then take a pic of him complete, will do that and add later.

September 19th 2015 - Actipatch

September 19th 2015 - Actipatch

At the beginning of the week whilst watching tv 1 evening an advert came on for Actipatch, a new type of pain relief.  I had never heard of it so went straight to google to find more information.  I was disapointed to find sites in USA only......they I realised that my browser was set to .com and not .co.uk.  LOL!  So I sorted this and started searching again.

I found quite a lot of information on it and the review looked good, so I hunted for where I could buy it.  The main Actipatch website had them on it and had an offer of a free 7day trial pack when you bought the full pack.  And boots had it without the 7day trial for £5 cheaper so I ordered from boots and had to go and collect it mid week.

I didn't write about it straight away as there isn't much you can say - oh wait bought new knee pain relief, took out packaging and put it on!  What a brilliant post that would have been.

Well I have had it on for 3days now day and night (they say you can and it wont cause problems).  The biggest problem I have encountered so far is the holder that comes with it the velcro was digging into the back of my knee so I had to take it off and tape the device to my knee.  This was better but the tape went tight today.  So I took it off for a few hours.

At the moment I wouldn't like to say if it has helped or not.  Most of the reviews said a week or 2 before pain relief was fully seen.  I hope it helps, we will ave to wait and see.