Make Mum’s Cuppa Special on Mother’s Day

Question:
What do you get when you cross some tea bags, a pair of pinking shears, a stapler and your old clothing?

Answer:
A fantastic Mother’s Day gift that will go on giving her warm fuzzies for months.

Here’s how to personalise Mum’s cuppa.

1. Buy a box of Mum’s favourite brand of tea and gently tear the tags off all the bags.
2. Get the kids to do lots of little drawings of a similar size to the tags.
3. Staple the new tags onto the string of each tea bag.

We bought a box of 100 tea bags, so that the treat would last for a few months, however 100 tiny drawings was a bit much to expect of my little artists.

I made up the short-fall by cutting up scraps of clean pretty fabric with pinking shears in Mum’s favourite colour (blue).

My scraps were purposely chosen, from clothing that each of us has worn in the past, to evoke lots of wonderful loving memories.

Tips:

• One thing I have learnt from doing this is that is impossible to put teabags back in their box neatly. So I’d suggest you look into getting a little gift box to scatter yours in.

• If you have problems stapling your tags onto the string, try glue instead. - or just tie the string around a scrap of fabric.

• Ideas for tag materials:
  • scrapbooking paper
  • magazine pictures
  • photos of family members
  • ribbons or woollen bows
  • crochet hearts or flowers
  • beads and buttons

Wishing you all a warm & loving Mother’s Day this year.

Free crochet pattern: Amigurumi Easter Eggs

If you’re thinking “Whatintheheck is amigurumi?”, then you need to read this.
Now that you’re up to speed on that, we can continue.

This is my first attempt at a pattern, and I’ve been making heaps of these cute little eggs for Easter gifts this year.

It only takes about an hour from go to woe!

If you have any trouble following me,  just let me know and I’d love to help.

Materials

• 8ply wool / acrylic
• Size 3.50 crochet hook (USA size E)
• Stitch marker
• Polyfil

Pattern

Magic ring - 6sc
2sc in first sc, sc in next sc* repeat  (9)
2sc in first sc, sc in next sc* repeat  (15)
2sc in first sc, sc in next sc, sc in next sc* repeat  (20)
sc round
2sc in first sc, sc in next sc, sc in next sc, sc in next sc* repeat  (25)
sc round for 5 rounds

Decrease
sc2together, sc in next sc, sc in next sc, sc in next sc* repeat  (20)
sc2together, sc in next sc, sc in next sc* repeat  ()
sc2together, sc in next sc* repeat  ()

Finishing
Finish off, leaving a 3in tail
Sew on eyes in black and a red or pink V for a mouth
Stuff egg very firmly
Thread tail though the remaining stitches and sew shut, weaving the end inside out of sight.

Note:
When decreasing, your egg will look neatest if you line up the decrease stitches one above the other.
Don’t worry if this means you have to add or skip a sc in places. The important thing is that you have 5 evenly-spaced decreasing stitches in each round.

Flash flood!

We had quite a heavy rainstorm this afternoon, with a blackout as well,
which the kidz found quite exciting.

After the downfall had eased, WonderHubby noticed that the creek behind our place was suddenly full.

We all rushed out to take a photo, but it had already subsided a lot in only a few minutes.

We often take them out there to play and run around when it’s not too hot. It was a great opportunity to show the kids how dangerously fast the flat, grassy area can fill up.

Another Thomas Birthday Cake

Since we’ve been kind of busy with buying a house and all, there’s no plans for a Wren b’day party this year so far. ~ Not to mention the money issue.

Apparently I’m pretty short on time for more than just parties at the moment, and I’ve been pretty slack with blogging, too.

So anyhoo, here’s a little something I prepared earlier to keep you occupied while we do the packing and moving stuff.

I thought that Thomas’ face would be a bit different to last year’s effort, so I traced the outline from a picture and got to work.

I used the same grease-proof paper technique for the eyes and mouth.

For the outlines, I would usually use finely cut liquorice, but unfortunately I went to the cupboard and the cupboard was bare…

The only thing I could see that would work was some White Wings ’space food sticks’, and they turned out fine.

Around the face at the edge of the cake is a line of small silver cachous. At the top is a chocolate muffin cut into the shape of Thomas’ funnel.

Rhys also decided he was interested in pirates the day before the party, so that’s what the things at the bottom of the cake are: Pirate candles, the perfect accompaniment to a Thomas the tank engine cake, don’t you think?

We have Cooled Off

I tweeted a couple of weeks ago that we’d made a successful offer on a house and signed contracts.

We’ve now gone through the cooling off period and taken the kids to have a look at it.

Well, here are the pictures.

We actually had an appointment on Saturday afternoon, but the agent didn’t turn up and when we called to check she was apologetic but unable to give another time.

People who disappoint excited children deserve a special place in hell.

It was the first time the kids were to see the place, and they had to make do with running around in the front yard for half an hour.

But luckily I maintained my sunny disposition and suggested a walk around to the reserve behind the property, where WonderHubby lifted them each up so that they could see the backyard over the rear fence.

So the kids had a ball anyway.

Anyhoo, we finally went through on Wednesday and the official verdict from Wren & Mr Bump is that they don’t like it.

They love it!

No joking, that’s what Wren said when we asked her. And of course Mr Bump had to echo her response.

I am sooo hanging out to be there now.

Settlement is on the 27th of October, although it all depends upon the vendor moving out. If he moves sooner, we may too.

He’s looking for a place to rent, so cross your fingers that he finds a good one this weekend.

Dona Nobis Pacem

Welcome to this year’s first Blog Blast for Peace, and my first one ever. Yes *blush* I’m a virgin no longer.

Peace is such a broad topic that it’s been hard to fix on something specific to write about.

I thought about being flip and discussing the brawls we have in the UpsideDownHouse each school morning, when Wren refuses to get out of bed.

But it seemed too trivial when I think about what each morning must be like for families in war~torn countries like Sudan, Somalia, Congo and the Ivory Coast. And that’s just in Africa.

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Party Loot Treasure Chests

I’ve made up a printout for this project. You’ll probably need to muck around with the scale in ‘print preview’, because I’m new to this.

And the photo isn’t ‘one I made earlier’. It’s one from a party that Mr Bump attended.

So I’m lazy today.
The timber floorboards are real. Does that help?

You will need:

• A4 cardboard

• This template

• Pencils or textas to decorate

What to do:

• Print the template on cardboard and cut out the shape. Thinner lines are for folding, not cutting.

• Let little Johnny or Jenny colour it in or paint it.

• Then fold it and glue it and mark it with ‘B’. (But don’t put it in the oven because it will start a fire and they might not get there quickly enough to save your house.)

• Fill with party goodies and scoff some down while you’re at it. The sugar will tide you over until mealtime.

• Drink some red cordial too, if you’re really tired (or if the kids are really rowdy).

Other Thoughts:

• Cut out some pictures for younger kids to glue on.

• Draw some pictures for the kids to colour in.

• Great lollies for this type of party are chocolate money, candy jewellery and jewels (or clear boiled lollies).

We Have Guinea Pigs…

What do you do if your whole family loves cats, wants to adopt a cat, but can’t?

Well, in January we came up with our own answer.

We got guinea pigs. Two. One for each of the kids, named Olga da Polga and Mrs Guinea Pig.

Wren’s little black gp has been named Olga da Polga, because that was the name of my guinea pig as a child.

My Olga was named after the main character in the book series of the same name by Michael Bond (he also wrote the Paddington Bear books).

Luckily, I kept those little books and now Wren & Mr Bump love the stories, too. ~ It’s lovely to share those special childhood memories with them.

This fictional Olga was a bit of a wild child gp who delighted in adventures like car rides and biting that wavy thing dangling in front of her cage (until she realised there was a friendly cat on the end of it).

Meanwhile, poor Mrs Guinea Pig had a bit of a gender identity crisis. Mr Bump wanted to call her Mr Guinea Pig (after Pinky Dinky Doo’s guinea pig). After some thought however, he decided that it just wouldn’t do, and she was happily renamed. Crisis averted.
These two little furballs are very cute and are more affectionate than I remember from my childhood. Somehow I think that might have something to do with me being a whole lot more gentle now. I don’t remember being rough with my own Olga, but when I see how the kids handle these two… They think they’re being gentle, but still….

Some mornings I sit and watch the two little creatures in their run when I stop for a morning cuppa. All of a sudden, one of them will squeal and jump in the air, doing a 360º turn. Both will disappear into the sheltered end, then reappear just as suddenly. This sometimes goes on for 10 minutes, with me roaring with laughter the whole time.

The first time I saw them do it, I went and checked them both for fleas! Needless to say, they didn’t have any, and the entertainment continued almost as soon as I closed the hutch door.

They’re so cute, but I’m still hanging out to get a cat…

Afterthought:
On a totally unrelated subject, unless your guinea pigs are toilet trained, I read The Potty Poem, on Quiet Mom’s blog earlier today and just had to share it here. It’s wonderful!

At last! Some Easter craft!

It’s a case of ‘better late than never’, with the Easter Bunny delivering a little ceramic egg-painting kit for Wren & Mr Bump this morning!

I really haven’t gotten into things with them for Easter craft this year ~ Wren has a new friend who lives 3 doors up and they are joined at the hip, and Mr Bump is at preschool 3 days now, which limits the craft time a little more.

I know I should have just included the new friend in some craft activities… Maybe at Christmas I’ll feel up to it

Polly Pocket Cake

Wren was really into Polly Pocket the year before last and so I tried my hand at making a Polly cake for her 6th birthday. I didn’t think to take pictures to show how I created the design, so if you have any questions, please do ask.

I used a similar technique as in the Thomas cake, making a grease proof paper stencil of the picture. I traced the picture from one of Wren’s posters.

~ Okay, one day I’ll have to actually show photos of the technique.

Next time we have a birthday, it’s a promise.

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