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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