Best of my days

I found a gorgeous idea from Under the Sycamore called Best of My Days": it's basically a diary but with a twist.

The idea behind it is that you find something that has made you feel good/special in each day and write this down at the end of the day. That way, when you are having a not-so-good time you can pick up your Best of My Days and remind yourself that things aren't always so bad. It also helps you focus on the positive which hopefully brightens every day just a little bit more.

So this is for those of my friends going through a tough time at the moment - I'm thinking of you and hoping that next year will bring you lots of fun and special times. xx

Lavender wands

For some reason recently I remembered a craft I did a very long time ago when I was a Girl Guide leader,  making woven lavender pomanders (which I have since discovered are called wands). The lavender in my garden is past it's best although there are some new flowers coming, but I managed to find a handful of useable stems (somewhere in between about to bloom and gone to seed) and had a go at making some wands. They turned out quite well for a craft I last made about ten years ago.

I now need to work out what I can do with these. It would be nice to turn them into gifts for people, perhaps combining them with a pack of greetings cards I created some time ago with photos of lavender and bubbles.

Satisfying simple craft for a Bank Holiday Monday. Thinking I might take it up a level and have a go at making lavender baskets as these look so pretty ...

Lavender baskets from a post by Tongue in Cheek

© 2011 Nicola Noble

A monster of a birthday

It was Justin's second birthday yesterday. Early Learning Centre have a cute range of monster party things including table cloth, plates, napkins, cups, party bags and invitations and this provided the inspiration for a monster themed party.

The cake (or rather cakes) were individual monsters and each one was unique. I baked a rectangular victoria sponge and then cut it into 12 pieces (these were meant to be the same size but it didn't quite turn out like that). I used six different colours of fondant icing - blue, red, green, yellow, orange and purple - and iced two cakes in each colour (over buttercream icing). Then the fun part was creating individual characters and it was great to let my imagination run free. The cakes were then placed onto a covered board; I used white so as not to detract from the bold colours of the monsters, with a matching blue ribbon around the edge. I made the antenna by covering uncooked spaghetti (a tip I learned from my cake decoration course) and it was great to use lots of the cake decorating bits I was given for Christmas. Having the right equipment made life much easier!

I placed three of the bigger monsters in the middle in a ring with a monster "perched" on top of them, and the remaining eight monsters were placed in a ring around these. I didn't fix the cakes to the board which turned out to be useful as it meant I had no problem rearranging them to put my favourite monsters at the front (as per the picture of the set party table) and also didn't matter as the party was at home and the cakes didn't have to travel anywhere!

I was so pleased with the finished cake(s) and even looking at the pictures now make me smile. Can't take all the credit myself - my mum is my co-partner for making birthday cakes and is great for bouncing ideas off.

 

I also played around with making some icing run-outs of little monsters and popped them into the top of some muffins!

I bought an extra set of invitations and turned some of these into a banner to hang up by glueing them onto different coloured backgrounds. I also copied the table cloth front card and cut these out as  number 2s and glued onto yellow card. I then taped drinking straws to the back and threaded string through to hang up. The remaining spare invitations were blu-tacked around the house.

 The children got to play pass-the-parcel and stick the spot onto the monster, which was just about as much as two years olds can manage.

The monster theme carried through to the party bags. I bought some make-your-own monster finger puppet sets with three monsters in each, copied the individual instructions and attached to each monster finger puppet kit with ribbon. Each of the little ones coming to the party had older siblings who could make the finger puppets for their little brothers and sisters. I also included a rubber finger monster and a couple of cute monster tattoos. And obviously they each got an individual monster cake to take home.

All in all a very enjoyable and successful party and Justin had a great time.

Now to start planning Sophie's 5th birthday in March ...

© 2011 Nicola Noble

Too many projects?

To be honest, this morning I thought there was no chance I was going to finish the projects planned for this week but tonight I am quietly proud of myself!

The puppet theatre is finished, with curtains (courtesy of my mum and her sewing machine) and interchangeable scenery backdrops drawn by Sophie. I had a few issues on how to attach the backdrops and initially tried punching holes along the top and hooking the backdrops onto unfolded paperclips. Unfortunately, every time Sophie moved her hand into place in the theatre the backdrop lifted up and fell off the hooks. So I had to rethink it and today I put loops of paper along the back of the backdrops, cut a piece of garden cane to size and attached two loops of string to either side at the back to hang it through. Sophie hasn't tried it yet but I am pretty confident that this will hold the scenery in place.

Next on our list of projects was completing the Halloween treats. These turned out really well and Sophie even had a go at piping some of the skeletons onto the biscuits (top left of the photo). For a four and a half year old's first attempt at icing I was really impressed - I guess she must have inherited my creative genes. She also helped me flood the heads with icing and once this was dry I piped the eyes and mouths on. So our army of skeletons are ready for the trick or treaters and if 50+ kids don't descend on our house on Sunday night I will take some biscuits along to my cake decorating course on Monday night and feed my children the rest.

Finally, late this afternoon I set to and carved a jack o'lantern from our pumpkin. I found a great template online and created a happy chappy to cheer us up on Halloween. It's the first time I have used a template and I am really pleased with the end result. I remembered from previous years that it is too difficult to cut enough pumpkin flesh out of the small pumpkin for any sort of cooking so the pumpkin soup idea has been abandoned. But I have saved the pumpkin seeds and I need to decide what to do with them - roast them or leave them to dry for Sophie to glue onto pictures. 

Half term almost over and I am starting to think about the next few projects coming up. But perhaps I'll just have a few days off and enjoy the rest with Sophie back at school!

More half term fun

Determined to achieve success in at least one of my two planned activities this week, last night I set to with a cardboard box, craft knife, glue and blue paper and created a small puppet theatre. Sophie was sadly unimpressed with my effort but seemed much happier once she was let loose with the stickers.

Still to do are some scenery panels to go on the angled bits and some curtains to pull across the front. We also finished the remaining two hand puppets and they are really cute.

Also today we made an army of gingerbread men and later this week I hope to transform them into skeletons. Obviously there were a few casualties and both children were more than happy to test them!

Half term fun

So it's half term and I have two craft activities planned to do with Sophie this week.

The first one is to help Sophie make some glove puppets that she has, and to create a mini theatre for her so that she can put on a show for us at the end of the week. We have managed to make two of the four puppets today and will hopefully do the other two tomorrow. That leaves us Thursday and Friday to make the theatre. I have a small box and am planning to cover it inside and out and make some sort of curtains that can be drawn across the front.

The second activity is to prepare a few things for Halloween. I have a pumpkin that I would like to carve and hopefully make something edible from the flesh (Sophie has been reading a book called Pumpkin Soup at school and has been asking me when she will get to have it so maybe that's what I'll make). I have also decided to make my own treats for the trick or treaters - I am thinking of green/red marbled mini cupcakes with gruesome icing and jelly worms coming out the top or skeleton biscuits (idea "borrowed" from a shop near us) - I have some royal icing left from last week so could use that up.

Let's see what we manage to achieve in a week ...