Etsy Finds - September

what sweet treasures i have found, go forth and shop....

day of the dead bracelet ... donna elizabeth designs
hegehogs ...imagination kids
ladybug hair ties... ladybug limited
ribbon bug hairclips... emenys' creations
wellies tee... charlieandsarah
pencil bling ... royal mint
punk legwarmers ... mama runs with scissors
dragonfly mug ... one clay bead
fox ... pinderella

why are we watering?

First day of spring i decided to try planting seeds with Dylan - again ( our past attempts had been pulled out, or overwater'd, or dumped to play with the dirt.)

We did our pots of dirt, put in the selected seeds, quite a variety to try establish a vege patch in pots, then a little bit of dirt on top of the seeds. We made labels out of leafs and seed packets or wrote on the pots. Then i made him a special watering bottle so it would only spray a light spray (as in the past the normal watering can has drowned the seeds in enthusiastic watering).

I got a 1 litre milk bottle and drawing pin & poked holes in the lid for a seedling watering can.

In a week our rocket had sprouted to Dylan's delight, a big yell when he saw them to come & see.

When i let him fill his seedling water can he was full of questions, he wanted hot water so i explained how this would kill the seeds ( I must show him what happens when you pour boiling water on a weed)

The next Question was how do they drink the water?

Aha! i will show you i said. So in the fridge we had some celery, i let him cut 3 stems with leaves & we put food colouring in 3 containers. I split the stem of ea. celery to help it draw the coloured water. We put them in the water on the windowsill. within 20 mins you could see the red colouribg coming up the celery, i yelled for Dylan to come look see, He was delighted and you could see the veins in the leaf showing in red. I explained how roots act like a straw & drink water & he could see it in the celery. Within the hour the other pieces had sucked up the colour too.

This morning the first thing Dylan said when he woke was he was going to look at the celery which have totally sucked up the coloured water & changed colour :)

I thought we could cut the leaves off today and glue them to some paper to further our discussions about plants drinking water.

x Noni

Play dough

See its squishy

Ingredients
2 cups plain flour
4 tbls cream of tartar
2 tbls oil
1 cup of salt
food colouring
2 cups of water if cooking, 1 cup if not cooking




warning cars get bogged


Cooking your play dough will make it last longer, especially in tropics. You can cook it in a saucepan on stove, or microwave for a min, stir and nuke for another min. I have found that cooking it intensifies the colour. Or you can use water from the kettle just use one cup, keep it in the fridge it will be fine. The non- cook form is often how I make it because I know the big boy will trash it fast, and that's great because it means hes enjoying it. You can jazz up your play dough by adding glitter, or fragrant oils, I tried adding mint leaves today but i didn't add enough to make the smell strong enough, I also grated the zest of a lemon into another batch and that worked really well. I think flower petals would work great too, especially if the child was helping to make the play dough.

Some play dough play tools
cookie cutters
plastic knives, forks
strips of cardboard (bend to make bridge)
garlic press
egg cartons
coloured or not match sticks (great 4 pretend birthday cake)
Popsicle sticks
stamps
corks
old toy cars and people
leaves, sticks flowers, seed pods and pebbles
googley eyes
feathers


I would love to get more play dough ideas so please comment if your kiddies have any fave ways to play with dough, have fun.

Aimee's Pocket House

You will need (give or take a bit on measurements it will still work)

Main part of bag  =  2 X 47cm by 60cm (65 with top hem)  sturdy fabric  (I recycled bit of left over curtain)

Roof =  2 X Yellow felt rectangle sheets ( that you get from any craft store)

Door  + decoration =  blue felt rectangle door measures 13cmh by 10cmw and a button

Windows + decoration  = 4 magenta pink felt rectangle  10cm by 10cm and 8 hot pink strips 2cm by  10cm

Flower background = 20cm by 47cm       

Flowers = some green ribbon, 6 buttons and some different coloured felt

Elastic = length over 50 cm (mine was 57cm but I trimmed a fair bit when seams went together)

Ok I wanted to make something for Aimee’s 1^st birthday that was fun and busy for that age. My little 1 year old is forever putting things in and out of stuff so I was inspired by Eli and this fantastic  little house pouch over on The Long Thread blog (I will get around to making one of them). Tada the two combine to make Aimee’s pocket house, one large bag that will hold the toys to be sorted, and a strip of elastic so you can slide it over a dining chair, they can be busy at dinner making time yay!

So I cut all the pieces I needed out as above ingredients list details then I laid it all out to see if I was happy with design. To cut the roof you need the midpoint 23.5 cm on mine, this is the tip of your triangle then use ruler to measure slope down two sides, as per photo.

You will need to hem the top 2 pieces of your bag; mine didn’t need doing as I used the hemmed part of the curtain.  You will need the extra 4 0r 5 cm to top of your bag measurement to allow for this.  On the top side sew on your flower background stripe just top and bottom will do. Then sew the bright pink cross pieces onto your window squares. Pop the button onto your door and then you can stitch the door down on three sides leaving the top open making the pocket, do the same for the windows.  

Sew on the roof, mine took two bits of felt to fit across the width of the bag, so to hide the join I put some blue felt stripes about 1.5cm wide descending in length with the roof line over the top. It made it look so much more interesting, and then using my pinking shears I cut 2 long bits of bright pink felt about 1.5cm again to go the length of the roof, bit like fancy guttering ;) I used some decorative stiches to sew them to the bag.

Then cut your ribbon into 6 same but different lengths.  I cut out some circles using my pinking shears a bit larger than the buttons about 2 cm in diameter in some left over felt, think this would work as normal non bumpy circles too.  I had 12 circles in all layering them by two’s. I pinned the flowers in place and again used a decorative stitch on my machine went up the ribbon and a little onto the flowers. I then attached my buttons to make my flower centres.  

Then put your elastic at the very top of your house piece, put right sides together of your bag and sew your three sides together. Turn inside out after trimming any loose threads, voila an Aimee pocket house! Slip over a chair to test it out. It makes a great present and I got some foam letters for little Aimee to sort out.  I want to make an Eli boyish version, and I think this idea would make great organisers for the back of homework desks.

sassy scribbles friday

this is very old but very cute

Moments from my week

I hid this guy in my mint, flynn delighted to find him there. Must do a dino hunt in garden!



Cat dinner for a fussy eater




Who put that in the draw? Eli




Flynn covered amars glasses




Found in sandpit, so delicate



Fabric Pens

I got 2 fabric pens at our local fabric/craft store to test out, and I was impressed they are great. The ink flows out really well its like using nice art quality markers but on fabric. This is the little test I did, I think I'll add a bit of stitching and pop it on a tee for Flynn. Add a bit of oomph to t-shirt or hats or bags anything fabric. Let kids lose, or stencil, or test out your drawing and typography skills, or trace. I'm going to get a few more next visit...stay tuned

PS. brand was pebeo , they make nice paints too