2012 Thank You Totes

I have been making these totes as thank you presents for three years now for my children's class teachers.  This year I went with the following measurements:

Front:

 w: 49cm x h:22cm for the top rectangle.

w: cm x h: 30cm for the two outer bottom rectangles

w:13cm x h: 30cm for the bottom middle rectangle

Back was w:49cm x h:52cm

1.5cm seams throughout 

You can see the front on the picture below:

  I also made some inside pockets.  One was a flat one and the other was a stand out one, I used directions from Lisa Lam's "Bag Making Bible" book.  They were all fully lined.

I went with three colour ways (the teacher's favourite colours) and my children embroidered the hearts.

  

I hope you like them as much as the teacher's did.  I think these make a great present, and tend to be much appreciated by the receiver.

merry xmas

Today I had a little pre Xmas tea party for my youngest son, with 2 of his nursery school friends. We made the Gingerbread house yesterday (all 4 of us had a hand in it!). I used the recipe and instructions from Rachel Allen's Bake book. We also made fairy cakes, gingerbread biscuits and homemade mincepies (1st time I've ever done that). Everyone loved it, so far we've eaten half of the roof!

penpal request

My cheeky eldest son, aged 8, is looking for a penpal to email to over the school summer holidays and beyond. He has had a penpal from Mexico from school but that's now ended. He would like an email pal that is more regular (roughly weekly or so).

If you have a child of a similar age who would like to get in touch with a young Englishman with a love for nature, dinosaurs, rocks, fossils, bikes, sport, cakes and biscuits, music, films, books and just about anything else you can think of, then let me know.

He doesn't mind where you live (UK or beyond) and we can always use Google Translate if English isn't your first language!

He looks forward to hearing from anyone who is interested. Thanks. Claire

the two of us

This weekend it was just the two of us. My eldest son and I.

So I prioritised fun and mother and son time over everything else.

I planned a loose itinery for us to do which included: gingerbread men baking, swimming, picnic on the beach, DVD, 2 x art projects, bike ride, tennis. It turned out that we did not have quite enough time to do everything, but we had fun trying.

One of our art projects involved this Pop Up book that I bought recently. Pop-Up: Everything You Need to Create Your Own Pop-Up Book by Ruth Wickings and Frances Castle

I can't recommend this book highly enough. Inside are 4 scenes to turn into fantastic pop-up pages: a dragon, a jungle, a medieval castle and Frankenstein’s laboratory. There are some brilliant pop-up tricks that you try out. And you don't even need glue (every piece has sticky back plastic attached. Genius!

We also watched a film; How to Train Your Dragon, which was a brilliant story. We both really enjoyed that. And from that my son decided he'd produce his own book about Dragons. Each page had a dragon on it (some from the film, some made up) with information about the dragon. I helped with some of the drawing and writing, but that is our work in progress.

We also played on Beatles Rockband together, which was a great laugh.

On a sadder note, I went into Habitat for probably the last time. So sad it's gone into administration. I've bought some gorgeous things from there over the last 20 years. I have many beautiful vases from there, my everyday crockery (I went and picked up some more to cover breakages), bed and table linen, furniture. Sad times. Unfortunately IKEA, and all the supermarkets have been selling homewares in a similar style and a lot cheaper than Habitat do. However Habitat was always more original, more interesting and it used to be better quality as well. Hard times.

the eagle has landed

Time has been running away from me again. After the fun extended break with so many bank holidays, we are now all getting back into our routine of work, school, nursery and home.

Each half term my son's school do a different project. This term it is about the rainforest (so I presume they will do some biology, geography, history etc within the topic). This Friday his class are doing a play about the rainforest. I do have to go to work, but when I saw what they were doing, I booked the morning off. (It's sad when you can't always get to see everything)

Last week, he came home with what he needed to do for the play. Number 1 learn lines, number 2 get an eagle costume together! Oh I do love another job, in our already choc-a-block week. My husband said he would take charge and get it done this week.

So yesterday (Monday) the eldest returned from school saying he needed the costume for today. Plans had to be changed as not all costume materials had been bought.

So with yellow card, that we had from are infamous Daffoldil hat and brown fabrics, left over from my sister's quilt, an eagle outfit was made!

The headpiece was made by my husband.

The wings that I made sewing 4 skinny quarters together, so they would overlap. I then hand cut all the "feathers" into the fabric. Then I hand stitched each wing onto the sleeves of a brown top (purchased for his last school play).

From the front, the graceful eagle still in his pjs.

calming art

After a 1.5 hour swimming class some quiet drawing is just thing to recharge the batteries! After we had a BIG refuel!

Doctor Who is the inspiration today.

Bikes

(photo taken on phone with sun quite low!)

Possibly the best thing about my childhood was spending endless days on my bike around our neighbourhood. You know those days when it was hot all the time, and the days and weeks of spring and summer just went on forever.

It gives me so much joy to see my two on their new / old bikes, experiencing the freedom of our local park, spending brief moments out of easy reach. Their first taste of freedom.

I think we'll be spending many upcoming hours / days/ weeks here. Me still, they on the move.

(blogged from park!)

Season's Greetings

I made the "kill you in a hearbeat" malteaser bites from Eric Lanlard's newish book "Home Bake" as part of the baked goods for our New Year's guests. They are easy enough to make with children but good enough for grown ups too!

The book was a present and has many lovely cakes to make in it. Just look at the front cover! That says summer birthday cake all over it!

I'm sure there will be plenty of baking in 2011. Which brings me to say;

Happy New Year, I hope you all saw the new year in with family & friends. My eldest was awake until 11:30 he just couldn't quite hold on!

Gift Ideas - Doll's Patchwork Quilt

This is another stash busting gift, a doll's patchwork quilt for my nieces.

I pieced together some of my fabric scraps in three coordinating fabrics. These fabrics had been originally used to make myself an apron, and dresses for my nieces. I had saved the last few bits away, I pulled them out and I literally tried to piece them together like a jigsaw, so I would end up with a rough rectangular shape (c45cm x 35cm). As you can see there is no set design, more crazy paving, if you will.

Once that is large enough. I trimmed it down to a rectangular shape. I them cut out a piece of cheap gingham fabric, I had, to the same size.

sewing batting together

Now for the clever bit, I have sewed together left over batting, from quilts I have already made, again to the same measurements. The way I did this, was to butt them up against each other and join using a zigzag stitch. That means it's a flat seam.

batting all sewn together

I'm not going to bind this, so I am laying the batting down then I lay the two rectangles of fabric right sides together.

Batting, fabric 1, Fabric 2 (rst)

I stitched all the way around, leaving a gap of between 5-8 cms. Turn inside out. Poke out corners. Now whip stitch gap together.

Feel free to quilt the blanket if you like. Make it as simple or as decorative as you desire. Time is probably an influencing factor here. It measures approx 19" x 15".

present ideas

We are having a birthday this week. Our youngest is turning 4. 4 I know, I can't believe it. Sometimes I feel like I never want my boys to grow up. They are at such great ages, and just like all things in life, once it's gone, it's gone.

Of course, the older they get, the more complex they are. My eldest is just surprising and delighting me with his creativity. We can read complex novels together and both really enjoy it (we're on the Harry Potter series at the moment).

But back to the younger one. It's been quite difficult deciding what to get him. We are very resistant to purchasing more plastic toys, that seem to get everywhere around our house. And of course, having an older brother, a lot of stuff gets handed down. But we have come up with a few cool presents that we think he's going to love.

We have bought him a Vtech Kidizoom Camera (suitable from 3-7yrs). It looks pretty good, you can zoom, do fun editing options and do small movies. I think it's going to be very popular! This is the first working camera that we have bought for either of our children, so I hope that it doesn't cause jealousy with the older one! We will see.

I also bought him a few puzzles and games from a lovely independent toy shop called WigWam in Brighton. There is another great toy shop in the North Laine, on Sydney Street called Daisy Daisy.

The lovely jigsaw we got is by Djeco. I love these, they come in different shaped boxes to fit around the character. They do a ballerina, a pirate, a Knight to name a few.

I love games and when I saw this small card game I couldn't resist. It's Happy Families, which I definitely played when I was little.

The illustrations and design style of these Djeco puzzles and games just make me so happy. I adore their sensibility.

I also picked up this lacing set, which is great for hand eye coordination. You get to make a few sweet pictures.

As my son's birthday is by Halloween, I bought him this very clever torch. In fact I liked it so much, I have bought more of them for other gifts. It doesn't have batteries, you just "wind it up" via squeezing it's sides. Clever!

I have probably spent more than I normally would but he's not having a party, and I can't help feeling as the second child that he misses out on lots because we've already got it/ done it. I hope that he gets a lot of enjoyment out of these gifts, I'm pretty sure he will.

Additional Note: I'm pleased to say that most of my gifts have been bought from independent local shops. And there isn't a huge amount of plastic - phew!

Dacia Ray's Peace & Quiet Book

One of the lovely blogs that I read, Dacia Ray, has just shown her beautiful peace and quiet book that she has lovingly made for her son. Dacia has kindly let me share her book with you, enjoy her craftmanship and please go and read her post here.

I have seen soft books in shops to buy, but nothing as personal and special as this. If I had seen this a few years ago I would have made one for my children. It truly is a work of art, a very special book indeed.

numbers

balloons

As Dacia mentions she was inspired not only from her own childhood book that she had, but also from Empty Bobbins, Moda Bakeshop and Posie Gets Cozy.

Learn how to tie a lace

Learn how to dress yourself!

I think this would be a beautiful thing to make for your own child or grandchild. If anyone else has links to other "peace and quiet" books let me and Dacia know!

Serious Bit:
Dacia gave her kind permission for me to reproduce her photos, they are her copyright, and can only be used with her written permission.

ingenious children

I love the way if my children don't have something, they make it for themselves out of what they already have.

Lately my eldest has been really impressing us with his creations.

He was very ill at the start of term, and he watched Spiderwick on dvd at home. He was really inspired by the film, and he set about making his own Spiderwick Field Journal, using the DVD extras as a guide.



For a boy who begrudgingly writes, this was brilliant!


Next are the never ending lego models. He's creating his own army here.



And after this week's swimming lesson, he had accomplished a few new moves, so he decided he needed some swimming badges to mark the occassion! From left to right, Pencil Jump, Swimming Unaided with a float, Mushroom Float and a Starfish Float.

batty me

Gingerbread Biscuits made for an early school Halloween Charity Cake sale.

The funny thing was I was getting all stressed about making something and then my husband said why don't you make biscuits with your Halloween cutters! He was absolutely right!

My eldest helped me make the dough, which was great fun. It had to rest for a few hours in the fridge, and by the time I got it out again, I just wanted to do a quick job of rolling it out and cutting out the biscuit shapes. The pumpkin and cat are in my children's lunchboxes today as a treat. The gingerbread recipe is by Dan Lepard in his Exceptional Cakes book. To my mind it's the best recipe I've got for it. Absolutely perfect!

Prints

I have been buying art (mainly prints) for my children's shared bedroom. Partly for decoration, but hopefully to inspire. I hope it just seeps in everyday.





These two prints are by Laura Amiss. She is from Holland, but sells via etsy, both prints and originals. I really liked the pictures, I hope my children do as well.

On a related note, I am pleased to say that my eldest will be attending an after school art club, which I hope he really enjoys. I am looking forward to seeing his creations.