Bunting & banter

I am not sure if it was the wet winter months that caused a flurry of bunting making parties or whether people are still in the party mood following the Royal Wedding and the Diamond Jubilee but there is definitely a need for jolly flags around. 

With a suitcase full of red and purple I went to a lovely 10 year old who was very keen to do a sewing party for her birthday. The "Little Miss Sew & So" package can be tailored to any age (even to those who cannot handle a needle) and a popular activity is bunting making. 

The girls at this party were fortunate enough to have a sewing circle at their primary school. Not many schools have that luxury and I believe it is crucial to keep these skills alive, I have come across too many girls in their 20's and 30's who literally cannot sew on a button.

There are of course many ways to make bunting but this jolly troupe went for the traditional triangular flags.

     


Some of them had not done any sewing before but got the hang of it really quickly and decorated their flags beautifully with hearts and flowers. I did bring some felt stickers, so I suppose I made them cheat a little but we are pretended they were put on using Bondaweb and I promised not to tell anyone!

Afterwards the party girl's mum sent me a lovely letter:


"Thank you for a lovely party on Saturday. Some of the girls who had very limited experience of sewing were really inspired by the party and their parents have come up to me in the playground and said how they haven’t stopped talking about it and they have been sewing and finishing their bunting at home. So it inspired some girls and my daughter loved it, showing her friends her talents."

Thank you, this cheered up my day! 

Palm Easter Tree

Have we all enjoyed a great Easter weekend? It's been absolutely glorious in the North of England. Apparently it's been warmer here than in Spain and France, unbelievable.

I am not sure if it is a sign of the times or whether it is just me but I am very keen to keep to traditions. I had planned traditional fayre for the whole Easter weekend, starting with Green Thursday (called White Thursday in Holland and Belgium) and for the first time we made a 'palmpaasboom', a palm Easter tree. When I mentioned this to friends here I got blanks so it may well be a Dutch tradition. This 'tree' in the shape of a cross was decorated with ribbons and flowers and carried around on Palm Sunday. I have never actually seen this carried in a parade at school or elsewhere but this is what happened up to the sixties apparently. The monkeys love learning about what they call the 'olden days' and they like that we do things on certain days so I thought this would be a great thing to pick up for years to come.

On a trip to Delamere forest we found a couple of sticks that we turned into a cross and decorated with yellow ribbons and Easter decorations. The monkeys then had a great time threading biscuits and sweets for a couple of garlands that they were allowed to eat today on Easter Monday.

I searched online to find tips to turn bread dough into a cockerel or an Easter chick to put on the top and found that it was remarkably easy:

Make sausage shapes of about 15 cm, then make a few cuts in one end for the tail and a few at the other for the comb, pulling one bit out to make a beak and sticking a raisin in for an eye. I wasn't all that sure when I put them in the oven but .....

the result wasn't bad:

And this is what our tree looked like in the end:

Proportionally the chick is a little small but I'll divide the dough differently next year and make a bigger one. In the meantime the cross is going to be used for a sword by boy monkey. I am glad the monkeys get into the spirit of reusing and recycling too!

Mini Masters Art Gallery

For the next week I will disappear from blog land as I will not have internet access, a strange thought. Anyway it will be a good time to sort out my stacks of fabrics and craft materials. The monkeys will have a week of school so we will have plenty of fun. 

Yesterday I had the Mini Masters coming for a lovely craft session in which we created art galleries from shoe boxes. They all thought it was a lovely project and the little and big ones got busy with wall papers, frames, sculptures and furniture, creating their own little master pieces along the way. As always I thought they made some fabulous works. 

That's it from me for a bit. Happy Valentine's day to you all!

Day 13 A craft day

Smoothie of the day :

Today's breakfast treat was made with 

- a handful of strawberries

- 2 large ripe pears

- a large glass of fresh cloudy apple juice

Girl monkey wanted a craft day today. As I needed some time to sort out the house before Mr Betsy got back we decided to make some mosaics. The monkeys laid down on a piece of pattern paper and amongst lots of giggles I traced them. They then sat down with a pile of magazines, various coloured and patterned tissue paper, fabric, stickers and glue and cut and tore out bits to stick onto their profiles. Boy monkey's is predominantly blue although he chose a lovely pink gift wrap for his legs. I never said to him that blue was for boys and pink for girls but somehow this was programmed into his mind before birth. From the moment he could talk he said that he loved blue, so let him have his favourite colour. 

These photographs aren't great but it gives some idea of what when on this morning .

They chose particular colours to stick on and the cutting and tearing kept them occupied for quite some time that we haven't finished them yet. For the moment we hung them on the wall in the kitchen. I think these mosaic figures would look great plastered all over the walls in the hall way. 

I finished the Unicorn bag I started last night. I certainly bent the rules sewing this one! My sewing machine broke down so I am hand stitching everything. It gives me great pleasure but a mitered corner doesn't look as neat so I decided to leave the end of the bias binding hanging on the corners and I tied them together. It looks really cute and saved me a lot of hassle!