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! 

Green fingers and diabolos

On the way to a party today girl monkey mentioned that her teacher has a poorly garden. Apparently everything that grows gets either eaten by slugs or dies straightaway she told me. She then asked me about green fingers and why hers weren't green. I just love those questions. Often I will make up a story but as it related to her teacher I simply had to explain what was meant by green fingers and that we were going to put this into practice after the monkeys came back from their parties. So here we are : cress sowing in the shape of a gingerbread man or woman. The cookie cutters were kindly lent to me on a semi-permanent basis by my friend Liz who had them for a while but never used them. Funny enough I thought we'd be making lots of biscuits with the cutters but I find them rather large as a treat. They are great though as templates for Christmas decorations and making cress figures. 

To make the shapes we bought some cotton wool (in a pleat, not the balls) and tore of a piece slightly bigger than the cutter. We then laid this on a small plastic plate, moistened the cotton wool, put cutter on top and filled this with the cress seeds. We used one packet for the two of them. We covered the plate with cling film and it is now waiting to grow in our utility room that doubles as a green house. The monkeys are very excited about this project.

I am getting into party overdrive. There are so many children's and adult parties going on at the moment, great fun but hectic. Tomorrow is the school's Summer Fair and we are really looking forward to that. But more exciting, I am trying to put together girl monkey's juggling party. She really loves circus acts and is mesmerized by diabolos, spinning plates and poi. I am scouring the net for some fabulous finds for her. I never thought I could get so excited about children's parties but the best fun I have had so far this year was organising boy monkey's pirate party, I'd love to do that all over again. I hope I can match it with the juggling party......