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......

FLY and be Green

My intention was to create a basket full of brooches today but I got side tracked and realised I was a SHE (sidetracked home executive). In order to put me on track I have recently signed up on the flylady.net site. It is just brilliant! As the monkeys are helping me by pleasing the Housefairy I needed to do something myself and although some people think I was born organised it is more like organised chaos in my life. OK moving house 4 times in 5 years didn't help and having too many projects on the go doesn't make it any easier but still that shouldn't be an excuse. 

If you like being told what to do then FLYlady is fabulous. I now get daily emails to remind me what I should be doing, such as clearing out the plastic tub cabinet (don't we all have one with lids that do not match the pots?), or decluttering your hotspots for no more than 10 minutes. FLYlady believes we shouldn't spend more than 15 minutes a day doing housework and if I understand her correctly one hour of power cleaning a week. I am now getting in the habit of setting my alarm for 15 minutes every morning and it is unbelievable how much I can get done in that time. After I drop of the monkeys at school, I make myself a coffee (I never start the day without, it's the one unhealthy habit that I could not ever give up), catch up on the news, set my alarm and tackle one room. I can then start crafting without feeling guilty. I try to do 15 minutes at the end of the afternoon as well though, I am obviously still a FLYbaby. For those of you who had children and didn't like GIna Ford's method, you might not be too keen to become a FLYlady but if you're anything like me and raised kids with Gina's book in your hand, this could be a saviour.

As I got into this home organising thing today I got myself Ecoballs and Dryer Balls, and printed off some information to teach the monkeys a bit more about the environment. I love being green and wish more would be done to save our planet. Having grown up in Holland I was used to recycling and it came as a shock when I moved to London some 15 years ago that there wasn't a paper or bottle bank in sight. In the village I lived as a child paper was always recycled (and I am talking nearly 40 years ago if not more), plastic and glass bottles had a deposit on them and well, tins we used to keep to make stilts, containers for keep sakes etc. Dad hardly ever threw anything out that he could re-use. He still keeps a lot, his shed is hilarious. 

Meanwhile I have thought of a little green project I can do with the monkeys after school tomorrow: we can sow love heart or teddy bear cress figures. That should keep them entertained for a week or two. The holidays are coming up and my list of things to do is getting endless, could we please take the rest of the year off?

More Suffolk puffs

My work table was a very happy place to be today. Girl monkey's friend Mia left a bunch of lovely flowers at the front door yesterday afternoon and I put them right where I can see them all the time. I looked after her and her little sister on Friday and she thanked me with these in her favourite colour purple (even her bedroom is purple!). Though I have always said it is not my favourite colour it is starting to grow on me and I really like the shades of the flowers. 

Girl monkey made a lovely drawing for me last night that I could use as a 'design' and as she had such a poorly head on Sunday I wanted to make a little surprise for her . 

I had this maternity top lying around in the pile of fabric that needs sorting out and made a little skirt out of it. I am not used to taking pictures yet of works in progress but luckily remembered when I cut off the top. So here we are.... and of course I could have ironed...

I used her design to decorate the front and back of the skirt with some Suffolk puffs (there's a surprise!) and some buttons. There are three on the back but with shorter stems and a little closer together.  She was delighted. 

I took boy monkey on the bus after nursery to do some shopping at Hobbycraft and the book stores. I picked up a couple of lovely books. I really liked Danielle Proud's House Proud, I had wanted it for a while but had never seen an actual copy so this was a nice find. I think I have unknowingly tried all the projects in the book but it is so nicely put together that it is certainly worth adding to my craft library. 

After picking up girl monkey we went to the children's art gallery at school. It was so nice to see the art works of all the years together, there were some really stunning pieces. Boy monkey did "Myself" and girl monkey "Island at night". I quickly wanted to put a red dot on them in case someone else would snap them up! Girl monkey encouraged me to buy several other pieces and didn't quite understand that mummies and daddies might want to buy their own child's work (and just that one). Both monkeys's works have a proud place at home now. 

Busy Betsy has a technical problem

Yesterday wasn't good for crafts, nor the day before. I was hired as a private chauffeur for the monkeys, they had various parties, drama classes, ballet classes, etc to go to. On top of that girl monkey ended up in the emergency department as she had a little accident. 

Someone once said to me that if she didn't make at least one craft item a day she didn't feel like she achieved something. I kind of liked that thought and have tried to live by this since but it went a bit pear shaped this weekend. 

So today a new day, that started with a ballet exam for girl monkey (and I was hoping to include a nice picture here but blogger does not upload any photos at the moment) and I spent the rest of the day sorting out my photos on my computer. About 2 weeks ago I had to download a program to scan images for my dad's book and in the process lost about 2,500 images. They have since been recovered (thank goodness!) but I could not do anything with them. The computer store sorted this out today but I have now lost all my images from last week, help I will never get this Etsy shop up and running!

Tomorrow another day and boy do I need to produce.... 

Frames galore

Oh dear, one of the things on my list did not get done today: going to the gym. I had booked boy monkey into the creche at the gym which he absolutely loves but instead we spent most of the day in the park. And yes this was a more sensible thing to do on such a lovely day but I do need to try and stay fit as well. After trying to find someone who would like to take a collection of 19th Century prints of my hands and a framer to frame girl monkey's art work done with Sam Francis's brushes we went to the park and kept on bumping into friends so we didn't leave until it was time for dinner. A lovely day indeed even though I forgot to go (or cancel!) the gym. Oh yes and I needed to find a frame for this wall hanging too....

I'd like this to go above our bed as it is painted in distressed grey-green. It is one of those curly carved 19th Century copies of a 17th Century one and though it is a small bed I really love it. It just looks fab with crisp white bedding. Though I still can't bring myself to iron the sheets, one day when I do have enough hours in the day I might.

After watching The Kite Runner (I am too emotional to say anything about this movie) I started browsing Stitched Textile Collage by Lucille Toumi. For years I have been collecting scraps of material, I can't bring myself to throw any of them away as I know I will use them in one project or another. I really enjoy seeing a work grow when I ad more and more random bits of fabric, often found on the floor. I have found Janet Bolton's work particularly inspiring but it was interesting to see how Lucille approached her work. There is a fabulous collage of a cow in the book. I just love farm animals, especially pigs. I can see myself living on a farm, with lots of animals. Chicken walking around my feet, dogs and cats running around, working in my studio overlooking the barns... alas this is not the ideal of life of Mr Betsy who still prefers noisy towns. I am working on this, meanwhile I keep on dreaming....

Dutch Delights

Recently I discovered two albums of drawings that my dad did at school in the early 1940's. I think they are absolutely brilliant and I have decided to make them into postcards as a surprise for his birthday. I am working on his memoirs which I hope to have out soon (his big day is next week so it will have to be a belated gift!) and I might use one for the cover. Dad dutifully penned his life down, refusing to even look at a computer let alone use one, bless him. I just love this mouse and farmer!

As Mr Betsy is now working in our current home town I thought he would like to have a traditional Dutch meal, call me sentimental but every now and then I do long for what my mother put on my plate back home.... So I decided to serve him boiled potatoes, meatballs, apple sauce and salad. Really I don't think you can get any more Dutch than that. My mother gave me this beautiful book (Our Taste. What the Dutch eat and drink) for my birthday which lists the most popular Dutch products. 

Sure enough potatoes, apples and meatballs were listed but I was a little put off by this image (I am on the verge of becoming a vegetarian again).

My mother's recipe for apple sauce is still my favourite. For 4 servings peel and chop 4 apples (Gala are my favorite but I have even tried it with a mixture of Golden Delicious and Granny Smiths). Put in a pan and add a cup of water, 1 table spoon of sugar and 1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon. Bring to the boil for about 5 - 10 minutes or until soft; mash into a sauce. 

As I was preparing the meal, girl monkey was busy in the utility room. And look what a lovely arrangement she made. She used 12 egg cartons from the recycling box, laid them out with small stones in between and put a shell and 2 laundry pegs in them. It looked quite stunning on the floor. She told me tonight she wanted a studio too for her work! She hasn't even turned 6.......

Sunny Manchester

What a fabulous day this was! Glorious sunshine, not something we see every day in Manchester. I started off so well today making some more necklaces to take with me on Thursday when I will have a stall at an event at one of the local tennis clubs. But I found myself gazing out of my window..... As you can see I am not much of a gardener, either having lived in places for a very short time or not having a garden at all prevented me from getting green fingers but I am very proud of the monkey's sunflowers and other plants we have growing at the moment.

After having made just three bead balls I had the intention to make loads of Suffolk puffs. Just about all my accessories are decorated with them, I just love making them and love the shape and they are so versatile but I didn't get any further than just this teeny weeny blue denim one :

Hmmm.... I made myself my favorite morning drink. I made my smoothie of the day with 1 cup of Greek yoghurt, 1 medium size banana, juice of one lemon and a handful of red grapes. Very refreshing. 

I am now going to curl up with my book. I am reading a hilarious novel called The Ivy Chronicles by Karen Quinn. It's about a woman who had it all but loses her job and finds her husband cheating on the same day. She reinvents herself as a private school admissions adviser and it is just so funny, can't stop reading it!