Clean Paint Toy

This thing I am about to tell you about... I have no idea what it is called, but we made one.

It was originally a plastic folder, into which I dropped a little bit of red, yellow and green paint - and glitter, and then sealed with masking tape. I also stuck it to a small piece of cardboard to make it sturdier.

I made it for Adam, but made the stupid mistake of using Mickey Mouse branded paints. When he saw them, all he wanted was the paint bottles. He barely glanced at my creation. He moaned and moaned for the paint tubs, until I desperately popped them into a ziploc bag (he'd have worked out how to open them otherwise!) and handed them to him.

Emily on the other hand, loved my clean paint toy and has used it for several days running to draw things into. We've used fingers, rolling pins, cups, toys, hands, you name it, it's endured it.

The paint is very close to being one big squelch of brown now (I wonder, had I used blue paint instead of green, might I have prevented it?) but we don't care. It's glittery, it makes pictures, we love it.

There may be more of these in our future.

Finger Paints and Play Doh

I am still not driving here in Dubai (patience is wearing thin...) so some days, we have no choice but to entertain ourselves at home. In fairness, there is PLENTY for the kids to do. We have kitted out an entire playground for them in the garden - only problem now being that it is already too hot by 10am to really spend much time outdoors. 

So Emily asked for some Play Doh and I thought I might give Adam another go with finger paints. 

This was the result...

More paint inside his mouth than on the paper and he really wasn't impressed by any of it, so that ended rather quickly. He then spent twenty minutes playing with the tubs of paint. Fair play.

Meanwhile, Emily made little Play Doh cakes.

Adam's Cake

Back to Adam's birthday for a little while. So I decided I'd be making the cake myself.

I'm not sure what chemical I'd been inhaling when I made that decision. Had I forgotten that two days earlier, there'd be packers once again turning my life upside down... and two days later, we'd be moving half way across the world?

Probably. That, or I am genuinely delusional and think I'm Superwoman.

I'm no Superwoman, but I will say this... The cake was far from perfect. It was actually quite messy. But when you consider that it was baked with most of my baking tools already en route to Dubai, it really could have been worse.

It was a red velvet cake and it tasted good. And sitting down to make the cake and that bunting for my little boy was just what I needed at the time. It made me sit down and focus. My thoughts weren't about packing, or how overweight we'd be on the 3rd March, or what had I forgotten to take note of. For a beautiful couple of hours, I sat down and forgot about it all. I was focused entirely on my creation.

And I am so pleased with it and with the way the bunting turned out. Not just because it looked cute (I won't go into how the M flag shouldn't have been a dark colour), but because it was evidence that during a week when my world was turning into a whirlwind yet again, I found the time to stop and make something pretty.

When There's A Dragon In Your Room

"Mummy, there's a dragon in my room"

At some point over the last few months, Emily became scared of dragons.

Not all dragons. Just the scary ones that invade her room.

I step on their toes and scare them away and she is pleased.

I have also taught her how to step on their toes

but that doesn't quite seem to scare them away as well as when I do it. 

But, just in case, I thought I'd up my game against the dragons. 

The next time my can of deodorant finished, I saved it. 

Then I found a cute little dragon image on Google Image Search. 

And I put this label together.

Stuck it onto the can...

et violà! 

What are your chances of finding that baby on a supermarket shelf?

So the next time Emily's dragon visits her room, I will be there armed with my feet AND a deadly spray.

Take that, dragons!

Leaf Art

We've all caught colds over the weekend. It started with Emily and then spread to the rest of us. This meant she was home from school for a couple days and the boredom was something else entirely. Her teacher has obviously set the bar extremely high when it comes to entertaining our little smartie pants now, and Emily had no patience for my usual (lazy) methods of entertainment. Well, we tried - none of us had much energy for anything else - and the result was several tantrums, way too much shouting on our part, and in one quick description, Hell.

So on Sunday morning I woke up with a minuscule amount of energy and decided it was time for some craft. I mentioned that it would involve paint and Emily was extremely excited. I took her out into the backyard which has someone else's vine growing into it and we picked some (sick-looking?) leaves to use in our project.

We first stuck them to some thick paper, and then we painted them. 

Glitter. 

What was I thinking?

David went in to work with pink glitter on his face yesterday.

Once they had dried I cut them out.

We had one very pleased little girl.

(For all of 20 minutes, until boredom hit again.)

The leaves are now stuck on the back door,

and she very proudly announces to everyone that "Me and Mummy made them!"

Thanks goes to RuralMummy for the inspiration.

Quick and easy ideas, just the way we like them!

Pyjama Day

Today, Emily and I had a Pyjama Day. We both have colds and are feeling a little bit miserable, the weather wasn't too great (welcome to summer), so it seemed fitting.

I love days like today. They always involve lots of snuggling. We watched Emily's favourite nursery rhymes DVD. Twice. And we spent most of our morning colouring. Emily has her own little space in the living room now. (Let's ignore the fact that she'd already taken over the entire living room.) She has a little table and two adorable little chairs - one for her and one for a friend whenever she has a playdate.

The moment she laid eyes on these chairs when I assembled them last week, she fell in love. When she's not pushing a chair around the whole ground floor, she's - well - sitting on it. She absolutely loves them.

It's become her official colouring space.





Mummy, stop taking photos and help me colour!







We dressed up eventually and then it was back on to the chair. At which point she discovered it was a comfy spot to watch TV from (multitasking already), and she also discovered she could colour on her chair.



I am now working on teaching her that she should only use crayons on her colouring books and papers. I see a long road ahead of me...!

Finger Painted Easter Cards

I decided a while ago that I wanted to send Emily's Grandparents personalised Easter cards. I searched high and low for ideas (ok, not really, I searched Pinterest) and finally settled on something simple. I mean, let's face it - she's 14 months old, and while I haven't discarded the possibility of her being the next Picasso, I'm not putting my hopes up.

So finger painting it was. Now bear in mind, she'd never encountered paint before. A voice in my head told me I may be being overly optimistic but I was determined to try. I took her out into the garden on a beautiful day, armed with paper, watercolours, a long-sleeved bib, a packet of handwipes and some snacks.





I didn't dilute the paint to keep the colour bright.



The artist contemplates her art and munches on some snacks.

I explained what we were going to do and asked her which colour she wanted to use first. She poked the red. Red it is, then. We used all four colours (the blue somewhat reluctantly) and made some beautiful 14-month old art.



She quickly lost interest (she wanted to eat the paint and when I didn't let her, that was pretty much it) but I had enough for all the egg cut-outs we needed.

The artist seemed very proud of herself...





The paintings were proudly displayed on the fridge to dry.

Later that night, I set to work. I'd dropped by the craft shop the day before and picked up some scrapbooking stickers along with blank cards, and along with a silver pen I'd entirely forgotten I had, I had all the tools I needed for the project.

Many failed egg-shape attempts later, I found a good one online and literally traced it off the screen. I then traced it onto the best bits of finger painting.

Then came the tough part. I had to cut out the eggs. These were my daughter's first ever works of art we're talking about. Cutting into that paper felt like cutting into my heart just a teeny bit (Note to grandparents: you're not to EVER throw these out!!)



As simplistic as they may seem, I was quite pleased with these cards. Here is the finished product!



And the back:


Happy Easter!

Make Do, Make New

We don't always change Emily's nappy in the nursery. When we're downstairs, it's easier to just do it there. We have a second changing mat and a shoebox with a small stock of nappies and small versions of everything we might possibly need (Sudocrem, wipes, handgel, etc).

The shoebox is the one my snowboots came in. It is green and red and has Trespass & the logo all over it and is, in short, not pretty. It is, however, the most practical box I've found so far, very easy to open with one hand, and for this reason I am hesitant to change it.

Cue a mini online shopping spree for fancy adhesive vinyl. And I ended up with Blackwood vinyl and Cow Print vinyl.

Then one day when Emily was on particularly good behaviour and happy to just sit and watch me, I got cracking. And this is what the "downstairs nappy box" now looks like:





(*cough* I may even have done up the inside...)

One Cushion

Do you remember me mentioning that when my waters broke, I was writing a blog post? Well, this was it ;)

27th January 2011

I come from a very creative family. My mother sews and paints, my grandmothers knit and sew, make jewellery and all sorts of crafts, my grandfather actually ran a crochet business when he gave up work as a journalist. My other grandfather could draw and was into woodwork, my dad plays the guitar and is an excellent photographer, my sister is an artist in her own right... You catch my drift.

I was no exception. When I was young, I could sew, knit, crochet, tapestry, cross-stitch, draw, paint, you name it. I wasn't ever going to make history, but I could get by.

Over the years, it all stopped. The extent of my "talent" became mostly limited to saving the odd pair of trousers from the horrible fate that is a loose hem. I pour over etsy now in awe - not just at the things there are on there, but also at people's ability and patience to get it all done. I got lazy and forgot how much I actually enjoy creating things. The computer played a big part in the downfall - I'm still creative on the computer, but it isn't quite the same thing as good old-fashioned creating, is it?

Lately I began to realise how much I actually miss making things. I've bought books overflowing with ideas, gorgeous pieces of material, I even finally bought a proper sewing box and filled it right to the brim. (I wouldn't want to be caught unawares.) And then everything sat there, untouched (unless, of course, a hem needed fixing).

So it is with great pride that I present to you the product of yet more hours waiting for the baby to decide it's time. With some leftover material I had lying around from the nursery curtains (yes the second pair is now hemmed and waiting to be hung), I decided to make a cushion cover to go with said curtains.

Hand-sewn and based on no particular pattern other than something very sketchy in my head, I give you... one pretty cushion.



(You might argue it's just a rectangular shape, nothing really to it, not very special. Mock if you wish... my pride is unfazed!)

Also, I made this for dinner this evening - try it!

It's somewhat surreal reading this again now, so much has changed :) And I *am* glad my creative juices got going, if for an afternoon - it might be a while before I get the chance again!

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