Pumpkins

So it has been a little while! We have been busy in our house. With Pickle and Penguin both having a birthday with a joint party in the middle and then half term with all the madness that brings.

We have been having fun with pumpkins in our house! We visited a pumpkin farm over half term and picked up a few beauties. Yellow Bean and Pickle picked out classic carving pumpkins and Penguin and I chose edible ones. We also picked some cheap ones up from supermarkets.

So....what have we been doing?

First we did some scooping. But I failed to get a snap of that one...too much excitement and mess.

The kids had some great fun with the squidgy squishy innards of the pumpkin and did a pretty good job scooping it all out.

Then we washed the seeds. Pickle, Penguin and I loved the feel of the slippery seeds in the water. A great sensory activity!

We dried the seeds and picked a few to put aside for planting next year. The rest we mixed with a little oil, some brown sugar and mixed spice and roasted in a medium/hot oven for 15min. Yummy!

Pickle enjoyed carefully cutting the face he had drawn himself out of his pumpkin. We used a pumpkin carving kit we picked up in the supermarket. It was great, the blade is serrated but not sharp, totally suitable for my newly 4 year old boy.

Penguin is still a bit too little, she had a fabulous time drawing all over her pumpkin with sharpie pen.

For another pumpkin activity Penguin used a hammer to tap some golf tees into another pumpkin. He then wound black wool around the tees to make a pattern. He decided that this was like a spiders web so we have since added a black pompom and pipe cleaners to make a spider.

Not a bad little batch of activities that the small people certainly seemed to enjoy. I am looking forward to lighting them tomorrow evening!

Until next time....S xx

Fungi

I love Fungi. Don't you? Have you seen the amazing range of shapes and colours that you can find in an early autumnal wood? Have you ever noticed how magical the world of fungi can be?

A wonderful selection. x

Painting Rocks

This summer many people in my local area have been painting rocks and leaving them in the woods for others to find. Rocks, paint, woods, outdoors, art. It sounded right up our alley.

So we decided to join in and give it a go. We started out by digging in the garden, finding rocks and giving them a good wash. This was a great activity and Pickle and Penguin dove into it with all the energy and excitement that small people seem to muster from nowhere. They found a lovely selection and were really keen to get started with the paint.

I covered them in PVA once they were dry and the next day we went out into the woods to hide them and search for others. We found a few and have been back a few times since to find more.

Pickle and penguin love to see the different designs others have chosen, to them every single one of them is beautiful and exciting. I love to see the world through their eyes. Some are amazingly creative, taking into account the shape of the rocks, others are very much toddler painted.

I would highly recommend getting involved in community projects such as this, it is really great to see so many families getting involved and enjoying the outdoors. I have seen a lot of posts about this on the facebook community so it would be worth looking to see if it is going on in your area.

Until next time. x

30 Days Wild - Day 14

Today we did some weaving. I made a little weaving frame from some sticks and twine, then Pickle, Penguin and I went on a little walk and collected grass, flowers, leaves and feathers to weave into the twine.

It was pretty successful. Penguin is too little for the weaving but she was really keen on picking the flowers and grass for Pickle and I to weave in. They also spent some time exploring a log for animal homes. There are a number of holes in and around the log, I would love, love, love to know what lives in there!

Sun Catchers

So, with some lovely sunny weather the past week I though I would share with you a lovely little craft perfect for the summer time!

Suncatchers! We made these a while back but they are easy peasy, Penguin and Pickle both loved the activity and both were able to join in nicely. Penguin even managed to find a rouge googly eye which she added to her suncatcher. See if you can spot it in the picture!

So these are super simple, cut a cardboard frame, add some sticky back plastic then cover the 'window' with bits of cut up tissue paper! I hope you guys have a try!

Until next time.....

Dying Flowers

Over the Easter holidays Pickle and I decided to try and dye some flowers. We had a lovely chat about how plants get their water and how it travels around the plant. I would be interested to try this experiment at some point with a potted plant rather than cut flowers to show the involvement of the roots...I think this level is sufficient for now but it would be an interesting extension.

So Pickle had tried this experiment at preschool but they did not see a very strong colour change. When we did it we decided to make the colour of the water very concentrated. We used a lot of food colouring, so much that the water was very dark and you couldn't easily see which colour was which from first glance.

We also cut some of the stems very short to see what difference that would make....

It turns out quite a lot! The shorter stems meant that the colour showed up in the flowers much faster, within a couple of hours.

 After an extended period of several days the shorter stemed flowers also had a more intense colour. I would conclude that this is due to the fact less of the colouring is lost on the way up, in the stem and remaining leaves for instance.

I love the pretty striping of the colours running through the veins of the petals.

The blue and red were more successful than the green colouring. We swapped a red and blue flower over to see if the colours would mix afterwards. They didn't. When placed in the blue water the red one went blue with just some red patches left at the tips of the petals; the blue flower stayed blue in the red water. This gives me ideas about future experiments mixing the food colouring to make purple before adding the flowers....what would happen? The green colouring did give green lines in the petals rather than blue and yellow so I don't really expect a chormotographic effect....but I am not sure what would happen, it might be an interesting conversation to have with Pickle in the future after some chromatography adventures....

Until next time...

A most Egg-cellent adventure....

Oh yes, a cheesy Easter title. Happy Easter! Things have been wonderful, busy and just a tiny bit stressful here. We are nearing the end of a nearly 3 week Easter break here Pickle is only at preschool but it makes a big difference having him off. Penguin has decided she doesn't like to nap when he is at home and at just 18 months she is not really ready to drop that afternoon snooze. I really must look at getting that sorted before Pickle is off for the summer and then starts nursery in the mornings rather than the afternoon!

Any way. We have had a lot of fun building junk robots, making krispie cakes and easter crafts with a few trips scattered in....a post on that later.

Today's post is all about my new crochet Easter bunting! It has taken me a while and progress certainly slowed down without Penguin's nap time these past few weeks.

Not the best light I am afraid, it is hard to get away from the kidlets to take photos in the daylight. 

These are crocheted up with dk yarn I had left over, not sure what the yellow is but the white is stylecraft special. I then cross stitched on the egg shapes with some Patons 100% cotton 4 ply. I am not sure they do the green anymore but the other colours are Candy, Lilac and Pale Blue. I think the green was called sage or similar but I no longer have the ball band. Hook size used for these was 3.75.

To make the egg shape: (Uk Terms)

Ch16

Row 1: dc in 2nd chain from hook and then in each ch until the end. Turn. 

Row 2: ch 1, dc in each dc. Turn

Row 3: ch 1, 2 dc in first dc, dc in the next 13 dc, 2dc in last dc. Turn.

Row 4: ch 1, 2 dc in first dc, dc in the next 15 dc, 2 dc in last dc. Turn. 

Row 5: ch 1, 2 dc in first dc, dc in the next 17 dc, 2 dc in last dc. Turn

Row 6: ch 1, 2 dc in first dc, dc in the next 19 dc, 2 dc in last dc. Turn. 

Row 7: ch 1, 2 dc in first dc, dc in the next 21 dc, 2 dc in last dc. Turn. 

Row 8: ch 1, 2 dc in first dc, dc in the next 23 dc, 2dc in last dc. Turn. 

Row 9: ch 1, 2 dc in first dc, dc in the next 25 dc, 2dc in last dc. Turn. 

Row 10-16: ch 1, dc in each dc. Turn. 

Row 17- 45: ch1, 2dctog, dc in each dc after that until the end. Turn.

Row 46: ch 1, 2dctog, dc in each dc after that. You should now have 7 dc in a row. 

Row  47: ch 1, work dc down the side of the egg shape, 1 in the end of each row. Along the foundation ch work 1sl st, dc, dc, dc, htr, htr, tr, 2tr, tr, htr, htr, dc, dc, dc, slst, then dc up the other side of the shape. In the top row, work sl st, dc, htr, tr, htr, dc, sl st.

Row 48: dc around the edge to finish boarder.

I then cross stitched random patterns onto the eggs and joined them with a sl st along a simple chain. I am really pleased with my easter bunting. I think I might do some bunny bunting for next easter.

Until next time....x

Have you seen....?

Oh My, have you seen the Scheepjes CAL? It starts in February and it is so beautiful. There are 3 original colourways, Jewel, Rainbow and Pastel. Rainbow is my personal preference, I love how the colours pop on the dark smokey background.



Mmmmmmmmm sooooo pretty!!! I am going to follow too keep an eye on the goings on. I am in awe of the beauty! I will definitely have to follow a CAL with my blog one day. Maybe I will even be able to run one sometime in the future, who knows! I will certainly have a look at the Scheepjes yarn next time I am looking to order, it looks so very pretty!

It is fair to say the crochet world is alive with CALs right now with Attic 24 midway through the moorland CAL. A blanket would have been my preference but I just love the techniques int he shawl. I wish I could justify the outlay to buy the kit! I would love to try the Scheepjes yarn. At the moment I mostly work in Stylecraft special dk because we don't have a local yarn shop and I like to know that the yarn I am buying is going to be a lovely texture as well as affordable!

I love the idea of a CAL and I hope that it encourages more people to pick up a hook and give it a go!