Felted Dragons

Aren't these dragons amazing?!  We saw them at Ordsall Hall along with the owls I blogged about here here.  I have always wanted to have a go at needle felting but have put it off as I know both of the little people would want to have a go and Miss E is still a bit to young to be stabbing things with barbed needles!

Jitterbugs

A lovely morning making jitterbugs with local home educating families.  Both children loved the opportunity to wire these up and actually get them jittering around the room!

The run up to Christmas

Dr Seuss

If I am honest I have never really been a fan of Dr Seuss, I didn't really like his books as a child and hadn't been keen to read them to Mr T and Miss E.  Then a few months back I saw a video on Youtube from The Burning Man Festival of The Places You'll Go, and after many more viewings I absolutely love it!  We now have a copy of the book (thanks Mum) and as the children enjoyed it, and as our Home Ed group were planning on a Dr Seuss day we borrowed a few more books from the library and had a go at a few Seuss inspired activities.

Here are our "Wockets in the pockets"  Mr T did the middle one and the one on the left (he was keen to do two, which is rare as he isn't hugely keen on drawing and writing, think it was the stapler that won him over!).  Miss E did the one on the right, she drew her wockets and cut them out all herself!  Miss E really loved the book, she is at that age when rhyming words are a huge source fun.

We also added some funny feet to these creatures!  I had planned to make some playdoh wockets like these I found here but we ran out of time and energy in the end.  We will save them for another day.

Science Fun

This is Mr T's favourite book at the moment, he has been doing lots of the experiments and the crafts from it.

This week he and Miss E decided they wanted to make the climbing bugs.

They both chose the ladybird type beetle as they decided the lizard looked too tricky to draw.

Here is Mr T's which he drew all by himself.

Miss E coloured hers on her own but I drew it and cut it out for her.  They were really easy to make, all you needed was card, a metre of string, a plastic drinking straw, 2 beads a 1p and some selotape.  

Here is Mr T demonstrating how it climbs up!

Of course when the beads came out Miss E decided she needed to make some bracelets and the beetle was forgotten.

If you look closely you can see one of my current knitting projects, and of course the obligatory "pink Princess" who joins in most things around here at the moment!

Christmas and Everything After

Wow.  That was a long and unplanned absence.  As in most houses with small children (and most probably most houses without) things have been busy busy busy.  I have been super busy knitting, baking, planning, shopping, wrapping and generally "keeping going" as I find winter really hard work.  I have come to the conclusion that I most probably suffer from SAD, and really feel the need to hide and hibernate through the winter months.  Obviously this would never be possible, especially with my little Etsy shop as the run up to Christmas has meant a lot of knitting.

Anyway, I did "keep going" and got all my orders sent out, all my gifts bought and wrapped and all the Christmassy food cooked, served and eaten.  My head is now busy planning and gathering ideas and inspirations as to what to knit for spring and summer.  I want to focus on children's things, along with a few adult items thrown in, but I am also thinking about creating things for the home...any ideas?  I have a few but they are still only in the whizzing around head stage at the moment!

I'll leave you with some photos, here are just a few of my knitty bits from the last few weeks...

And here are some pictures of the some of the other bits and pieces we have been doing...

Snowy villages with plenty of glitter of course!

A very proud Mr T with a decoration he sewed all by himself.

A lego version of Mr Man and I having a brew in our own camper van.

The tree with a very crooked angel

I hope you all had a lovely Christmas, what are your plans for the new year? :)

More Germs

Miss E was really poorly last week and needed an emergency Dr visit and an inhaler and steroids.  She is a lot better now but obviously still not fully recovered as she has a cough to rival a heavy smoker and to say she is slightly more stroppy than usual would be an understatement.  Now Mr T has it and as is usual with him it has caused him to have a bad stomach and throw up, a lot.  So not much to blog about really, mostly knitting, dealing with poorly smalls and trying to keep people amused inside.

Here is what I have made with Miss E this morning.  Paper dolls.  I am no artist as you can see but she wanted me to colour them to match family members...

Roald Dahl Day

On Thursday it was Roald Dahl day so at our Home Ed group the children did Dahl themed activities.  They invented new creatures with a "Creature Creater", decorated cakes to look like Mrs Twit's glass eye (and ate them of course) and made their own Roly Poly birds.  Some friends brought in a Mugglewump sock monkey they had made and both Miss E and Mr T loved it so we took a copy of the instructions.  Now we just need to find some socks and get sewing.  Mr T suggested using some of his Dads old socks but as Mr Man wears them until they fall apart (plus smelly man feet...bleugh!) I said we would buy some new ones especially!