inspired

We have been so inspired by our trip to the Ewe Experience  last week.

 Rebe made a picture of Minian, using 22 sheets of paper stuck together.

 Benny and Joa are so impressed to have him in our house. I asked Rebe how old she thought he was, her answer still surprises me '45'... it just seems like an odd age for a giant to be, but there you go :-)

We have had 2 days of only small showers of rain so we went down to the beach for a play yesterday morning,

 and to exercise the horses:

We also had a mission to gather 10 or so good sized rocks.

 We washed them and then painted them,

 and ourselves and the garden...

 Nora Snots
When the rock monsters were dry we took them into the woods and hid them in the hollows of one of our favourite trees.

 We are hoping that finding them will make people laugh and smile.

 This is the 1st of our planned natural sculpting in the woods :-) I love the idea of making natural art for other people to enjoy, to bring a wee smile to their faces. I also like the idea of helping and encouraging the children to make art in this way... a sort of natural graffiti :-)

there is also a fair bit of climbing to do too :-)

Joa has been helping me knit for the giveaway fairy doll, a project I'm really enjoying right now :-)

growing...

I have realised that I haven't been sharing with you how our wee patch in my friends field is going...

 Well, it's growing away quite nicely. I admit when I first went to have a look a the drill that I was very, very excited. This excitement turned to anxiety when I realised how little (as in nothing) I knew about gardening and growing food. At first our attempts made me feel quite disheartened, all of the young broccoli and cabbage plants that I put in were eaten or trampled by various things...

 but I kept on, I bought more seeds, I went back again and again to sew and rearrange and protect and tend.

 And now there are things growing. Actual, real vegetables! Swede for example,

 cabbages

 parsnips

 There are also things not doing so well:

 our poor wee broccolli, nibbled again!

 But look! It looks like a real drill :-)

 I brought home a selection of new tender veggies for the kids to see and they straight away set to work preparing them for dinner,

 washing (although I'm not sure the washing up liquid and sponge are that necessary)

 peeling, chopping and grating.

 Mixed with a wee splash of vinegar and a spoonful of mayo they made a delicious coleslaw!

And I am getting over my anxiety and beginning to really understand the wonder and joy of growing your won veg :-)

and the winner is...

It was soooo hard to choose, but we did it! 

Thank you to everyone who entered the 500 likes giveaway! I loved reading all of your entries and some of them made we want to start sewing straight away! But I whittled down my favourite to 10 and we drew the winner this morning.

 Rebe helped me decide which 10 dolls should go into the basket and in glorious sunshine she picked out the doll I will be making.

 Joa took notes...

 and the winner is Kate Willis who left this message:

 I would love a doll that looks like a little girl but with wings because my 2.5 year old thinks she is a fairy and twirls and twirls around shouting "me fairy me fairy" but all the fairy dolls I can find have pinks tutus or suchlike which can't be right because fairies live outside and they would get cold dressed like that!!!

(picture: a custom doll I finished last night)


 I am going to really enjoy making this doll, and there were some other ideas that I would really love to use. I'm not sure how to though. Perhaps if I make a doll inspired by your idea I will contact you and offer you first refusal (and a discount?) what do you think?

 Thank you again to all of you for the wonderful support and encouragement, it really means the world to me :-)

like mama like daughter :-)

I promise I will show you the pictures of the finished sensibly dressed fairy when she's finished :-)

Buddies ~ cloud busters and pizza

 ***In September 2011 6 families got together and started Buddies Home School. Each week we meet in each other's home and follow a simple rhythm: movement and music, craft/ baking, snack time, free play and story time. Each part of the session is led by a different family. We are sharing this week's session with you here...***

Summer has brought a wee change to our normal Buddies structure. We are starting later and we have a wider age range as older siblings are off school. So we have loosened our program some what. We sang our welcome song and moved straight on to our first activity which was preparing lunch.

 Our chef had pre-prepared pizza dough and each Buddy got a lump to kneed and roll into a pizza base.

 We topped the bases with tomato sauce, cheese and salami

 The Buddies played while they baked in the oven and hungrily gobbled up every scrap.

 Mummies had a lovely pizza too with a gorgeous mixed salad

 enjoyed to Joa's  muzak (Ricki Martin over and over and over and over again)

 After lunch was cleared away we started our craft.

Because the weather has been so, so awful I decided we needed to make some cloud busters.

We poured some dried rice into little freezer bags and secured them.

We then wrapped that in some sheep's wool (you could use any stuffing really)

We wrapped that in a piece of scrap material and secured with an elastic band.

The kids who wanted to added a design to the front using embroidery thread. The tails are long scraps of material tied around the elastic band.

Then we went outside to bust those clouds away.

 And do you know what, they actually worked...

for a while at least :-)