Tuesday 7 February 2012

Lego tidy

A day later than promised ;o)  but we had Parents' evening and clubs last night!

So hot on the whinging from the older ones about "the baby's got my leeeeegoooooooo" "I can't find the pieces I had for my thiiiiiiing" and other charming phrases (I know anyone with children will be familiar with the tone of whine and dropped shoulders that accompanies this kind of situation) I decided to try out a lego tidy-up pouch tutorial - this one from Quiltylicious took my eye as it was step-by-step, didn't use any terms I didn't recognise lol, and I liked the pirate fabric!

 

I used her measurements, and a 14" radius is a nice size to work with, not too big to be unweildy to sew, perfect for packing for holidays or trips to relatives who might not be equipped for children, and just big enough to contain the pieces required for any one 'project' on the go.

The kids have loved it so far, and I am about to whip up another for Jake's K'nex as that has teensy weensy pieces in it too, and this morning he'd opted to build with it on his bunk <sigh> and was frantically scrabbling it back into the plastic box when I asked him (for the 900th time) to get DRESSED FOR SCHOOL.  Much easier to just pull a drawstring shut I think!

A nice quick make for boys!

Sunday 5 February 2012

SNOOOWW!!

Today we had the most awesome snow-day!

Out to the park first thing with everyone's kids, snow ball fights, snowman building, and then sledging at a neighbours!

Arthur absolutely loved it, and all we heard from him all day was 'sno!  sno!'
 The boys were, typically, only really interested in launching snow balls at the house - note our bemused cat in the window there!
 ...While Chris, Maisie and her friend made a rather handsome snowman :o)


Back to school tomorrow, I don't think we're forecast any more and it's been melting rapidly all day - so I predict a very slushy grey walk to school tomorrow!

Fun while it lasts...!

I also managed some sewing today, a quick Lego tidy from this tutorial - I am quite pleased with how it came together, so I'll blog about it tomorrow - promise ;o)

Thursday 2 February 2012

A blog post a month, maybe?

^^^  I think the title says it all really!


I feel I may have pigeon-holed my blogging with the quilting thing.  I don't do an awful lot of it, if truth be told - so even if I did only blog about that, I'd still only post about once every 3 months!!

Anyway, inspired today by Maiden Jane's blog post on how she keeps her family organised - I fancy branching out into family blog stuff, and perhaps once I get in the swing of it I will blog about sewing as well !

Incidentally, we 'organise' our family schedules (and I use the term organise loosely, as I am VERY disorganised!) using a super Gruffalo theme family calendar.  I picked it up on offer from The Book People for £1.50 - bargain!

Five columns between the seven of us doesn't work especially well, but I share with the baby* and the boys and girls often share school events so it's not too tricky to keep track!  I also LOVE the stickers :-)

_________________

Right, onto something crafty!  We've done so much over the last few months I hardly know where to begin - I think perhaps I will work backwards and maybe by the time we get to the Summer I can share projects from last year and this.

Over Christmas I finally got round to starting sock monkeys with the kids! 
I used the tutorial HERE, although I had browsed a few by then so I am not sure our method was verbatim, but it's a very thorough tute for anyone who fancies trying their hand but isn't sure where to begin.

True to form, we haven't finished them all yet haha!  They are quite involved when you have a number of small people to instruct through the different stages and stuffing, so only Benji's is finished to date, and I have a rather macabre bowl of stuffed monkey torsos and random limbs staring at me from the sideboard waiting to be completed!


They all stitched on the machine very competently, (Jake on the left there sewing his, and Benji middle and right) and while I did the majority of the hand-stitching for the limbs and muzzle to give them half a chance of withstanding all the 'love' they would get haha, the job of sewing on a smile and the eyes were left to the children!  I think he did a pretty tidy job, and they were all very pleased with themselves.

If I could start over, I would choose some 'proper' sock monkey socks, (we used a multi-pack of cotton/elastane blend ones from the supermarket) as after a day of being dragged about the floor and having his arms and tail twisted round sticky fingers I had to do some repair work as he'd popped open on some of his seams - eek!  Benji is pretty hands-on with all his cuddlies though, there's not many I haven't darned in some way shape or form now I think about it!


This is now a mammoth post - well done if you got this far - I'm signing off!!

Emma