Summer fun - week 1

Being the first week my 2 have been able to keep them selves occupied to an extent, so far (touch wood) I havent heard "I'm bored".

Kai is used to keeping himself occupied for some of the day so I can get housework done as he doesnt start nursery until September, but Zack is only used to keeping himself busy for the weekend and after school so I put a few things in place to keep him busy.

1. Chores
Starting on the Monday I told Zack he could do 3 jobs a day to earn 25p for each job, potentially earning over £5 a week. He would have to have his room tidy & CLEAN by 9:00pm, his 2nd job was to have the washing up done (this is anything left over from the dishwasher), The final job varies each day, hes got our back entrance way tidy & clean (it gets filled with tools, shoes & garden toys), cleaned the bath & sink (I wasnt mean enough to make him do the loo, give it time ;-), and clean doors & worksurfaces in the kitchen. Kai does smaller jobs to earn strawberrys or grapes as he doesnt understand money yet so its not much of an insentive.
Zacks actually enjoyed some of the jobs & likes the idea that hes earning his holiday money.

2. Kids Club - Odeon Cinema
This week we saw "How to Train Your Dragon" which was great, Kai wouldnt have sat to watch it so he was at his aunts, but Zack loved it, as did me & my mom. I grabbed drinks & sweets before we went so that only cost £2, and even paying for Premier seats it only cost us £8 for all 3 of us (£2.40 x2 for us to see it, £1.60x2 for the seat upgrade). Cinema experience, fab animation at a fraction of the price.

This week its "The Tooth Fairy" starring Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson.

3. Build a Tent
I picked up a childrens tent last year in the sales and took it with us when we went to see the childrens Grandparents. It kept Zack happily busy as he tried to set it up, then he & Kai sat in it doing quiz books and colouring.

4. Old Toys / Toy swap
We were very lucky that one of my Moms neighbours had sorted out the toys at her house - from both her children & grandchildren, and brought them round. Now the kids have some new board games (Kai loves Mr Pop, and Zacks enjoying Kerplunk), jigsaws, among others.

I also popped into the roof to get the Technic lego of my brother given me for when the kids were old enough. And some of Zacks old Jigsaw like tracks for Kai. Now they both have "new" toys to enjoy.

I was thinking if theres friends with similar aged children, with toys their children are bored of they could do a toy swap, obviously the toys would have to be in good condition but it would save money & space, and keep the children entertained.

5.Cooking
Previously I've made Hot cookie dough with icecream, which everyone loves, but we've only got mint choc chip icecream in at the moment which I didnt think would go very well - so I came up with the idea of double choc chip hot cookie dough with mint choc chip icecream **wipes drool from chin** It was simple for the kids to make & though sickly if you ate to much it really was delicious. I shall post the recipe on Monday.

We also made flapjacks, nom nom.

So what have you done this week to keep the kids entertained?
If you've blogged about it why not put a link to your blog on Mr Linky below & give others some ideas.

Choker

This chocker is beautiful, and looks very simple to recreate, though I would omit the cross for myself and go for a slightly different design here.

New challenge blog DT call

Crafty Emma is starting a new "Crafty Emma Store" Challenge blog, & is after a Design Team of 6 people for it. If you want to try out for it pop along to her blog.

Summer Fun Box

With being a "scrapper" I collect leaflets, newspaper clippings, tickets and anything else that I can use on my pages or will jog my memory. Until the page is done these normally hang around in a large tub or plastic bags, both of which are impractical in their own way, so when I came across a battered box while sorting out my craft cupboard (yes again) I knew it would be perfect. But it couldnt just be left as it was now could it!















I covered it all in silver sticky back plastic and then started decorating it. I dont normally use sequins like this , specially not this high but I wanted a lot of texture.

I wanted almost a beach type feel, full of warmth and movement.
I used scrabble tiles to reflect the games & activities we do during the Summer holidays.

I would like to enter this into the Creative Craft World Holiday Challenge

Craft Your Day Away Blog Candy

Unfortunately Magical Crafts has closed, but from the ashes arises the Pheonix in the form of a new challenge blog created by the former magical crafts design team called "Craft you days away". As its a multi-crafts blog I am very excited as it'll fit in with whatever craft I'm in the mood for (& as you guys know I do like to try a range of crafts).

To celebrate the new blog they are giving away some fab blog candy, yay! Not just 1 bit of blog candy but 3 seperate prizes. You have until the 6th August at 16:00 GMT

The launch date for the first challenge is August the 7th, I certainly will be checking it out.

Summer Fun - The list

So today is the first day of the summer holidays here, its also an end of an era for me as my eldest is no longer a Primary School child.

The first week is normally the easiest as it starts off with the children being able to entertain themselves - Zacks already told me yesterday he was looking forward to a Loooooooooooooong lie in. But soon they will need a bit of guidance - or dragging away from the electrical goodies the house is filled with. So in no real order, here is the list I have come up with (are you ready its a long one!).

Indoor play
-Read a book (eldest can read to youngest or you can read to them)
-Write a story (can be done with pictures like a comic strip)
-Playdough
-Salt Dough models
-Paint Salt Dough (when its been cooked)
-Bake biscuits/cake(s) & decorate
-Make a sock puppet
-Put on a play (maybe with sock puppets)
-Collage picture out of old mags/catalogues
-Decorate clothing/shoes
-Make a suncatcher from black card with tissue paper glued over the cut out holes.
-Make scratch pictures - use crayons on card then paint over with acrylic/poster paint. Leave to dry then scratch in picture
-Make beads from fimo/paper - thread onto string for themselves or as presents.
-Finger print pictures
-Make bread (can create their own shapes with it)
-Decorate bedroom room (Zacks room needs redecorating so hes going to help, eep!)
-Make a jigsaw
-Face painting
-Decorate picture frames
-Colouring in pictures (simple for Kai, more complex for Zack)
-Pasta necklaces - paint, add glitter, leave to dry & then thread)
-Movie day - make popcorn together, draw the curtains & put on a movie
-Treasure hunt (with clues for Zack)
-Scrapbooking - make a holiday scrapbook, Scrap a few of Zacks school memories while fresh
-Straws & tape construction
-Foam door hangers
-Egg cup caterpillar - the egg carton "cups" cut off, painted & threaded together to make a caterpillar
-Toilet paper binoculars
-Mosaic
-Pressed flowers (takes 10 days according to Martha Stewart)
-Paint/crayon on pebbles

Outdoor play
-Paint using hands/feet (& normally the rest of them as well, good outside activity)
-Make bubble paint prints (washing up liquid in watered down paint, blow bubbles with straws then place paper on top)
-Plant some seeds
-Paddling pool
-Decorate plant pots
-Turn a jar into a vase - cover in polyfilla or similar, stick on gems, shells etc
-Paper mache mask &/or hot air balloon (last year we made a piggy bank)
-Potato printing
-Junk Modelling - stick together cereal boxes, tubes, bottles etc to make a "sculpture"
-Mini beast hunt - either see what bugs they can find & identify, or give them a list to find
-Scavanger hunt - give them a list of things to find & bring back
-Messy play—make gloop, shaving foam (paint)
-Teach old games e.g Hopscotch
-Chalk piccies on the paving slabs
-Make sand stepping stones

Possible trips out (all depends on transport & cash flow)
-Ice Skating
-Cinema—kids club
-Ironbridge Gorge Museums
-Library
-Sea life
-Beach
-Park hill
-The Wrekin
-Pizza Hut
-Blackberry picking
-Apple scrumping
-Picnic
-Visit Family
-Go to the Park
-Fly a kite
-Feed the Ducks
-Welly Walk - go for a walk after the rain in wellies & old clothes to jump in the mud & puddles.
-Mapped walk—Z can make a route to follow or we can follow an already set route
-Photo walk - the kids get to take their own photos, so you get a kids eye view

Are you still with me? Phew! As you can see most of the indoor activities can be done outside & visa versa, it all depends on the weather & how messy your kiddies are (mine are very messy ;)
If you dont understand some of these prompts on the list, dont worry, all will be explained along the way over the holidays. I'm sure other ideas will be added as we go along, and I will update this list as they do.

I would like to say a big thank you to those who posted last week & added their own ideas, some of which I have used here.

Next saturday I shall show you what we got upto this week, & if it was any good. I'm thinking of putting up a Mr Linky for anyone else whose's blogging their summer fun ideas can add a link, so we can all share ideas, what do you think, would you be willing to post your link?

An Apple for the Teacher

Its Zacks last day at his Primary School today, so we decided to make his teacher a present to say thank you for teaching him & taking care of him. Shes most definately been a fair teacher, scolding when necessary & turning a blind eye when appropriate.

I asked him if he'd like me to make her a bag charm/keyring and explained my idea. He liked it so I set about making it.

Once that was finished we decided it would look nice as the main embellishment on her card so I made an easle card, went through my scraps for a suitable background & then finally went through my pile of buttons for a "stopper".

I fastened all together and turned the red button I'd found into the "a" of thank you.

The thought behind it all was the saying "an apple for the teacher" , and having found a wooden apple I'd received as part of a RAK years ago I thought it was perfect.

Doodle page

One of the prompts from Creativity Boot Camp was "Heavy Metal", in this house we probably listen to quite a bit of music that would be classed as heavy metal, though I have to admit, there are so many different names for rock, metal emo & everything else I have no idea what is classed as what these days.

Looking through my photos I came across the photos of Ryan & Kai on Guitar Hero (Kai cant play as hes too small but he does enjoy pretending to)

I also came across the Rusty Pickle Popstar sheet called "Zac" (so Zack is there in spirit if not in the photos) & decided it was perfect.

I set about with my promarkers to colour in the doodles on this sheet. I would like to learn how to doodle like this as I am not much of a doodler & want to doodle on a pair of sandles I got the other day (watch this space). I also highlighted certain words & parts of the pattern with Glossy Accents.
I played around with the photos but found them a bit too "square" to go with the background so I cut Kai out & stuck him down like that.

To make the picture of Ryan fit in more I stuck it down & then copied the pattern over the edges of the picture a little.
I finished off by adding a little bit of journalling on the provided lines in red so it would fit in. With the keywords in the sentence I altered my handwriting so it was a bit more "Doodlish".

It was a fairly simple page to do thanks to the paper I used but I thorougly enjoyed doing it.

Fitted Rockabilly Blouse

I've been looking for a pattern for this top, but cant seem to find one so guess I shall have to find one similar & "wing it". I think its such a lovely shape

Scrap a fantasy

This fortnights challenge over at Scrapping with I did it Creations was to Scrap a fantasy;
Anything that could be considered a fantasy. A child's storybook, a trip to Disneyworld, fairies, dreams. What is your Fantasy?

We were given a digital 3d decoupage sheet to print out and use, you dont have to but they are well worth a look at, and The Crafty Purple Frog who sells them is also sponsoring this challenge. Her sheets are not only for use with scrapbooking but are also great with card making as well.

With 2 lads you probably wouldnt think I'd be able to do a page using fairies, but I did, yay! Because Kai had had a visit from the dummy fairy

I used the fairy sheet from DCWVs "Once upon a time" & cut out the centre. I added the lovely 3d decoupage from The Crafty Purple Frogs "the glance" sheet. I then stuck some pearlescent vellum onto the back (I wish you could see the gorgeous sheen on it but it just wouldnt show on camera) to write on So my writing was straight(er, lol) I then placed lined paper behind just while I wrote. I added stickers whenever certain nouns popped up, such as "Dummy" or "Kai". The ones of Kai I printed a photo onto blank labels to use.

On the layout you can just about see at the bottom a photo of Kai asleep, without his dummy (yay) & the bag full of his dummys.

To be in with the chance of winning a prize from the Crafty Purple Frog, or just to join in for fun please join us at Scrapping With I Did It Creations & take part in this challenge, dygital, hybrid & traditional scrapbooking are all welcome. You have until 6:00pm Eastern Time, Monday August 2nd.
If you need some inspirations please visit my fabulous Design Team Peers
Ruth
Michelle
Robyn
Jeanette

Thanks for popping by :)

Summer fun

So the summer holidays are almost upon us here in England meaning theres 6+weeks where children have to be kept entertained - that could be 44+ days of "I'm bored!!" so I like to be prepared.

Every saturday I am going to post details of what I have done with my 3 year old and 11 year old sons when they've got "bored". Obviously how they react to the things I plan, and what they do with them can be totally different, such as last years "body painting" my then 2yr old enjoyed walking around on the paper making foot prints whereas my then 10yr old learnt if he put enough paint on the paper it turned into a slippy run way.

Hopefully these posts - happening every saturday until the end of the holidays - will give you ideas of activities to do with your own children. Most of them will be using what I already have in the house, & will include both indoor & outdoor ideas.

Next Saturday I will post a list of all the things I have thought of so far with links to recipes etc.

Hows about helping me out a little bit, what activities have you got planned over the holidays for your children? go on, give me your list.

Shabby Chic necklace

I wanted to make a necklace using cream and teal ribbon, and faux pearls. I have to admit that threading the faux pearls was a huge pain in the backside. The ribbon kept fraying (even though cut diagonally) and was very hard to get through the beads. I must learn of an easier way to do this.

I wanted it to match the new dress I'd bought, so very not me, lol, but I liked it, it looked kinda vintage, and I hate being stereotyped into a "type".

Champagne bubble bath.

These make beautiful gifts and something I want to try. Clean out a wine bottle and refill with bubble bath, add your own labels. Simple but perfect for a pamper hamper or such like.

Green cluster bracelet

I made this cluster bracelet with an array of same size green beads, spaced with green seed beads. It gives a slightly different look to using different sized beads like my first bracelet.

I also made some dangly earrings to go with them.

They were given by my Mom to her oldest friend (thats oldest as in time knowing her not age ;)

& so to bed

One of the creativity blog camp prompts was layers. I immediately thought of 3d decoupage but wasnt sure how to use it on a scrapbook layout, then it hit me I could layer up a photo.

While cutting it out I wasnt too sure if it would work & didnt actually like it until I had totally finished it.

I layered the picture up with foam pads & then matted it onto a piece of card I'd covered in glitter. I also covered the chipboard letters I jad with glitter as well. The background paper is bazzil which I covered in star stickers before attaching the photo. Finally I cut out a star & did my journalling on it and went round the edge with a ruler & silver pen to bring it all in.

Fairy doors

I want to make a little fairy door, a doorway to the world of elves and fairys. All the ones I've seen look so beautiful and magical.

It could even change with the seasons, maybe have a hook on ready for a wreath to hang, or maybe a "happy birthday" banner.

I think it would make a lovely gift.

Some scrapping news...

Some of you may have noticed in my side bar that I am now part of the "Scrapping with I Did It Creations", yay!!

If you pop on over theres a new challenge for this fortnight, you have to make a layout using the following sketch...

You could win £5 to spend at Dezinaworld

Heres my translation of the sketch...

I mounted a picture of Kai shaking a dandelion clock onto a sheet I'd printed out of orientalbeauty1 from I did it creations Oriental Beauty Papers, this reflected the red in the picture and gave the impression of heat (it was a gorgeous sunny day).
This was then mounted onto a sheet of white speckled card which I tore at the edges. I also used this card to do a tag which I inked at the edges & wrote my journalling on. I made a hole in it and threaded through some fluffy thread I'd folded into 3 & tied in the middle. I though it looked a bit like a dandelion clock.
I added a chipboard clock and the lettering. I finished off by mounting it onto a sheet of 8x8 I'd printed of orientalbeautypaper4 from I did it creations Oriental Beauty Papers, I find it looked best when printed on good quality card with a slight gloss to it after setting the printer settings to "best photo".

As it happens you can get these digital papers, and anything else at I did it creations with 30% off until the 15th July.

I do hope you will come over to Scrapping with I Did It Creations and join us in this challenge.

Memory wire necklace

I used an eyepin to attach chains of beads to a large frosted glass bead, I threaded this onto the memory wire. I then added 4 more frosted beads attached to pin heads, spaced with seed beads. I filled up the rest with seed beads and added a clasp.

I also made matching dangly earrings to go with it.