A little hand made treasure

Made for me when I was very little. This satin cushion is filled with a handful of lavender and rosemary it smells great.

Baking again

It has been a couple of weeks since my last baking session. My steam technique might have destroyed the oven. Well I'm not allowed to fill our electric, fan assisted oven with steam any more (shame), but I can't live another day without wonderful home baked bread.

Here I have used a bit more liquid than usual in the kid. It's a sticker dough, which I hope will compensate for the lack of steam. This should also make a lovely light bread. I've dusted the silicon baking mounds with flour just in case the sticky dough proves too sticky.

Not much to report

Lately my focus has been on my sons. My eldest has started school and enjoyed his first half term holiday and my youngest is more mobile (and potentially hazardous to himself!) than ever before. So my hands have been very full.

I have completed a few little projects; a couple of aprons, one for me, one for Mum. Also a baby carrier, which turned out beautifully, but my baby is really too heavy for me to use it now! I've made 3 pairs of trousers for my little boy and have resolved never to buy them again, they are so easy to make. I'm keen now to make something for myself! But what it will be I have not yet decided. I am researching vintage sewing patterns and wondering if I can design something unique. Meanwhile I have painted a very small canvas with a rather goofy sort of a character for my brother's Christmas present. I might have to turn my attentions to painting for the time being, until some other creative urge seizes me!

I hope to publish some more tutorials soon. Meanwhile you can buy the Crocheted Cactus eBook here:
http://www.lulu.com/product/ebook/crochet-cactus-project/17143581?productTrackingContext=search_results/search_shelf/center/1

Ricey bag of toys thing

I saw this done on someone's website, it was wonderful. You make a sealed bag full of rice (must be squishable) and include a number of small toys (anything like small dinosaurs, thimbles, marbles, dice...). Sew a perspex window into the front of the bag so that the contents can be examined.

Make sure you have a list of all the toys inside the bag so that your kids can be challenged to find them all, and perhaps include two or three mystery toys, not named on the list.

So now you can challenge your kids to find all the toys. Supposed to be good to keep kids busy on long journeys.

Robot Workshop, from cereal packet

I had a brainwave today after seeing a fantastic robots magnet set in a pricey toy shop. I decided to attempt the same, but on a much lower budget.

These were made very quickly, in quite a slap-dash style. Most of my craft projects, if they are to see completion have to be made quickly as the kids don't offer much hands-free time at the moment. I don't see this as a problem though. Sometimes if my crafts are made too well (by my standards!) it can be a bit discouraging for J who says he doesn't want to join in because he can't do it as well as I have. So here we have some wonderfully scruffy, slapdash robot pieces, which my little robotics engineer can mix and match at his leisure!

Crochet finger puppets

I made these months ago for J. Now O is enjoying them. Rabbit, mouse, pig (under little hand), duck, and tiny elephant.

Swirling Glitter Vortex Bottles

A fun project, J enjoyed helping me to fill the bottles. Although my objective was to create a toy for baby O, it was nice to find that J wanted to keep one too. So new toys all round!

I've used two tone glitter in each one, white and red in the left hand bottle, blue and gold in the middle, green and gold on the right (tribute to Australia). Also a few pinches of sequins (stars and circles). 

They don't photograph well, but are very satisfying to play with. I'd like to get a big pop bottle to make a huge one some time.