Lost and Found

It has been so long since I posted and I can finally tell you all why!

I LOST my blog! Yes thats right, I LOST it! I kept logging into my account to have someones Kayaking Blog available but Serendipity was nowhere in sight!

Anyway, I finally got to the bottom of it and retrieved my poor neglected blog.

I will be updating soon, so keep an eye out.

Freya

Wellingtons...

My little charge had to have some new 'supportive' wellingtons and the best ones I could find were these....

Not very pretty or funky! I just didn't feel they reflected her fun personality...so out came the SHARPIES! 

It took a grand total of 10 minutes to do and she LOVES them! I have big plans for all future dull purchases! 

A Harry Potter themed party....

A recently produced Harry Potter Party rendered me rather amused with some of the quirky props we managed to create, I thought I would share our ideas with you just incase you have Harry Potter fans that need parties anytime soon. 

The Sweets

Beetle Eyes (Chocolate Raisins) and Golden Snitches (Ferrero Rocher)

Bertie Bots Every Flavour Beans (Jelly beans with some sours thrown in) and Drooble's Best Blowing Bubble Gum (Bubble Gum Balls)

Chocolate Wands (Mint Matchsticks) and Chocolate Frogs (Freddo's)

Our 'In Case of a Dementor Attack...Open IMMEDIATELY' emergency chocolate bars. 

The Drinks

Butterbeer (Coca-Cola Glass bottles re-labled) 

Pumpkin Juice (Passionfruit J2O re-labled) 

Little Extras 

Troll Boggy Popcorn (Popcorn, melted marshmallow and green food colouring) 

I wonder how many of you get this sign...(We also had a 'Nox & Lumos' sign on the light switch). 

A basket of Spa Goodies (face masks, nail varnish, nail files...etc)

The Cake

A ShabbyChic Makeover...Finally Finished

So here are the photos of the finished room . 

As you can see the curtains fit perfectly even though the floor is slanted!

A ShabbyChic Makeover...

My little cousin is having her bedroom re-decorated as she is now the grand old age of 10! We are of course revamping on a budget which means using all our left over scrap material...the joy! 

This isn't going to be a tutorial, mainly because I made it up as I went along with no real structure, however if anyone would like instructions on anything in this post just leave a comment and I shall pull some instructions together for you. 

So to begin, her favourite colour is RED. Can be a tricky colour to make pretty but I think we have succeeded with this bits we made...

First off - Our Shabby Chic Curtains

So these are our before shots of the plain cream curtains.

And below is our finished curtain, the picture only shows one, there is of course two. We did a big band of red gingham topped with a strip of lace and a giant rickrack strip across the top.  (Yes they have also been shortened).

Next is - Our Pretty Pillowcases 

Above and below is our Pretty Pillowcase No.1, as you can see I have used up all my scraps to create these cases, they are about 75X47cm and fit a standard pillow. This one has pink rickrack and more pink in than red. 

Above and below is our Pretty Pillowcase No.2, this one has bigger panels and uses red rickrack to tie in all the colours. Both cases have an inner flap to hold the pillow in place. This way we could have completely plain bedding and the bed would still look pretty!

Finally - Our funky Seat Cushion 

The seat cushion is reversible, red gingham on one side and pink and red spots on the other. I have mixed and matched the fabrics to create the straps and used up old buttons, hence why they are a bit random. 

I will post a picture of the completed room once it has finished. 

Anybody seen the new Kinder Surprise Eggs??

Kinder Eggs have decided to introduce a new 'Surprise' egg, one set is blue, the other pink. As you can guess the blue eggs are filled with racing cars and the pink eggs filled with dolls etc. They have been criticised beyond belief for this 'gender stereotyping', now they may be generalising creative play a little with these toys, but ultimately a child can choose whichever egg they desire. A little girl may want to race cars that day or a little boy may need a purple pony for his collection, it is not Kinder that has stereotyped gender but it is in fact fear in parents that their little boy or girl may pick the 'wrong' colour. 

Gender stereotyping has always been and will always be a big part of our culture....and its ridiculous, especially in children. One of my favourite books of all time is 'Raising My Rainbow' by Lori Duron, its all things fabulous and not so fabulous about raising her gender creative son, who loves to play dress up and is in the constant company of a barbie, the book was stemmed from her blog written to initially reach out to other parents in the same situation. She highlights the underlying problem with gender creativity and that is 'If my son plays with barbies is he gay?', there thats it, it is that simple, in fact that is probably what is running through a mothers mind right now as her darling son chooses a pink kinder surprise egg at the local shop! Sex and gender are not to be confused, they are two separate entities.

Lori Duron's 'Raising My Rainbow' Blog is available at: http://raisingmyrainbow.com 

Now I am not raising a gender creative child by any means, but I do work in the early years and I think that it is equally important for boys to play in the home corner as it is for girls to play with construction toys. How many of our fellow girls have been a 'Tom Boy' for some part of their lives, I know I did and I had a gang of other 'Tom Boys' to play with! But how many of us know guys that come out and say 'I had a fairy phase' or 'Yeah I loved barbies as a child', not many, if not none. 

“I knew I was different. I thought that I might be gay or something because I couldn't identify with any of the guys at all. None of them liked art or music. They just wanted to fight and get laid. It was many years ago but it gave me this real hatred for the average American macho male.” Kurt Cobain.

The most important thing is to raise confident children, does it matter what toys they play with and what colour those toys are?

AN: There is no scientific link between gender-varient/gender-creative children and homosexuality. 

Ipad Mini and Kindle Cases...

With christmas coming up and a craft fayre in a couple of weeks I decided that I did actually need to make a couple of things that would appeal to the christmas shopper. What is going to be the most common gift this christmas...Ipad Mini's and Kindles, so here comes the tutorial for my cases.

Ipad Mini/ Kindle Case Tutorial

You will need: 

Thin Elastic

Button

Fabric

Fleece/towelling/padding

Sewing Machine

Needle and thread (same colour as button)

Tutorial

My pattern, you can use the measurements on the image above I promise they will work. 

I like to use contrasting fabrics but you can use anything that takes your fancy. 

You will also need something to pad the case with to protect the screen, I have this fab padding but you can use fleece or towelling or sheeted wadding. 

You will need two pieces or fabric using the full size pattern (30cm x 15cm), so I just place one piece of fabric on top of the other, pin on the pattern and cut around leaving approx 2cm around the edge as shown above. 

You will now need one piece of the small rectangle on the pattern (22cm x 15cm). Cut as before. 

You should now have three pieces of fabric just as above. 

Now cut your padding to the exact size of the pattern (30cm x 15cm). Do NOT add a 2cm allowance as you did before. 

Now place your two larger pieces of fabric and padding to one side and take the smaller piece to the ironing board. To create a clean fold, iron over about 0.5 cm from the top. Then fold over again approx. 2cm this time, (see below). 

Now sew two lines to hold in place.

One line along the bottom of the fold and the other along the top. 

Two rows of stitching. Finished Pocket. 

Now place your finished pocket wrong side to right side to one of the larger pieces of fabric. (see above)

Now place the right side of the second larger piece of fabric right side down, so you now have three layers. Pin in Place. 

This is the stage where you add the extras. Pin elastic as shown above. 

It will look like this with all three layers pinned in place. 

Now machine all the way around the rectangle, leaving a small space to turn through. 

Snip the corners, to ensure sharp edges. And then turn through. 

Now in the gap thats open, slip in the padding. Once in, slip stitch the opening closed.

Hand stitch on a button, low enough down so elastic secures the case. 

Two examples of my finished results.