avast ye landlubbers!

On Sunday we attended a pirate enactment weekend at nearby Mount Edgcumbe – one of my favourite places anyway and this weekend it was taken over by pirates! Gaaarh!

Here are our two little pirates!



On the way home I asked them what their favourite part of the day was, and they both agreed: treasure hunting on the beach – hunting for shells and beach glass – we do this every time we go there!



Oliver’s favourite pirate part of the day was the giant lobsters who had a battle with the pirates! He was most upset when the pirates won!



Cyan’s favourite pirate part of the day was learning to dance a sailor’s hornpipe jig!

Shutter Love Tuesdays @ Trendy Treehouse – Japanese maple leaves

Today I am participating in Trendy Treehouse’s Shutter Love Tuesdays again. This week’s theme is Nature.
You can click the photo above to enlarge.

I took these photos this morning in our backyard, looking up at the beautiful blue sky through the leaves of my beautiful Japanese maple trees. You can see the seeds, called samaras or ‘maple keys’; I am quite excited as this is the first time my three favourite trees have produced seeds – nature in action!

I got a bit carried away actually and took quite a few photos! It was hard to pick one favourite, but I decided on the photo above because I love the composition – and the way the sky looks blue on the right side behind the green maple leaves, and looks white behind the red maple leaves on the left.

You can view a slideshow of my maple leaves photos on Flickr

gaaarh! hoist the mainsail!

Right then me hearties! So we’re thinking pirate party for Oliver’s birthday this year .. I was already contemplating ideas for turning our little backyard into a pirate ship – we have steps up to the rear access gate and I was thinking we could rig up a mast with a Jolly Roger flag on top.

Then today I was watching my sheets fluttering in the wind as they hung on the line and I thought of .. sails! So I thought I’d do a test run when they were dry .. I folded a double sheet in half diagonally, pegged the top corner to the top line and the bottom corners to the bottom line .. voilà! mainsail hoisted! The flag is actually a pillowcase, I photoshopped the Jolly Roger on to see how it looks .. pretty awesome I think! I’m getting excited already!



We’re going pirating next weekend .. will post on that ..

busy crafty saturday

Well it has been a very busy crafty Saturday .. Cyan was invited to a pre-school friend’s birthday party in the afternoon; it is also Nana’s birthday next week so two lots of cards and gifts to prepare .. then there is Oliver’s homework to be done .. and laundry (three lots of laundry done today! thanks to the amazingly hot summery weather we have had here the last few days) .. the house is still a tip but never mind – it will have to wait!

Cyan decorated a card from my card drawer, drew a beautiful picture inside and some lovely lettering. She also chose a purse to give, and we picked a selection of coordinating beads so she could make a little bracelet for her friend. I keep stocks of cards and purses which I get from Traidcraft – an excellent fair trade charity organisation. They always have really cute little purses which vary each year, they make perfect presents for little girls.

I found these cute play dough ice cream sets in the pound shop! I bought a few so we could give them for gifts. Cyan filled up her sticker chart this morning and chose one for her reward, she literally spent the whole day – apart from when she was making the other stuff and actually at the party! – making play dough ice cream concoctions! Definitely a winner! I hope her little friend enjoys it just as much!



The party was at one of those indoor play places so I asked her to choose an outfit which was practical for this! (had to include leggings, no long/princess dresses, dressing-ups, accessories etc!) I love what she picked out to wear – her navy/white flowery sailor dress and light green flowery short leggings (actually 12-18 month leggings which still fit her as short leggings!) .. she loves to mix up prints!





They made Nana’s card but we didn’t get the bits for her gift finished – so that means more crafty tomorrow!

Shutter Love Tuesdays @ Trendy Treehouse – hands of friendship

Today I am participating in Trendy Treehouse’s Shutter Love Tuesdays again. This week’s theme is Friendship. You can click the photo above to enlarge.

When I saw this weeks theme – Friendship – I immediately thought of this photo of Oliver and Cyan, a favourite of mine, taken a couple of years ago on a family day out. They were so cute walking around holding hands!

dinosaur crayons party favors

I have made lots of these recently :


from a lot of these :


I made lots of these dinosaur shaped crayons over the last few weeks for some Etsy custom orders. I recently purchased a new mold to make the dinosaur crayons, made of silicone – much better than my old plastic chocolate mold. I can use the new one in the oven which is so much easier when making crayons, it also allows me to make multicolour crayons which are much more fun, especially for party favors. I make each crayon with 2 or 3 colour layers.

I had to take a shot of all the crayon paper wrappers because they look so pretty! and I hate to throw anything away, so I am trying to think of a way to recycle these .. paper maché .. handmade paper .. ? Any ideas/suggestions welcome ..
(removing these is the worst part of making crayons – luckily for me I have a little helper who loves to peel!)



I love making these! I am buying in a whole variety of new molds so I can make different shaped crayons to go with all the other party themes I’m working on ..



Here are the crayons with our dinosaur coloring book and fabric party/gift bag :



You can buy them in my Etsy shop ..

Linked:

butterflies birthday card

Oliver and Cyan made this pretty card for Grandma’s birthday. Cyan decided they should make a card with butterflies because “Grandma likes butterflies”. So I cut out some butterfly shapes from coloured paper, and showed them how to finger-paint patterns on one side (they ended up adding paint to both sides but never mind!) then fold them in half and press down to get a symmetrical pattern on both wings.

When the paint was dry I stuck a strip of double-sided sticky tape down the middle on the back of the butterflies, they stuck them onto the card, Cyan drew them some curly silver antennae and stuck the white sparkly letter stickers to say “Happy Birthday Grandma”.




Linked:

Shutter Love Tuesdays @ Trendy Treehouse – bouncing kids and I

Today I am participating in Trendy Treehouse’s Shutter Love Tuesdays again.
This week’s theme is MOTHER’S LOVE.
You can click the photo above to enlarge it.

I wasn’t sure if I would participate in this week’s Shutter Love at first – I know that I have very few photos of me with the kids – I'm almost always the one behind the camera. Anyway it gave me a good excuse to look through photos from the last couple of years, which was nice!

This photo I found is of me and my two kids bouncing on a trampoline in a local park, taken by my sister a couple of years ago, when Cyan was only 2 and too little to bounce on the trampoline by herself – of course she wanted to bounce with Oliver, so I bounced too, holding her hands so she wouldn’t fall. Doesn’t this just sum up a mother’s love? And we all had great fun bouncing!
Visit Trendy Treehouse here.

dinosaur bunting flags

This is a dinosaur pennant banner / bunting I made as a thank you for my very first Etsy order. It is personalised with the birthday boy’s name and coordinates with the party bags I made for his dinosaur party. I actually decided to make it because I had some off-cuts of fabric left over from making the party bags, just right to make bunting.

I have never made bunting before, and I am so pleased with how it turned out. I need to make more with Oliver’s name on for his bedroom, and then of course more with girly prints and Cyan’s name for her room...

I decided not to seam the flag edges for two reasons – well three really I suppose – 1. I wanted to make the most of the off-cuts I had. 2. I thought that seams might make the edges too bulky. 3. easier to make without seams! Not sure if it actually is easier, but I like how it looks anyway.

I used green cotton and Bondaweb iron-on adhesive for the letters, dinosaur prints with green gingham backing for the flags (also fixed with Bondaweb). I top-stitched the letters and flags with brown thread to match the fabulous green and brown saddle-stitch grosgrain ribbon which the flags hang from.




Dinosaur party goods are available in my Etsy shop, maybe even bunting too – one day soon!

Linked:

dinosaur by cyan

Here we have another wonderful example of both Cyan’s artistic talent, and her giving nature. This is a picture of a dinosaur she drew today. She showed it to me when I got home after work; as I was marvelling at how good it was, she said to me “It’s not for you mummy, it’s for the little boy whose birthday is soon, who’s having the dinosaur party”. She is referring to my very first Etsy order, which I have been hard at work on recently, making dinosaur party bags, coloring books and crayons for a little boy’s dinosaur birthday party. I also made personalised bunting for him as a little thank you gift, which I will write about later.

The order was mailed across the pond last Saturday, so too late to send her drawing. I scanned and emailed it, I hope the birthday boy will like it!

I may get her to colour it tomorrow, scan it again and turn it into a birthday card!

Shutter Love Tuesdays @ Trendy Treehouse – Cyan

Today I am participating in Trendy Treehouse’s Shutter Love Tuesdays again.
This week’s theme is CHILDREN.
You can click on the photo above to enlarge it if you want a better look.
This is a photo of my daughter Cyan, taken a few years ago when she was nearly 2 years old. She was/is so cute!
You can see in the photo she is busy scribbling away at some masterpiece (and telling me all about what she is drawing while I took the photo), she is now 4 - nearly 5 and really amazing at drawing.
Visit Trendy Treehouse here.