Butterfly bag

Every week we go to a music class locally aimed for my childrens age group.
In fact it is aimed at three parents and their children.
We each have one child who is 5, or nearly 5, and a sibling who is 2. The class is geared towards our children specifically.
The other classes that she holds are more aimed for babies or toddlers so it is just great that we have this music session to go to, especially for us.
Dervish is in his element when he is there. He is a huge fan of music in general. We rarely have a quiet house for long before he is requesting 'dancies' on. I don't mind in the slightest because he doesn't mind what I put on just so long as there is a beat of some sort for him to jig along to.

The teacher is just great with Dervish too and his constant requests for a specific song that he calls 1,2,3. That is what you do in the song, listen then jump the 1,2,3 beat or shake your jingly bells into the centre etc etc. It is only 1.30mins long but it is all that Dervish needs to keep him happy!

A while back we were doing the butterfly song, which envolves gentle music and little butterfly finger puppets that we make dance to the tune.
The teacher laughed at the bag that they were contained, or rather, not contained in. Saying that she really had ought to get a bigger/better bag for them.

So I put this piece of info away in my brain as the perfect wee gift to give for our last session.

Last week she reminded us that this week would be the last session and she didn't say that the next would continue on from the last, as it had the last time.
So I thought righto, better get on and make that bag.

But, as is my way, I forgot until the very last minute!
Class at 2pm, I remembered at about 1230 just as I was thinking that I ought to make lunch!

So lunch was on the hop as I scrambled to find the blank canvas bag I had and my fabric paints.
I had been thinking about how I was going to do it.
My fave idea was for Dervish to paint his hand, slap it down on paper, then fold, to make a buttefly image.
But I was concerned that the fabric paint is kinda funny to work with and it might dry out too much before I could transfer it onto the bag.

But now I had Darling at home so I would have to incorporate their two hands (that was better anyway cos they both go, afterall)

So, last minute, I decided rainbow hands, hers on top as the bigger wings, his on the bottom as the smaller ones.
Fingers crossed for it working!

I had 4 colours, but needed five, so asked Darling B what colour to make.
Silly question, Darling is a huge Orange fan!

One Stripe per finger

One hand each
Looking ok .....

Getting the second hands in place.
(Oh, I put newspaper into the bag so that the image wouldn't leave a ghost on the back of the bag)

Time to add in the body.
Darling B took the brush and painted an impressivly straight line.

And there we go, One Butterfly Bag

Proud children!

Hope she likes it.
DH saw the pics and now wants us to make one for his mum.
I want one too!!

Daffy Down Dillys

It is the time of year to display all these beautiful Daffys, before they all die off.
We have rows and rows of them just down the lane. I pick some from all along, so that there are no bald patches.

This year I have a fancy new purple vase, my favourite colour! But it has a big wide top.
So I thought that I would need tons of the things to fill it or have them all hanging over the edge and all baldy in the middle.
I figured I would need some way of holding them centrally.
Raffia and that twisty bangy way?
Yeah, that's right, I have no idea how to do that snazzy trick!

So I looked around my house and came across, what I thought, was a Fantastic idea!

A Pint Glass!
Placed inside.
Hmm, looked a bit poo.

Needed jazzing up.
What to do, what to do...........

aha, TWINE!

ah, finally I remembered to take a photy

I started this by leaving the end up, and wrapping it around itself.
Bit dull though, don't you think?

Aha. BEADS!
I had to pull it all off again so that I could thread all the beads I had from the bunch DH gave me for Mothers Day.
I threaded them all on together then just placed them where I fancied as I continued to wrap the twine back on.

Much better

To finish, I left the last round loose, then tucked the end in and cut off the excess.

Darling B took a hold of the camera and caught me arranging the flowers.

What do you think?

I was really pleased with the way this worked out.

Snow White makes a Mothers Day Banner

Thought I would get a head start on Mothers day.
I love that the Americans go all out with their decorations, but I am always a little behind with my prep. ie I only think on the day, 'Oh wouldn't it have been nice too..........'

So, after making the St Patricks day hats and clovers on the day, getting them up by 7 o'clock at night, I decided to be on the ball this time.

I was thinking of doing something along the lines of this from Filth Wizardy because I thought it looked just lovely.
But the paper I had did not lend well to rubbings and I didn't have leaves anyway. I was attempting to cut shapes out and rub them, but my paper was just a little too thick.
I had begun to cut out all the letters in advance, for our grand rubbing, so now had to think of another plan.

AHA! Paint around them!
Sure, even my wee man could get in on that!

We were getting all set for it, with me trying to figure out how to keep all these letters in place whilst my two painted over them, when I remembered These!

Those aren't our pens, just an image I have found, but Darling B got them as part of her christmas and we have not used them yet.
Now seemed the perfect time!

So, I stuck down our paper. This is from a roll that we got from the ELC to go with Darling Bs easel.

I thought we might try a wee lesson on recognising letters/spelling so tried to get Darling B to tell me which letters I wanted.
She did pretty well. She is so quick to just answer 'I don't know, mummy' in ever such sweet tones, but I try to persevere without losing my rag. Or give up, whichever seems best given her mood.

Thats the Dervish, using our lovely paper as his car track! :-)

It was pretty plain sailing from here.
Ya just gotta blow!
Pretty hard, it turns out!

You also have to hold down the letters with one finger whilst blowing. I ended up gripping the pen in my mouth whilst holding down my letter and Darling Bs, sometimes the one next to it as well!
It was like Twister, for fingers!

But even Dervish J was able to do his bit

All sprayed up, just got to take off the letters to see how well we have done.

Not bad!
Yeay us!

I will have to add a post showing you how it looks on Sunday.
Can't wait!

Last Minute Mouse

Friday morning and we are all getting ready to get out to Messy Play when DD says
'Mummy, I want to go to Nursery today.'
'Not to Messy Play with me and J?'
'No, I really want to go to Nursery.'

Righto.
Only Friday was Red Nose day and everyone is dressing up as a character from The Gruffalo

I had thought on this earlier in the week but, as she was not going to be attending I had put it to one side.
Now I had to pull it out of the bag because it was 8.25!!

So, I grabbed the card folders I had taken out for Messy play.
I pulled out some brown and some coppery stuff that I figured would do for the inner part of the ear and one of Darling Bs hairbands.

I quickly cut out an ear shape with a tag that I thought would go round the hairband.

Then I cut out an inner ear

I attached the ears to the hairband using selotape

And here they are

One willing model

As a finishing touch, I thought I could pull her hair into a ponytail. Then add lots of hairbands to make it look a little like a mouses tail.











So, what do you think?
Does she look like a mouse, pos from the Gruffalo? Or does it at least look like she joined in a little.
Thats all I would want. Just that she didn't feel left out of the fun and games.



The hairband mouse ears, the same as the pirate hat, did not make it home.
Oh well. She was as happy as larry that mummy had made her something to wear, I guess I will just have to accept that these things may not return to me.
But how childish am I that I wish they would, not least so that I could show them to DH. He would give me the pat on the head that my childish heart desires. hehe

St Patricks day crafting

Later this afternoon I decided to follow through on my promise to my sis that I would make some leprechaun hats.
She is doing a stint as a Beaver leader and really wanted to make hats with them, but decided that it would be too much to do in a 20min craft slot.
So I said that I would make some with my two so that they would be done for St Patricks.

I thought it would be an idea to make some shamrocks first, to display in our window.
Cutting out three love hearts and a stalk in two sizes, and two colours.
My figuring was that each child could get a shamrock to stick and glue together and one to paint.
Darling B got the little ones, Dervish J got the bigger ones.

We glued them together and bluetaced them to our big window.

I had found this lady when I was searching for leprechaun hats for my sister she was the perfect place to look for my Darling Bs pirate hat this morning.
So I went straight back to her this afternoon.

First up was Darling B, to get her head wrapped in newspaper

Dervish J was up next

Curling in the sides creates the hat

Now we just had to paint them green. B did great with this, J needed to be restrained, he was a bit too over keen with his painting and nearly tore through the whole thing.

Back to the storage heater/hairdryer trick to get them dried off.
I added a wee shamrock to the hat to make it a tad clearer as to what I was trying to achieve.

And here thay are, My little leprechauns!
Jonathans hat seems to have shrunk, not sure how I managed that.
Everytime I got the camera ready he would giggle, nod his head and knock it to the floor!