Happy Christmas!

The SparklePetal household have been very busy getting ready for Christmas. We’ve done so much that there hasn’t been time to blog about it! Snow White has been an angel in her pre-school nativity (my first costume-making for my daughter!) and a cat in the stable for her Sunday school nativity earlier this evening. She is excited that her stocking will be full of presents in the morning – although she doesn’t want it hung in her room in case she wakes up while a certain jolly gentleman is in the act of filling it (phew, that’ll be easier for this little elf then!).

I don’t normally put photos on the blog, but J and I were playing with bokeh effects on our tree lights and making a greeting to put on Facebook (that’ll be the last posting date missed for cards this year then… bother that month-long cold virus…) and I thought well why not!

 

Granny stripes and other snippets

Waaaaay back in April we went up to the hospital for my anomaly scan, more generally thought of as “the scan where you find out the gender”. With Snow White we wanted a surprise, but this time around we decided to ask them if they could tell us what we were having. Well, Baby had his legs crossed and the cord tucked between them, so it was quite a challenge for the sonographer! However she eventually said she thought it might be a boy.

Well! I had somehow convinced myself I would have a matching set of girls and suddenly discovered I wasn’t too sure about one of the Other Sort. As part of my getting used to the idea I decided to crochet a Boy Blanket. After finishing nephew Bear’s blanket I had vowed never again, but if anything could tempt me it was Lucy’s Granny Stripe…

Stats at the end if you’re interested.

With the first frost on its way, I picked the last of our tomatoes. We grew Gardener’s Delight and Sungold this year.

Snow White and I tried out the Leaf Glitter idea from Pre-School Play:

Our version was topped off with a little real glitter – because every art project is improved by some Sparkle

Granny Stripe blanket made with Stylecraft Special DK (from Masons) with balls of Denim (x2), Cloud Blue (x2), White, Graphite, Grey and Silver. I worked it on a 4.5 hook and started with a chain of 168. This came out at a metre wide. There are 44 colour stripes (88 rows), which makes it 75cm long. I sized this for a cot blanket. I didn’t add any pretty border to make it a bit more manly! I did however add a Teeny Tiny Heart in the corner A word of caution – the colours of this yarn are far from true to the pictures on the Masons website, and I can’t find anywhere doing a better photo, so if you can’t see them in the flesh anywhere, be prepared for some surprises! 

Experimenting

Recently I saw this idea for a pre-schooler science experiment and I thought Snow White would enjoy giving it a go.

She was very excited when she saw me setting up the tray and kept asking me what it was and could she play with it now? I put out some things from the kitchen cupboards and wrote labels then asked her to tell me which substance was which. She didn’t know coconut, but was quickly able to work it out by a process of elimination.

Spooning and stirring was a big hit!

Her idea of predicting whether each substance would dissolve was to always say “yes”, but that’s OK. We decided at the end that only the sugar had really dissolved. The flour seemed like it might have done, but then she could see it settled at the bottom once the water had stopped moving. An extra test for the sugar having dissolved was tasting the sweetened water

After the structured part of the experiment, I took the water away and let Snow White play with the spoons and bowls of things. Her first move was to plunge her hands into everything, whereupon she proceeded to tell me what they all felt like. Rice was “smooth”, flour “soft”, coconut “prickly” and sugar “hard”. I was quite impressed at her doing this without me asking her what they felt like. I think maybe she has been encouraged to do this sort of thing at pre-school.

After that she scooped everything in to one bowl, mixed it up and started telling stories about how the bowls were nests for birds with food in, and later burying the spoons in flour and telling me she was putting blankets on them so they could go to sleep.

The next day “exciting things” were demanded, meaning a repeat of this experiment, so it was definitely a success!

Milk bottle Elmer the Elephant tutorial

Disclaimer – I did not come up with this idea myself, but a quick Google didn’t show me any tutorials on how to do it so I thought I’d write one!

Materials:

• plastic milk bottle
• craft knife and strong scissors
• thin cardboard (such as a cereal box)
• glue gun
• tacky glue
• squares of coloured paper (thinner is better)
• googly eyes
• scraps of string or wool

You can use any size of plastic milk bottle for this craft, although I found I got a better shape from a 4 pint bottle than from the narrower 1 or 2 pint shape.

1. Cut off the shoulders of the bottle and cut arches on the four sides to make the elephant’s legs. Cut the handle to form the elephant’s trunk. Cut across the top just below the lid to level it off.

2. Cut a circle of thin cardboard slightly larger than the hole in the elephant’s back and attach it to the inside with a glue gun.

3. If you want to make a non-Elmer elephant you may now paint it grey! We added a little black ready-mix paint to some PVA glue to help it stick to the plastic. For a patchwork elephant now is the time to glue on your squares of coloured paper. I used tacky glue so they would stick more quickly, but my paper was a bit too thick – more flexible thin paper would probably stick more easily.

4. Now cut a pair of ears from thin cardboard and paint or patchwork them to match.

5. When the paint and/or glue has dried, stick on eyes, ears and a string tail. I used a glue gun for the ears so the glue would dry fast and they wouldn’t slip out of position.

Enjoy your elephants!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One week ago…

…my son was born here at home!

It was a nice calm Tuesday, my Mum spent the day with us and we played with Snow White as usual. I could feel little niggly contractions starting to come along in place of the Braxton Hicks, but I had no idea things were going to move on so quickly! Snow White’s labour took days and was so complicated, but this time round I said goodnight to her at 6.30, went downstairs and immediately began to labour in earnest… the result being Baby’s arrival at 8.18pm! I was very much in shock as I hadn’t believed I could progress so quickly. I also had no idea what it felt like to need to push as Snow White was born with an epidural and a midwife telling me when to push. It was amazing to feel it really happening this time and I’m very glad we opted for a home birth. Partly because we wouldn’t have made it to hospital in time (eek!), but mainly because it’s so lovely to think that Baby was born right on our bed.

He weighed 8lb 9oz at birth (thankfully nearly a pound lighter than his sister!) and had already put on another 2oz at his five day weight check, a testament to his natural talent for breastfeeding! He is totally adorable and Snow White loves him already. Her first thought on waking up or on returning home is “where’s that tiny little baby? I want to stroke him!” She is gentle and caring and such a good big sister.

Well, with Snow White now in pre-school two mornings a week and some long Baby naps on the cards (fingers crossed) there may be the odd moment for me to record what I’ve been doing and even blog about it! No promises though

Oh, and I have no inspiration yet for a bloggy name for Baby… suggestions on a post-card please!

When life gives you red peppers…

One large pregnant mama was very grateful this morning for the cool rain! The last couple of weeks have seemed very hot indeed from inside my skin. I’m in that last stretch, familiar to so many women, where you have an enormous (usually growing) list of things that must be done before the baby arrives, but your capacity to get it done is diminishing daily!

In preparation for being too huge/busy breastfeeding to push a supermarket trolley, I had my first on-line delivery from a different shop than usual. I managed to order myself 1 KILO of red peppers, instead of just ONE red pepper! Oh dear, I just had to make chutney

 

My mum, sister and I collaborated to make up this recipe, but we won’t know whether it’s a good one until the chutney is mature enough to taste. Hopefully I won’t lose the recipe in the meantime if it is a good one!

This afternoon we harvested the last of the broad beans, just over two months after the first. Delicious! And it’s so lovely to have Snow White pod them all for me, while I read her a story to keep her entertained.

Sofa cover

A lo-o-ong time ago we bought the cheapest sofa in Ikea for Snow White’s playroom and as it comes coverless I also picked up some fabric to make a slip cover. Snow White helped choose. She has had a bit of a wait for me to get my head round the process involved, but after a couple of afternoons playing at Granny’s house she came home to find this:

Fortunately at this scale and with the busy print, you can’t see the imperfections! In fact I defy anyone to find them unless you take it off and  inspect the seams

It all went quite smoothly until I came to a place where several seams meet and had to work out which to sew first and just exactly what all the pins signified… Still, it’s a good fit (apart from droopy drawstring issues underneath) and I remembered to pre-wash the fabric so it’s washable without shrinkage worries. Bob Bear seems to find it comfortable too.

DIY makeover

We recently asked the electricians to rip out the burglar alarm system. The control box had been housed in a sort of hole in the wall which was left looking awful:

As this is in the hallway close to the front door I thought it was the perfect location to transform into key storage with a shelf for last minute bits and pieces and a mirror to check we look presentable! With a couple of pieces of pine, a mirror, some cup hooks, a lot of sawing, hammering and adjustments I ended up with this:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The previous owners of the house left behind the paint these walls are painted with, so I was able to make it look as though it’s always been there. I’m pretty pleased with it, as most of the bodges will never be seen or known about unless I enumerate them! The only really obvious thing is where I chipped the mirror by dropping a screwdriver on it. I seem to be at the stage of pregnancy where all I have to do is pick something up and there it is, dropped on the floor. I then go on to drop it several more times while trying to pick it up!

 

Monster moth

I got a fright when I went to take the rubbish out and met this moth by the back gate:

I have included the brick to show scale! After looking in my book I am pretty sure she is a Privet Hawk Moth, and I’d say that although large of wingspan she is not overly endowed with brains as she is laying her fluorescent green eggs on a brick wall rather than a privet bush! I’ve never seen such a large moth (thankfully as they do give me the creeps although I know they are nothing to be frightened of!).

Cardboard toys and other fun

Snow White loves it when I make toys for and with her. In the last few months we’ve made binoculars a camera and space rockets from cardboard and other packaging I’ve saved for the purpose. She is very good at painting and decorating them. Just recently we spent two rainy mornings constructing a rock pool and its residents:

I recently bought some shoes which came with cardboard inserts in the toes to help them keep their shape. These made a great rock formation for one corner and the shoe box lid was the overall container. We used some blue bubble paintings we’d made to glue into the bottom as water and Snow White then painted the rocks grey and stuck on little bits of plastic bag seaweed.

Egg box segments make beautiful sea anemones. Some are what Snow White calls “blobbed up” but one has his woolly tentacles out to feed and has been given googly eyes because he is “awake”! The crab was made from a small white box and his pincers from pieces of egg box (with much difficulty, a glue gun and burnt fingers for me). Pipe cleaners form his legs and he was painted thoroughly by my assistant. I’m particularly proud of the prawn, fashioned from folded craft foam and held together by the pipe cleaner legs and antennae. His feet are a bit sharp and scratchy, but that’s okay as long as he confines his frisky antics to the rock pool!

The starfish is the simplest animal of all – just a shape cut from craft foam and two googly eyes – but he is probably the most beloved inhabitant of the pool. He gets up to all kinds of fun and can have his legs bent into different shapes without injury to either party… although the vet set is frequently employed to put plasters around him and make him better when the crab nips him. The little blenny I whipped up out of some scraps of felt and Snow White then glued on his sequin scales and the ubiquitous eyes. I’m very fond of him, but he doesn’t seem as adventurous as his pals.

So far, with careful play, all is still in tact (bar a couple of incidents where eyes were pulled off to “see what happens”), but tacky glue solves all!

I’m also very chuffed with the quarry-in-a-box that I made last week:

This one was made without my little helper, as it was a surprise. It’s custom built to house her set of mini plastic construction vehicles. I built up a base of empty plastic containers and filled in the gaps with light weight air-drying clay. There are three containers with tiny gravel (saved from our holiday) for the excavators to scoop up and a craft foam road that they can travel from one level to another along.

We have to spread a cloth under this to catch the spilled gravel, but Snow White usually remembers to be careful and absolutely loved playing with it. It didn’t take her long to branch out into bringing other toys in to play in the gravel pits and she is enjoying the creative potential! This idea was inspired by the sensory boxes created by Pink & Green Mama.

In other news we went to the local strawberry farm in the drizzle and the bulk of the pickings are now in the freezer waiting for me to have energy to turn them into jam.

Recent milestones include allowing her hair to be plaited, venturing forth in big-girl underwear rather than nappies (this time last month I thought she would never be ready to try!), announcing that she wants to learn letters (she calls them “numbers” but no matter!) – of which she recognise at least E, S, O, L and her favourite K after only a couple of days of playing with the fridge magnets – and singing Frere Jacques with perfect tune, timing and French accent! Granny seems to have taught her this last trick in one afternoon