Holiday Ideas

The holidays are here.  A much needed break from school & routines.  Ahhhh....  

But once again, we find ourselves on a serious budget.  For some reason it always lands on holiday times.  It's OK, as I don't think the holidays need to be spent doing stuff that cost money.  They don't need to be spent out & about a lot either.  Home is good too.  

I have been checking out some ideas for use at home though...  A bit of creativity on my part, to give them something else to try/play/do...  

Yesterday was chalk drawing.  We have a small patch on concrete to draw on.  I quickly did a rough road, river, a couple of houses & trees.  Put the cars & boats on it & I was done.  The boys spent a good hour there before lunch.  It was good.  They added to the drawing.  A haunted house?  Zombies?  Yes they are boys!!!  Fire in the trees!  But they drove cars & trucks & boats.  All good.  

It rained a bit more last night so our canvas should be clean & ready for a new one.  

Also I started a tub in the freezer full of farm animals.  HUH I hear you ask???  

Yeah I know, but I started with this layer in the freezer & slowly added another layer or water & animals over the course of yesterday.  I will have a giant lump of ice with toy crap in it basically!  

But later in the holidays I will get it out for the boys to chisel, hammer, whack, whatever it takes, to get those animals out of their iceberg.  Should be interesting fun.  They don't know about it.  I wasn't going to tell them because otherwise you get that continuous asking when it is going to be ready & when they can have it...  need some surprises for later on.  Hopefully we have a really nice warm day later on in the holidays.  

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A portrait of my boys once a week for a year.

Some early holiday activity.  A chalk drawn town on the concrete with cars & boats, & the addition of any town features you both wanted to add!  Loads of fun!  

Linking up.

But just for the heck of it, my little girl too.  Juneau was looking particularly gorgeous!  

Cross Stitching Again

It's so nice to be doing a little of this again.  

I recently have sold an awful lot of my cross stitching stuff.  I mean, ummm... lots...  but I did buy some too.  I got the new 2014 Mill Hill Christmas ornaments.  This is 3 of them that I have stitched over this last week.  I do enjoy my stitching.  It's still hard though to do any bigger projects with this DJ around like he is, a whirlwind that I don't trust near my "special" stuff!  He still doesn't get it!  

Anyway, these are 3 of the new ornaments that I just made into hangers this morning.  

Just started another ornament.  BJ picked the next one to do & DJ picked the one after that.  They are older ones they picked.  They just looked through the ones I have.  Well some of them, I didn't delve too deep into the box of ones I have yet to do...  I think that quantity equals the ones that I have done!  So I need to stitch faster!  

Sunday Snapshot

CHEESE!!!!  

What an awesome day it was.  I put up a sneak peak on the portraits yesterday, but needed to add a couple of others.  It was so much fun.  

I sent the boys out quite early.  About 9.30am.  Told them they had to get outside for a while.  TV off & play out.  Don't mind what you do but you are outside!  

It turned out to be nearly 5 hours worth of outside!  For BJ that was quite huge.  He is quite an inside kind of kid already.  Soooo...  having sent him out he wanted to do something to earn pocket money.  So Stuart took them both out front to wash the car.  Well of course they didn't actually get it finished but they had a lot of fun trying!  

Then they wanted to play with the sprinkler.  

Then the clam shell with water in it, so I put that under the sprinkler.  

Shed layers of clothes & put bathers on the bottoms at least.  

Smother them with sunscreen as that sun was hot & sure had some sting.  Lucky I did as I heard of others that got burnt yesterday & the boys were a little pink this morning.  (yes, when you get sun here you really burn, not just a little sun tan, but deep burn!)

Then one sprinkler was off & the other was on & sitting in the pool.  

Combine that with trampoline play, lunch outside on the deck & an icecream in a cone, it was a nice time spent outside & a nice relaxing day in readiness for a new crazy week.  

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A portrait of my boys once a week for a year.

What an awesome day today.  Such awesome summer weather already!  For some reason the boys wanted to play under the sprinkler, which led to the paddling pool, which led to the other sprinkler, trampoline time with Dad and icecream in cones.  It was a lot of time outside, including lunch on the deck.  What a glorious start to a good summer with a bit of luck.

Linking up.  

Amazing Moment

Do any of you have a child with anxiety?  

I do, BJ has it. ( He gets it from his mother!)  

So to see him get up in front of the school assembly & read his creative writing out, was quite something.  You have no idea.  Or maybe you do.  

I am still surprised he went through with it actually.  But he did & I was a very proud mum.  (a very proud mum who cried!)

On a side note but still relating to children with anxiety I recently bought the book "Go Away, Mr Worrythoughts!" for BJ.  We have read it a number of times.  Any time he has an issue we will sit & read it if he asks for it, even if we are running late for school.  It's usually school that is causing the issues, so we have to take the time to read.  It's a great, simple book to give kids some sort of empowerment & coping skills from an early age in a way they can understand.  

He also loves it as the author wrote his name in the front, to him, specially...  What a nice touch!  

Christmas Finishes

Saturday was a busy day with swimming lessons & a party to attend.  

But I did get some time to finish my embroideries off!  

I did them in a mini quilt style though on reflection I think I would have prefered to do the other way on both!  Oh well, they are still OK.  I really like them on the print snowflake fabric though!  I had a hard time trying to decide how to stitch them a bit to stick layers together  ...  so I got some whiteish metallic thread & did some really rough stipple quilting on a select few of the snowflakes on each.  I prefer the snowflakes on the penguins.  They were nicer to replicate than the snowman fabric snowflakes.  Last night I hand stitched the bindings & they were done.  

No offence intended to the designer, but I really like mine on the printed fabric as opposed to the calico type fabric that comes with the pattern & is preprinted ready to be stitched!  

Anyway, they are done now.  I have been slowly adding knitted rows to the scarf I am stitching for the teacher gift this year.  It's a slow process, though an enjoyable one, but a simple one to chuck in my bag & carry with me to knitting group or such things...  

I have done a little crochet but am stuck on the most previous pattern for the CAL.  May revisit that when I feel brave enough.  The weather is changing & my craft mood is changing!  Ekkk...  So my poor brain will be crafty chaos again!  What to do first!!!  Decisions, decisions!

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A portrait of my boys once a week for a year.

A gorgeous spring day & nothing beats a bubble wand!  I have a few stashed.  Such good value for $1!  

Linking up!

Stitching Stuff

OK, so working in a craft shop can be dangerous!  On the pocket for one thing, but on my thought processes for another!  I get so many ideas in there that my brain overloads!  

We have had these patterns from The Birdhouse for sometime.  Each year she has been bringing out a new design.  We have them all worked up & hanging at work.  The design comes preprinted on a calico type fabric...  They also have the design on paper so you can do more!  

Well this one of Chilly Penguins is the latest.  One of my favourites.  I haven't done any of them before.  

This year also sees lots of new fabrics with snowflakes on them.  I need snowflakes!  I ussed some on the Christmas trio I stitched & sewed last week.  But now I used another for the penguins...  I used a black DMC stranded thread for the design, & left all the stitched snowflakes off. I didn't need them for obvious reasons.   I did consider doing them in metallic but no, too much...  I stitched the penguins on the weekend.  Should have posted it a few days ago but too busy stitching....  

SNOWMEN!  

I think the snowmen are last years design!  I used a white snowflake fabric for them & DMC 3848 for the stitching.  A dark teal kind of colour as the background of the flakes in a light teal.  Blue thread didn't work.  Again, I didn't stitch the snowflakes that were part of the design.  

Better not get any more inspiration or ideas at work today as I should do some housework on the weekend.  But I do want to finish them off into their hangings...  Aim for that first.  :-)

So much to do!  

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A portrait of my boys once a week for a year.  

BJ - Happy with Dad colouring in early Sunday morning, Father's Day.

DJ - Can't sit still for a minute.  Moves all over & was watching Dad closely.  

Linking up... 

One extra family shot, colouring in on Father's Day at 9am!  :-)

Christmas Finish

Ta-Dah!!! 

Here is my Christmas stitchery from the other day.  I matched the thread for each of the stitcheries with the colours in the snowflake fabric.  It's a fairly new one in at work for Christmas although the pattern itself isn't new.  I really love it.  I quilted with gold thread about a centimetre away from the edge of the pictures & also around the outer edge.  Two gold star buttons to hold down the hanging tabs & this nice hanger from work that I didn't know we had!  It's perfect!  I'm really pleased with it anyway.  

Right, what's next?  

Mystery Clue

For the benefit of my mother, here is another piece of the mystery crochet blanket.  The collection of hexegons have been put together into 2 rows.  They are both the same as each other but I have them in the picture the opposite way so you can see all the designs!  Interesting to say the least.  

I thought I had better catch up on another square from the CAL too.  This square is Field Day which was quite nice.  

Ummm... New Stuff

So I am a sucker...  I had to change the schedule of all the other stuff I am in the middle of & do this one!  

It's from The Birdhouse designer Natalie Bird. 

I have done mine a little differently though with each picture a different colour.  I hope it works with my plan...