Emerald Cottage: children

Showing posts with label children. Show all posts

Sunday, 26 April 2015

Happy Weekend

This weekend has been so lazy, slow and relaxing. Nothing planned, in fact I haven't left the house at all. Sometimes that is just blissful, pottering about enjoying home comforts :)

Yesterday I crocheted for hours and hours and hours and hours. And hours. Everyone else seemed happy doing their own thing so I just left them all to it and caught up on some TV I'd recorded and spent a happy hooky morning. And afternoon. And evening.

The postman obviously knew I was about to run out of Stylecraft Special DK Pomegranate at lunchtime and very kindly delived my wool order in the nick of time. I love how Wool Warehouse package their wool deliveries in these sort of organza bags, such a nice touch.

I know you're thinking I couldn't possibly need more wool, and really you are right. I usually buy acrylic as it's so affordable and practical, but I'd really like to use something more luxurious for some scarves come winter. Trouble is, I just can't justify buying a load all at once. So, to ease the pain, often when I buy a few balls of acrylic I sneak in a ball of delicious cashmerino. My favourite is the Baby Cashmere Merino Silk DK by Sublime. Oooooooh it is SO sublime, it's like stroking a cloud. I'm going for pastels with this collection as I can't get my head round vibrant and silky-soft together. I've a couple of balls of Rowan Pure Wool DK in there too but its quite scratchy by comparison. Cushion covers perhaps.

And while we're on the subject of wool, my lovely lovely crafty friend KC (she doesn't have a sunshine band though) has just come back from a fortnight in Tasmania. As you do. I missed her loads, she is my craft and coffee buddy, and a real shoulder for me to offload onto about stresses with Little Man. She works with children with special needs, a lot of them are autistic so she really understands. Plus our friendship goes way back about 15 years, as my husband and I used to work with her husband, and now all our children go to school together. Anyway, as I said she's just back from Tasmania. (She went with 2 old Uni friends of hers, and didn't take husband or children. Wow!) And bless her sweet sweet heart, she brought me back a present....... some wool of course! Oh my heart leapt with joy! Joy that I have SUCH a Dear Friend, joy that she thought of me at all, and joy that the present was wool. She knows me so well. It's some lovely Alpaca Wool from the Tasmanian Wool centre. Its colours are a really lovely earthy winter palette so I'll be saving it for some gloves or maybe a hat later in the year :)

KC also took loads of wonderful craft-related pictures on her trip, and if she has time, she'll do a guest post here on emerald cottage so she can share her photos with you all :)

Today everyone was quite happy to stay at home, and in the afternoon Little Miss did some baking, She made these biscuits all by herself, I only did the in and out of the oven part. I wasn't even in the kitchen when she was weighing, measuring, rubbing in and so on. Not bad for a 10 year old :) (There were a lot more biscuits but they didn't last long enough to photograph)....

Later we sat round the table doing some colouring. During the Easter holidays we had bought some bargain pound-shop-type-of-shop-felt-tips - £3 for 100 pens, and they're pretty good. I was kind of expecting them to be a bit rubbish. Look at that range of colours ....

We've got a couple of these amazing colour-by-number books that we bought in Florida last year. The girls stayed colouring for about an hour, but I was sat there another hour on my own. Very therapeutic :) I love the mosaic style appearance of the resulting picture. I'm brazenly showing off my picture here. The girls didn't finish theirs. No staying power, children these days.

Now. As you know I'm a crocheter, I can knit too, but I always find it slower, and less forgiving in terms of mistakes. But I've had a bit of a knitting itch lately that I need to scratch. I also have some sock yarn that I bought by accident (I know, I know) so I'm going to join in on a Sockalong (such a fab name) with WinwickMum Christine (http://winwickmum.blogspot.co.uk/p/sockalong.html). I had to dig out the bag of knitting needles that my Mum gave me last time I was back home.

My Mum was an amazing knitter but doesn't do it any more at all now really. I think she may have done a knitting needle cull before she gave me her bag, I'm sure she had way more than these. Look how oranised she is, keeping the packs. The wooden ones were magazine freebies in case you're wondering. So I set aside some sock knitting stuff so I'll be ready to start on May 3rd. I think that is sock yarn ? Is it ? Anyone ??

One last little job that I did today was button sorting. Gosh if colouring-in is therapeutic then I don't know how to describe button-sorting. Mesmerising ? Soporific ? I find it sooooo relaxing. What is that ? Why is fiddling around with teeny bits of flat plastic or wood sooooo satisfying? I'd found these little spice jars in the charity shop, they were just so cute, and seemed like a full set as there were 8 of them, so I had to buy them really. No really, I did. Thery didn't even smell that spicy. I already had a perfectly good set of random mustard/pickle/jam jars, but they Didn't Match Each Other. And we all know how I don't really do random. And yes, I also already had a perfectly good button tin that even has pictures of buttons on it for heavens sake. But look, I HAD to buy these jars. I mean they were for charity. Look ..... see ?

I hope you all had relaxing weekends too :)

xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Friday, 2 January 2015

Twinkly Tealight Holders

Back in December, when I was drowning in a sea of tinsel, wrapping paper, and pine needles, I'd seen a brilliant post over at Christina's blog A Colourful Life (http://christinascolourfullive.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/sunday-evening-catch-up.html), and then, another lovely post on a really similar theme over at Gillian's Tales From a Happy House blog (http://www.talesfromahappyhouse.com/2014/12/alpine-tea-light-holders.html).

Both posts featured empty glass jars of some type, varying colours of tissue paper and watery glue .... the making of tealight holders. What fun :) I mean, who wouldn't enjoy designing a tealight holder and then making it in the comfort of your own kitchen with Christmas sweets to hand ? The answer to that question is that apparently 11 year old boys with autism don't enjoy it. Tantrums a-plenty. The mess; the scissors being too blunt, too big, too small; the paper not cutting right; the colour being wrong; the pieces not being square ..... but you live and learn, eh ?! So it was just us girls then.

We set about making a design each on paper first. Mainly so I could gather all the necessary materials without twenty questions at the same time. And if you are a 10 year old girl it is practically the Law that all design type projects require One Direction pencils. Luckily Little Miss has a few.

Little Miss was the self-proclaimed expert, having done decopatching (to use the grown-up term) at both school and Brownies. She is the most laid back of my children and just got on with it, a lovely quick sketch of a rainbow and then she just dived straight in.

Little Tomboy is a bit fussier, and wanted a very precise design (oh groan - precise usually spells disaster in 7 year olds I've found - expectation rarely matches end result. I helped her design a Stampy-Cat face (those of you with Minecrafters may know what I'm on about) which luckily she was very happy with once its decopatching interpretation was complete.

I went for a sort of glowing heart against a cool blue backdrop. No sketch. Life on the edge. All we needed was some empty jars (rummage in the garage), ordinary tissue paper (rummage in children's craft box), children's paint brushes (rummage in paint sets and give several brushes a good wash - yuck), and watered down PVA glue. I was fairly unscientific, I used maybe about 1 part water to 2 parts PVA but I think I should have made it more watery. Another lesson learned! Our materials were gathered, we got stuck in to choosing paper, and then chopping it up.

Then it's just a case of pasting and layering. I guess there are a million and one ways to achieve differing effects, but we kept it simple. Paste some glue over an area of the jar, lay on a small square, paste some glue over it to sort of seal it, repeat. Repeat, repeat, repeat. Totally relaxing, really calming, very zen. You can't really go wrong. And if you do, just pick it off, or cover it up, or go with the flow and change your design as you go along.

Loads of fun. I may or may not have continued on my own for an hour after Little Miss and Little Tomboy wandered off .......

I did another 4 (yes, f.o.u.r) jars, er, I mean tealight holders, one to represent each season.

For winter, a blue background with a few stars twinkling through.

For spring, some tulips against a light greeny-blue background.

For summer, greens, blues, and pinks in a rainbow affair.

For autumn, orange, red, and purple to resemble fiery tones.

As the afternoon grew darker, and I realized I really should stop messing about and cook something for tea, I called it a day - it was time to light the candles - hurray :D

Aaaah lovely. Don't you love the soft twinkliness glowing through the semi opaque layers of colour. Very calming, and soooo pretty :)

Monday, 29 December 2014

The Day After

During the pre-Christmas rush I find myself longing for Boxing Day more even than Christmas Day. Don't get me wrong, I do love Christmas Day, and it's all about the Little People and their collective excitement, which is both joyful and exhausting in equal measure. But Boxing Day feels a lot more manageable and restful.

I usually sleep really badly on the night of Christmas Eve, and this year was no exception - did I label everything ? Have I wrapped everything? Prepped all the veg ? Bought Brussels sprouts ? Hung the bunting ? It's ridiculous. My sub-conscious brain worries far more than my conscious one does. The answer to "Hung the bunting ?" Was a big fat NO. But here's a photo of it anyway, it still looks pretty even in a heap on the table.

And then I was woken (for the day) at 4. Yes, 4am. By Little Tomboy totally wide awake and asking "is it time to get up yet?". "No, Santa probably hasn't been yet. Try and go back to sleep". However that didn't put her off and she asked every 10 minutes until I finally gave in at 6.15. The household is then in a state of high excitement for the rest of the day ....

"He's been he's been!"

"How did he know I like tomboy stuff ??!"

"Best loom band set EVER!"

"Look, look, he ate the mince pie !"

(Note the absence of festive coloured bunting in photo. Tut.)

We have scrummy pain au chocolat and frothy cappuccinos for breakfast. Or sweets if you are 11 or under. I have my eye on this jar when it's emptied (which should be quite soon the rate they're going at).

The excitement continues through the day as more presents are unwrapped, lego is built, new pens are used and board games are played. They realise they can eat sweets all day without any parents being boring and saying no. On Christmas Day I am the parent who likes to say yes ....

Can I have another whole selection box Mum ? Yes of course!

Will you play Monster High Top Trumps with me Mummy? Yes of course!

Can you help me with my loom bands ? Yes of course!

Can I have another mince pie ? Yes of course!

Can we play charades again ? Yes of course!

Will you help me with my new jigsaw? Yes of course!

Will you play my new very energetic dance game on the Xbox with me ? Yes of course!
Can someone get me some toilet roll ? (Seriously) Yes of course!

Yes of course! Yes of course! Yes of course!

My mother-in-law comes for the day and is great fun, and we have a long silly skype call with my family in Northern Ireland having their own chaotic Christmas Day.

I try - and fail - to ban everyone from the kitchen and cook the lunch (I succeed in the cooking part). Mother-in-law brings the desserts, she clearly can't decide on just one though and brings too many. This year we had a choice of 7 (including a really cute little Christmas cake - I'm the only one who likes it). There were 6 of us. We joked that we really need a desert trolley. And a load have gone in the freezer.

Crackers are pulled at lunch, and later we race the wind-up Santa teddies that came with this year's set. Wind-up teddy Santa racing. What more could you want, really.

Little Tomboy is the champion (phew, that could have gone badly).

They laugh and squeal at the silliness of charades, and they are STILL eating sweets, but us adults are groaning about how much we've eaten and maybe undoing a button or two (ok, I confess I changed into my pyjamas late afternoon). And it's all tremendous fun :)

By the end of it though .... I. Am. Absolutely. Shattered.

Hubby drives Mother-in-law home and I attempt to herd the Little People into bed. Ever heard that analogy about putting an octopus in a string bag ? Enough said.

My own little tradition, and it drives hubby bonkers, is to set aside my presents from him and open them in the peace that ensues once the Little People are in bed, Mother-in-law has gone home, and it's just him and me and a bottle of Baileys. Hubby really doesn't like it that I do this, but it's my one little indulgence on a day otherwise given over - and willingly so - to everyone else. His presses to me are always brilliant - he's very thoughtful and generous, and I like to take my time over them. This year he gave me lots of lovely crafty things - including the Mollie Makes Crochet book, and a yarn cutter pendant ....

And some practical things - a new phone (my old one is dying) and, just as excitingly - for me, anyway - a new charging plug and cable that are pink. Hurray for girly techy things!

And then the day, with all its exuberance and expectations, is over. And I go off to bed grateful and content in the knowledge that my little family are all healthy and happy.

Boxing Day is a far more laid back affair. Having stashed their presents in their bedrooms, the Little People wake up at whatever ungodly hour they like and just play. I stay in pyjamas all day. I make cups of tea and take them back up to bed. I chat uninterrupted to hubby. I browse my new books. I mess about with hooks and yarn. I throw together a help-yourself lunch on the kitchen table. I remember this is why I bought the crackers, cheeses, pre-pack snack box thingies and salads that have been taking up valuable space in the fridge. I play the odd game with a child that needs a bit of Mummy time. I watch Christmas telly with a child that wants to snuggle for a bit.

I potter about enjoying the relative calmness, reflecting on how fortunate we are, and I promise myself that next year I will pace myself better. (Hahaha!! Who am I kidding?!)