Steam

we had fun with our obligatory hot milo's this morning. If only the weather would make up it's mind. Almost summer days, then back to chilly again.

Fairy Making

Using this wonderful guide from Filth Wizardry we made fairy wings for all our tiny dolls.

Print, colour and laminate butterfly wings found at Filth Wizardry.

Search house for dolls - polly pocket, troll dolls. old mcdonalds plastic crap toys, would probably work on any plastic dolls really.

Using pipecleaners (we used rubber bands) poke hole in wings and attach to dolls



Watch kids rediscover old toys!! Most of our dolls were dug out of the bottom of toy boxes and out of the garden, where they had rolled off the varandah!! We made about 10 in the end.

From the Cupboard - entirely!!

I saw a friend's facebook status that said - flour, sugar, canned pineapple = cake even the kids can make.

That got me interested, so I googled it - and guess what it is true!!

I have very few recipes that are ENTIRELY from the cupboard... meaning No eggs, butter, milk, cream cheese etc!! I like the thought of knowing atleast a few recipes incase of having to eat that food storage :) and this one is YUM!!


Easy Pineapple Cake

For the cake:

1 can crushed pineapple, undrained (I used regular pineapple pieces)
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla

For the glaze
2 tablespoons pineapple juice (reserved from tin)
1 cup icing sugar


Preparation:
1. In a bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, sugar and vanilla.
2. Gently mix in the undrained can of crushed pineapple. Reserve 2 tablespoons of the pineapple juice to use in the glaze.
3. Pour into a greased and floured 9×13 pan.
4. Bake 35-40 minutes (until the center is set). Let cool for 5-6 minutes.
5. Pour the glaze over the hot cake.

NOTES
It does taste best warm
It can go a bit rubbery (no eggs or butter etc) but I still liked it
It was a little too sweet (OH those US recipes!!) with all that sugar, I found a similar Australian recipe that said just 1 cup of sugar.
I used half brown sugar, half white and used half whole meal flour and half white and tasted yum.

VERY EASY and made my - no yummy food in the house, and lack of ingredients, but I have a craving for something sweet Saturday :)

Sabbath

My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue only; but in deed and in truth ~ 1 John 3:18

Trash Talking

Yes... only my girls..

Trying my best at allowing unsupervised play (I can hear them on the lane, but not see them)

I come out and find :

Ingenious method of getting in the bin (not the first time by the time I photographed)


Then get stronger neighbour boy to pick up bin and push you around


= hours of fun

to their defence.. they chose the recycle bin as it was cleaner and had nothing in it, but some cardboard.

I made them bathe as soon as they entered the house...ewwwwwww

How's them apples

A friend bought the most delicious apple crumble tart thingy's to bookclub... we have an overabundance of apples due to our market runs... so I had to make them... I put it down to cravings :) LOL and too many apples :)

She put hers in premade tartlet shells - I recommend, hers tasted better, but my shop didnt have any :(

So I cut out some circles from shortcrust pastry and placed them in my muffin tin.

In a bowl grate apples (about 4), a little lemon juice, caster sugar to taste (maybe 1/4 cup) and cinnamon.

Spoon into tart shells

Topping
1/2 cup cold butter
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup flour (I used wholemeal)

Mix to breadcrumb consistency

sprinkle over tarts

Bake 20 mins

YUM!!



I had left over topping (and that is a halved recipe..) so I made more the next day!! They are good hot, cold, with cream, with custard... anytime really :)

Taggie Giraffe and Blankie

Yesterday I saw a Taggie Giraffe Tutorial on Chasing Cheerios and HAD to make one!! Hers are totally cute!! If you are good at sewing, you could do this in like 15 mins! I took longer as I mistakedly cut the giraffes facing the same direction !! so had to cut more for the other side.

I didn't have too much material to play with as I have been recycling the girls old stained dresses to do most of my sewing these days. I totally recommend it, as some of the dresses had stains on the front but the rest of the material is perfect and cute!! I used a friends rotary cutter a few weeks ago to cut the dresses up into fat quarters.. I have a pile of lovely fabrics - for FREE!! A few of The MR's shirts got cut up too!!

My only problem.. the other girls like to think the things I sew are for them... so we have whipped up a couple more to keep their dirty mitts off the one for baby.. so my 15 mins turned into hours at the machine with all the girls around me.

After that I was inspired to make a Taggie Blanket for my own baby using left overs from the last one I made for my neice Tag Blanket Tutorial Here

Now I should be doing useful things like filling my freezer with precooked dinners or something... OH well..... too bad :)

Smells Like School Spirit

we might not win, or be good runners at all.. oh but we are good at team spirit :) Blue Hair, painted faces, searching the entire house for any Blue clothes we own.. we even took blue blankets to sit on! And I am not biased when I say their team had the best and loudest cheers... most often sung.



GO PERKINS!!!

3 photos 3 years

Yeah right I could pick 3 photos!! Little Miss got sick right after her birthday with an ear infection so I forgot to post her special 3 photos 3 years post!!

Born


Blessing Day


6 months
she still has a long tongue and can lick her nose - which she does frequently!

1 year
70% of her pictures involve a dirty face/food covered face

She loves swimming and asked for a pool party for her birthday this year... sorry winter baby... not happening :(

2 years


3 years
photo credit to Zanabelle Photography

Looking through all her photos she is defined by gorgeous big blue eyes, no hair, dirty face, cheeky smiles, DUMMIES! too many photos with dummies in them (pacifier for those not in the know) sneaking into food - milo, nutella, peanut butter, butter; no clothes and a very few cute well dressed shots... That would be Miss G in a nutshell

Play thing of the day

Playdough and an empty tic tac container - did you know you could make 'bricks' with both the lid and the container? Kept her busy for about 40 mins!

And I wanted to mention the Playsilks I finally finshed making


I was wrong about not doing ANY last minute birthday sewing!! I was going through my material scraps and found the half finished playsilks (intended Christmas Gift for Miss G) and decided to finish them up for her birthday (I was feeling the consumerist guilt of only having bought ONE present for her)

Playsilks are a gift where the child may look at you blankly and push to the side at first (hurting your sewing heart :) But they may become the most played with gift after the fact. And so far the older girls have played with them ALOT MORE than Miss G

so far they have been:

bandages
wrist, waist and ankle wear
capes
blindfolds

and the most bizarre - my 8 year old enjoys having a couple hang out the back of her shorts (looking like a painter or builder who has a rag/cloth hanging out) she even went grocery shopping like this with me asking why? she had no reason.. she just liked it... ummmmmm OK....

and I love this idea from Carli's Clan about putting them in a tissue box to be pulled out by little ones as a distraction toy.

Playsilks can be expensive to buy so I sewed my own out of the cheap material usually used for clothes lining? I don't know what its called but it was like $4 m and I only bought 1/2 m of each colour, so downside is that my playsilks are small and not silk... but still lots of fun

Name Pillow done, just waiting for a name

Remember These Name Pillows? Well I am so organised with this baby (cough cough) that today I finished her pillow - minus the name and birth date part :) Still working on the name part - have it down to 4 Possible Names with a last minute entry making it to the top of the list.

The fabric is tiny white flowers with pink centres on yellow.. an offcut from my first quilt I ever made .

It made me smile... won't be long now

Sabbath

Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path ~ Psalms 119:105

The Birthday

Morning started with all the traditions - Birthday Letter, Balloons, Number Shirt, Candle Ring, Birthday Crown and a cupcake for her breakfast :)


She had a small party with friends from our Mothers Group. She wanted party hats, bubbles and facepainting - Done! As her older sisters are home on School Holidays I made them in charge of entertainment. They did great! Had the kids lined up for facepainting (some interesting designs came out) and made them sit and watch them pretend to be clowns! I might hire those entertainers again!!

The Cake

For weeks all Miss G has talked about is Cupcakes! So cupcakes she got. We even got a cupcake Tree from Grandma a week before!! Perfect timing!! And she didn't even know we would need one


Odd mix of Cookie Monster Cupcakes and Ladybug cupcakes but it was what she wanted!! I think though that she thinks the blue ones are Sully from Monsters Inc.. anyway she called them "Mot Mot" Cakes.



Cookie Monster Cupcake Idea from Cupcakes and All things Sweet Hers are more professional though!! I don't have any piping bag things, so I just ran a fork along the icing for a bit more of a 'fur' look. I also used Mint balls (kool mints) for the eyes, I wasn't rolling any icing ;)


Ladybug Cupcakes Idea came from Google Images - I copied These ones I will say though, I think the choc chips were too tempting for little kids. After the party I found about 5 or so cupcakes around the yard all missing their choc chips, but the rest of the cake not eaten. I don't think any kid that took a ladybug cake ate it - Just a note :)

If only I could channel 'Nesting Fever' into something productive

These are a sample of the party bags I made for Miss G's upcoming birthday.. I put in a juice popper, bubbles, balloon, dinosaur, whistle and a couple of lollies. I think I have everything ready except the cake :) The idea came from my friends Stampin Up Blog check hers out as they are much cuter (I don't own any cool stamps or ink pads)

Now if I could focus the baby nesting fever into actually being ready to have a baby come into this house in a month.. that would be a much better idea!! I am soooo NOT ready... LOL

Unplug Your Kids Challenge - Container

This weeks challenge at Unplug Your Kids was container

My first idea was this one (once again from filth wizardry) about making origami boxes. With the many asian students that have lived with us over the years, we are pretty good at origami, but the girls got frustrated that their boxes didnt turn out too well(it is very important in this one that the folds be perfect)so I made these boxes, and then the idea was shelved! The boxes are about 5cm square, perfect for little toys



So moving on.... what is better than containers for your feet?? Exactly!! I still did the folding, but the girls measured and put their feet in etc and decorated! Making Paper shoes is fun!! This Idea once again from Filth Wizardry - with instructions from Instructables

One Shoe waiting


Gorgeous Dahhhling!!


And this is a project we started today from a wax fruit box - an easy castle.. we might add to it... we might not.. but it's a container!!!


Next Weeks Challenge: FAST

Sabbath

Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus ~ Phillipians 4:6-7

Doh Doh and more Doh

First day of the holidays we made about 5 kg of playdough.. I was inspired by my new favourite mum/kid craft blog Filth Wizardry (I totally recommend you take half an hour and scroll through all her archives.. I did and have enough ideas to keep the kids busy all holidays :)

Dino Island

The much better one we copied from

So far we have made a Train World, Cupcake Cafe, Dino World.. am working on a castle them for later.


It wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. Bought 1 bag of flour, 1 bag salt and 2 containers of cream of tartar. I made three lots on the stove, the older girls mixed their's in a bowl with boiled water from a jug - the no cook recipe - The kitchen was covered in a lot of flour though!!

The best idea is to get them to create a world (grass, water, dirt etc) and add toys.... remind them not to mix the colours.. has worked so far :)

It has been ages since we have made playdough (big amounts of it - we have those tiny Playdoh shop bought ones) because our last house had cream carpet the whole way through.. even under the dining table.... is there some secret factory out there churning out cheap cream carpet making investors think it is a good idea for their rental?? So I stopped that sort of thing.. but we have been in our current house for years and there isnt ANY carpet in the whole house... so what was I waiting for??!!

Reverse Applique for a Birthday

Yes, this time I will be organised... no night before the birthday sewing action for me!



So you know the now famous number tshirts that are required for birthdays? Here, Here and Here

Well this time I decided on Reverse Applique.. It was easy and I love the result!!

Trace out number of choice on Tshirt

Turn Tshirt inside out and iron on a contrasting fabric (good side down) with Fusible webbing (I just used hemming tape) do not place webbing where the number is!

Turn Tshirt back out and Stitch around the number (I hand stitched for a thicker look, but you could machine stitch if you want)

When done (carefully!!) cut the number out (inside the stitching) but being careful enough NOT to cut through the new fabric underneath. I used tiny curved scissors for this

Enjoy your CUTE AS Tshirt

(You can do any design this way, not just numbers)