Steph and G Day 5

 

Bulbs in festive pots for family pressies.
We have done this previously for 12 days, but I feel disappointed if spring begins and we've no bulbs coming up, we planted quite a few in the garden, amazed at the number and juiciness of the worms abounding, we had to filter them out of the compost for our indoor versions, and if we are honest, G was more interested in playing with the worms then carrying on with the planting, she reckoned they were making numeral shapes, so to test them we put them on the spot with a few times table questions, they weren't as reliable as a calculator but did have a decent success rate for invertebrates.  We used outdoor paint on our cardboard containers to hopefully give them the strength and waterproofness to make it through to flowers, then G decorated with some enamel paints and carefully made drainage holes with an old screwdriver, another of the best bits.



Steph and G Day 4

Rudolph's carrot soup and Christmas toast,
slow cookers rock! I cut up the onion, because I think they are slimy and slippy, G was able to do the carrots, rule being 'if you are not cutting straight down on the board, Stop!' Everything else G could assemble herself because everything is cold, stock, lentils, pepper, water, happy few minutes stirring it around like a cauldron then lid on and turn the knob to low, forget about it for a day, yay!   My experience is that soup is deemed more fun if you have a little ladle to serve it out with, and something to dip, occasional reminders to actually eat the good, good soup can be required however.
We read a book where the child detectives made secret messages with milk which when the paper was ironed, revealed what they had written. This inspired us to try milk inked Rudolphs on white bread expecting to toast it and see the brown reindeer appear, bit of food colouring for nose.  On toasting, Rudolph stayed pale while the rest of the toast browned! Who knew. We were pleased, although appreciating others may find Rudolph a bit turin shroudesque in the picking out.

Adeola and boys Day 1

Right, so the boys were all very excited to do this  project again and started off with some highly ambitious ideas. Lo definitely wanted a reindeer (lots of them and a sleigh and Father Christmas!)  Roti suggested that we use the autumn leaves to make a reindeer. Yay! So on the way to school we (they mostly) collect the most beautiful selection of autumn leaves. Then we decided on a reindeer template. Next, the real work begins.

I have to admit that this did not turn out how I expected. However, this was led by Roti and I am happy where his instincts led us. My interpretation didn’t quite work. Lo was on the playstation3 with daddy and was visibly upset that he missed the action. The only consolation was that we have 11(!) more pieces to do. Babi did his fair share of gluing and the leaves that got stuck to the carpet were actually not at all difficult to peel off.J

Johana and boys Day 1

I'm not sure how 'Christmasy' our first project is, but it is crafty and collaborative and perhaps the glitter will come later! My oldest son T was invited to an fancy dress 80's hip-hop themed 4th birthday party.  As a kid growing up in the 80's it was the clocks around some rappers necks that really stood out to me and I thought that by making a clock I could sneak in a bit of learning too!

I love Addy's project for lots of reasons, but a big one is that this is an opportunity to recycle our waste, rather than consume more things, as we do in epic proportions at this time of year in particular.  

So the evening before the party I found a bit of cardboard packaging and T drew around a cd to make a circle, we then used his stickers to put the numbers on.  I helped him make the cardboard clock hands and he had a great idea to make the time 4 o clock, as his friend was to be 4 years old.  He then set about painting the pasta gold for the 'chain' part and whilst we were waiting for the pasta to dry made the card.  We used the cardboard we cut the circle out of to make the card and also drew on the present's wrapping paper (recycled paper packaging).  When the pasta was dry he threaded it through some twine and his 80's hip hop accessory was complete!



Cat and Eilir Day 1

 

 

Penguin Pizza

Got the idea for this from a picture on Facebook using cheese, olives, and carrots to make penguins. Eilir came up with creating a snowman too. We thought it would be fun to have a before and after photo. I think Eilir's favourite bit was grating the cheese over everything chanting "It's snowing, it's snowing!"



Steph and G Day 3

 

 

G is in a little Christmas show, requiring costuming as a woodland deer, we talked about it over a few days, and made our plan.  Success with painting a plain cheapy t-shirt in previous years got us started, and we are well known deer stalkers, often scrambling through the mud and rhodedendrons in Margam Park to catch a glimpse of a little female deer being natural, rather than coming down to the road for the landrover dispensed food.  We found a real antler this way, but have also come across a stag a little closer than we expected.  We backed off pretty quick, they can really stare you out.  A pop sock was deftly stuffed with old material for a little tail, and brown leggings found then G set to work mixing the perfect fallow deer colour amazingly twice! How did she do that? I kept harping on about trying to make sure she mixed a big enough volume because we would never get the same shade twice.  G assured me she could, well, she could!

Steph and G Day 2

Bonbons!

No really, we followed the recipe for fudge to the letter.  G had been wanting to try making it for ages, and was hoping to make sweets for presents this Christmas, so this was a practice. I was scared, frankly. I know nothing of making sweets, even the kids recipe from a book I had when I was little had a speech bubble warning from a helpful elf like chef, saying hot sugar is dangerous.  We read it carefully and gave each other plenty of health warnings, we knew we would have to do it as a relay, stirring hot butter, sugar and milk for half an hour till we could drop little blobs into a bowl of cold water to make 'soft balls'. Its just an experiment, I kept saying doubtfully, it did feel like science, I wouldn't have minded a protective screen and goggles for the both of us.

Actually it was a bit boring, I took on a big stint of stirring while spellings were learned on a chair nearby, times tables practiced, and convoluted stories about who said what, and whether that was nice to say were discussed.  G kept breaking from this to drop sad looking drops into the water bowl to no avail.  40 minutes later, we thought we had it, into a tray it went and off to Saint Fagans for a misty walk and well earned cheesy bun, also to stop us poking at it every 2 seconds to see if it had set.

7 hours, yes hours! Later it hadn't really set. Rubbish!

We turned it out like a sticky bendy sheet onto a board, rolled it in icing sugar and into balls and called it bonbons.

Steph and G Day 1

Realising scarily how close Christmas was really getting, we endeavoured to get a bit of wrapping paper in action.  Potato stampers were the tool of choice, although who could resist a few hand and fingerprint snowflakes here and there. It proved a jolly activity with a friend, and then even when the friend had long gone, our desire to use up the generous paint portion that had been squidged onto the plates, and just the relaxing nature of filling floor size sheets and padding about in socks between them with the heating on, considering the chocolate biscuits we might have in a minute, gave us another good hour. We threw the spuds away, they were pretty simple, and g was having ideas that if we do some more we should aspire to angel shapes, might need baking potatoes for that.