Thimbleina

The Prince's Rainforest Project

Recycling carrier bags

 

I made bunting for the kids' wendy house in the garden to brighten it up a bit so that they play more in it this summer holidays.

I used old carrier bags from places like clothes shops - you know the thicker ones, some of them if you look inside either have another colour or you can use them inside out so that the writing doesn't show. If you cut the flags on the edge of the carrier bag then you just need to fold over the string and I used double sided sticky tape at the top and at the sides near the point.

Voila! waterproof bunting.

Back refreshed!

 

It has been a bit busy around here so I needed to take a blogging break to get it all done.

Lady A turned 6 and had a circus party

 

Juggling balls needed to be finished and toffee apples made for the pary bags. The toffee apples seemed to go down very well as did the coconut shy and the novelty of winning coconuts.

 

The Elderflower champagne was ready to uncork and enjoy and give to teachers at the end of the term.

 

A camping trip was organised to Brighton on the Blackberry wood campsite and a great time was had despite the constant rainfall on one of the days (at least we now know how water tight our tent is). 

I'll leave you with one more holiday photo and will be back hopefully tomorrow with a recycling activity for the summer break.

 

Lost in life

 

No this is not a picture of me. We have been quite busy with life this week so I haven't had chance to post. The photo is Lady A's experiment with a grape and how it changes into a sultana or it could be how you might luck if you have too much exposure to the sun?!

 

We have bottled the Elderflower champagne and now I have to wait for 8 days for it to ferment before I can have a little sip and let you know how it has turned out. The aroma eminating from it as we bottled it was beautiful.

 

Master T and I made this quick and easy Lemon fork biscuits with some of the leftover lemons from the Elderflower:

150g butter

75g Caster Sugar

Grated zest of one lemon

200g self raising flour

Cream together sugar, butter and lemon zest then mix in the flour. Form to a soft dough with hands

Place walnut sizes pieces of the dough onto well-greased baking trays allowing room for spreading. dip a fork in a little cold water and flatten the biscuits

Bake at 180c/355F/Gas mark 4/Fan oven 160c for 15-20 mins until pale golden. Put on cooling rack

You can also use orange if you haven't a lemon lying around

 

Lady A fancied making rose petal perfume as the roses are just blooming in the garden. So the large bottle of water is steeping the petals in the hope that we will get some perfume, though she is not convinced. If anyone has any tips on this other than pour water over petals and leave them a few days I would love to hear them.

Have a great weekend.

Buttering up

 

As it is another wet and rainy weekend and the rain hasn't stopped today we need to find some activities which will stop the cabin fever arriving. We did all go out and walk the dog in a local woodland this morning and got soaked through.

This afternoon I put some spare double cream in an empty jam jar so that they could try to make butter as per The River Cottage Family Cookbook. Well they got board of shaking and daddy did the most shaking, I thought all we were going to get was a slightly yellow thick double cream, when all of a sudden the change happened and we were left with buttermilk and butter

 

I was really impressed by the sudden transformation and so were the kids. I have put it in the fridge for putting on toast for breakfast tomorrow as we are all full up with what I concocted for lunch

 

I wasn't sure what I was going to feed them for lunch and I didn't really have much in the fridge as I will not be shopping until tomorrow. So I put on a white dough mixture in the bread machine after breakfast hoping that something would come to me. As all I had in the fridge was two slices of salami, three small vine tomatoes and some cheese. I don't think they would have been happy with plain old cheese sandwiches again. 

So inspired by this recipe I thought I would create something similar. I flattened the dough out and lay along the middle the chopped up salami and tomatoes some torn fresh basil (which I grow on the kitchen windowsill) and grated some cheddar which I always have in the fridge and some parmesan which again as it lasts forever is always in the fridge then I rolled the sides and ends up and over and baked in the oven. The taste was really good and the whole loaf was eaten up in one foul swoop - result!

 

I went to a art and craft fair on Friday and bought these for the kids bedrooms and some decopatch glue and papers to decorate them. I shall let you see the results when they are finished. I bought a few other bits which I shall show you later this week   

Lovely bubbly

 

Well hopefully it will be lovely bubbly. This is our first attempt at making Elderflower champagne. I was inspired by Emma  who made it last year.

So I was determined this year to get all I needed for when the flowers were in bloom. So I bought the bottles from Ikea and have been stalking the local elderflower bushes for the last two weeks checking how many blooms were available and the other day I managed to collect just enough. I did get some strange looks from other locals as I was out with the dog and my flowery bag darting behind bushes to obtain my harvest dodging the nettles.

 

So the kids thought it was great, stirring the sugar to get it to dissolve and grating and juicing the lemons and they are excited about looking at it tomorrow to see what progress it has made. They are going to be devasted that they aren't going to be able to taste the fruits of their labours this time. I think I shall have to find another little food project for them, but at least they will see the process of making it.

I shall let you know how I get on with it and of course if we get to the tasting stage whether it is a process to be repeated next year.

Wax works

 

We had a go at candle dipping yesterday. We got the idea and instructions from Earthwise.

 

We melted the beeswax pellets in an old tomato tin in a bath of hot water on the stove.

 

Dipped the wick into the melted wax - we used 15 ply wick as we were only making tiny candles (birthday candle size) to start with and it can be used to make tea lights which we may do as well.

 

Then dip it into cold water to set the wax, the first couple of times you need to pull it straight as the wick curls up. You then repeat this process until the candle is the required thickness.

 

We need to find some deeper containers so that we can make longer thicker candles, but this is a lovely process to do with kids as long as you are careful with the hot wax and watch over them. Lady A is going to make some for the teachers for school as end of school year presents. 

Stories before bedtime

 

The picture is not really related to the post, but I didn't have one and I wanted to tell you about a link that I have found for kids.

BBC Radio 7 a radio station which I didn't know existed until yesterday, I happened upon it when I was doing a search for things on the BBC website. The link I have given you is for the story hour which is on for children at 4pm each day (GMT) but you can click on any one of the hour sessions on this link from the last week to listen to the stories being read. A great wind down before bedtime. I do read to the kids before bed as well but thought this was good just for wind down time before the bath and so I can get the pots washed.  Oh there are also stories for grownups on there as well if you take a look around.

Merrily maypoling

 

This is what has taken up alot of the family's time recently the practices and the preparation for the local Maypole dance which takes place at the Spring bank holiday in May in this village. 

 

This was Lady A's second year of dancing, luckily the dress I made last year still fits so there wasn't too much sewing to do. The weather stayed warm and dry right up until after the May Queen's feast after the dancing then just as the Punch and Judy show got under way the rain started to come down. We were very lucky with the weather as it was freezing last year and she had to wear a cardigan underneath the pinafore last year.

 

It was a great day that the kids thoroughly enjoyed, stuffed full of ice creams, candyfloss and hotdogs and having been on the fair rides they are now about to slump into bed with lovely memories to take with them

 

Yeah! I've finished it!

 

I have at last finished the Amy Butler dress. I took it slowly and there were lots of other things to do at the same time, but I am very pleased with how it looks and feels. The pattern was very detailed and it shows in the finish. It has a cotton muslin lining which when the fabric came in the post I was a little unsure about as it frayed so much, but it is just the right weight for the lining fabric for this dress and now that it has been sewn in it feels just right. The cutting of the pattern took me a while and to those experts in dress making it will not look perfect as although I took alot of time trying to line the pattern repeat up there are some errors, but ones that I can live with. I thought when buying the material that it was expensive, but I managed to cut the dress out of 2 metres (so I bought more than I needed) and the pattern is so good that for a dress the same quality and lined in the shops would have cost me at least a third again. Plus I think I may get quite a bit of wear out of it if we have a good summer and I would be tempted to make it again, possibly in a plain fabric next time, I think it may even look good as a smart winter dress or tunic in a slightly heavier weight fabric. So I would definately recommend the pattern and the fabric is lovely to work with, I am so pleased with the colour and there are so many other beautiful Amy Butler fabrics to choose from.

 

Yesterday I managed to get to look in a couple of charity shops and got some great things. Some new slippers and 4 brand new ladybird books (they were 25pence each) 3 of them have been spirited away to be looked at often by the two smallest members of the family and 15pence for the book to be kept for Christmas which is by Pat Hutchins who also wrote Rosie's walk which is one of Master T's favourite books, I love the illustrations in these books.

Hope you have a great weekend. I shall be doing a giveaway sometime next week as I have in the midst of things forgotten that this week was my blogiversary (one year, can't believe I have been rambling on for that long and that anyone reads).