Garden Seed Storage

This year we decided to try our hand at 'grow your own' veg.  So myself and Lottie claimed a corner of the shed, which become our 'potting plot' and busily set about buying seeds, trays, pots etc.  We have a nice selection of tomatoes, lettuce, herbs, beans, carrots, parsnips, cucumber (to name a few) and we did have a pumpkin but unfortunately this was removed on Lottie's birthday because it was just too big in the garden!  Anyway we have seeds that will keep and I needed a nice storage box for them and this is what Lottie made

She made this out of a box from our recycling stuff and covered it with white labels I then helped her by cutting the top as a flap then she added the handle and decorated it to look like a radio. It sits nicely in our 'potting plot' and the seeds are all cosy inside.

Live, Learn, Laugh and Be HAPPY x x

The girls' sock people

Well as you may gather from comments left, Lottie's party was fab!  The weather was on our side, the garden looked wonderfully decorated, all the children turned up, and the schedule went like clock-work.  The only down side is I didn't get to take as many photos as I would have liked and the ones I did get were mainly of the children and as I have not got their parents permission to post here I will just post a picture of the sock people they made.  The girls really enjoyed making these and each one reflects their own individual personalities, which I think is brilliant.

I can now post a picture of the card I made for Lottie - I was really happy with this 'easel' style card as it is the first one I've done and Lottie loved it.

Live, Learn, Laugh and Be HAPPY x x

WOW!!!

We picked up Lottie's cake this morning and we are so pleased with it, Lottie's eyes lit up when we were shown it in the shop - I think it is more than she was expecting.
The guys at http://www.carlchristiancakes.co.uk/ have done an absolutely fantastic job, it will be a shame to eat it!

Live, Learn, Laugh and Be HAPPY x x

Today is ......

That's the intention, but I might be speaking too soon!  For today is going to be the start of organising Lottie's Birthday party - well the task of the last two months worth of work getting organised ready for Monday (roll on Monday 5pm!).  The decorations are all finished - we have made bunting (out of a roll of wallpaper), paper chains, windmills, flowers in a vase, flowers that twirl, embellished napkins and Lottie has made some fun sweet dishes for the table, that's naming just a few! - here is a tiny selection

Paper Chains

Fun Sweet Dishes

Caterpillar 

Helter Skelter (sweets can roll down this)

Table Decorations

Flowers in Vase

Windmills

All the lists of items needed for each craft project is ready to start putting the resources together i.e. the sock people box needs socks, thread, needles, ribbon, buttons etc. - the letter initials box needs paint, buttons, pens, embellishments etc. etc. etc.  The cake is being picked up tomorrow and we are looking forward to seeing our brief of an art and craft cake (will post picture tomorrow), the helium balloons are on order for Monday morning so that these can be attached to a Flowtee air balloon basket, the pass-the-parcel has been wrapped by Lottie

All that's left is to organise the food and hopes for great weather and at least 2 hours to myself over the weekend to actually have time to go and get Lottie a Birthday present!!

Live, Learn, Laugh and Be HAPPY x x

Lottie's creations

I have been quite busy these few days with putting the finishing touches to the birthday party decorations with Lottie (posts coming soon) and I had the opportunity on Sunday to have the hobby room all to myself for a few hours so I set about doing Lottie's birthday card.  I am extremely pleased with the outcome as it is a design I have never done before but I can't post a picture here yet until after Lottie has seen it.

So for today I thought I would show you a couple of Lottie's creations that she has done within the last few months.

Beautiful Shoes

These were made with cardboard, strips of paper, which she then decoupaged onto the shoe shape added ribbon to tie round her ankles and then added the flowers.

This is her football game - you have to flick rolled up pieces of paper to get them into the holes at the end - each hole has a different score and the one with the most scored after 6 shots is the winner.  We have played this many times now and it is such fun.  The best thing about this game is that it didn't cost anything but has created a lot of fun.

I love the detail of the people watching and the goal-keeper trying to put you off your shot!

Lottie never ceases to amaze me with her creations, especially when she uses her own imagination and skills to create lovely things like these.

Live, Learn, Laugh and Be HAPPY x x

Card challenge

One of Lottie's school friends had her birthday recently and so we thought we would have a bit of fun making her a card and decided to make it a challenge to see which one would be judged (by Keven) as the one that would be given out.  Keven didn't know who made what card.

After a lot of deliberation, Keven decided the winning card was the top card (with the owl) which was proudly made by Lottie - a well deserved win.  Lottie used a range of lovely materials, starting with the background of ribbons and a neatly thought out arrangement of the owl and name.  The detail of the lolly adds a lovely touch to the finished piece.

Live, Learn, Laugh and Be HAPPY x x

More sifting

Today I would like to post the end of year term cards for Lottie's teachers that I made.  I had only the night before to make these and I didn't think I was going to pull it off.  The first one was for one of the teachers that was leaving at the end of term too so I wanted to reflect this on the card.  I had some really beautiful papers that came with a magazine (I tend to buy most of my magazines purely for the free papers etc.) and used a template of a bird from the same magazine to create this.  I then added a length of ribbon, hand cut a flower from the same paper and applied the button and then put a hand written message on the front and highlighted a few of the elements with black pen.

The next one was for a teacher, I feel, does quite a lot of juggling during the term so came up with this design - I did get a little bit of my idea from http://www.1stuniquegifts.co.uk/blog/ and developed it a little more on my card.  I printed a picture of an apple off my PC and copied it onto card to make a template then made and cut all the apples and placed them onto a hand drawn tree - using the same free papers as above.

I wanted the apples to be a 3D effect and so drew around the outside of the apples to show that effect better.

The final card was for a teacher I know likes her garden.  This was made from a different set of free papers, I added a white piece of wavy card and lace ribbon then placed the bird boxes on this then added the four paper tulips along with my hand written message.

Looking back I don't know how I managed to do all that in one evening!!
Live, Learn, Laugh and Be HAPPY x x

Sifting through the backlog

So as I said in my previous post, the set up of this blog has been hanging around for a while and all the things I wanted to blog about has been storing up and now is the time to start sifting through!

I will be going back in time (month or so) for my forthcoming posts as me and Lottie have made some nice things that we would like to share.  Today is about Lottie's school Summer Fayre, which took place in July.  I made some lovely sweet bags to be sold on the day and used really beautiful papers that were free with some craft/cardmaking magazines, added some ribbon, buttons and things and filled each bag with mix-up.

I managed to do 19 of these bags and it took me a fair few nights... So I'll post just a few pics of some of my favourite ones.

These bags I bought and just added my own hand-made, hand-cut butterflies and Flower Fairies images.
Lottie enjoyed watching me making these bags so she decided to make me a couple of bags herself and gave them to me as a gift - I especially love the detail of the bird she made on this one and the fluffly pink ribbon on the other.

I hope you have enjoyed looking at our sweet bags - Live, Learn, Laugh and Be HAPPY x x

At last first post!!!!!

Hello and welcome to my blog.  With the help of my wonderful daughter, Lottie we will post our creations, which we hope you will enjoy looking at and using the ideas for your own creations (please post this blog if you do use our ideas as I will with the ideas I have collected from others - thank you)

So I have finally got to this point - actually posting something - Yippee!  I have been working on this blog setup now for far too long (and it will still need some tweaking) but hey ho, if I don't start now it will never happen!

It's coming round to Birthday celebrations in our house as Lottie will be 10 on the 22nd August so we are busy organising her party.  The invitations went out in July and were well received. 

She is having 4 hours of art and craft and we will make sock people, decorate a calico bag, embellish a wooden initial each and make air balloon baskets filled with sweeties for a helium balloon each. There's going to be pass the parcel, ice cream sundaes to make, wibbly, wobbly multicoloured jelly to eat alongside other yummy treats.  Fingers crossed for nice weather as this will need to take place in the garden while sitting on patchwork quilts.  We are still busy making our own decorations for the garden and I will post these next time. Live, Learn, Laugh and Be HAPPY x x