Happy New Year Everyone!

Happy New Year! May it bring happiness and joy!

Memories of Summer: Day in the Forest

Seems that not that long ago the summer was here and we enjoyed all the goodness of it :) 

This was just one of those warm days, so we decided to go for a picnic in the forest. Still remember taste of wild raspberries and the smell of pine trees and grasses... :)

Easy Paper Doll and Her Clothes That Don't Fall Off! :)

When I was little I used to play with paper dolls a lot. I had all different kinds of them: princesses, little girls, school girl, etc. But they would only last for so long, because I would loose their clothes as they just would not stay on! Little fiddly foldy things to hold them up were useless.. 

One day, my mother taught me how to make doll clothes myself and in the way that they would not fall off! It was so easy and so creative, as I could dress them in anything I imagined! I loved it.

I was visiting my mother not long ago, when my mothers friend came over with her daughter. And as kids do, she got bored while the ladies were chatting. So I remembered this and we made a paper doll and a load of clothes for her :) Did she love it? Yes, she did :D We also made a house for her from a drawing pad with every page being a different room. I got no photos for that, but I'll try and make something similar some time in the future :)

IF YOU HAVE A DAUGHTER DEFINITELY TRY AND MAKE THESE TOGETHER ;)

Here's how the clothes are made :)

We made a paper doll from a cereal box - good hard cardboard

For the clothes, you start of with A4 paper folded in half.
 Trace  the doll's shape starting from shoulders
 and making up a shape of a garment that you imagine :)

Then move the doll away and finish drawing.

Cut it out without cutting the shoulders off
and make a slit at the back for the head.

Pull the head through 

And here's how she looks like all dressed up :)
(I left it white so that the new owner of the doll could colour it in)

Some more samples of clothing:

Making school uniform :)

And the whole collection :)

The whole collection :)

Easy Nail Art!

Some time ago I found a video on YouTube on how to decorate your nails with text. I always thought it was either stickers or transfers or something similar. But apparently not! It is so easy! I've tried it out and I would recommend it to anyone that got bored of same pink, red or pearl colour nail polish ;)
Here's how it is done: 
You will need white nail polish, a page from newspaper or phone book, medical alcohol (or any other spirit with high content of alcohol) and clear nail polish.

Paint your nails with white nail polish first and let it completely dry:

Soak pieces of newspaper or phone book in alcohol:

Then press soaked pieces onto nails and peal them of. The letters will transfer on your nails. Now dry and seal it with clear nail polish. Easy! :)

Secret Flowers From My Childhood :)

When we were kids my mother taught us this little crafty thing to do with a piece of broken glass :) And me and my sister would loooove to go ant pick some flowers to arrange under the glass and then cover it with soil. We would carefully spread some soil apart and reveal 

this little beauty - a bit like sleeping Snowhite in her glass box :)  

Here's one we made with my daughter not long ago :)

Some ideas on keeping your house tidy :)

Few ideas I found online to keep your house tidy :) ( I do not own any of the photos) :)

Towel Trunk

How to Keep Matching Sheets Together in the Closet by using pillow cases :)

Halloween themed silhouette paintings :)

These paintings are very easy to make and look pretty impressive even if you are not the best painter in the world :) We used first three colours of rainbow for our background and then added black silhouette shapes that represent Halloween. Harry was really proud of his painting. I think we'll do them more often :)

Background ready :)

Finished work 

Interesting idea :)

As i understand you suppose to mold the egg while it is warm :)

Our Halloween decorations :)

This year like no other year we decided to do some spooky decorations outside for the Halloween night. And it was totally worth it! Every kid that walked in that night for their sweets, 

said it was spooky and great :) I think the most used word was 'awesome' :D 

Will try and do the same next year :)

Memories

About four years ago we had my dad and my brother visiting us while we were doing work on our house. They came to give us a hand. It wasn't all about the job though :) We decided to show them a bit of Wales. But not just touring in a bus or a car. We thought the best way to see places was on bikes :) 

Here's a video from few of those   

Autumn day

October has been warm this year. Unusually  warm. And we enjoyed it every day. And few last days of it were just PERFECT! Here's our Mimi loving the fresh air :)

Our Halloween project - Thombstones

I know you can by these for next to nothing in supermarkets, but it is so much more fun to make them :) We used two blocks of polystyrene that came in a box when we bought our TV, some left over wall paint (handy it was mushroom colour), craft knives, hot glue and some moss that we collected ages ago on a walk near the river ( I knew it would come in handy one day) :) Unfortunately, after we painted them we left it to dry outside and it started raining. Some paint got washed down. But I think it gives it slightly more aged look :) The end result looks really great and we will be using them tomorrow for our front yard decoration :)

Painting our freshly carved tombstones:)

Harry gluing his moss and posing with a crazy smile :D

Moss we were using :)

Finished tombstones - Harry's on left, mine on the right :)

Detail

Halloween treasure hunt 2011

This week is the half term week for kids and a prep week for Halloween for us. So to spend some time with little ones and get us all into the Halloween mood we decided to attend a themed hunt at PYO (Pick Your Own) farm in Gloucestershire. And what a great fun it was! Weather was brilliant, the staff was great and the tasks for kids were well planned out with few creepy touches added to it :) Here are few shots from our day in Primrose Vale Farm

Entrance

One of tasks - to build as large stack of pumpkins as possible
with only 9 pumpkins touching the ground :)

Flower for mama

Pumpkin skittles

Dad has a go :)

More pumpkin games :)

Mama pumpkin :)

And little pumpkins :)