The Last Minute Easter Hunt

This year we put all the  Easter eggs into brown paper bags. Then decorated these with a vintage Easter picture glued on the front. Next punched a hole in the bags then tied up  he bag with ribbons. Very exciting for the children as they had so much fun unwrapping the bags to see what was inside...Yes there were too many Easter eggs, we all got a bit carried away. All this was done at the last minute....in fact it was a hit and one of the easiest Easter hunts we have done.

Sometimes simple is just best...

Vintage bunny pictures on brown bags, © Google

Our big chocolate bunny posed for photos...We bought the cake and then
decorated it with a yellow and green bunny decoration.

The Garden Harvest

The vegetable garden has been doing really well this year, especially the tomatoes. My daughter looks after the garden, I just collect the produce...and look after the rabbit.

Feeding the soil

Bunny poop it's his job to feed the soil. Here he is eating the
'Alpine Strawberry'.

Out and about in the garden...just having a rest while my hutch is cleaned.
He's a 'Chestnut' Angora rabbit.

Garden Pollinators

We were so lucky this year we had a bumblebee nest at the back of the garden. Such busy bees collecting pollen all day long. There are four types of bumblee bees in New Zealand.

They won't sting unless you make them angry...Did you know bumblebees
are attracted to blue?

The Bumblebee Nest

Having a Bumblebee nest in the garden is okay, they are harmless unless you
make them angry. They just go about their business. We need bumblebee's
in the garden. We were so lucky to have this nest in our garden.

Bumblebee nest, it's empty now they've done their job

The tomatoes are 'Beefsteak'. I'm going to make some chilli sauce using the 'Spicy Tomato Sauce' recipe.

Spray free, organic tomatoes

Beefsteak tomatoes

The Potatoes

I think these are Lissette 

My lavender was at it 's best too. I didn't pick any because the whole garden was turned into a bee garden, spray free, with plenty of flowers to attract the bees.

Lavender 'Arabian Nights'

Lavender 'Dilly Dilly' my favourite. Attracts the bees...

I think the bee below is a solitary 'Carpenter Bee'. Whoever he was, he spent most of his time chasing the bumblebees off the lavender. Very funny to watch him hovering...A bit unlucky though, too many honey bees, and bumblebees. The solitary bee was unable to have the lavender to  himself.

Bee: Carpenter male.

And this little girl just loved the Strawberries that she found in the 'Strawberry Patch'.

A big red ripe spray free, organic strawberry....

Sewing my First Jaile Pattern

Finally I have found myself behind the machine sewing....

This adult sized circular skirt was sewn up in an evening and I was very happy with the pattern. It fitted well. I did lengthen a couple of inches onto the waist/hip band and left the pants out...Perhaps I could have gone a size smaller for fit around the waist band though.

I had a few scraps  left so I made little skirts for the girls in a size 4, that's the only pattern size fitted onto my left over scraps of fabric. A size 5 would have been better....The sparkly Lycra was a hit. I must say I enjoyed sewing the Lycra fabric it was a nice weight to sew. Sometimes Lycra can be tricky (well for me anyway).

Details:

Pattern: Jaile 3025, Download from the Jaile website.

Fabric: 4 way Sparkly wet look stretch Lycra

Cost: Around $30.00 per metre

Size: AA (14) for adult skirt

Size: H (4) for child's skirt

Style: D-Circular skirt

Fabric covered in small glittery dots...giving a wet look to it.

Our Fluffy Easter Bunny

Easter isn't complete with out an Easter Bunny  this is our bunny's big day! Here he is, almost two years old....We don't decorate him, because he would eat the decorations, then the chocolate, and then get sick. He gets a lot fluffier, but he has haircuts often because his bottom is much easier to manage without all that fluff....'Happy Easter'.

Easter Bunny Diet: Pellets, Grass, Hay and that is all!
His other job when he is not the Easter Bunny is
to be a compost maker for the garden...

Our Easter Hunt

The girls this year were the 'stars of the show' for the Easter Hunt. My grandson declined, his age is in double digits now, I guess he's become too grown up for the Easter Hunt. He just wanted his chocolate eggs in a big brown paper bag, he was happy with that.

The Lindt Bunnies were a hit.The band and bell from the bunny, was used
as a bracelet by the girls.

Minecraft Dessert for Hungry Children

Very popular with young and old...

You Need:

Cadbury Flake Chocolate bar Treat Bag  (bag of 12)
1 packet Chocolate Dots (Sun Valley)
1 packet of Oreo Chocolate Cookies
1 packet of Chocolate Chip Fudge Cookies
1 Green Jelly 
Clear plastic cups (glass would be fine too)

I used FarmBake Chocolate Chip Fudge Cookies (in the big bag).  I then measured out enough for a packet of biscuits. Ground both the Oreos and the Double Fudge cookies into a crumbly mix with  the Breville Mini Whizz. Then I added some Chocolate Dots to the mix (I didn't measure these just guess work). I wanted the mix to resemble dirt...

Next I made a Green Jelly to the instructions on the back of the packet. I use slightly less hot water. When it has cooled I pour the jelly liquid into a flat pan then let it set in the fridge. When it is ready cut the jelly up into squares.

Now pour the dirt mix equally into clear cups, then place the cut up green jelly on top. Next place a Flake brick on top on the jelly. There you have it...a perfect dessert for a Minecraft Party!

I thought I might have needed smaller cups as these went narrow at
the bottom. But boys with spoons you know they managed to
 get every crumb out!

Minecraft Birthday Party

I confess I've really slowed down with my sewing, other things keep getting in the way like Minecraft Birthday parties...I guess I'm lucky I get to have a lot of input into my daughter's son's birthday party. Perhaps that's something to do with the fact that I used to spend my time chopping and cutting resources for children.

I left it a bit late to organize, so some things didn't happen. Like baking the Birthday cake, it was bought instead, and the Pinata never got made. Thank goodness imagine how many lollies there would be....too many!

The only thing is with a Minecraft party you are
using a lot of lollies so it is certainly a
'high sugar party'.

For a theme party Minecraft is a pretty easy one, (well if you like making props). Google is your friend here, because there are so many resources out there. Some are free and there certainly is plenty of information and ideas when it comes to Minecraft Parties on the Internet. Just check out the many boards on Pinterest. A good site for resources is here also.

Treasure Map made on the computer and printed out.

The potion mixing table....

I used familyshoppingbag.com. for a lot of the decorations like the banner, food labels, drink labels.

Enderman Bags were made buy gluing Enderman eyes
(found on Google) onto paper black bags from
 Party World. Then making labels using
 a Minecraft Font.

I downloaded the bunting from here. Then printed out.

The Balloons I bought off Trade me. There was some
good Minecraft Resources so I bought a few,
 like badges, stickers etc.

I laminated the print outs and used fizzy lollies
 as counters for the Minecraft Bingo Game. 

Some of the Minecraft food labels I stuck to small
skewers to place in the food. 

Just water, but the bottles were very popular. I made some
other potions too. 

 How we played the Minecraft Chocolate Game...

This was fun!

The Chocolate Game consisted of using a Steve Mask, already made from the last dress up day at school. A block of Chocolate wrapped in a Minecraft themed paper (easy to make). A big dice covered in a Minecraft picture on each side. For example, Steve, the Pig, and Enderman instead of numbers. Steve was our six on the dice. For those familiar with this game you will know you have to throw a six in the game to be able to eat the chocolate.

When a child threw 'Steve' with the dice they got to put the Steve Mask on, take the knife and fork, and cut up the Chocolate block, and then EAT the squares of chocolate they cut. But they can only continue eating the chocolate until the next 'Steve' is thrown....Then the child who has thrown 'Steve' has a turn cutting the chocolate up to eat (he has to put the mask on also).

Note:

To avoid disappointment, always have a spare block of chocolate handy to give to those who missed out in the game.

You might also want to change the dice value for winning after a while. For example, throwing a 'Steve' no longer lets you eat the chocolate. Now you now have to throw a Pig to eat the chocolate this round.

This changes the dynamics a bit...So the child who didn't throw a 'Steve' at the party they now have another chance. at maybe getting a Pig (you're sort of helping them along). 

I can tell you when you sometimes change the value of the dice 'Murphy's Law' kicks in and no winning Pig turns up. You still have one child who doesn't get a piece of chocolate in the game...
But don't worry you can sort it because you have that spare block of chocolate...

This is a popular game children  for a group of children.
The Chocolate block is kept in the fridge. This makes
 it harder to cut...

The Birthday Cake was bought from The Naked Baker. It was tweaked a bit to make it look more like a Minecraft Cake.

Actually nobody missed the green icing of last years cake.

Minecraft figurines from Mighty Ape

The Christmas Elf

I decided to be an Elf maker for a day, or two....It's Christmas after all, and this year since I have a thing for Elves I'm not making a Gingerbread house, or Pinata. Instead there is going to be an Elf who doesn't give out sweets and isn't made of sugar.

So I thought I would just make up my own sewing pattern, and this did sort of work out. Except the finished Elf didn't look exactly like the pattern I tried to draft. My Elf took on a life of his own...His face is made from the fabric left over from Humpty Dumpty, and the rest of him is made out of Christmas scraps of fabric.

This little Elf was supposed to have a bigger head. and this was cut out with more of a roundish shape to it. Except all this changed when I appliqued the hearts and mouth upside down on the face and the head was already sewn onto the body. I had no patience to start all over again so instead I re cut the head shape out again  on the body which made it much smaller.

Also my other problem was the Elf eyes, I forgot to sew them on in a contrasting thread which I really wanted to do. But before you knew it this 'Imp of an Elf' was all sewn up and glued together. Too late to change anything now. So I glued the eyes onto the felt circles and let him loose in the garden...and what a naughty little Elf he was!

Bells, glue, clips for the Ric-Rac...Buttons for the eyes and
silver fringing around the neck

Golden thread laces for the Elf shoes...

Garden antics of the impish Elf!

'Sorry no room for Elves, twos company threes a crowd...

Is that really me? Who else has sewn Elves this Christmas?

Have a Merry Christmas everyone....

Humpty Dumpty Sat on a Wall...

Who would have thought I would get this costume finished...I started at 6pm last night, it had to be worn by 8.30am the next day, and I have had weeks to do this but didn't know what to do. I looked at all the Humpty Dumpty costumes  online to sew. Their are not a lot out there so I just made it up my style.

The problem I had was that I was given this green looking round stuffed pumpkin thing full of Dacron (which I didn't make myself). No matter what I thought to do...that pumpkin thing was my nemesis. It really needed to be re-stuffed.

My Humpty Dumpty under padding looks similar to
the orange pumpkin pattern here.

To make the Humpty Dumpty costume I simply traced around the stuffed padded green pumpkin I was given to make the white egg cover. Then I kept fitting the egg shell cover over the child wearing the pumpkin shape. The fabric I used was a fairly stiff shiny white fabric, a bit like taffeta in texture.

The red bow tie was taken from my own clown costume. The tights are from the clown costume also. The collar I drafted myself, I wanted to use a coloured fabric, but white was all I had. Shoes I did not need as the children have bare feet in the play.

Really I should have made a new padding for underneath, but I kept putting off. I just didn't want to do it...A new stuffed shape would have made Humpty Dumpty more solid looking, more like a big egg.When finally my creative kicked in I had only 24 hours to put this outfit together. So the green pumpkin padding thing had to do. I didn't even mend it...So here is the end result for my Humpty Dumpty costume.

Humpty is looking a bit flat here....His tummy
needed to be a bit firmer.

He looks like a sinister 'Humpty Dumpty'. The face paint was painted in
a hurry as we ran out of time, but it looks okay he's an egg after all...

The hat dictated the whole outfit...he wouldn't give it up.
He was wearing that hat and that was that.

Christmas Elf Stockings

The Elves are visiting us this year (only because I gave away the Christmas stockings I sewed last year). I had fun making these curly toed stockings, but soon realized my days of making little stockings are just about over. You have to have good eyes for a project like this. Mine are fading slowly for doing the intricate stuff, like applique.

It might have helped if my old Bernina 801 had a light bulb that actually went, and I cleaned my glasses properly so I could see. The pattern I chose to use for the Christmas stockings this year is from Sew-4-Home. You can find the tutorial and  pattern here.

I chose to use the Bernina 801 for this project. It looks rather jaded with
it's paint starting to peel at the bottom.

I stuffed the end of the stocking with a bit of fluff (Dacron). The bells
are off the 'Lindt Easter Bunny'. Just the perfect size... I saved
them from last Easter for the cat's collar. But the cat wears a
bigger bell now.

I didn't use the letter template that the pattern linked you too. I found another
because I couldn't re-size it on my printer...

Reversible Slippers Ready For Winter

I'm using up scraps of Polar Fleece. I had a computer crash awhile back and lost all my sock patterns except for this one which I printed out. You can buy the Reversible Slipper Pattern on Craftsy.