From this, to this

From this,

To this.

For quite some time I have been trying to think of a way to display Lily's swimming medals and ribbons. I have searched the internet and scoured pinterest. If I liked something she didn' and vice versa. A few weeks back I saw a plain old wooden board with some hooks in it and the word, Swimming, stencilled on it. It was nice but not $40 nice. I showed it to Lily and asked her if she wanted to make one. She has badgered me since that day to buy the wood but I kept forgetting.

On Thursday we were coming home from the supermarket and we noticed the handyman working on a fence, I swung the car over and asked him for one of the nasty old fence planks. He gave it to me willingly. We came home and as I unloaded the car of groceries Lily wasted no time and grabbed her tool kit. She checked the specs of the one on the computer and decided to change them slightly and then she set to. She did the whole thing herself with only some guidance from me. I was NOT allowed to help.

Removing the nails

Measuring

cutting

sanding

painting with the base coat

Adding the words for the reversed stencil

top colour

removing the stickers

bling

hooks

even hangers on the back

ta da. 

Her grandpa taught her how to use power tools when she was over there last summer, or the one before. She is very careful and knows what she is doing. I am really impressed with what she made and now she is going to make one for Rosie too. I am a little concerned that my fence might suddenly fall down as she decides to make more and more of them!

Lily teaches a class

A couple of weeks ago my friend jenny told me that her daughter refuses to keep bows in her hair. So I asked her if she makes her own bows and lets Danielle choose the ribbons and all the glam for them. She stared at me blankly so I told her to go buy ribbon and clippies and call me when she had them.

Tonight the whole family came over for dinner and Lily taught Auntie Jen how to make hair bows. I cooked, Lily taught Jen, Rosie entertained Danielle, Evan made a project and Ed, god love him took apart a wonky electrical outlet and checked out my ageing front door for me. All told it was a win win situation. The house was absolutely buzzing.

After Jenny would show Danielle a bow she would literally gasp with delight and immediately put it in her hair. She ended up wearing 4 at the same time and I failed to get a photo. Things were nutty.

The table looked like this, Lily isn't a neat crafter and it makes my brain itch.

Holy mess from h*ll Batman.

Who knew it was such a serious business. 

Jen and I used to get the kids together all the time but then we started swimming and we never see anyone anymore :( We decided tonight that we have to get together more often.

Trees, not just for Christmas anymore

It has now been established that in our house the decorating of a tree is just not for Christmas anymore. The girls love making these tiny little trees for any possible festive occasion and already have designs in their heads for Autumn/Thanksgiving.

If I had a huge house I would decorate like a maniac for all occasions but that would mean that I would have lots and lots of storage space but I don't. I am tempted to check out our crawl space, hmm maybe that's a project for my sister and I in a couple of weeks.

Lily is becoming quite handy with a can of spray paint

supplies

These little doo dads are meant to be filled with coloured sand but we coloured them with markers

Spooky.

I halted the decorating once we were done with the tree. I think next week is early enough to ghostify the house for Halloweenie. This is it now until Christmas as far as decorations are concerned because as soon as one set comes down another goes up. Before I know if Norman the Elf will be swinging from the fans again and cuasing chaos.

And now another catches the craze

When Lily was about 3 we were visiting her Grandparents and her cousin Heather showed her this craft called Hama Beads. At that time Lily was way to young for it and would get extremely frustrated trying to get all those little beads on the board without constantly knocking them all off. She persevered and it became an all time favourite pastime of hers. So much so that for a couple of years I was bringing the annoying little beads back from the U.K. with me since I couldn't find them here.

Everytime Lily had a friend over to play they would "do" Hama beads or as they are known over here, Perler Beads. Hours and hours of designing the perfect project only to have it accidently get bumped or dropped as they transferred it to the counter or to me to iron. Frankly I hate the freaking things cos I hate seeing the kids work so hard on something only to have the darn thing topple before they are totally finished. (Not to mention that they always end up all over the place.) But none of that matters to them.

The weather has been rotten the last couple of days so indoor crafts have been the way to go and the Hama beads made an appearance. Out of nowhere Rosie decided she would start doing them. Now she is hooked too. Of course she is clumsy and oh so slow, bless her and the whole job takes her forever but she loves them. She has knocked over more than her fair share, I knocked one the other day and sent a whole row sailing and she was devastated until I redid it for her in record time. I imagine I have at least another 5 years of these things in my house so how many does that mean will get sucked up the Dyson?

Rosie's pattern

concentrating

see how tiny they are and how many there are?

after you have put all the beads on the board you iron them and the heat melts or molds them together

another of Rosie's creations. This was her first.

Lily doesn't use a defined shape anymore she does them free hand. They must have close to one hundred of them and Lily still has the first one she ever made and the one that Heather made for her when she just couldn't get it right.

They are a lot of fun and you can get them at Ikea and also at Micheals. Just google Perler beads if you are interested or click here

Old Sock is new again

Yesterday morning Lily woke up a few seconds after me and walked into our room and said in a reasonably loud voice, "is Dad awake?' If he wasn't before he was then. She then asked if she could have a pair of his socks. He said what anyone that has just been woken up would say and that was, yes. I was intrigued but was unable at that point to string words together. We went downstairs and she got busy. I stayed out of the way. For the next 7 hours she remained very busy and could only be torn away briefly for sustenance.

She went to bed thinking about a plan

When she awoke she wasted very little time putting the plan into action

Busy little beaver, hard at work

She knew what she had to do and wanted NO help

it's taking shape

Meet, dad's old sock, Lily's new friend, Sock Monkey

Doesn't seem to matter what she does

she sticks to it until she gets it right. I think it's cute.

Oh, and this is all that's left of Dad's socks. oopsie.

Taking it up a notch

Lily is still making her beaded hair grips and has really taken them up a notch. Now she is making them like this. The dragonflies

I know it's rude to brag but really this kidlet of mine is so talented.

Crafty little child of mine

We are having some sort of tropical "thing" pass over us and drown us with torrential rain. According to the weather man, who is wrong nearly all of the time, it will rain all week, copiously. When you live here you have to prepare for this sort of thing, well maybe you don't have to but I do.

I have a little cupboard of craft projects that the girls know nothing about. I buy them when I see them go on sale or Jakie passes down things her girls have grown to old for. Today I scurried into my box and found a book of things to do and the next thing I know Lily is as busy as a beaver and  so concentrated on what she is doing that I can't even get her to answer me.

She had taken some old fashioned hair grips and adorned them with seed beads. They look absolutely gorgeous. Tomorrow we are going to the craft shop to get some more beads in different colours as we only have a few in this size.



 
and then the origami queen made herself a little box to keep them in. Perhaps tomorrow she can make an origami ark!

craft time

When Andie came to stay she bought the girls lots of gifts. One of which was a this.


I was bombarded by some nasty stomach bug yesterday and the Hub's was not home. I put a tacky old table cloth on the table and let 'em at it whilst I crawled back to the couch. Every now and again I would crawl back into the room, snap a picture, assess the damage and crawl back under my rock.

Rosie was very serious about yellow

Lily was more detail oriented







They had such a great time doing it and they came out really well. Today we will plant the seeds and grow some mystery plant.
Thanks Annie, Andie. A huge success.