Magpie Monday latest

It has been quite a while since I managed a magpie Monday post, but we do still  regularly frequent the charity shops that are nearby, even though the prices seem to have shot up in the last year or so. The first item is the most expensive thing we have ever bought from a charity shop, my husband came home with it one day and on telling me it cost £30, nearly sent me into a panic but it is now a much loved family member... a rather loud one!

The wood needs a good waxing but the clock works perfectly and chimes on the hour without fail. I had been wanting one for quite a while, since we found out it was impossible to fix my Grandfather's old one, so it was a lovely surprise from my husband... now we know what the time is from anywhere in the house without even looking.

Next is just a cheap trinket picked up for 50p but I have been looking for one of these for years, they seem to be very popular amongst the vintage collectors. I wanted to stand it on my cut glass dressing table set to keep up the Parisian faded elegance theme I seem to have going on. I now have to look for another one for my daughter who has an urge for a pink one in her room.

I seem to have so many things to pick from but I'll finish up this week showing you some of the books we have found. These old ones were 50p each, a little ragged around the edges but fascinating to read. I am a huge Agatha Christie fan and read her books with great enthusiasm in my teens but sadly I no longer have the books I had then. So I have decided to collect and read them all again, so these two will be added to my library.

This last Photograph shows some of the other books we have managed to find lately all for about 30-50p each. This is a huge bargain for us as we are home educators and the children love to read books... it's handy to have books on as many subjects as possible so that we are prepared for any eventuality. Although our library does appear to be about to burst at the seams.

This post will be linked with missielizzie from the me and my shadow blog for magpie monday.

Snakes for Chinese New Year

Chinese New Year is on the 10th of February this year and it is the year of the snake, the children were very keen to make some snakes to celebrate. We have decided to make them with a few recycled and natural things we had around the house.

Old wine corks and left over pine cones are perfect for threading opportunities for young children and for the bodies of our snakes. We threaded five corks onto a length of string and knotted each end leaving a small gap between each cork so the snake could slither.

The tail segment was shaped by my husband and was attached to the row of corks by pushing the knot into the hole and sealing it there with a hot glue gun.

Red and gold are lucky colours in China, so the New Year snakes were painted using these colours mostly. The pine cones are going to be used as the head of the snake and have been sprayed with gold paint.

As you can see my husband has also drilled a small hole in the bottom of the pine cone (handy to put the stick in for ease of spraying) it is just a few millimeters deep so the knot can be glued and pushed inside to disguise it.

 Eyes and a forked tongue have been added to each snake ready to be attached to the cork body when the paint is dry.

Here are the finished snakes, I think they are really quite cute and they have a very snake like slither movement...The children are very pleased with their work and didn't stop there, deciding to add some gold sequins.

If you don't have the corks available it is possible to make a snake with small branch pieces my husband made this one a couple of years ago, and it is very sturdy and still being played with.

All ready to bring in the year of the snake....Happy New Year China.