Catnip Mouse

The children have been trying their hand at sewing again, spurred on by the arrival of my eldest daughter's new ginger kitten called pumpkin and our own very grumpy cat, who obviously needs a lot of cheering up. They have chosen to make some catnip mice, we have tried to keep the sewing to a minimum as the children are still very young and just learning to sew... you may remember their first sewing attempts earlier in the year, the gorgeous little felt hearts.

We first cut out our mouse shape, from scrap pieces of felt, using a heart shape cookie cutter as a stencil. This shape when folded in half seems to be the easiest way to make a mouse shape and we have used felt as it doesn't need hemming so it is easy for the children to sew with.

We have stitched along the edge using a back stitch with wool as this is thick enough for the children to see and handle easily. A gap was left at one end and the mouse was turned inside out ready for stuffing.

A mixture of stuffing was used, some white wadding and the dried catnip, this gives it a good shape as well as a good smell... if you are a cat! Then all that is needed is to sew up the opening, we decided to stitch a small piece of ribbon in the end as we were sewing it up to give the little mouse a tail.

Little crosses were stitched on for eyes... and these are the finished mice. It is also possible to add little ears but the children were happy with their mice without so we have left them. All ready for some cat play.

Vintage surprise

  Trying to get back into blogging after my break with a 'Magpie Monday' post about a lovely surprise I recently had. I have been on the look out for a large vintage dark oak mirror to go above the fireplace, and hadn't really had much luck until I spotted one on an auction site. It was large, about 3 foot by 2 foot, so I placed a couple of low bids and waited to see what happened, unfortunately two other bidders got involved and the price shot up very high and I didn't get the chance for any more bids.

  The story doesn't end there though, a few days later I had an e-mail giving me a second chance offer for my last bid which was just £6! I was stunned and elated, but decided to pay quickly and pick up the mirror.

Here it is... my vintage dark oak beautiful mirror... still can't really believe my luck! The photographs really don't do this justice at all, they don't show all the details clearly or the beautiful rich colour of the oak. It is incredibly heavy and my husband had to use very sturdy fixings to ensure it stayed on the wall. The mirror has a beveled edge, and beautiful carved beading and carved detail around the edge, not to mention that it looks gorgeous hanging on the wall.

This next item isn't really old or vintage at all but I loved the pattern and colour, it reminds me of something my eldest daughter would choose. It is a sugar bowl and cost £1 from a charity shop. I haven't used it as a sugar bowl as I'm sure the children would see it as an invitation to eat the entire bowl full neat. I have used it to hold small berries or to put my homemade tartare sauce in for a little tea time glamour.

This is the base which shows the pattern as 'Greensleeves'. A quick post with a couple of my recent finds, just to show you lovely surprises do still happen.

Survived the Birthday Season

Just a quick post to show you a couple of photographs of cakes, we have just survived the busiest time of the year for us with four birthdays and a wedding anniversary to contend with. My two youngest children had birthdays a week apart and thankfully the birthday cake designs were a little simpler this year.

This is the cake I made for my son, he loves to play Spore and wanted a galaxy style cake so I combined the two things and added stars, planets and space dust. There are creatures from the cell stage around the edge too, much easier than last years dinosaur cake which can be seen here.

This is the cake I made for my daughter, she is still a huge Hello Kitty fan, and her favourite colour is pink so I just combined the two things. Last year we shaped the whole cake to look like a head, it can be seen here.

I only made these two cakes and my eldest daughter made the other two Birthday cakes one of which was mine, obviously I couldn't make my own cake. I didn't take a photograph so I can't post it here but it was a beautiful purple cake with a cat on top, she also made her boyfriend's cake which was shaped like a formula one car and was fabulous.

Everyone had a wonderful time on their birthday but we are absolutely shattered, as you can imagine.

Third wedding anniversay

A few days ago my wonderful husband and I celebrated our third wedding anniversary, although we have been together a lot longer than this. We made a pact when we married to hand make each others gifts according to the traditional anniversary guide and the third anniversary is leather. I had two ideas about gifts to make, the first was a handmade leather journal as I think they look gorgeous, but I had a little trouble finding the right kind of leather, so this project will be put off until later in the year.

I settled on a leather bracelet as the leather thread is easier to locate, I love the multi stranded mens bracelets but thought that might be a little more of a challenge to a first time leather user. So decided to stick to something I have been trying out lately, Macrame.

This is a close up of the bracelet, it is made using the macrame square double knot stitch. It is quite tough to pull tight enough as it is leather but I think it works very well.

As you can see I used a bead as a fastener and this finished bracelet does look amazing on his wrist.

Just like to finish by saying Happy Anniversary to my wonderful husband x x x

Oh and if you like to see the lovely gift he made for me you can visit his blog here.

Natural Update

This is my 100th post and I would like to take a second and thank everyone for reading my blog, the counter at the bottom of the page stands at over 46,000 visitors. I would also like to thank the many websites around the world that have featured our crafts, and all of you who have been inspired and have inspired me in return. Thank-you again, the children and I have some exciting crafts lined up and we will be sharing here soon.

As so many of you have asked how we are getting on with the natural cleaning and cutting out the chemicals I thought I would give you a quick update.

We are still using and loving the soap nuts, (these are dried berries not nuts) it has been over a year now this is my original post, in fact we still haven't got through the 1 kilo bag we purchased, this cost around £10 delivered to our door with a bottle of free essential oil and has lasted more than a year. There are 300 grams left, and not buying washing powder and fabric softener has saved us a lot of money and decreased the amount of household waste we throw out. I also love the fact that you can add the essential oil of your choice to the washing, I have been adding lavender to the bedding wash to enhance good sleep and citronella to the wash when there are lots of biting insects about. No harsh washing chemicals have also meant no itching and sneezing.

All general purpose kitchen cleaners, window and floor cleaners have been replaced by white vinegar, bicarbonate of soda, lemon juice and essential oils which we make up ourselves. I really haven't noticed any difference in the cleaning ability, it just smells far more natural. We are still loving the home made toothpaste too.

The natural crystal deodorant is absolutely still being used, I bought it in July last year for about £5. I am just as happy with it as I was then, no armpit smell at all. My husband was so impressed he now uses it and there is still over half a stick left, so definitely a good money saving purchase there.

Another money saver for me has been the purchase of a menstrual cup, initially expensive but it pays for itself after a few months and it can last for years. I have been using one for quite a few years now and can honestly say I have never felt so free and comfortable during a period, so this has eliminated the need for any sanitary protection.

I have stopped using shop bought moisturisers and now use either pure coconut oil or a block of shea butter, both of which smell incredible and and make my skin feel amazing. So no more nasty chemicals absorbed through the skin. I have also stopped using hair conditioner, oils to stop frizz and all the other stuff we tend to put on ourselves after washing our hair, I now add a little coconut oil to my hands and work it on the tips of my hair.  One thing I have noticed, bizarrely, is the condition and softness of my hair has vastly improved.

As you can see we have managed to get rid of loads of the chemicals from our daily lives and I am still working on more and will let you know how it goes. Not only have we saved a lot of money... I mean...How many of you can say you have done your entire family's washing for less than £10 for more than a year or less than £5 for deodorant for two people?... but we also feel much better, no sneezing or itching and I am happy that everything we now use is a change for the better for us. I may be adding some of our natural recipes here now and again if anyone is interested.

Dinosaurs in the park

Last weekend our city was visited by Erth's Dinosaur petting zoo, it had traveled all the way from Australia, so we really couldn't miss the chance to see it especially not with all the little dinosaur experts in our family. It was amazing, so glad we took the time to go. The park was packed as thousands of people came to see the show.

This was my son's favourite, a Australovenator. It got a little worrying for a time when the keepers stated he was hungry and the audience was made of meat!

As you can see he was a little anxious as the dinosaur was hungry and seemed very eager to eat the audience.

He was fed and all was well again, all this didn't worry my daughter at all, she was very eager to get selected to go on stage and put her head inside it's mouth but I think she was too small to be chosen.

My daughter liked the little ones best, and enjoyed her face to face encounter with this laellynasaura. Erth has a website if you would like to see some of the things we saw you can see it here. If you get the chance to go along and see the show my children would highly recommend it.

Regrowing Celery

As a home educating family, we usually have many experiments on the go at any one time and I am really excited to show you this one of mine. I am a huge fan of raw food especially salad and we also love to grow our own food. Having recently read many articles about regrowing celery from the stub part that is usually thrown away, I decided to give it a try.... lured by the thought of free food. Each week I cut the bottom off the celery and put it in a bowl of water.

Some people just kept it in water for one night then planted it in the garden but we were curious to see the new growth and growing celery in England is a bit of a challenge, from what I have read, as it is not at all frost hardy and shouldn't be planted out until May or June. As you can see the celery just continued to grow.

In the photograph above I have arranged the celery in age order so you can clearly see the growth, there is about a week or two between each stump. You can see on the second plant from the left a new root is forming at the base.

The new celery plant continues to grow from the center, some of the outside stalk does die back but is easy to peel off to reveal your new plant.

These are the two largest celery plants now, I have had them potted up for a few weeks, as it is still too early to plant out. The plants have really taken off since they were put into compost, as you can see, they have had a lot of new growth and the roots are starting to come out of the bottom of the pots. I have been getting them used to the outside temperature on nice days to harden them up ready for planting out soon.

I now have about six new celery plants, grown free from the pieces we normally throw away, we are really looking forward to harvest time as this has been quite an exciting project for the children to see. Why not have a go yourself...