Day to Day

BIG kids magazine

Earlier this week I ordered Bella a copy of the very first issue of BIG kids magazine.  It arrived yesterday and WOW, what an amazing and beautiful magazine!!  There's a little story behind how we stumbled upon the website to order our first issue, but basically it included a little bit of begging from Bella because her lovely little online friend Zali (and one third creator of the Utterly Awesome Blythe Club with Bella & Emily) has a fabulous step by step animation tutorial in the magazine.  Bella was very keen to see her friend in print!

It arrived yesterday and Bella spent over an hour reading, absorbing every detail and creating from the magazine and she's is only up to page 20, just one third of the way through.  The pages are beautifully illustrated, interesting and full of creative and thought provoking ideas for little people.  

There's also a separate print included (on gorgeous quality thick matte paper) which is part of a BIG art collection, to fill with colour and keep.

I've been dreaming of a magazine like this for my children for quite some time.  It's very inspirational and my only complaint is that it's a biannual publication - I can't imagine having to wait a full six months for the next issue and either can Bella!!

If you're interested in ordering issue one for your little people, pop over HERE.  You can purchase a single issue (including postage) for $18 or a subscription for $35 (including postage).  I only ordered the single issue, because I wanted to see what the magazine was like inside - in hindsight I should have purchased a subscription.  

P.S.  Incase you're wondering.....BIG stand for bravery, imagination and generosity.

Writing with a fountain pen

It seems like years ago that Bella first started asking for a fountain pen to write with, but I've never managed to find one reasonably priced to buy her.  While we were busy panning for gold and pottering around the neighbourhood of Sovereign Hill recently, I stumbled across a super cheap set in one of their gift stores.  Bella bought it with some holiday spending money and I stocked up on a couple of extra nibs for her.

It's all kinds of fancy when you're writing with your very own fountain pen!

Now Bella has mastered the art of writing, drawing and blotting the ink, there's been talk of moving up a step and learning calligraphy so she can really put the pen to good use.  I can't wait to see all the stories, notes and journal entries that she writes over the next few weeks - old fashioned style of course!

Make your own board game.

Tonight we're giving Bella's new board game a whirl for Friday family fun night.  It was planned in the early hours of today, in-between coughing and couch resting and this afternoon we searched for supplies to turn it from paper to project.

Over the years there has been many a board game created in our home.  Some of them have been so intricate that frustration has set in before they could be finished, other times the concept has been great on paper, but not quite polished enough to work as a project.  But, today's plan was a perfect one.

You make your way to the farm house by taking turns and rolling the dice.  On the way to the farm there are all sorts of homemade treasures to collect.  Oh, yes....each trinket was handcrafting by Bella this afternoon - incase you're wondering there are paper horses, plasticine apples, little slabs of butter (beads wrapped in yellow paper) and bottles of milk. There are cards along the way too - lose a turn, go forward 3 spaces and collect a free horse!

Once everybody has made their way to the farm, tokens are counted and the person with the most treasure wins.

It's a nice feeling to turn a dream into reality.  Sometimes little people have seriously big ideas and it's not always possible to encourage them - flying robots, time machines and my favourite from Bella's idea book - a toaster with wings!  But today's dream was doable and very exciting.

Hooray!

Building a castle

This is a castle that James made for a recent school project.  It took him 3 nights to complete using a slab of foam, paint and a whole heap of tools that he uses to make his models with.

I seriously couldn't have put something like this together when I was in year 9.  Actually my family tease me that I couldn't do it now either and it's so true - I can sew, scrapbook, crochet, bake and craft a variety of things but drawing and 3D models have never been my strong points. I can't even put a Lego set together at home - I'm always in charge of finding the Lego pieces for everybody else.

Anyhow, back to the castle! See the grass above? James created a big batch of that a couple of months using saw dust, paint and a sifter.  I love that he has the patience to do such things, because I personally would have taken the easy route and bought some pre-packaged grass.

I love seeing how his creating has evolved over the years - from cardboard models with sticky tape and paint to detailed creations with amazing components and well thought out designs. 

 

 

Mini me

One of Bella's sweet little blogging friends is doing a 'mini me' project on her blog each week.  'Mini me' entails taking a photo of yourself from the week and turning it into a painting.  Zali is then turning her paintings into a 'mini me' book, you can read more about it HERE.

Bella decided to join Zali in her new project and has so far created two mini Bella's for her own book.  We discovered that our Instax camera is perfect for snapping a photo instantaneously to paint when the mood strikes.

{Waiting patiently for the photo to develop}

It's a lovely concept and one that I think will be delightful to look back on in years to come.

We keep all of our paint supplies in a big basket, so they're nice and accessible for such projects.  I'm thinking of making a special fabric cover to hold the journal, but that will have to be a few weeks down the track because my *to do* list is slightly out of control at the moment!

I'll see you tomorrow for a special give away. It's a slightly different concept to all of my other give aways, but one that I hope some of you might like to take part in.  See you then. xox

Birthday crown

We had another felting session today - felted soaps, more needle felting (out of the new book) and then finished off the afternoon by making a birthday crown for one of Bella's Blythe dolls.  Alice is turning one this week and we're planning a little celebration for her birthday.  Just a low key affair - cupcakes, Blythe dolls dressing up in party dresses, handmade gifts and of course, a new birthday crown.

Bella drafted the pattern and then set to work with the design.  She felted the spots and bird onto the front, which was really easy and fast - much quicker than stitching.

Here's Bessie modelling the crown - incase you're wondering, it's a surprise for Alice, so she isn't allowed to see just yet.

How was your weekend? Ours went way too fast and the weather has been really cold here lately, more like winter than autumn.  I'm guessing if the cold keeps up, we're going to need a whole wad of craft activities to see us through the next 20 weekends.  Sigh.  I'm positive we didn't even have a summer this year!

Rainy day activity - puff paint

I thought I'd revisit one of my most popular kids crafting activities today - microwavable puff paint.  I can't count how many emails I've received about this recipe over the last few years, so I thought it might be something fun to share, that my new readers might not have come across before.

It's super duper easy, fast, economical and so, so fun!  Great for those boring rainy days.

These images are from my original post HERE.  How tiny is James in this photo?! Eek.

Here are the instructions:

Combine the following in a little bowl:

1 tablespoon self-raising flour

a few little drops of food colouring

1 tablespoon salt

Then add some water to make a nice smooth paste.

Paint away on a nice thick sheet of cardboard (if you don't have enough paint brushes use cotton buds - they work really well).

Microwave the design on high for 10 - 30 seconds until the paint puffs and it's all nice and dry.  We did ours for 30 seconds.

  

That's it! Enjoy xoxo

The boat that Bella built

A couple of weeks ago Bella had an idea to build a little wooden sailing boat for herself.  She talked to her Dad about her plans and pretty much within the hour, they were both out in the shed building the boat.

It only took a couple of nights, a whole lot of glue (oh, and scrap wood) and then the boat was pretty much done.  Bella used my sewing machine to make herself a flag, because all good boats need a sailing flag!

Then, we had a sail off in the bathroom sink.  There were tiny animals gathering aboard and the little boat seemed quite happy to just float on the water, even though there were a few gaps in the wood.

Sometimes it's tricky to turn 'little people' ideas into reality, but this one was worth it.  One sailing boat = one happy girl.

The busy box

There's a big box that lives under Bella's bed and it's pretty much filled with all kinds of junk treasures.  Little boxes, empty spools, cotton balls, empty stick tape rolls and pretty much anything small that will fit in the box.  After discovering the box was completely overflowing one day, I had to make a new rule - that whatever can't fit in there, has to go!  So far, the new system is working well.

There have been all sorts of creations made out of that box over the years - houses, tiny beds, Mother's day gifts, dolls and a million other things.  I think we may have gone through at least 1000 rolls of sticky tape too.

The latest creation is this guinea pig house, complete with furniture and a secret hide at the bottom.

Do your children have a busy box?  I'd love to know what treasures they make from it.

xox

Filling in our days

Our school holidays are fast coming to an end I'm afraid, so we've (the girls) been trying to squeeze in as much crafting as possible here.  There's also been lots of the boring stuff too - work, groceries, housework, bedroom tidying, more work, etc..  Wouldn't it be wonderful to have a clone to do all these mundane tasks for you?!

So, here's a little of what we've been up to during the last week:

Bella has been designing and making her own Blythe doll clothes.

Cutting out a lovely softie kit, ready to be sewn.

Starting work on a couple of small lap quilts. I'm making them up for Auntie gifts, ready for next Christmas.

Making Sculpey Blythe food.

Beginning a new tapestry. I found the design at my local art store and couldn't resist, the modern birdie design was just too tempting to leave on the shelf.  I've stitched a little bit so far, but popping it away until the autumn months now - I want/need to finish our crochet blankets first!

Bella learnt to crochet a granny square. This one is for her Blythe dolly.

Crocheting - only 2 double bands of colour to go and then the edging....hooray!

Oh and our sweet boy (he really is sweet, I don't just type that for the fun of it) is back to school tomorrow. We had a very teary girl here this afternoon, feeling really sad that her brother won't be here to play with her this week.  I think some chocolate brownie slice might be in order for his afternoon tea snack tomorrow.  It's his 3rd year of high school - eek.

Wishing you all a wonderful week. I'll be back tomorrow to close off my giveaway.  There's still time to enter, go HERE if you'd like to win some lovely pens.

Mel xx