Mothers Day Bouquet's

My children are blessed to have both their grannies living close by and part of their lives... 

This was a fun easy craft that they did for their grannies for Mothers Day this year

 

  ...there is a lovely tutorial here...

we did ours a little differently and used some printed scrapbook paper to...

We also glued the stems down, and gave our vases a little bit of shape...

lots of bright fun and loved by their grannies...

   

Happy Mothers Day!

He is Risen!!

 Some fun we had as a family to mark the occasion of The Resurrection of our Lord...

"He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. "

Matthew 28 verse 6

We made a ressurection garden...

(a month later it is still looking lovely and a constant reminder that HE LIVES)

We used:

 base from a large pot plant

a small terracotta pot (tomb)

bark chips

soil

stones

little pieces of wood tied together with string to make the crosses

a tray of seedlings from the nursery

Then we made a whole bunch of stained glass sun catchers, for our windows and for the windows of our loved ones...

We used:

Black cardboard

Tissues paper - various colours

Contact (sticky plastic!)

I cut out the shape of the design in the black cardboard...then placed it down onto the contact...my knight and his cute sister then stuck the little squares of tissue paper all over to cover.

I then stuck another piece of contact over that to seal the whole sun catcher...

A fun craft and very eye catching window display ;-)

 

... and last but not least....

He is Risen cupcakes...

We used:

this cake recipe

this icing

chocolate coated pretzels

chocolate buttons (the stone that was rolled away!)

cherries (symbolizing His blood shed)

melted chocolate to hold crosses together

The crosses were made by my very versatile and creative other half...

My knight decorated the cupcakes.

They were enjoyed with family after a Ressurection Sunday lunch...

  

"And Jesus Christ our Lord was shown to be the Son of God when God powerfully raised him from the dead by means of the Holy Spirit. Through Christ, God has given us the privilege and authority to tell Gentiles everywhere what God has done for them, so that they will believe and obey him, bringing glory to his name." 

Romans 1:4-5

Homemade Ink

I saw this awhile ago on Pinterest, and stored in it the back of my mind...

forgot to pin it (!!)...

Anyway it is a great way to make a lovely ink for art works...

instead of just throwing the old khokis away...

Every few months we go through all the khokis and test them...

its not fun creating with half dry khokis...

We grouped the colours together and then tied an elastic band around them, put them in a clean glass jar with some water...

leave over night or longer...

The colours do intensify the longer they are in the water...
we did red and green first...you can see in the photo above ;-)

Yesterday my knight created a batik, using a candle and these inks...we are learning about crafts around the world...and yes...those are swords!! 

Mom added the soft touches of a flower and heart!

..a quick fun craft...

Still need to come up with an idea of what to do with all the khokis lids....

ooooh love I colour...

Any ideas?...

Simple wrapping paper - handprints again...

 I posted a week or so ago about hand made wrapping paper for Grandpa's birthday...well now it was Grannies turn for a birthday...yip a busy time of the year...

 

So orange and of course pink were chosen for this handmade wrapping paper...

We used newsprint and acrylic paint...

yellow + red = orange

red + white = pink

cute sister

my knight

 The end product...with my knights bright artwork on the hand made card for Granny...a bunch of home grown herbs and flowers were added at the end but I never snapped a pic of that...

May 2013 be a blessed year for you Mom and Granny - we love you lots!

So its Christmas 2012...

 We always like to make our Christmas wrappings, cards and tags...

So this year we stamped, stamped and stamped some more...

Christmas wrappings

Christmas gift tags

More Christmas Wrappings

Our Christmas Card

"For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace."

Isaiah 6 verse 9

Our South African Christmas tree

Wishing you all a beautiful Christmas and Holiday season. 

Thank you Jesus for the greatest gift you have given us...

Shells

Simple Wrapping Paper - hand prints

 We love to make our own wrapping papers for birthdays and special occasions...

Well it was my dads birthday and we decided to make hand print paper...what fun...

My knight chose red and his cute sister chose blue...

Needless to say Grandpa loved his handmade paper...

We used a big sheet of newsprint and blue and red acrylic paint. 

Just brush a little paint onto their hands using a paint brush and let them stamp...

My knight

Cute Little sister

 A simple and memorable craft...

Its been a little quiet here...been busy busy busy...

Awhile ago I posted on chocolate biscuits that we had baked as gifts...

Although we homeschool there are many lovely people who pour into my childrens lives...gymnastic coaches, sport coaches, music teachers, woodwork teachers...

well we are Thankful for them and like to bless them with a little gift at year end...

These are our cards, we all have a hand in them...baby Jesus is done with finger prints, then my knight drew in the manger and straw...cute little sister loves to punch the stars...

and mom puts it all together...

Advent 2012

 We made an advent calendar this year... 

an exciting time as we count down the days to the celebration of our Saviours birth...

(mom had to do quite a bit as my knight fractured his collar bone last week!) 
Each little character is a toilet roll inner, and inside is a little suprise for my knight and his cute sister...bath beans, bath fizzies and choccies...

"For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. " 

Isaiah 9 verse 6

"And being found in appearance as a man,
    he humbled himself
    by becoming obedient to death—
        even death on a cross!

 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
    and gave him the name that is above every name,
 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
    in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
 and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
    to the glory of God the Father."

Philippians 2 verses 8 - 11

AMEN

Thanksgiving fun

  We were invited to share a Thanksgiving dinner with two special families this year...

as South Africans, we have never celebrated Thanksgiving...

so this was a wonderful new experience for us...

We decided to make a Thanksgiving tree in the week, my knight came up with the idea of collecting dried branches and cutting out colourful leaves to hang on our tree...

We then wrote on each leaf what we are Thankful for...

a very special time of reflection, 

a time to count our blessings and be...

 THANKFUL...

My knight started with a white and silver star, that he wanted to put on the top...

we are Thankful to God and knowing Him, for His love for us...

then it was grannies, grandpas, cousins, aunties, uncles, friends, food, butterflies, our home, siblings, parents, fun, sport, beaches, sun, mountains, animals, lego, sweets...

the lists went on and on...

Here is a picture of our tree...

Then for our dinner, I was asked to bring some sides to go along with the roasted turkey...

so I had to do some research...

These are two dishes that caught our fancy and we tried...

Both very delicious I might add...

(Be warned though, they are sweet!!!)

Sweet Potato Au Gratin

5 large Sweet potatoes

5 red Apples

1/2 - 1 tsp Cinnamon

1/2 tsp Nutmeg

3/4 cup Bread crumbs

Butter

Olive oil

Brown sugar

salt

black pepper 

Peel and slice the potatoes. Place in a large bowl. Peel the apples and chop into pieces - place in bowl with the potatoes.

Melt about 3 - 4 Tbsp of butter, add 3 Tbsp brown sugar, salt and pepper...Pour over the apples and potatoes and toss well, so coated. Place in an oven dish and bake (180 degrees Celsius) until cooked and tender, turning a couple of times.

Combine breadcrumbs, nutmeg and Cinnamon and sprinkle over top...Sprinkle 2  - 3 tsp brown sugar over as well...drizzle with olive oil and bake again until crisp and browned.

Caramelized onions, green beans and flaked almonds

500gr fine green beans

2 large onions

50g (or more) flaked almonds

brown sugar

butter

salt and pepper to taste

Chop onions finely, place in pan with a blob of butter and brown sugar...fry until golden brown and starting to get sticky. Take out of pan but leave any juices behind, add another blob of butter, turn heat down and put half the beans in, let them simmer until they start to soften and turn bright green - don't overcook, it is nice when they are still crunchy.

Take out and cook the other half.

Once done place all ingredients into a large bowl and toss well...

Place on a platter or serving dish.

(Both these recipes I changed a little because of ingredients not readily available here...

we will definitely be making both of these again!)

Then one last thing...

I packaged some of those delicious chocolate biscuits as gifts for these two special families.

The turkey bottle top idea I got from here...

Thank you family G and family D for the friendship and the wonderful evening...

Colourful Friday - Tie dyeing

 As I have mentioned before, I home school my children, and on Fridays we have a couple of families that get together and have some fun...

We do all sorts...afrikaans,recorder,rhymes,poems,stories,lapbooks, games,circle time, lunch and hand crafts...

This is the beauty of home schooling, we can share and support one another...

and our children are building beautiful friendships...as are us moms...

Well my part on the Fridays is the hand crafts...fun fun fun...

This week we tried our hand at tie dyeing...

...Take a look...

 Each child came armed with a fresh white T-shirt...

We used:

Lady Dyes

colours - daffodil, atlantic blue, magenta and protea red

Salt

Warm water

elastic bands

marbles

The items to be dyed must be pre-washed and wet before dyeing.

Make up the dye as per instructions.

We doubled the amount of salt  - (they say by doing this, the colours will be intensified)

We split the four colours into 8 dyes baths 

Each child took their T-shirt and twisted it, tied it and knotted it with elastic bands

If you tie a marble into the fabric, you get very cool 'dots' once dyed...

Take a look here, there are some lovely tie dye ideas...

Each child decided on a colour scheme for their T-shirt, some only wanted one colour, 
others more..

And into the dye they went, they sat and stirred them around for about 10 minutes, then we added the fixative to the dyes (as per instructions)

Then they have to sit in the bath for 45 minutes...so we had a break for some of this...

  Tie dye cake...

this is the basic vanilla cake recipe, divided into 5 bowls, dash of food colourings added, we used red, blue, yellow and made purple and green.

Then we iced it with a plain butter icing and my knight and his cute sister had fun decorating it...

This was a treat from our family to these special friends of ours...  

 

Back to the dyeing...

we then removed the T-shirts from the dye and removed  the elastics and marbles...

then rinse, rinse, rinse and rinse some more...

Those that wanted another colour then tied and twisted their shirts up again and back into a new colour dye bath... 

Take a look at our beautiful hand made original T-shirts... 

we will definitely be doing this again...

Pavement chalk

 My knight loves experiments and anything to do with creating...

so we gave pavement chalk a try...

What fun...

...but be warned!...

it was messy!

You need:

500gr plaster of Paris

Powder paint or ready mixed Liquid tempera paint

ice block trays as moulds 

(any anything that can be used as moulds)

warm water.

I am not one for measuring (as you often see from me recipes - ha!)...so we poured some plaster of Paris into my knights container and some into his cute sisters container. We then added blue powder paint to his and red to hers, some warm water and they mixed away...

Once it was of 'icing' type consistency, we put in into moulds.

I don't think it is critical how much water you use, the sloppier the mixture, the easier it it is to put into moulds.

Then we added some yellow to what was left in both containers to make orange and green...

mixed away and moulded...

...left in sun to dry out

...so easy and depending on the amount of paint you use, you can get really nice bright colours..

Give it a try, it is worth it..

Our basket of chalk now stays outside and we use it for spelling/ writing practice and just for

FUN!!!

Oil sun catchers

This is such a fun and easy craft to do, especially now in our lovely sunny weather...

 

What you will need:

Different colour card stock

Ear buds

Baby oil

string or ribbon

Cut out some circles in different colour card stock about the size of a side plate, 

(it must be thicker than paper.)

Pour a little baby oil into a container, and start drawing with the ear buds.

The oil spreads as it is absorbed into the card, so dont put to much on...

Also... detailed drawings dont work too well, this craft is about patterns...

Once dry, punch a hole in the top and thread some ribbon or string through...

hang in a spot where they will catch the suns rays...

(Warning this is lots of fun, so be prepared to cut out a number of circles!)

Play dough with glitter

A wonderful cooked play dough that lasts for months on end out of the fridge.

My little girl is a lover of sparkly things so we decided to add some glitter to this dough for some sparkling fun...

You will need:

2 cups Flour

2 cups water

1 cup of salt

4 Tbl spoons oil

1 Tbl spoon cream of tartar

food colouring of your choice

essential oil of your choice (optional)

Glitter - we used silver and gold

Mix everything except the essential oil and glitter in a large pot.

Stir continuously until it leaves the sides and forms a dough.

Dont overcook as the dough will become dry and hard.

  Remove from pot and knead - at this point you can add some drops of oil, if using,  

and glitter - as much as you like...

Knead a little more.

 

 

Allow to cool and play away..

Have fun!