day four: five petal fabric flowers

my version of fabric flowers from circles!

day four and we are set to make fabric flowers from circles.  the inspiration comes from my gift wrapping and gift ideas board on pinterest from bete bazzi's flickr photos. the photo does a fantastic job of showing how to create these little gems.

material and fiskars circle template

while the kids were having their morning tea, and as their maths was all sorted for after morning tea, i though i'd make good use of my time and cut out some circles for the flowers. i used my fiskars circle template to trace some circles onto the material. well ... i cut out my five circles, folded them, and put a gathering stitch through them, 12 minutes later and i had the most beautiful flower!  i still had time before i started the kids off with their maths, so i used a different size to make another one, and 10 minutes later i had another little gem!

the assortment of flower centres i found

ok, then i had to take a break and give my kids some mathematical teaching!  lunch came and instead of eating, i made flowers of all different sizes, found some great centres for the flowers from my scrapbooking stash, and also started layering different sized flowers together with hot glue to make bulkier ones. if you don't have a fiskars circle template, fear not, just use a glass or a jar and trace round that :)

it should be noted my muscles were not big enough or the fabric i used was too thick to have no gap in the middle, so thats why i have used centres on all my flowers, but actually i really like the look of them. i originally thought these would be fantastic for attaching to gifts, but the options for these flowers are endless!

i couldn't help it, i had to put one on a gift!

what you need to know:

• i doubled my cotton for the gathering stitch so i could pull it harder and not risk breaking the thread, 
• all the centre's were hot glued on including the brads, a great place to this type of craft supplies is scrapbook.com
• all were sewn with white thread, after the first one i realised you couldn't see the cotton at all so there was no need to change thread to match the fabric
• i plan to use some of these flowers on pollyanna's plain t'shirts, for those ones i will use embroidery thread for the gathering stitch and use sewn in buttons for the flower centres so the flowers don't fall apart in the wash!

outcome: its like heaven for crafty people and you don't even need skills or machinery. the options for these little beauties are endless, bunched together on top of a present, layered for cards, hot glued to headbands, scrapbook layouts, clothing accents, all of the above and more :) the are easy, quick, timeless, and versatile ... seriously, i could not want anything more!

thank you bete bazzi's for a great visual explanation of these fabulous little flowers, it was awesome and so are they!

day three: mixed mushroom spaghetti

mushroom spaghetti pasta with penne pasta instead!

day three (sunday, 12 june) and the inspiration for my own mushroom pasta dish comes from the family feedbag blog and was repinned from the pinterest gallery onto my recipe must dos boards.

the yummy mushrooms, cut and ready to go

it is sunday night here, and while i had planned to make this recipe most of the day as my p365, i was missing a few of the ingredients, but not the most important one .... the mushrooms (thanks to my darling mum).  you see i had already been to the grocery store yesterday and spent way too much money on food, and then, late last night was informed by my sweet husband we were out of milk and dish wash :( so down to the grocery store i went, yet again, to stock up on milk and dish wash ... i went very early this morning so we could make our morning coffees.

two things you should know about me are: i don't do well in the mornings and i also require coffee to function at an adequate level.  so being at the store that early and without coffee, i didn't even think to make sure i had all the ingredients for today's mushroom spaghetti quest.  the thought of going back for groceries for a third time this weekend did not amuse me, so i made do :)

the altered ingredient list

so you will note when you see amy b's beautiful recipe, it didn't have ham, spinach, parsley, or feta dip in it. and it was made with spaghetti pasta not penne rigate! this is what we had on hand instead of the cream, the spaghetti, and the tarragon. as for the spinach, well that was my contribution to getting my children's daily dose of green vegies into them :)

outcome: so, so delicious, and really easy. i usually stick to one pot wonders (this used two), so i really branched out of my comfort zone with this recipe!  it was totally worth it, an awesome recipe

thanks to the wonderful kitchen of amy b at family feedbag my family totally enjoyed their dinner, from me to you i thank you for sharing your obvious talents in the kitchen :)


just as a side note: we are all caught up now with the first three days of my p365 venture and unlike the first three posts that were all made today, subsequent posts with now be made daily with that days attempts to make, bake, or create something i have pinned onto my pinterest boards ... kia kaha

day two: sprocket pillows

my finished version of the sprocket pillow

day two and its sprocket pillows from the cluck cluck sew that i repinned from the pinterest gallery onto my general crafts board.  these just looked so cute and my daughter (pollyanna) surely needed a pretty throw pillow for her bedroom ;)

lucky for me when i purchased pollyanna's bed linen a couple of years ago, the linen came in coordinated cloth bags and this is the material i used, along with some white quilting material i had purchased years ago for the future when i become a quilter ... do you follow!  yip the quest to become a quilt still burns brightly it just hasn't happened yet!

awesome pattern from allison harris at cluck cluck sew

the pattern is free from cluck cluck sew and so with great gusto i stepped forth into pillow making with my stanley knife (unfortunately i don't yet have the quintessential quilting tool, the rotary cutter), my mum's sewing maching (yip that babies got to be 30 plus years old), and my material, plus two 10c buttons.  this project did not break the bank!  as i was using only the best tools, i decided to make the large version!  lucky for me allison harris at cluck cluck sew, provides the most awesome and straight forward instructions and i even managed to get the front looking pretty darn good ... even if i do say so!

the front of the pillow complete!

outcome: awesome and pollyanna loves it.  huge thanks goes to allison harris from cluck cluck sew for her free and very easy to understand sprocket pillow pattern.  it was a joy to make and i am not the most confident or skilled sewer by any stretch of the imagination :)

thank you cluck cluck sew for your sprocket pillow post

day one: peanut butter brownies

my version of the peanut butter brownies

ok day one was this yummy peanut butter brownies from the blog sweet as sugar cookies and repinned from the gallery onto my recipe must dos board on pinterest.  the picture looked so yummy and brownies and peanut butter are two of my families favourite foods! given i will need loads of their support over the coming 365 days, i figured it was a good idea to get them on board now with some yummy food.

you can see by my brands no expense was spared ... not!

the recipe is super simple, it called for a brownie box mix but i used the usborne apple tree farm childrens cookbook brownie recipe instead.  its a super simple recipe with no expensive or out of the ordinary ingredients so it fitted the bill nicely today! the peanut addition you blob on top only requires eggs, sugar, flour, and of course peanut butter mixed together with a spoon ...

outcome:  these were super duper easy and REALLY yummy, i would happily give them as a food gift and at the same time they are a great recipe if the kids want to bake in the kitchen ... totally making these again :)

thank you sweet as sugar cookies for your peanut brownie recipe post

a new beginning to my good old blog

my first post with my blog reborn as my personal venture into pinterest 365 (p365).  this blog will document my quest to attempt one of the beautiful recipes, crafts, or diy projects found on pinterest each day for 365 days.

it was a cold winters day, a friday when it occurred to me i needed to make the most of all the amazing talent and creativity available on my new addiction, pinterest .... a challenge is what i needed to get motivated and turn the beautiful eye candy i was pinning into reality .. and that is where my personal quest has come from.  so on friday, june 10 i embarked on my year long journey.

three days in and all is going well :) however i also realised i needed a way of documenting my journey so as not to lose the motivation and that is where this blog comes in. this blog will be my diary of the journey and also provide me the accountability i will no doubt need during the year to keep going.  if you are going to, or have started a similar journey i would love to have your company and we can cheer each other on.  if you are here because you support me as a pinterest addict and want to see my attempt to create other peoples beautiful projects, thank you ...

so let the year long journey begin :)

FIRST WEEK BACK HAS BEEN GREAT

Our first week back at school has been great, totally happy with all the new resources I ordered ... maybe all the research and indecision about the best resource combination is paying off now!  At the time, I wondered how on earth I was going to make the right choices as educating your children seems to have so many options and which ones are the best when each one claims to be the best is distressing for someone who and actually has to make that choice and actually cares it works!  Anyway all the effort appears not to be in vain as the kids are totally loving the options I have taken in each subject area.  It will take time to get the sentence attitude right again ... only one sentence to answer a question is generally not enough Ben ... and so the struggle to get this boy and this girl writing again begins!  Its something that I look forward to, just like last years challenges were hard but joyful in solving so will this years as well because you know you are doing it for the good of your children's development.

One of the most fabulous things we have instigated this year is the "Six Kinds of the Best" achievements program purchased from Curriculum Concepts ... it has had an awesome effect this week, the kids have really strived to be their best as the rewards for doing it are instant plus have the added bonus of counting towards BIG rewards they both want!  Can't speak highly enough of the impact this is having on their attitude to their learning, themselves, helping, the environment, and their community .. just awesome. 

So I welcome the year full of hope and being well organised for the exciting year ahead.  Wishing all of you who home educate a wonderful, rewarding year with your children.

WE START SCHOOL TOMORROW AND I CAN'T WAIT!

So excited we start schooling again tomorrow and now that the classroom is completely set up and ready to go the nerves are waning and I can't wait to get stuck in.  We waited until the kids went to sleep and then set up the classroom so it will be a big surprise when they get up tomorrow morning.  We have added a couple of new things to the classroom and heaps of new ideas, tricks, treats, and programmes to this year's timetable ... the classroom looks awesome and its ready and waiting for two little willing learners!