day fourteen: miniature weaving for the kids

polly's miniature weave .. she is so proud of it!

day fourteen brings me to one of my favourite boards on pinterest, my home school projects board.  this is where i pin all those things i want to use and that have inspired me with regards to home schooling.  todays craft was teaching the kids how to weave and the pin came from the skip to my lou website, which i can highly recommend having a browse through!

putting the verticals in place

this is my pollyanna learning to weave, i used some cardboard squares that i cut notches in at both ends and we used a thick wool so we could have big bang for effort ... always a good idea when you are teaching little ones something new i find!  and as it was nice thick wool we also went without the needles on these initial weaves which worked really well, no pricked fingers here!

doing the weave!

she did a great job and was so proud of herself, it was really neat to see!

outcome: the kids loved the weaving so much they ended up making multiple squares, ben's are for blankets for his action men when they are out camping and polly is using all of hers in the barbie house ... no surprise there!  something the kids can now do on their own and they love and feel so proud of their new skill .... big thumbs up for weaving here :)

a great deal of thanks goes to the lovely skip to my lou blogger for the excellent tutorial on mini weaving and the cute things you can make with the end results, love the website and this craft :)

day thirteen: best chocolate chip cookies

nyt's best chocolate chip cookies

day thirteen leads us to the best chocolate chip cookies, well according to the new york times.  that sounded impressive to me so they were definitely worth baking.  the recipe is pinned onto my pinterest recipe must dos and is from the lovely blog of i am mommy.

the recipe makes a huge (fiftyish) amount of cookies, but you'll want that many!  the hardest part of this recipe is letting it rest in the fridge for a day.  i made the mix up yesterday and baked them tonight for dessert.


outcome: they are the best chocolate chip cookie i have ever made, so VERY VERY yummy!  family was devouring them in no time ... see i told you, you would need that many in a batch so the cookies can make it into a tin!

my entire family sends their sincere thanks to i am mommy for putting up this recipe, it is a new favourite in our house for sure!

photo fun challenge day eight: sunrise

man it was cold outside this morning!

day twelve: pillowcase dress

my finished pillowcase dress

day twelve and the home schoolers are learning and so am i ... up at 6am this morning, preparing for the pillowcase dress! this dress was pinned onto my general crafts board from the very cool little big girl studio blog.  some really sweet tutorials are available on this site and you will no doubt see more of her inspiration here as a try some of the other projects they offer tutorials on for my p365.  anyway, with pillowcase in hand, by breakfast i had cut the armholes, sewn in the elastic, and was halfway through pinning my first bias binding onto the armhole.

during morning tea i managed to sew one lot of bias binding on and pin up the other ready for lunchtime.  i am not known for my sewing and i have ... ummm ... limited history of bias binding sewing as the first time i used it i made a total mess of it.  any who, this dress called for it so i went with it, and, while its not perfect, it is acceptable!

so happy with the finished product!

outcome: this dress is really easy in that it takes very little sewing, most of it is in a straight line which is good and if you can sew with bias binding, you should fill your daughters wardrobe with these dresses ... if you can't sew with bias binding, practice, practice some more and THEN you will be able to fill your daughters wardrobe with these dresses as they are pretty, look so cute on, and are ideal for summer :)  still five months till summer here so there is hope i will conquer the bias binding by then and will be able to fill said wardrobe ... here's hoping ;)

my thanks goes to the lovely little big girl studio blog for the very simple, straight forward tutorial on pillowcase dresses, yours was, by far, the easiest to understand and once i get over my phobia of the bias stuff i will be making many more as they are cute and affordable, so i graciously thank you very much :)

photo fun challenge day seven: high angle

my peeps doing some work!

day eleven: barbie sleeping bags

sleeping bags for barbie, ken, and kellie!

day eleven has come with monday madness and a barbie and ken that are off tramping.  i hear you ask, why are barbie and ken off tramping in the middle of winter ... well ... their house is currently a little overcrowded and they need a break away ;)

two little visitors in the third storey bedroom

they do look comfy don't you think!

yes, we have two new kittens who have claimed a room in pollyanna's barbie house and, as such, bedrooms are at a premium!  i did suggest to my sweet daughter we could move the kittens out of barbies house, but she was adamant barbie and ken needed to go tramping for exercise.  however, there was only one problem, being a tramper herself, pollyanna was most concerned they didn't have packs or sleeping bags .... and now you see why day eleven's p365 pinterest challenge are barbie sleeping bags!

okay, after doing a search on sleeping bags for these dolls, i found a great site called mama smiles and pinned these very cute sleeping bags to my general crafts board on pinterest.  we used the barbie and ken dolls to measure the length and width of the bags and found you can make two "adult" sleeping bags and two "child" sleeping bags out  of a fat of quilting material. ... mine are not fleece lined because in new zealand we only tramp in warm weather conditions and i have no side opening for mine because that all seemed a little unnecessary to put my sewing ability through! i did add some american crafts camping ribbon across the top for whimsy, a button and a ribbon loop so they could be rolled up for carrying (very important when you need to take them tramping!) and they were good to go!

a well sorted family ready to tramp :)

... well after i cut up two unused rain ponchos and made ken and barbies some tramping packs!

outcome: if your barbie, ken, and kellie dolls need sleeping bags, i can happily recommend the above pattern, it is low fuss, EASY sewing, in fact, the hardest part will be sewing the button on ... and really, you only need to do the button thing if your barbie family are travellers :)

my sincere thanks goes to mama smiles who, thankfully, had to make barbie sleeping bags before i did and, as such, provided a great template for those of us who have since had to follow down the path of providing our children with pint sized sleeping bags for their barbies

photo fun challenge day six: books

what is currently sitting next to me bed to read :)

day ten: lemon crinkle cookies and pizza muffins

lemon crinkle cookies

day ten and it's a cold wintery one but the show must go on ... and for me that means not only my pinterest 365 challenge but also our family volunteering at the howick historic village on their monthly live day.  in honour of that, it was time for some picnic baking for our 1850's picnic lunch at the village so before we went i made pizza muffins from lick the bowl good blog and lemon crinkle cookies from the lds living website. both were pinned from the pinterest gallery to my recipe must do's board.

pizza muffins

the only change to the recipe i made was replacing the pepperoni with ham as that's what i had on hand. the pizza muffins were supposed to be baked in a mini muffin tin, but as i could not find it, i made them in my standard size muffin tin and the recipe made 12 medium size ones which were awesome ... they were just the right savoury picnic food, lots of flavour and were absolutely fine cold.

the lemon crinkle cookies were also devoured by my peeps and husband who thought they were outstanding.  i made them exactly to the recipe provided here, the only except was after seeing the first batch bake, i squished the balls down on the tray a bit and they spread further and were less thick, which worked well.

at the end of a long day, but still smiling!

outcome: these recipes were extremely easy to make, took little time, were both awesome picnic foods, and they have been placed firmly in my recipe scrapbook :)

many thanks to both these lovely websites, lick the bowl good and , who provided me with two knew recipes to fill the tummies of my family and wow them at the same time!

30 day photo fun day four and day five: clouds and breakfast (respectively)

almost forgot to take the photo of some clouds today, this
is the sky at 10 last night, it was wet and windy but you
can see that, right?   :)

while i was busy organising the picnic food, my darling
husband cooked up a hot breakfast for us on this cold
day before heading out to the historic village

day nine: sweet carrots for easter

my little bunch of carrots!

day nine has arrived and amidst the cleaning, rearranging, and baking there was also time to create.  truth be known i was really looking forward to todays project which is from the awesome blog of clares's craftroom.  thanks clare for your generous email allowing me to use your project for my p365 one!  the carrots project was repinned from the gallery at pinterest onto my holiday goodness board.

great for easter and autumn!

these were a delight to make! they are sweet little carrots and i see more in my future!  i only used what marterials i had on hand, next time i want to try a brighter orange and a more limer green (like clare's) as they were awesome.

outcome: totally making these again, i will have them around the house for all of autumn/easter time.  they were a joy and not to onerous for someone who spent a lot of her saturday cleaning!

a massive thanks goes out to the very talented clare at clares's craftroom. she has a wonderful blog i suggest you visit and an ebay store with plenty of doable goodies.

day eight: the eat sheet outcome

the boy in the middle of his shopping

outcome: these were fantastic, they worked a treat, and the kids totally loved having their own list to be responsible for ... the actual users (the peeps) couldn't have been more happy with them according to the survey i took once the shopping was complete!

the girl working through her list

the hands of the shoppers

photo fun challenge day three: hands
ben, polly, and i are all in this photo, which couldn't be more apt for today, they were HUGE helping hands with all the errands and shopping we had to get through today ... thank you peeps :)