a week of OLYMPICS fun coming at you :)

its time to get busy and get ready for the olympics!

back to posting each day this week as the OLYMPICS are coming up faster than i can keep up with.  so to catch up i am going to be organising all our olympics schooling, crafting, and family activities here on my blog to give you guys some inspiration and motivation to get preparing!

i love sport, but more than that, i LOVE fun.  i will use any excuse to make the everyday a party and the olympics is the perfect opportunity to get the family involved in celebrating .. as some of you who follow along (seriously, thank you so much!) will know, each major sporting event i give every member of the family a country to follow.  for the summer olympics 2012 the family have been given the following countries:

• we will all be supporting New Zealand ... it's compulsory, otherwise you can't be part of the family ... harsh but those are the rules
• Steve has been given Belgium as his second country
• Benjamin has been given USA as his second country
• Pollyanna has Australia as her second team to support
• I have Switzerland ... bring on the fondue ;)

the peeps have been given countries that both send a lot of athletes, so there will be plenty of individuals to cheer on regardless of event. as for Switzerland and Belgium they were pulled from the hat and are two countries we haven't supported in the past, so its a good opportunity to learn about their cultures.

each person gets a goodies bag just before the opening ceremony with information on their country competing, the flag, some country info, recipes from the country, some of the country's foods to sample, and a bunch of other goodies about the sporting event and the host country.  this makes us completely involved in the event, encourages the peeps (and us adults) to appreciate the diversity of the world we live in, and makes for a really fun time.  i will show you the kits i am putting together later in the week.

during the coming week we will be doing some olympic style decorating, home learning ideas, country kits, and lots of other bits and pieces in order to be ready for the olympics to begin.  there is heaps of inspiration on pinterest, tons of inspiration boards, and of course my own olympics board where i have been gathering plenty of inspirational ideas!  join in the fun and make the olympics something you and your family will remember for years to come!

people have the best ideas

this is where you will easily find them!

just found this on pinterest and what a great idea it is ... this is like a linky party for homeschoolers. however, instead of linking up your blog you link up your pinterest page so homeschoolers can find each others pinterest pages and follow along.

i have just spent an hour checking out some of the lovely homeschoolers and their amazing boards ... so many ideas, so much pinning of wonderful learning inspiration i can't wait for our winter holidays to be over!  

love this ... back on the creating horse again :)

i have missed not doing something every day ... sigh

fourth of july ... new zealand style

happy fourth of july :)  i used the hot milk cake recipe from here :)

it's the winter school holidays here at the moment and the days have been stunning.  bright blue skies, warm(ish) sun, and lots of happy peeps wondering around the place ... almost like summer, almost ;)  the peeps and i have been studying countries in preparation for the olympics, which being a sports mad family, we LOVE.  as a small country, we send a good number of athletes and a few even have the prospect of winning a medal.   however, we have nowhere near as many as other countries and not in the diversity of sports as in other countries.  


to make up for our lack of numbers for all major sporting occasions i give everyone in the family a 'second' country to support. everyone gets a goodies bag with their country's map, team info, flag to colour, other printables relevant to the country, foods from the country, and some recipes they have to cook during the event for the family.  it's a great way for the peeps to learn about a different culture and all that a country has to offer!  as with all hands on learning, it seems to stick more ... during the last summer olympics polly was three years old and had jamaica as her second team.  she doesn't remember the names of the athletes but she does remember they had really fast runners and what their flag looks like! 


anyway to cut a really long story, slightly shorter, ben's 'second' team for the olympics is USA!  he is delighted and i decided the best time for him to cook his american meal was not during the olympics but on the 4th of July.  because i like to make things more work than they need to be i also decided we would have a fourth of july crafting day, have hotdogs for lunch, and then finish off the day with an all american burgers feast and fireworks ... why go small when you can go bigger!

we did a LOT of crafting!

all the peeps made these canvases, first painting the strips on and then making the paper 3D star to attach on top ... instructions for the star are available here from happy life, crafty wife :) and the inspiration for this craft came from here at bee in our bonnet

the peeps also made firecrackers with pringles cans ... such a cool idea and a great take home gift given all the containers were full of pringles! printables for this craft came from here and they were all FREE :)

some of the happy crafters, the boys weren't into making flax flowers!

... but they all came back when we started to put this stuff on the table!

dinner, with the make your own burger bar, curly fries, potatoe salad and plenty of red, white, and blue ... 

this guy had the biggest burger i have ever seen!

this was it ... honestly, what was he thinking!

then we headed outside for some fireworks and a warm up around the brazier :)

ben and the fireworks ... that boy and fire, it's a worry ;)

we had a great day and night!

we had a great day, awesome friends, fantastic family, brilliant food, happy peeps, and pretty fireworks, not to mention bags of crafting ... definitely a great way to celebrate america's independence, kiwi style (we had beetroot in our burgers ;))  and where did all this inspiration come from?  PINTEREST of course, and you can find it all on my fourth of july board!

a crazy week

a crazy, crazy week of learning, catching up with family, saying goodbye to family, and way too many people coming to look at our house ... meant i didn't complete my chair!  sad but true and i got SO stressed about it, i promised steve i wouldn't put any time limits on my pinterest creations for this year ... and this sits surprisingly well with me.  i will still be here, making, baking, and creating but life gets in the way of putting a time frame on these projects, especially as i am testing my personal creating boundaries with the things i have planned to make!  it will still be 52 weeks of meatier projects but not necessarily one finished every week.

i hope you will stick with me as i continue to enjoy all pinterest has to offer in terms of amazing projects to get you teeth stuck into, but this year i need a little more flexibility with regards to time. i hope you will stay tuned and learn along with me as i continue to turn pinterest inspiration into real life projects.

week one: cape cod chair

week one's project will be to make one of these from free pallets ... just as this one was :)

i've picked an easy but a scary first project for year two of turning pinterest creations into my reality ...  so why is the first one easy? well it so happens the inspiration was first pinned to my outdoor boards and it was from a really local creator, my sweet husband.  a few weeks ago he made this cape cod chair out of FREE pallets ... yes, this cape cod chair cost the price of its nails or screws or whatever was used to put it together.  can you guess the scary part?  yeah, i'm not a builder or even handy with a power tool.  i can tell a screw and a nail apart but that's about as far as it goes!

ok, so the project is chosen and i have the week to complete it starting today (monday NZT time) and will have the finished project ready for you to view sunday NZT time.  so over the next couple of days i will show you some progress reports (i hope or the injuries!) and how my first foray into building develops ... i am just hoping my husband will stay patient with me for the entire week of building we do together ... wish me luck!

the plan for the next 52 weeks

has anyone seen these three, i have a new plan to tell them about .... anywhere? ... i'll let them bring back the eggs?

i absolutely loved doing pinterest 365 but needed this last week off to reinvigorate and have a wee break!  having said that, i was also very aware that once 365 days were over i wanted to carry on doing something and set new goals for the coming year.  pinterest has given me that little something i have been looking for ... motivation ... to get up and do rather than just admire from afar others ability to create.

without getting too personal, i have always had grand ideas but never figured i was good enough to carry them out ... apparently flooding therapy works because not only did i decide that finished was better than perfect i also shared my imperfect creating rather publicly on my blog ;)

the only downside in doing a creation a day inspired from pinterest was the lack of time to do any BIG projects ... you know, the ones that take more than a day for mere mortals to finish.  so a couple of months ago i formulated a plan for once pinterest 365 was complete.  this new plan involved weeks, thus giving me the time to do larger projects ... my sweet husband hid at this point when i began telling him of my new plan ... i have yet to find him.

so for the coming 52 weeks i plan to take on one BIG pinterest inspired project a week ... and by big i mean anything that will take me more than a day to finish.  no i will not be building a house, boat, summer collection, shed, studio, or any combination of the above!  i will be posting throughout the week about the project's progress and showing the finished project on sundays (NZT).  and because i LOVE pinterest recipes, saturday will become pinterest baking day, where i'll be trying a new to me recipe each week that i have pinned and just NEED to try :)

so that's the plan for the coming year, project one will start on the 25th of june so it gives me this week to have some fun relaxing before i take on a new year of creating!