Friday 26 June 2015

Lj's 5th birthday timeline


 June 2010

 June 2011

 June 2012

 June 2013

 June 2014

June 2015

Lj's 5th Birthday

 Lilyjean is 5. She waited for the day to come for months and months. For days beforehand she would wake each morning, race down the stairs, into the playroom, have a look at the calendar, tick another date off, count the remaining days til her birthday and then race back upstairs to tell us how many days til her birthday.

One morning I asked her why she was so excited about her birthday and she told me she couldn't wait to see her cake and eat it! Never once did she talk about what she would like for her birthday. Over and over we discussed, the cake, the craft, who was coming, what we would eat and what we would play.

Lying in bed the night before I chatted to her about turning 5 and her little lip began to wobble as she suddenly realised the reality of saying goodbye to age 4 and stepping into a new year, that of being 5.

Perhaps not as much as Lj but I too have spent many hours thinking and planning the birthday. It is a chance for me to try out lots of creative things.

 Her cake- Rainbow theme. I wanted to try making my own marshmallow fondant. It was a learning curve indeed and in the end a success however I learnt a few things for next time! The reason for trying marshmallow fondant was because I had read that it tasted better than shop bought fondant. Most people did seem to notice and enjoy it. Initially I thought I would colour the fondant with gels but as with liquid colouring it make the fondant too sticky and the colour was not strong enough. So I used skittles instead...this had its own problems as it is very hard to cut a cake with hard skittles on top!

 We made plaques with the children's initials on. Using colourful buttons and pva glue. Some of the children finished in 5 minutes and some of the others could have spent an hour, delicately placing the buttons.




 As MJ was off school sick for a couple of days this week, he was able to help me make some rainbow snacks. Rainbow fruit skewers, white chocolate slow cooker fudge with midget gems on top, rainbow sprinkle marshmallow and rainbow vegetables.

 We bought and made a few decorations...the rainbow streamers were very easy and effective! I cut out squares in card and sewed them using my sewing machine.

The happy party girl with her party dress on and a mouth full of cake!

Thursday 18 June 2015

This week!

I'm getting lost in my days...my parents were here for the weekend, then gone and coming back tomorrow. My head feels like it is all over the place but amidst the busyness we continue to create :)


We had a wet and cool Saturday morning so we stayed indoors and played with our Hama Beads. As June is a busy birthday month, we came up with some new card designs using our Hama creations.




It is Lj's birthday next week. Each morning she runs downstairs to look at the calendar and counts the days until her birthday...'6 days to go til my birthday' she shouted as she raced back upstairs. I asked her why she was so excited about her birthday and she told me it was because she couldn't wait to see and eat her cake...I was quite surprised with her response. Yesterday morning she designed her own cake and made some me step by step instructions. I just love her little diagram! (start at the bottom left!).

The architectural sketch commissions keep coming in and this week I got a lovely text message saying how special the sketch of the church was to the whole family.

Moses- Wednesday Club #22




After watching the start of the Moses story we tried weaving our own little baskets!

Architectural sketching #2


More gift comissions this week.


I felt completely out of my comfort zone while sketching the New York skyline!

Tuesday 2 June 2015

Architectural Sketching



With wedding season in full swing, I have a few architectural sketch comissions in progress. I really enjoy doing these and if I had one business bone in my body I would promote them more. M worked out that it would be great if I could do two a day to which I replied that I would feel like I was a factory line...his response 'You mean it would feel like working'!!! A gentle reminder that I am very blessed to be able to pursue my hobbies while being a 'stay at home mum'. Point noted :)