Saturday 5 November 2011

Sometimes I Feel a Bit Like The Pied Piper....

I've had a tiring couple of days, little ones were not playing ball this week. In fairness my youngest has a cold and isn't being her normally compliant self and my eldest is, well, being her usual lovely but non-compliant self. On the way home from the school run yesterday when I was feeling particularly exhausted, the kids were dawdling and every now and then I glanced back to make sure they were still following me, whilst I, packhorse mum, carried all their belongings on my person back to base camp. I truly felt like the pied piper....

...and so, this leads nicely to my entry for 'Big Wall Scene Makeover'. I'd already decided I was going to enter something into this fab competition but couldn't decide what to use. I started looking through my old photos and came across this. I drew it many years ago, inspired by a wonderful fairy tale book I had as a child. I loved the illustrations in this book so much I decided to do my own take on one of The Pied Piper. Sadly the picture was destroyed in a leak we had at our old house so this photo is all I have left of it. Coincidentally, my Mum's been clearing out her loft recently and she gave me a box of books, guess what was in it?

I'm Taking Part in the Kodak Big App Challenge

Thursday 3 November 2011

Wine-making and Children...Two Things You Dont Often Hear In The Same Sentence!

Whilst I wouldn't really consider this a craft activity it fits within my basic remit of 'fun, free,educational and useful'. I don't normally suggest the use of alcohol around children but this week I've made an exception. Together with the children's assistance, I've been making wine. My parents have a monstrous grapevine that used to give me strange body snatcher dreams in my younger years, but the grapes aren't that great for eating. My Dad suggested making some wine and in my current 'why not, I'll have a go at that' state of mind, I agreed. So, after school yesterday we went down to my Mum & Dads and the kids had a ball picking as many grapes as they could, 10kg in total. As this is my first attempt at making wine I bought a kit with all the necessary bits in to make life a little easier. After cleaning the grapes I then let my little darlings loose on the wonderful business of 'squishing'. Not wishing my finished product to taste like small children's feet I made sure their hands were VERY clean and gave them a lovely big bowl each with a suitable pile of grapes to mulch. I can honestly and quite sadly admit they haven't had this much fun in ages! What a delightfully disgusting experience it is to pop each little berry between your fingers - delicious! With all the grapes squished they were then added to a large vat containing a huge amount of sugar and a seemingly small quantity of water. Sachets of various things were added (don't ask me to get technical - there's plenty of sites for that!) and by teatime tonight it was frothing away quite nicely. Unfortunately I know I am now going to have the question every morning 'Mum, when's our wine going to be ready?'  Hmmmm, sorry kids.