Collecting Leaves

The school has been off for the tattie holidays for the last couple of weeks. Last week Big A went on his ‘holidays’ to my parents, this week Mr A has been off work and we have done various activities with the children. But Wednesday was a perfect day.

It was so cold, about 4 or 5 deg C, but beautifully sunny and dry so was the perfect day for collecting leaves to use for crafts at a later date.  There isn’t much explanation needed, as the pictures say it all.

It started to get to that point where it’s just too cold, so we decided that we had enough leaves ( both children’s backpacks were full!) and we walked back to my parents house via the train station – which pleased Big A very much!

And although it was a Wednesday, it felt very much like a lazy Sunday afternoon. So now all we have to do is make our leaf prints and leaf collages and we are done!

Home Made and Hand Printed! (The finished article)

As promised, here is a picture of the finished picture. I love it!

The photo is not great – an unfortunate combination of a dull day, glass in the frame, peralised wallpaper and a picture on the wall directly opposite means I had to get fairly close, but stand at the side so that you couldn’t see my reflection!

I will try and get a better photo pn a brighter day and pop it in here too.

Home Made and Hand Printed! (Part 2)

Ok, so now you have everything you need for this project. It’s actually really easy to do and even with Little A it was so simple and the children had such good fun doing it!

I do have 1 tip though – get a bowl of warm soapy water and a towel at the ready before starting so as each child can wash their hands as soon as they are done to avoid unwanted smudges on your paper!!

The actual printing is really easy to do and I found that the easiest way was to get Big A to do his print before Little A so that he could wash his hands and help with moving the paper out of her way while I washed her hands.

Once the handprints were dry, I added the poem using a silver metallic fine line marker pen. I bout these in a supermarket for £4 for a pack of 2 – one silver and one gold.  Great value if you want to make this look extra special.

I then put the glass in the frame, added the picture and popped the backing board on.  I used Gum Tape to seal the back of the picture. I did go to buy a roll from the local framers, but as it comes in 200m rolls, he was quite happy to give me enough for a couple of frames in the size I bought.

However the large roll is not expensive at £5 for 200m, but it would take a lot of framing to get through it!! I did ask what he would advise as an alternative, and he said that normal brown parcel tape would do the trick.

We came home and Big A and I taped the back of the frame – the gum tape has to be wet to stick, and it’s a bit of a fiddle once the tape gets wet and very sticky!!

Don’t forget to come back soon and see the final result!!

Collecting Conkers

After a bit of a lie in we decided to have a lazy sunday afternoon. After breakfast we all sat in our pj’s watching Cloudy ith a Chance of Meatballs. The kids loved it Especially Big A who said he’d love for it to rain food!!

But there was no rain here today. It really was a beautiful, fresh, sunny  autumn day. Clear blue skies, warm with only a wee chill in the air. A perfect day to collect conkers.

Mr A took us to a lovely spot where he used to go as a child and we had a great time. Even Little A was right in there pivking the conkers out of their shells and popping them in the bag! We have collected a fair amount and so far have decided on conkers on a string for Big A and a conker necklace for Little A.

A fabulous way to spen Sunday afternoon with the family. We are on a promise to go back in a couple of weeks when the acorns will be ready!

Little A, Mummy & Big A