Shiny Happy Easter Craft

One of my most popular craft ideas ever, because it involved eating a bag of these..

Obviously there'll be mountains of them being munched over the weekend, so thought I'd post this now in case you fancy a go, and want to salvage some foil before it gets ripped to shreds and ends up in the bin...or sprinkled about the place like tiny shiny bits of confetti that you'll be hoovering up for weeks..

The trickiest bit is getting the foil wrapping off in one piece..or even two. Then you just need to decide what to decorate. We went for a butterfly and a dragonfly. I drew half the shape on a folded piece of cereal packet - cut out and open up.
.

We flattened our bits of foil and cut them into strips and squares. A glue stick worked best - the foil can be fiddly and sticks to fingers with over enthusiastic gluing!
My daughter spread some on the cardboard first before sticking down the pieces she wanted for her foil decoupage.

Very impressed how she mirrored the pattern on the wings.

It really doesn't matter if bits hand over the edge because they can be tucked neatly around the back.

Turns out we needed more coloured foil than I bargained for, so had to break into another Easter egg... shucks hey? I think this is what you call craft with benefits.

Please excuse blatant advertising! We used every decent sized scrap we had..

A pipe cleaner taped to the back makes good butterfly antennae and we added a few more shiny bits.
You could make smaller ones and attach them to plant sticks - they'd look good fluttering above a herb pot.

I think there's a very strong chance we'll be making more next week!

Hope you have a lovely Easter.

Linking up with Red Ted Art's Kids Get Crafty and For the Kids Friday

Life changing walks - The Gallery

I used to be a reluctant walker. Never keen to go out anywhere. I remember when I was about 11 refusing point blank to join a family walk in Tollymore Forest Park, and sitting by the car for what felt like hours until they got back. On my own. Wouldn't happen now would it. Anyway, my lack of enthusiasm for moving any further than I had to, stayed with me well into my 20's. Then in my early 30's things started to unravel: love, work, friendships; and just as I was descending into the depths of despair, an opportunity arose to travel in South America. My family pushed me to go, and I'm so glad they did.
There was a lot of trekking: I walked my little legs off, and I can clearly remember one moment, along the Inca Trail in Peru, when I properly took in the beauty around me and felt truly happy for the first time in ages.

Hey thinny! Highest point on the Inca trail

bleak beauty of the Mournes

The clouds of self-pity started to lift, and by the time I got home I was stronger, more positive and a born again walker.

Things began slotting back into place in my life, and I went walking most weekends; usually in the Mournes and usually on my own.
Then I met a wonderful man who also liked to walk - and one glorious day, after a steady climb up Rocky Mountain, I was getting our picnic ready - goats cheese quiche; never forget food  - and turned round to find him on bended knee, holding a beautiful ring.
A perfect, magical moment; it really felt like we were on the top of the world, in this amazing, wild, empty space - the only people for miles...when out of nowhere we heard a voice,

'Did she say yes?' 

Three young lads appeared on the other side of the peak. Couldn't believe it. We hadn't seen a soul all day. What were the chances?

'Yes, she said YES!'

Makes me smile thinking about it - and there've been a few jokes over the years about his choice of mountain for the proposal..

I walked on air that day.

Linking up with The Gallery - the theme this week is Walks

Easter Surprise! Easy egg box craft

I'm becoming a serious rubbish hoarder. I've a drawer stuffed full of loo roll middles and swiped party napkins, and one of the work surface walls is made of empty cereal and egg boxes with yogurt pot turrets.. But this wall is coming down slowly, because with Easter on its way, egg boxes are the rubbish of choice at the moment! They're so handy for all kinds of craft, and there are some brilliant ideas around. If you haven't already, do take a look at these 10 egg carton crafts on Red Ted Art's blog. We had a go at some of them, then got on a bit of a roll, and came up with our own idea.
An Easter egg shaped box..

little egg shaped box

They're easy to make; a few fiddly bits that need grown up help, but plenty for the kids to do.

You'll need an egg carton, tin foil, craft glue, leftover braid or coloured paper strips, and felt/sequin decorations, or any small, colourful bits.

Cut out the 6 egg holders. I usually do this with small nail scissors, or I cut them out roughly and let my 5 year old do it - but this can mean we end up with teeny tiny cups!

Scrunch up a small piece of tin foil, but not too tight - these are going to form the rounded top of your egg. Glue to the bottom of a cup, and mould until you're happy with the shape.

Then just cut out or rip pieces of tin foil, big enough to cover each part of your egg separately, and wrap tightly, folding the extra foil underneath.

I glued lovely bits of braid around the edge of the top part of our little egg box, while my daughter did some decorating. The braid needs to hang just below the edge, so it fits over the bottom part and covers the join. Well, kind of covers the join!  The sticking takes a little patience - paper clips help so it dries in place, but you could speed things up by using coloured paper strips instead of the braid.

Coloured foil would be great for a bit of variety, but we didn't have any...apart from what was on my stockpile of Easter chocolate..

creme egg eaten in the interests of craft...

There weren't many small yellow pompoms either, so we ended up making exotic chicks! Might need their feathers trimmed so I can fit in a mini egg or two..

exotic Easter chicks

Linking up with Red Ted Art's Kids Get Crafty 

and For the Kids Friday over at Sun Scholars.

Jumble Bunny

I went to my first ever full on, crazy Jumble Sale at the weekend. I've been meaning to go for ages, but the closest one is always at lunchtime on a saturday, when I'm ferrying kids from matches or to parties. It never worked out before.

I arrived just as the end of a queue was disappearing into the church hall, and parked beside a bored looking man, listening to the radio is his car. Paid my 20p and entered the fray. The hall was heaving: swarms of bargain hunters around every table. It took me 5 minutes to get anywhere near the stuff. Soon realised being really polite was a complete waste of time, so elbowed my way into a slither of space. There were people literally disappearing under piles of jumble in a buying frenzy. Some were throwing clothes/toys/shoes at helpers standing behind, who looked like they'd rather be anywhere else. Started to understand why the guy was in the car.

Easy though to get swept up by it all: I began grabbing anything that looked like it had potential, and worked my way around the room. When the tables ran out, I asked how much for my bundle, '£2 to you', the smiley lady said. Boy, I had no clear idea what I'd got, but £2 sounded brilliant!
And then suddenly I was out in the car park again. Just like that. It was all over so quickly. But what had I bought? Well luckily it wasn't half bad..

A very nice petrol blue Warehouse tunic top - too crinkly at the moment for a decent picture; and a sweet pair of Mini Boden cotton pjs with little embroidered buds. My daughter's size too.

More material to add to a growing fabric mountain - soon to rival my huge hoard of wool.

This one's actually a skirt but I bought it for the patterned cord. Love a bit of cord. I'm gathering up pieces for a little idea I've got in mind.

Didn't spot any jumpers suitable for chopping, but did find this woolly scarf,

and guess what?

Yep. I made another owl. I'm a woman obsessed. Quite sure people are fed up seeing owls on my blog, so thought I'd also have a go at.....a jumble bunny!

...basically an upside down owl with ears...

Linking up with Liz's Magpie Monday and
Ta-dah! Tuesday over at Lakota's

Trolley detox, Team Honk and a few home truths

Almost there! And I'm not stressed about the rest, because it's homemade pizza tonight and that's everyones favourite.
It's certainly been an interesting week - tough but rewarding, with a fair amount of late night baking.. Still, no one starved.. or cried, and I have managed to feed the 4 of us on just £12 - so, Yay!

It's made me more resourceful, more organised and more grateful for what we have and often take for granted. It's also made me wonder what on earth I'm putting in my trolley..apart from the boring, obvious stuff.  I've already said I don't think I'm that bad at budgeting, but my weekly spend can be erratic - I've had to guess at it - I do know it's many times more than £12. What am I buying? Mmmm. Too many things that aren't on my list. I do suffer from a bit of BOGOF-itis - you know, when you go in for 'a few things' and come out with a boot-load of groceries that are on offer.

Okay, £12 is extreme - but this trolley detox has made me focus on my spending habits. The thing is, like any detox I'm full of good intentions straight after - all these plans for radical change, and then...it's just too easy to slip back into old ways. Well it is for me. That's what happened last time I did the Challenge: I was going to have weekly meal plans, and write a shopping list that I'd stick to like velcro, but it all went out the window, and I drifted back to last-minute 'creative' cooking. I'll try harder this time: definitely try harder to stick to my list - and I've liked feeling more organised about meals, so we'll see.

We wouldn't have got far these last 7 days without homemade bread - the saviour of Challenge..well that and the 4 trays of muffins. I thought the week would be good for my waistline, but I think I now have an extra spare tyre around my middle, made completely of bread.
It's a good job I'm a late bird too, because there was quite a bit of night time baking; and I'm really pleased I've finished off the old, mostly used up bags of flour in the cupboard (probably past their sell buy date..dared not look..)

The kids have been great: I think the Challenge made more sense this year - they know they're doing it for Comic Relief and understand where the money's going. Don't get me wrong, there have been a few trying moments, and they've moaned and complained about having no choices or treats (apart from muffins) - but I know they feel involved, which is brilliant. My 5 year old asked me yesterday if she was allowed to have a biscuit when she went to her friend's house for a play. I squeezed her really tight for that.

And I'm massively slow off the mark with this, but we've joined Team Honk at the 11th hour - we have our very own Red Nose Day sponsorship page and everything!..which is HERE if you'd like to take a look. I know the week's almost up, but if you'd like to give some money to Comic Relief by sponsoring us, that would be amazing.

So, why £12? Something I've been asked a few times: the answer is I'm not absolutely sure.. Originally it was going to be a tenner, but that would have been such a struggle, unless we grew more fruit and veg and did the Challenge in the summer. I'd have had a mutiny on my hands.

Will we do it again? Do you know, I'm sure we probably will - but think I'd like to try a £12 vegetarian week next time..

Comic Relief, Carrots and Cake

'DAY 5 in the Comic Relief Charity Challenge house, and the housemates are getting restless...'

not really a massive surprise considering there's very little food left from my £12 shop. Just two more days to go now.
And in case you're wondering, £12 is all I've spent to feed the four of us for 7 days! Definitely a challenge. Possibly mad. Still, it's for a very good cause, as the rest of the money I'd normally spend on my weekly groceries is going to Comic Relief.

It's certainly keeping me on my toes and I'm baking like a dervish, trying to stay a step ahead. The kids are doing pretty well; they haven't gone hungry, but inevitably the lack of choice and empty fridge takes it's toll, and there's a rising wave of whinging! I'm doing my best to gee them along, and I've heard the older two talking to their friends about the Challenge and why we're doing it, which is encouraging. It's great they feel involved.

Now who'd have ever thought you could get bored of muffins? But I know the kids are tiring of them, and fair play really as muffins have been the only sweet treat on offer for the last 5 days. My supplies are limited: I haven't any butter and just enough marg left for sandwiches - the only thing I can use is vegetable oil. So my cunning plan was to make muffins that look like CAKE...and seeing as The Gallery theme this week is the letter 'C'.... I give you Comic Relief Charity Challenge Carrot Muffins Cake!

I just poured the carrot muffin mixture into a cake tin - and the shape change plus the absence of muffin cases seems to have done the trick! They loved them. Should get us through to friday. I'm sure the topping helped too, but only enough cream cheese spare for these three, and HUGE disappointment when they realised the carrot was made of plasticine..

There's more about our Comic Relief Charity Challenge here

and The Gallery theme this week is the letter 'C'

Frugal food - Charity Challenge day 4

I've had to plan meals down to the last grain of rice so I can stretch the food bought with my £12 budget across the week. I don't really mind the planning bit, and it's less daunting than last time, because things like making bread don't phase me as much as they used to. I make it regularly now, thanks to the very lovely, talented Recipe Junkie and her tutorials on growing and using a sourdough starter. I wasn't totally sure what a starter was to be honest; now I have a jar of bubbly, yeasty goo sitting on my window sill, constantly reminding me to make bread.

sourdough starter

So, this week breakfast is bread or toast, and lunch for me is some kind of orange soup (lentil/carrot or to spice things up carrot and lentil..)  I have packed lunches to make too: my fussy one has them all week - the others have a mixture of packed lunches and pre-paid school dinners. I'm giving them ham and cream cheese sandwiches, a muffin, 2 cream crackers with marg, and a carrot.
They are going to be sick of the sight of carrots by friday.

So the family meals work out like this:

Saturday      Lunch: Lentil soup and bread
                       Tea: Homemade ham and mozzarella pizza and garlic pizza
                       (sauce: one tin chopped tomatoes, half the passata, onion, tsp sugar, seasoning)

Sunday         Lunch: Tomato, mozzarella and ham pasta
                       (leftover cheese and sauce from pizzas + chopped up ham)
                       Tea: Roast chicken, potatoes and carrots

Monday         Spanish style frittata
                       (chopped and fried up potatoes from day before, half an onion, a little ham, 4 beaten eggs + cheeky handful of peas from freezer for a splash of colour..other than orange..)

Tuesday        Savoury chicken rice
                       (leftover chicken pieces, half a leek, half an onion, carrot, stock)
                   
Wednesday   Tomato and ham pasta
                       (another batch of tomato sauce made with spare tin and rest of the passata - save about half for friday pizzas. Maybe add a dollop of cream cheese to pasta sauce)

Thursday       Leek and carrot soup with cider bread 
                        (Cider bread is really worth a go - so quick, easy and delicious. I'm using some cider I keep in the fridge for this recipe - but no cheese or butter)
                     
Friday            Ham pizza and garlic pizza

I bulk out the meals with bread, and after-school snacks and puddings are muffins. Peach, carrot or banana on offer this week. Squirrel is having break.

Snackless squirrel

The homemade pizzas on saturday night were a great success

375g of flour made dough for 4 bases (2 tomato, 2 garlic)

We even had enough to feed a hanger-on; and apart from one slightly tense moment as I watched my son's friend carefully pick all the precious pieces of ham off his pizza, everyone was happy!

Sunday roast is always a winner - and there's enough chicken left for savoury rice tonight, plus a big bowl of fresh stock. I cut the potatoes up really small for the frittata yesterday, but they were spotted by my fussy potato avoider.

spanish style frittata

Still, he did eat it. Very slowly. Every single thing has to be eaten up this week!

No one's going hungry, that's for sure, and I keep reminding them we're doing it for Comic Relief - but think the novelty might be wearing a little thin..

You can find out more about our Charity Challenge here

£12 Comic Relief Charity Challenge

..possibly a bit mad, but we're doing it again! It's been just about long enough since the last time for everyone to have forgotten what it was like...
So a quick recap if you're wondering what I'm on about - I've squeezed our weekly food shop down to  £12. £12 to feed four of us for 7 days. And that's it. Bar a few basics I have here.

Why? Well the why is for Comic Relief, because that's where all the money I'd usually spend on the groceries is going. We started on saturday - quite a good distraction because that's when my sister left for Australia - we finish at the end of the week on Red Nose Day.

I do like a good challenge and it's going to be interesting, planning, cooking and trying to keep the kids happy. But it wouldn't be much of a challenge if I raided the freezer and the cupboard for the week, so my self-imposed rules are no digging about in the freezer for meals, and no tins or packets except the ones bought with my £12 budget. I'm allowing myself to use up what's left of staples like flour, sugar, oil - and also the opened tub of marg in the fridge, tea bags, 3 onions, half a packet of split red lentils and a few wizened cloves of garlic I found at the back of the cupboard. It's not much extra, and sure, wouldn't it be wasteful to buy more when they're sitting there? Anyway, my rules and hey, it's for charity!

I think I'm pretty good at budgeting, but my grocery bills have been fluctuating a fair bit recently. The Challenge has made me take a long hard look at what I usually spend, and what goes into my trolley - as well as my rather slack approach to meal planning.
We're into our third day now, and the kids are still reasonably enthusiastic, but when they start moaning about the absence of treats and choices (and they will), it'll probably be a good time to gently remind them of the children who can never grab an apple or a biscuit when they feel like it; the children who have barely enough food to live on. Hopefully I'll get them to think about why we're doing this.

So my £12 list is reasonably similar to the one last year. I shopped at Lidl and Tesco's and bought the cheapest of the cheap. Quite a few are the same price as before which really surprised me, seeing as most of the things I usually buy are getting more expensive.

Doesn't look like much, does it..

Small chicken £3.09

milk £1.00

400g ham £1.65

cream cheese 50p

ball of mozzarella 40p

1 kg rice 40p

2x500g pasta 60p

1 kg potatoes 69p

loaf of wholemeal bread 47p

cream crackers 39p

2xtinned tomatoes 62p

passata 29p

1.5kg carrots 63p

4 bananas 32p

2xtinned peaches 58p

1.5kg flour 45p

Total £12.08

There isn't a lot in the way of fruit and veg. I'd thought about buying more instead of the chicken, but I can stretch the chicken to 3 meals, and we're only talking a week. I haven't included eggs because a very kind friend with hens has given me 8 lovely fresh ones, as well as 2 big leeks from her garden. The other advantage I have is I'm just feeding me and the 3 kids, because my husband's away. And I've only one milk drinker too, which helps cut costs.

Things seem to be going well enough, but it's early days! I'm trying to stay one step ahead and definitely doing more baking. I'll post my menu plan tomorrow so you can see what we've been eating. Some things crop up A LOT...Hard really to have much variety.

I think it would be fair to say homemade bread and muffins are the food glue that hold this Challenge together..

Make Mr Twit's Beard for World Book Day

I've never had to think about the kids dressing up as a favourite character for World Book Day. Their school seemed to buck the trend and just didn't bother...until now that is.
So over the past few days I've experienced the same kind of last minute fretting and dressing up box delving I'm sure many parents are well used to. I've heard tales from friends of things getting wildly competitive, with elaborate hand stitched costumes, and jaw-dropping make up, but can't imagine that happening at our little village school. I don't think? Anyway, after all kinds of ideas, I managed to steer my three towards Simple.
The eldest opted for teenage spy, Alex Rider - so just himself really, plus cool shades; the youngest chose Angelina Ballerina - ballet stuff with paper ears attached to a headband, and the 8 year old came up with Roald Dahl's Mr Twit, because that's what he's reading at the moment.

And Mr Twit is all about the beard.

We made ours out of a cereal packet.
I lightly folded the card and drew half a beard, before cutting it out so it looked even.

It's important to leave longish sideburns, because these are going to be folded over and stapled onto the arms of a pair of glasses. We used an old pair of 3D ones from the bottom of the dressing up box. Now, strictly speaking Mr Twit doesn't wear glasses, but it seemed like a good way to keep the beard in place.
Worth trying it for size at this stage, before getting to work...

Angry little elf..

After painting it black, we scrunched up bits of black paper and stuck them on. Tissue paper would have been better, but I could only find brown, so we have a two-tone beard.

Next, the fun part - making lots of disgusting things to attach to Mr Twit's beard. In the book it says, '..there were always hundreds of bits of old breakfasts and lunches and suppers sticking to the hairs around his face'. And mentions stuff like scrambled eggs, tomato ketchup, minced chicken livers, a mouldy old cornflake and the slimy tail of a tinned sardine.  Mmmm, lovely..

Mr Twit's beard

Our sardine tail is card covered in tin foil, a big blob of paint for ketchup, broken crisps and cornflakes, little bits of old sponge for scrambled egg - and then we added our own things, like some spaghetti, baked beans cut out of foam stickers and little balls of green plasticine for peas.

'..because of all this, Mr Twit never went really hungry. By sticking out his tongue and curling it sideways to explore the hairy jungle around his mouth, he was always able to find a tasty morsel here and there to nibble on...'

Suitably yucky I hope!

Linking up with Red Ted Art's Kids Get Crafty