Showing posts with label Creating Memories. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Creating Memories. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

The old boat sand pit or as it's being called on Pinterest, the sand box!


After writing the guest post for Carolyn I have received numerous emails asking about the boat sand pit/box.  The photo I posted of the boat is apparently very popular on Pinterest...



Before I even had children I had daydreamed about creating a play area that involved an old wooden boat.  As a child I adored many books that involved boats:

 "there is nothing, absolutely nothing, half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats" (Ratty, The Wind in the Willows) or sailing to the end of the earth with Reepicheep and Prince Caspian in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (my favourite of all the Narnia series), or  playing pirates with the Walker and Blackett children in Swallows and Amazons and who wouldn't have wanted to run row away to The Secret Island?  One of Enid Blytons' first and possibly best books.

This early love stemming from children's books combined with my love for anything vintage and nautical and well, it is just simply something that I have always wanted to do.



So where did we get the boat from? Well, my aunt (technically my ex-aunt but she is still very much part of our family) and her husband live on the water.  Their garden is lovely green rolling lawns that wind down to a private sandy beach. After storms all sorts of debris washes up onto their little beach and they are then responsible for disposing of it. Often they find old tenders (or small row boats) washed up.  Naturally as soon as I wanted one there were none to be found.  However, the universe provided, one washed up on a nearby beach after a storm and remained unclaimed.  After waiting several weeks for an owner to materialise we nabbed it.  It was definitely not sea worthy anymore, so perfect to be re-purposed into a sand pit for my little pirates.  If you don't have access to a beach where boats might randomly wash up, try ebay and also the tip.  I have often seen old boats at our local tip, we do live near the sea though.




Do they play in it often?  In winter, yes.  In summer, not so much.  We have a pool though and in summer they spend a lot of time in the water.  In winter though they use it a lot.  Not just as a general sandpit for digging, trucks and the construction of elaborate waterways and dams. But also to play pirates and sailing around the world type imaginative games.







It is unique and I adore it.  I find the standard sanitised backyard play items available for children these days so boring.  An old boat, surrounded by sand, in a ring of old sandstone pavers truly is an enchanting and wondrous place for a child (or childlike grown ups!).

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

The Tooth Fairy has paid us her first visit.




The Captain has lost the first two of his little baby fangs, interestingly the first two to make an appearance have been the first two to vacate the premises.  It has been a long time coming, he is the second last kid in his class to lose any teeth so he was starting to get a little antsy about it all, even requesting that we pay a visit to the Dentist to "check everything is ok?"  Which reminded me... he was the last baby in my Mother's Group to get teeth in the first place!

So on Monday morning when the first one finally fell out whilst he was getting dressed for school he was literally beside himself dancing around and squealing "aren't you proud of me Mummy?"  I took the opportunity here for a quick parenting lesson... "oh yes, so very proud darling but you make Mummy ever so proud when you are a good listening boy who is kind to his brother and" ... he lost interest in me about then and danced off....



Later that afternoon on our way home from swimming lessons the second little fang fell out in the car.  Oh my was he delighted with himself!  We then had to ring his Dad (in New Zealand) to share the excitement and then when we got home the teeth were very carefully placed under his pillow.

                                                              7:05pm his lights were out, bless him.




The tooth fairy brought him a lovely certificate that he can glue into his scrapbook to mark the occasion and she also reimbursed him for his gorgeous little fangs with a $5 note stamped with gold fairy dust, carefully folded up inside this little pouch.  The Captain is quite the fan of the tooth fairy now!  



Saturday, December 25, 2010

Christmas Lolly jars

This post originally appeared on an old blog called The Brothers Trimm - I just wanted to add them to my personal blog in order to store the memory!

Christmas Lolly Jars





Materials:

old jars
buttons
glue gun
poms poms in white and red
glasses
eyes
pipe cleaners
(all of these items can be found at Spotlight or similar craft shops)





Making the lolly jars:

Get the glue gun out and start glueing!  Make sure you supervise closely as the glue gun gets super hot.










Lastly fill with lollies or shortbread, ours are to decorate the kids Christmas table with, but they would also make great home made Christmas gifts!

Monday, December 20, 2010

Christmas button ornaments

This post originally appeared on an old blog called The Brother's Trimm - I just wanted to add it to my personal blog in order to preserve the memory!

Christmas Button Ornaments





Button Christmas ornaments are a fabulous Make and Do Project as almost all the necessary supplies are readily available and very cheap.  I had a big jar of buttons that didn't seem to belong to anything and combined with a pack of pipe cleaners we were all ready to go with a great Christmas craft activity.  This is an activity that can be done by children as young as two, Baby Pirate is two and a half and with a little help every now and again he loved it.  Threading the pipe cleaners through the button holes was great for improving his eye hand coordination and the organising of the buttons was great for sorting skill development.  All in all, a great Make and Do project!

Materials:

Buttons
Pipe Cleaners
Scissors
Ribbon


Making "wreath" button ornaments:

Select a pipe cleaner and start threading!
When they have decided that there are enough buttons on their wreath, loop the pipe cleaner ends together and wind closed.  Trim off any excess and then tie a ribbon on to the bare spot of the wreath  making a loop.  The loop can now be used to hang the ornament.








Making a "tree" button ornament:

Select a pipe cleaner and make a little dent in one end to stop the buttons sliding off the end of the pipe cleaner.  Then sort out the buttons into large to small size order and thread onto the pipe cleaner starting with the largest on the bottom.  We topped ours off with a little red star found at Spotlight.  Then wind a little loop into the excess pipe cleaner and thread some ribbon through!




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