Day 3 and 4: Truth in the Tinsel Advent Experience

On Sunday the 4th we caught up and did Days 3 and 4...

Day 3 had a treat a little too big for our Advent Calendar stockings so I put a little map in it along with the little Truth in the Tinsel clue.  The map led Andy to two marshmallow pies which he found under Jane's chest of drawers...

Afterward we did our Day 3 Zachariah ornament.  I searched everywhere for our googly eyes but couldn't find any so we used buttons instead and I promptly started organizing our craft supplies again.  It's amazing how quickly it gets in a muddle.

Everyday we do the extra 'activity' giving and Andy thought this the funniest.  We had to talk holding our tongue at the same time.  The effect was hilarious.  While we were driving back from visiting my mother in law Andy burst out laughing in the car and through his giggles he said he was thinking about when we talked while holding our tongue :)

Day 4 was the angel Gabriel.  Our craft supplies weren't entirely organized yet so I couldn't find any pipe cleaner which the wings were supposed to be made of but we're good at improvising by now right, so we used our trusty fun foam for the wings, scrapbook paper for the body and a Christmas bell ornament for the head.  This was a really pretty and fun one!

Day 1 and 2: Truth in the Tinsel Advent Experience

Because we were at the Homeschool camp on December the 1st and 2nd, we did these two days on Saturday the 3rd to catch up.

Day 1 was a candle ornament.  We didn't have black card so Andy painted blue fun foam with black paint which worked out fine and had the same effect only with more painting fun added :)

It has strips of tissue paper sandwiched between two of the foam cut outs cut from the template provided in the eBook. Our finished candle ornament... 

Day 2 was a crown made from the inner tube of a toilet roll.  Andy chose to paint it yellow...

And decorated it with beads and glitter...

These activities are out of the eBook Truth in the Tinsel: An Advent Experience for Little Hands.

2011 Homeschool Camp

The kids and I attended our Homeschool group's annual camp from 30 November till 2 December.  We had such fun.  Andy was freeeeeeeeeeee... he could play with friends, run without boundaries, explore nature and discover huge 'sticks' beyond his wildest dreams...

He loved swimming in the river...

Jane enjoyed the camp too although she was stuck to me like glue the entire three days :)

She got her feet wet...

She made sure to take time to moisturize her beautiful skin...

She made sure her dolly got lots of early morning fresh air and hugs...

And she had fun exploring nature and looking as adorable as possible while doing so...

Each year we have a prize giving where each child receives their certificate for their Homeschool year and a present provided by the parents.  This year I bought Andy the T-Rex toy that he's been wanting for the last few months.  It lights up and roars and he was over the moon when he opened his present and realized what it was.  It was so much fun watching his surprise and joy.

One of the activities at the camp was moulding with clay.  Each child had to make something out of clay and I was so very proud of Andy when he won first prize in the 5 year old category for his cobra...

We had a BLAST!!!

Our 2011 Advent Calendar

The idea for our calendar came to me when I was in Woolworths buying some birthday gifts and I spotted some Christmas chocolates with a little felt Christmas stocking ornament attached to it.  My mind started working over time and the result was a felt stocking for each day to hold a treat and I strung the lot onto a festive ribbon and mounted it on our lounge wall near our Christmas tree.

Andy wanted to help so he embroidered the two orange stockings with bells cut out of felt and I embroidered his name and the year on it so that we will remember in years to come...

I inserted an eyelet into each stocking to put the ribbon through and decorated each with whatever I created or had on hand...

I made sure it was high enough to be admired but not within reach to be handled LOL!  I've learnt from previous years that treats seem to mysteriously vanish when within reach of certain people :)

So when it's time to receive the daily treat I simply slip the one side off and lower it for collection :)

We are also doing an eBook this year called Truth in the Tinsel. I first heard about this over at one of my favorite blogs Love and Lollipops.  I fell in love with the idea of having scriptures, discussions and an ornament activity laid out for you to do each day!  My husband bought the book for us on the 30th of November when the kids and I were up in the mountains on the annual Homeschool camp (unfortunately he couldn't join us this year due to work commitments) so when I came back on the 3rd of December I printed it out, put each little clue picture in our advent calendar along with the treats and then we played some catch up over Saturday and Sunday.  So now we've started the new week up to date on our Advent calendar and almost up to date with the washing from the camp :)

I will be blogging our Truth in the Tinsel Advent journey.

Lap Harp

Andy loves playing on his lap harp.  It's lovely to hear his natural musical abilities being expressed as he follows the little notes but keep perfect timing even though he doesn't fully understand the timing of different notes yet.  The lap harp comes with handy little music sheets that have the notes underneath the right string so that it makes it very enjoyable and easy for young children with no frustration involved :-)

Yanky Doodle is by far his favourite song to play :-)

As a family that doesn't own a TV (by choice) we appreciate the developing skills and delightful entertainment by candlelight after supper...

Playmat Tutorial And Give Away

Okay, here's the tutorial and giveaway I promised.  Phew, now I remember why I haven't blogged in so long.  To get the housework and washing up to date and the kids playing and happy in order to sit down to blog is no joke. As I type I have Jane breastfeeding and a little hand trying to contribute some text to my blog post :)

Anyway, this tutorial won't be super detailed but hopefully it'll make sense and at the end I'll give the details of the give away.

Cut two circles of fabric (whatever size you want your playmat to be).   I used the kids' little round dinning table as a template.  

Cut a pond out of felt and tack it to the circle of fabric that you will be using for the inside of the playmat. I mounted the area onto a large embroidery hoop to keep things in place and level.  Then use embroidery thread and secure the felt onto the playmat by doing a blanket stitch edging. Please don't think skipping tacking will save you time because in the long run it will cost you time to unpick things when they start going skew.  It only takes a few moments to tack your felt in place SO DO IT!

This is the template I free-handedly cut for the caves.  The felt in the picture is held double with the fold on the left.

Cut as many caves as you want and then TACK it onto your fabric and blanket stitch it down with matching color embroidery thread.

Put the two circles of fabric wrong sides together and stitch it together along the edge with as small a seam allowance as possible.  This is just to keep the two layers together and in place for you to stitch the bias binding on.  Stitch the binding all the way around with matching thread.  Now for the eyelets.  If you don't have a eyelet tool then make button holes on your sewing machine or by hand.  I found a knitting needle the same size as the eyelets make a great hole so you can place the eyelet over the created hole and then press it down with the eyelet tool.

When your eyelets are spaced as desired you can take some cord in a matching color to your fabric and thread it through making a knot on each end so that it doesn't pop back through the eyelets again while in use.

To fold your playmat up, simply pull on the cord and tie a bow.  This is really nice and compact and you can even store your little toy animals inside to save space.

And last but not least, get down on the floor and join in with the fun by playing animals with your kiddos.

Being my first tutorial I hope that made sense!  I got the idea of making this when I saw this blog post at Loving little Sweetpeas linked through this blog post at Love and Lollipops.

Now for the give away...

The last two pictures above shows the playmat I made for the give away.  I will let it run from now till 31 October 2011 by which date I will pull a number up on a random number generator and announce the winner.  All you have to do to enter is leave a comment to this blog post.

Welcome back to me!!! :)

After moving in Feb, not having Internet for too many months and now not having a home pc (cause I managed to break it) I couldn't resist anymore and am doing this blogging in a longer rather more tedious way on the iPad. I'm hoping to get my blogging done on Hubby's laptop in the evening so I'm going to set one evening a week in which I hijack his laptop for an hour or two to get my blogging done.

I'm not going to even start to attempt to catch up on what we've been up to in the last 7 months but I will disclose what my future blogging will hold!

Amongst many other sewing projects I've finished, I sewed a round play mat that folds into a bag for Andy. I got this idea off of a link in a blog post on love and lollipops (a link to love and lollipops can be found in my sidebar). I not only made one for Andy but I took step by step photos cause the blog post I got it from only had a picture not a how-to so I figured it out by myself. But not only am I going do a tutorial I also made an extra one for FUNdamentals' very first give away. I guess it's a sort of welcoming-myself-back-into-the-blogging-world gesture :)

So keep your eyes peeled for a play mat tutorial and give away but don't hold your breath cause I first have to hijack a laptop from my software developer husband which might sound easier than it is ;) LOL!!!