The Birthday Blog.

Well here's the start of another week, the last of July! This year is going so fast I'm sure it will be Christmas before we even know it. I hope you are enjoying the bit of sun we have had, and here's hoping it continues through August.
So August officially starts on Wednesday, and that means that on Thursday my little girl is one. It really does only seem like yesterday when I was sharing her first pictures with you, not almost 12 months ago. She's so different from her sister, a real feisty, strong willed little girl (and for those who know me in *real life* or follow me on Facebook, She Who Never Sleeps!) She is cheeky, and funny. and very loving, qualities which she does share with her older sister. I am still in shock that they are both 'mine' and as hard as being a mum can be sometimes, I would never change it for anything. I never thought for a minute I would ever be a mum, and I know how incredibly lucky I am to have my two beautiful little girls.

Having fun trying on hats at Portland Basin this week.

As you can see we went to Portland Basin museum again this week. The girls had a whale of a time exploring all the exhibits of life in Tameside through the ages. With it being a Jubilee year, there were various activities around that, and we had fun spotting where they had hidden pictures of the Queen in the different exhibits. They had provided bunting templates for the children to colour, cut out and string up on ribbon, and Caoimhe was very eager to take part in that particular activity!

It is a great day out, and free too, which is always a bonus! I can highly recommend it for a visit if you are in the area.

My own making has been quite limited this week, although I did manage to make use of the biggest bunch of asparagus I have ever seen, when I made an asparagus quiche.

I'm not a quiche maker, although I do love to eat it! And this was the first one I have ever made from scratch. It had a cheese pastry which went really well with the rest of the filling and was even better cold the next day. It was a lot easier than I thought it would be and I really don't know why I have never made one before. I will certainly make more in the future.

As it's Handmade Monday time again I will be linking up once again with Wendy over on her blog Handmade Harbour. Please have a wander over there and see what all the other crafty bloggers have been up to. There are some fantastic, inspiring blogs out there, so take a few minutes, grab a brew and have a read. You won't be disappointed.

I hope the weather is kind to you all this week!
Til next time!



School's out! (Well, nursery at least!)

Morning everyone. It's a sad one for me today, as it's the last day at private nursery for the Flop. She starts at her school nursery in October. That means that she is getting big! She will be 4 in November and it literally seems like yesterday when she was born. Not really sure where that time has gone to! She is very excited to start her new nursery and make new friends.
She has been at her nursery since October, and has really enjoyed it, so we decided to make a card to say thank you. I wanted to put her picture on it, so they would remember her!

I used my Craft Artist software again. It's getting a lot of use!

We had a big baking day in the week, too. First of all we made chocolate chip Herman pancakes, then homemade potato cakes for dinner and chicken pasties for tea. Caoimhe enjoyed helping me, especially with the pasties. She enjoyed eating them, too!

Note the new instagram app! That's getting a fair bit of use too!

I've been doing a bit of writing as well, and had an article published on the Herman the German Friendship Cake website. It includes a recipe for herman pancakes, so if you're interested, you can read it here.

So the summer holidays are upon us now. This is my 'first time' so I'm quite excited about all the fun things we can do together, once I've sorted out the nightmare that is school holiday childcare that is! What have you all got planned for your little ones for the next 6 weeks??

As usual I'm linking up with Wendy at Handmade Harbour for Handmade Monday, lots of lovely, inspiring blogs over there so take a look!

Off now to make sure I have tissues in my bag for Caoimhe's last day. Motherhood has really turned me into a wimp!

Til next time!

If you can't find it, make it.

It's Monday, and you know what that means, so once you've finished here, go and see what everyone else has been up to in the crafting world this week over on Handmade Harbour for Handmade Monday. You know you won't be disappointed!

This week we finally evicted Teaghan from our bedroom! She is almost one now (where has the time gone!) and we felt it was time she had a little bit of Independence from us. So she has moved into her big sister's room. Obviously before now the room was solely Caoimhe's. When she was born, we bought some ceramic letters from Hobbycraft to spell her name out on the wall (incidentally it worked really well, as she has been able to spell her name since she was 2, which is a lot more than her grandad can do!) We wanted to do the same for Teaghan, but have been unable to source any letters, at least none that we really liked. Same with her door plaque. We were lucky enough to have one given to us for Caoimhe but I didn't know where to start for Teaghan.

I thought it would be a lovely idea to get her door plaque made, so I looked around some of the lovely crafters whose blogs I follow. But I wasn't even sure what theme I wanted, or what style. Caoimhe's is a lovely, fairly plain plaque so I didn't want anything that stood out more than that does. (anyone with 2 or more children will know what I'm getting at here!)

So last week I had a good think about what I have at home, and what I thought I would be able to do myself.

First of all I loaded up my Craft Artist disc and chose some background papers, and letters that I liked. I  printed them off, and glued them onto Artist mount board before applying Mod Podge for a nice finish. When the letters were dry, I cut them out and stuck them onto the plaque, and tried out lots of embellishments, stars, buttons, flowers... but in the end I decided that Less is More and it looked fine as it was. I think it's bright and colourful and just right for a child's room.

I had some sticky foam strips, so I have used these to attach it to the door.



When it came to the lettering for the bedroom wall, I once again turned to the disc for a bit of inspiration (it's getting some serious hammering!) and saw that there was a template for party bunting. You just drag over your chosen background, add any embellishments etc and press print.. I wanted to add embellishments myself so I just chose two backgrounds in contrasting colours (I chose the same paper as I had used for the door plaque to continue the theme) and printed them out. I cut them out, stuck them to artist mounting board (and incidentally it's from the same bag of cut offs I bought months ago as regular readers might remember, so what a bargain quid that turned out to be!) and applied lots of Mod Podge again. . Then I chose the letters I wanted and printed those out, too. More mod podge and cutting out, left to dry for a few hours and I was ready to assemble it. I used buttons from my stash to embellish it, and strung it all up on a paper twine. I was quite pleased with the finished article!

I enjoyed making these, and they didn't take long to make really, drying time aside. I wish I had thought of making them sooner, rather than all that Internet browsing, although it did give me inspiration for other possible future projects.

Don't forget to have a wander over to Handmade Harbour, as I will be doing once the kids are in bed! Have a great week!

Til next time!

And the Fairy Got Some!

It's quite scary how quickly the weeks are rolling by, and that it is now July already! This time last year I was just about to start my Maternity Leave, and now my little bugger angel is 11 months old! We are undecided about what to do for her first birthday, having the benefit of having gone through a first birthday before. Caoimhe was quite overwhelmed and I'm sure she didn't know what to make of all these people making a fuss of her, and in some way I would like to keep it small to avoid the same thing happening to Teaghan. Either way I have less than 5 weeks to decide!

Of course it's Handmade Monday again, which, if you don't know, is a bloghop hosted by the lovely Wendy of 1st Unique Gifts and gives crafters the chance to share their blogs with everyone. It is over on Handmade Harbour so go and have a look.

This week I shared my kitchen table with my mum, who has recently started to make cards. She definitely seems to have caught the bug, and most importantly she is enjoying herself. She made a lovely card for a freind who has been poorly. I found myself making a couple of ATC's for the ATC Trail over on UK Scrappers.

We've done a bit of baking this week, too. As regular readers will know I'm a Herman lover, and this week I decided to keep all the starters for myself instead of giving them away. Selfish, perhaps (you should share the Herman love!) but it was all in a good cause.
First of all it was sourdough pancakes

And then Herman bread

And finally Raisin and Oat Herman muffins. I didn't take a photograph of them, but we did share them with Daisy the Fairy, and she seemed to enjoy it!

If you want to know more about Herman cake, or maybe try out some of the recipes (and there are a lot!) then there is a great Herman website right here.

And that's it from me. I hope you all have a great week.
Til next time!