A little chicken.

So here's the latest contribution to the 'man made' effort...No, not the boy (though I did play a part in his creation...) The chicken thing he's holding. It's a puppet. He's not really got the hang of it yet (no pun intended), and it gets easily tied up in knots when wielded by a three-year-old. However, he said to me, 'Daddy, your chicken is brilliant', which is good enough for me.
He was *supposed* to help me make it, but didn't hang around for more than about 3 minutes at at time. He drifted back occasionally, but preferred his scooter to his crafty daddy.

The design is granny's. Well, I say it's hers, but I think she got it from elsewhere. She would often see things in shops, declare, "The Good Lord gave me the same hands he gave the person who made that, so there's no reason I can't do it myself", and then go home and make one. Great policy (unless you were the person who was trying to sell stuff to granny!) and one that I've sort of been nudged towards myself :)

The ingredients are:
some wood (either ply type or solid) that's probably about 7mm thick (haven't measured it)
A strip of wood for the 'handle' bit you hold it by
some cord (I bought some thickish stuff from Dunelm, but it has to be able to fit though the wood, and through the hooks)
a bunch of those hook things that aren't hooks, they're all-the-way-round. I used two different sizes because the cord was too thick for the smaller size (I also found they're flippin' expensive!)
Some thread.

You cut two feet that are trapeziums (trapezia?). Look here and imagine that line 'h' is one side, so it's got two right angles and two not-right-angles... Having said that, the picture there is a bit long. It probably doesn't matter too much. Try it with card first, if you're worried, and see how it looks. Each foot needs a hook in it, roughly central so it stays levelish when lifted off the floor.
The head is a pointy right-angled triangle. It needs a hole drilled top to bottom. You can probably see from the picture that it's near the right-angled side of the triangle, and you want the to of the head vaguely parallel with the floor.
The body is effectively a bigger triangle, but with the pointiest end trimmed off. This needs a hole drilled in it, about half-way up, near the 'back'.
You then attach the 'legs' to one foot, pass the cord through the body and attach the other end to the other foot. Don't tie both ends to a foot without passing the cord through the body - you'll feel like a right numpty. I attached mine by tying knots beyond the hook (as opposed to tying them to the hook) because the cord was thick enough to not then fit back through the hook. You may need to 'seal' the end of the cord (whip it).
For the neck, attach a hook to the front of the body (as in, sticking out of the front, not on the top or bottom edge of the body) Attach one end of cord to this (same method as for the feet) then pass the other end through the hole you've drilled (do it now if you haven't yet!) in the head. Glue this into place with about an inch to spare. Once it's dried, unravel the loose end above the head for the bird's 'comb' bit.
Lastly, get the little strip of wood. You'll need two bits, each with a hook at each end. Attach a hook at the back of the body, on the top edge. (You may also want to have one on the head next to the comb, though you could potentially just semi-whip the base of the comb and have a long bit of thread left from this...) Tie thread to the foot hooks and the body and head hooks.
Tie one foot hook to one of your 'handle' hooks, at a sort of sensible length. Tie the other one on, ensuring it's the same length.
At this point, it's worth joining the two 'handle' strips together. I attached the foot hook about a third of the way from the head end of the head-body strip. (Are you getting all this?!)
Now you can attach the last couple of threads, ensuring that the birds looks roughly right when the 'handle' bit is all level.

Play.

(And then, soon after, untangle it...)
Oh and the thread might occasionally come off the hooks ... Uh ... just tie it back on.
And if it's really tangled, just undo a couple of threads and that will make it easier to untangle...

Planting boxes.

Well, I made these yonks ago, but never got around to blogging about them.

They're old pallets. I just ripped them apart and screwed/nailed them back together in a different way. Simple enough.
Having said that, I couldn't find my crowbar, so had to use the claw hammer. A crowbar would definitely have been easier.
They were supposed to look weathered and rustic, which they do. (Cheap?!)

If I were to do it again, I would probably line them with plastic sheeting so that they're not so free draining. The problem with their current site is that, although they're outside, they don't seem to get rained on because they're just sheltered by the patio roof (unless it's raining and very windy in their direction!). The plants have suffered a bit from lack of water while we've been away. That is to say, the sweet peas very nearly died altogether, and the tomatoes weren't happy with our disappearance.
Hey ho, it's all a learning curve.
If you're wondering, both the tomatoes and the sweet peas are 'trained' up a piece of string which hangs vertically (gravity to thank for that...) from a horizontal piece of galvanised wire that runs between the pillars either side of the box. (You can see one pillar in the shot). The wire is probably about five or six foot from the box.
The bits of wood that fell apart during the ripping-apart process are very useful as kindling for the log fire.

bread, pate and hula hoops.

Raw talent.
Nuff said.

AAARRRRRRRR. Old hat.

Ok, so maybe it's lazy to do another bean bag post, but I have made another one, so why not eh?!

This time, the bean bag was for Joshua, and this is how it went...

Go to fabric shop to find fabric.
Fail to find it and resort to asking shop lady.
Follow shop lady to the (very) limited selection of kiddie fabric, but breathe a huge sigh of relief on discovering that there is some pirate fabric.
When asked how much you want, think to yourself, "oops, should probably have thought about this" and ask for three metres as a wild guess.
Thank the lady kindly when she gives you an extra end bit.
(I'll now skip ahead to the 'making' bit, so you don't have the whole day)
Think, "why bother with circles and trapeziums (see last bean bag), surely squares and rectangles will do"
Cut out two squares the same size. (If you're a 'details' kinda person, you might be interested to know mine were 70 cm square, but that's only because the fabric was 140cm wide and I didn't want to be wasteful)
Cut out four rectangles which have two sides the same length as the square sides. (again, 'details' - the other sides were about 56 cm. And when I say 'about' I really mean it - more of that later)
Start pinning bits together.
I pinned two bits to the top square first (I reckoned the top one was the more important to get right - if your fabric's got a right way up and a wrong way up, make sure it's the right way up)
Sew the bits on.
Realise that one of the bits you've just sewn onto the top square is, sadly, the bottom square.
Curse your own ineptitude
Turn your back briefly on your three-year-old (yes, I had my 'helper' again) only to turn back round and discover he's just cut one of the rectangles into bits. And yes, it was the one I'd already sewn on.
Chastise child (I'm not going into details here!)
Unpick shredded rectangle from top square. (Cursing child)
Unpick bottom square from top square. (Cursing yourself)
Realise you have lunch guests coming.
Do lunch (meanwhile, child, in his grief, has fallen asleep for an early nap)
Head back upstairs after lunch and look forlornly at shredded (and now unpicked) rectangle.
Vow that this can be redeemed.
Find cushion in cupboard that's just the right size.
Trim off all 'shredded' bits of the rectangle.
Turn shredded bean bag rectangle into new-life cushion cover with a quick run on the machine.
Wake child to show him your cushiwork, make up after the early disagreements and play.
(Skipping ahead again)
Start over with the pinning.
Realise you could have used two rectangles rather than four, and not bothered cutting them in half. (Depending on mood, either smile or feel glum about this)
Start sewing.
Make sure you get a zip in there somewhere (I did it between the bottom and one side)
Wonder why you weren't more careful with your measuring, as the corners now don't really match up very well at all.
Steal the inside of another bean bag (otherwise the beans will all fall out of the corners that, as mentioned, haven't really worked...)
Fill the bean bag. Bear in mind that if you overfill a bean bag, you end up sitting on top of it, rather than sinking into it as you should!

Show bean bag to child.
Be thankful that he's thankful. (On that note, he's rather gone off Charlie and Lola - it's all Fireman Sam at the moment - if he thinks I'm doing another painting on his wall, he's got another think coming!)

If you're feeling adventurous, try out this once you're done.

Marvellous mural...

Or something...
Very pleased with this one. I'm glad to report that Joshua's a big fan of Charlie and Lola. Glad for two reasons. One, it's a fantastic programme, and I thoroughly approve of it (more than can be said for Waybuloo!). The other is that it's fantastically easy to paint onto a bedroom wall!
When Joshua wandered into his room as I was painting it, and saw it for the first time, he grinned broadly and said, "Charlie and Lola". (I'm glad he recognised them!) I was chuffed that he hadn't come in and burst into tears or anything, because that would have been somewhat annoying!
Very satisfying, and only took a couple (maybe three...) hours to do. The black outline was pretty time-consuming.

A new home.

Ok, so it's not exactly huge, but it's still home (with a bit of luck, anyway...) for a couple just starting out :)


As usual, it was a joint operation involving me and Joshua. It's SO easy to make though. You just need a plank of wood and you chop it up. Roughly speaking, it's a long bit for the back (bearing in mind you'll be using this to attach it to the tree or whatever, so it's gotta be longer than the box itself) then a front with a 1 1/2 inch hole drilled into it, a base, the two sides cut at an angle, and the roof, which is from the same plank, just mounted sideways. In terms of dimensions, you just need to make sure it all fits together using your chosen sizes. As you can see from the pic (if you click on it it's bigger) the front and back are 'inside' the sides, which means the roof fits. If you screwed it together the other way, the roof would be too narrow, and the birdies would get wet.

We painted it blue coz that's the only colour we've got in at the moment! I'm sure the birds won't mind. There are plans for more bird-related stuff in the pipeline.

And while I'm on 'things made outside', here's a picture of our creation from a couple of weeks back:

I'm particularly pleased with the hat and the goatee :)

Ooh ooh ooh.

I've just remember I haven't blogged about the thing I was meaning to blog about on this... So I'll try to remember to take some photos tomorrow (Joshua and I put it up on Sunday afternoon, and someone commented on it today!)