Project Wild Thing ::

As Camp Bestival gets closer, we're getting pretty excited by the prospect of attending this year.  As a result we've been keeping a fierce eye on their news page.  On Friday they announced Project Wild Thing would be joining them for the weekend, creating an area for kids to really get back into the wild, activities will include building fires, tree climbing, identifying plants and animals and much more.
Camp Bestival are also running a competition to win festival t-shirts for your entire family.  All you have to do is download the Wild Thing app, get outside, put the app to good use, snap some pictures and email them over to Camp Bestival (details here).

I downloaded the app straight away but unfortunately the dire weather meant it was a few days before we had the chance to use it.  Finally yesterday the rain stopped and the sun even made a brief appearance.  We headed to one of our favourite parks in Cheltenham (Pittville) though we are so lucky here to have many to choose from.  The app is a great resource of outside activity ideas, broken up into sections depending on the amount of time you have available.
We concentrated on the shorter activities, sticking to the 20 minute section, just because I was fearful the weather could change at any moment.
We hunted out 5 different flowers, prowled around stealthily like foxes and turned over rocks to discover 'mini beasts' (as Milo called them).

One we haven't tried yet but I love the sound of is; walking though grass with an old sock over your shoe, once it's really dirty, pop it in a clear plastic bag with a squirt of water and leave in the window to see if anything grows!

This is a great resource and something I can see us referring to loads over the next few months and beyond.  If you fancy getting outside into the wild yourself, you can download the app for iOS here and android here.

Crochet Bird :: Free Pattern ::

Quite a few months ago now, Angie of Ask Baby Cotswold and I did a bit of a skills swap.  She designed a logo for my crochet business and I wrote a pattern for the little bird logo of her business.  I completely forgot at the the time to blog about it, but the pattern is available over on her website for free, if you fancy making up your own little bird.

They make great little decorations and I'm thinking I might make some up in brown come Christmas, with little red felt patches to become robins for my tree.

Finding Inspiration :: Rainy Day Crafting ::

The weather has not yet improved and doesn't look much like it will, not during half term anyway.  So I've been scouring pinterest in the hope of some rainy day entertainment for the little one.  Of course I was not disappointed!  I cannot wait to get started on some of these lovely ideas.

Click the little pictures at the bottom to see the original source of the images above, or click the big picture to see more of my pins over on pinterest.

Rhubarb and Strawberry Sorbet :: A Recipe ::

For Easter weekend we headed down to Johnny's grandparents house, which has become so much of a tradition, Milo considers this trip 'going to Easter'.  Whilst there, among all the many wonderful dishes and copious amounts of chocolate on offer, we sampled some rhubarb sorbet, created by Johnny's Grandpa.  I couldn't believe how delicious it was.  It had such a sweet flavour that I can't quite put my finger on, but ever since then I've been dreaming of attempting my own version.

So when my lovely next door neighbour presented me with 2 sticks of rhubarb last week,  it seemed like the perfect time to have a go, I already had half a punnet of strawberries sitting in my fridge, so I figured this classic combination seemed too good to miss.

I'm so pleased with how this turned out, adding the strawberries really brings it together I think. I'm especially grateful for this taste of summer on a dull, grey, rainy day like today! 

I don't have an ice cream machine, so this recipe assumes you don't either, though if you do I'm sure it's fairly simple to make that work too.

Baby Blankets ::

Exactly how many homemade blankets a baby needs, I'm not entirely sure, but with the few I have kept from when Milo was a baby and the 3 I've already started for the new baby, I'm fairly sure I'll have more than enough!

When I say the, '3 I've already started' I mean just that, they're no where near finished yet.  I don't have a great track record of finishing blankets, so we'll see how this goes.

However these are the baby blankets I currently have in progress ::

A colourful heart granny square blanket.  I'm using DMC petra in a range of lovely bright colours and the pattern I wrote for a heart granny square many moons ago.  I've actually reworked this a little and will be updating the original pattern shortly, to what I feel is a better version.  I'm going to finish each block with white, joining the squares as I go.  I'm only about halfway through the squares and they need a bit of blocking, but I'm really pleased with how it's going so far.

Second up is a basic granny square, using Rowan Felted Tweed DK and I just plan to keep going until I run out of yarn, which will be soon I think.  This was the first one I started, way back when I first found out I was pregnant and needed something simple to work on.

And lastly, I started this on Saturday. A simple knitted chevron blanket, pattern from the purl bee.  We were off to the cinema to watch Tinkerbell and the Pirate Fairy (pretty dire in my humble opinion but kept the boy entertained) and I really needed something simple I didn't need to look at to keep me occupied.  After a quick search of ravelry this came up and thought it looked perfect.  I'm using Red Heart with Love, I'm hoping I might be able to dye it on completion, I'm thinking some kind of ombre effect, using Kool Aid, but as it's 100% acrylic this might not be possible.  I'll do a test at some point to see.

Now it just remains to be seen if I ever actually finish any of them!

This Week ::

A round up of some of my favourite moments from my Instagram this week ::

Finding Inspiration :: A Room for Milo ::

As I'm pregnant and all, I sensibly decided now would be a good time to give our whole house a bit of a overhaul, because you know heavy lifting and painting are two things you should definitely make sure you're incorporating into a safe pregnancy!

Milo's room is first up, I'm moving him completely, due to some damp issues in his current room. On emptying, what was the spare room, of all it's contents, I thought 'well as it's empty it would be foolish not to paint it', as you do.

Milo decided after much deliberation, that he wanted his room to look like 'Bart Simpsons, from the Lego house'.  So after some consultation with the paint chart we choose 'Natural Twine' from Wilkinson's for the walls.  I'm sure it's not normal for a 5 year old to choose to have a 'beige' bedroom, but I figure it's a good base to add some colourful furniture to.

Of course I since took to pinterest to search out some gorgeous colourful bedrooms and just the right
accessories for the job.

Click the little pictures at the bottom to see the original source of the images above, or click the big picture to see more of my Room for Little Ones pins over on pinterest.

The key points I'm thinking of working with, from Bart's room are the green flooring, red lamp, purple bedding and colourful furniture.  Fortunately Milo has a lot of white furniture already, so painting it up in bright colours shouldn't be a problem.  To replicate Bart's posters I thought I'd get Milo to do some nice pictures for me (maybe even a Krusty the clown drawing!) and put them up in some simple frames.  I also think the addition of a pin board to keep all his school certificates on would be a really lovely idea.

It's all going very slowly at the moment, but I hope to share the finished article with you soon.