royal visit

the queen and prince phillip were coming to newhaven to visit bickerstaffs fisheries (who supply the top restaurants)...she was doing a tour of sussex highlighting successful local enterprise....she came by helicopter, landed at the local park and got in her bentley to drive to the west quay

ellie all dressed up to go see queenie

ready to wave her flag

the rnli boat attended

that dot in the sky is the royal helicopter approaching!

her comes the cavalcade!

much excitement!

here she is! and there's phillip too!

popping in to buy some scallops

i had a good nose inside her car...she has a travel bag with babywipes and sweeties and a blanket to keep her legs warm (bless)

got her scallops, time to meet some subjects

"come on phillip"

wading through the crowd

flowers from a fan

lots of flowers from little people

more flowers...

what do you reckon they do with all the flowers? saves getting any for floral arrangements at the palace i suppose...

off she goes, waving that famous hand

thanks for coming!

halloween baking

ghost meringues

pumpkin pie

(made 2 of these as jay wants one of his own because no-one in his family like it so he never gets to eat it)

lottie's pumpkin carving

lottie carved her pumpkin this year with no help from me whatsoever (only because i didn't want to get off the sofa because i was watching homeland)...she got to use the enormous bread knife, scraped out all the crud herself, cleared up after herself and very cleverly decided that if she did a face on both sides, the shadow of the other side would appear on the wall behind (cool eh?!)

jack skellington

puking pumpkin

(how delightful)

halloween craft tuesday week 5!

this week we made halloween crackers

the beautifully strange ellie with hers

a close up

the just plain strange lottie with hers

a close up

take 2 tp roll tubes and cut one in half...place the whole one at the end of a piece of crepe paper with the two halves at each end of the whole one (leaving a 2cm gap)...staple onto the crepe paper (crepe paper is notorious for not liking cellotape, pva glue etc)...insert a sweetie, joke and a trick in the whole tube (we got them to write a trick for someone else so no-one knows what they are getting!)...put some uhu glue on the tubes and start to roll up, gluing the edge when you are finished rolling...at the gap between the whole tube and the half tubes, tie some gift ribbon and curl with scissors...decorate with stickers, fake bugs and halloween confetti

pink skeleton!

ellie dressed up for her day at the charity shop before halloween

dress 35p tights £1 wig £3 (jacket, shoes and bag - model's own)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YR4CseY9pk

i love this man so much

candy corn

lottie found a video on youtube (strawburry17) to make your own candy corn....after inspecting the ingredients there was no way they were going to taste like proper candy corn but worth a try nonetheless

put 2 cups mini marshmallows in a bowl and pour over 1 tablespoon water...zap in microwave for 1 min, then add 2 cups icing sugar until it forms a dough...divide dough into 3 equal parts, leave 1 part uncoloured...dye the other 2 parts yellow and orange by kneading food colour into the doughs...roll each colour into a 50cm length and 'glue' together with water...cut diagonally across the length to make triangles and there you have candy corn that tastes like marshmallows and sugar (duh)

halloween craft tuesday week 4

this week we made vintage pipe cleaner people...i got the idea from pinterest

lottie's 

her favourite

ellie's

her favourite

download and print the sheet of vintage halloween faces in colour (the link is on pinterest), cut out the faces and glue them onto circles of card, make rosettes from orange or black crepe paper and glue these faces onto the rosettes, take a stick of bumpy chenille and cut it in half...cross over the two halves and twist in the middle to join and form two arms and two legs, glue the rosette onto the arms, tape a ribbon loop onto a card circle and glue this to the back of the rosette, leave to dry and then hang on halloween tree

as usual uhu is the best glue for this project

charm necklaces

lottie has wanted to make necklaces with little cork bottles she got some beads in and she wanted them to have charms on ...so i told her that maybe put charms on with meaning to them and i would tell her what to write on the gift message

she made this one for jay

this one for melissa

and this one for herself (but the note is from me)

fill the mini bottle with glitter, glue the cork into the top (we recommend uhu), choose your charms and thread them onto the middle of a length of ribbon, put glue all around the neck of the bottle, place the ribbon around the neck of the bottle and tie with a knot at the back, leave to dry then tie the ribbon to the desired necklace length, write a wee note explaining the charms chosen, give to recipient, wait for the inevitable smile

a 1950s wedding

we have never seen a proper photo of ellie's grandad (her dad's dad) but today we got one and he looks like ellie's dad completely and utterly

this happy couple produced 5 babies, 14 grandbabies and 2 great grandbabies

i am proud to say that one of those grandbabies belongs to me and if it wasn't for pete and jeanette, i wouldn't have her

thank you

OMG!

ellie and her father are clearly identical twins...i never really thought about it before but getting a load of old photos emailed to you really proves a point

it's sweet that the likeness is there (because let's face it, she has no physical attributes of mine!)

halloween craft tuesday week 3

this week we made mummies

this is the 'gorgeous' ellie with her mummy

cut out 2 legs and 2 arms from white card...with a black biro draw lines on the arms and legs to look like bandages...staple the arms and legs to a tp roll tube...scrunch up a piece of a4 paper to make a head, tape this to the top of the tube....wrap a bandage around the tube and the head and fasten with bandage tape...glue on some googly eyes

halloween decorations

it may only be 10th october but my girls decided it was time for the halloween decorations to go up

lottie has got a halloween tree to hang her crafts, with green fairy lights

she even decorated her desk (i made the kawaii candy corn a few years back)

and ellie was subtle in decorating her window

professional food colours!

asda are selling these 2 for £3!

so we bought 4 primary colours...black, yellow, blue and red...lottie learnt that red and blue make purple, red and yellow make orange, blue and yellow make green

as used by lottie's favourite bakers, you only need a cocktail stick dipped in the colour gel to get vibrant colours for your icing

she chose pastel ice cream colours today

halloween craft tuesday week 2

this week we made pipe cleaner skeletons

lottie's

ellie's

take a piece of black paper...on a piece of white paper draw a skull and cut out. glue this skull to the top of your piece of black paper...cut pipe cleaners into the sizes in the photos and glue down to form your skeleton...once dry, cut around to make a body shape...tape a string loop to the back for hanging (ps: we found pva glue wasn't successful for this craft and we recommend uhu)

halloween craft tuesday week 1

in the run up to halloween, every tuesday is craft day (giving us 5 this year!)

first week's craft "puffy pumpkins"

lottie's

ellie's

cut out 2 large pumpkin shapes from orange paper...using black wool, sew around the edge with running stitch about 5mm away from the edge...leave a gap at the top of the pumpkin for stuffing...decorate the front in whatever design you fancy...to make your pumpkin puffy, fill with tissues until puffy enough...sew up the gap and make a loop for hanging

nail art

lottie wanted her nails to look like pink cupcakes with chocolate frosting and sprinkles

i think we achieved that