It's celebrations all round in our household this weekend as the Queen seems to be marking Niamhs 6th birthday with a few extra activities. Certainly none of us are moaning about a four day weekend of family time.
So with a birthday looming it meant it was time to get the thinking cap on and come up with some simple birthday decorations. (If you are a regular reader you'll know that this is one of our family traditions). Niamh is really enjoying the Rainbow Fairy series of books at the moment, a rather endless series of books but she adores them and reads them to herself over and over again. I was thinking about all things winged and came up with the idea of butterflies.
After a little bit of experimenting I came up with this design.
It used a template with a circular shape and a square shape slightly overlapping each other. Working diagonally across the shape from the square to the circle you then concertina the paper. Paper worked much better than card as you could fan it out far easier, it was also much easier to work with. The smaller the concertina the better as well. The final stage was holding everything in place and I settled on using pipe cleaners which were a doodle. I did try a few with ribbon but if the ribbon was too thick it didn't work so well and if the ribbon was too flimsy the antennae didn't look so good.
They were a doodle to make, the only time consuming part was my decision to make about 30. The normal size ones were made with A4 paper and the larger ones made to A3 scale. I've a colour photocopier at home so made my own papers for this but in hindsight using wrapping paper may have been far most cost effective and more efficient on the paper too as there were lots of scrap.
So on Saturday morning after a frenzy of butterfly activity on Friday night we had one very happy little girl! I can't believe that she is 6! Her party is not until towards the end of the month because of so many people being away for the Jubilee/Half Term.
Our Big Birthday Day Out Saturday was fun - after a great lunch at an Indonesian restaurant in Brighton we took to the sky on the large wheel currently in residence on Brighton seafront. It was then a quick trip to the 2p sliders on the pier before a trip home for tea and cake in the garden. What a lovely day.
But I'm fortunate enough to have had a lovely weekend... all 4 days of it.
Sunday we spent around the home and I got lots of making done, completing my finishing touches for some first classes to be taught this weekend. Ever since seeing the cotton reel wreath at the Makery in Bath I had wanted an excuse to try my hand and I've decided that it could be a lovely decoration for my craft workshops. So Sunday afternoon I assembled all my old reels and had a go. It could perhaps do with a little rejig here and there but overall it really makes me smile. It's all held in place by a base structure of an embroidery loom. You can't really see it now but I guess that's the point!
I also finished off my bunting that I have been working on for nearly the whole of the last week. I've been collecting old bedding when it's had a pattern that has appealed. It's such a cost effective way of getting hold of large pieces of fabric and often the prints and colours are great. This week I've spent lots of time cutting out triangles, sewing them, turning them, iron them and, finally, binding them all together. I hope to get a couple more pictures to show it in all its glory but until then this shot will have to suffice. The multicoloured floral print on the right hand side was an off cut from ikea, left over from a project, but that's the only 'new' piece. All the rest really was bedding that I've found. I've managed to make over 150ft of this and I can't wait to see it in situ in the hall later this week.
Monday was a lovely family gathering for which the weather wasn't too unkind before the street party today.
The rain did set in during the afternoon which saw a rather earlier close than might otherwise have happened but for the few fair hours that we had it was lovely to see everyone out, chatting, eating and generally having a lovely time. We live in a lovely road and normally only see people to drive past them so it was a treat to have the time to chat. Our local organisers did a fantastic job and I am very grateful to them for everything they did.
Everything has been a little too much for Caoimhe though and she's settle down nestled next to Mr B in a rather adorable pose. If you look closely underneath her chin you can see that she has crossed her paws! She had a rather unexpected adventure yesterday getting stuck on a neighbours roof, fortunately a bungalow. I'm not sure how long she'd been up there, as we found her then when we got back from the family gathering at about half 6, but lets just say she seemed quite hungry and thirsty when she finally got down.
I hope you've had a lovely weekend too. It seems that the rain may have arrived for half term but you never know.... the weather men could be wrong.
xx
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