Scrapbook of 2009 ...still!

Just a very quick entry today. A very bad photo of a DLO for my scrapbook of 2009 which is nearing the end now! I would like to get this finished over the summer holidays and maybe start on 2010! Although I still have to scrap my sister's wedding pictures...and it is her first wedding anniversary tomorrow!

K Fortnight

This fortnight we had a different problem to usual! We had stacks of things to do but couldn't fit them all in! The first weekend there was a Kite Festival in Brighton but we had to go to the Uckfield Carnival on the Saturday and then on the Sunday was the Year 6 Kit Car Grand Prix! At least that began with K. The children built the cars at school and then raced against 19 other schools, finishing a fantastic 8th!

This is Jasper driving on his turn. Eliza didn't want to drive so helped me support.....loudly!

This gorgeous chap is Kynan. Eliza walks him every day but he has had a huge operation on his back leg so is recovering at the moment. She has been going to visit him and so we had to include him as he is a K and rather photogenic!

Then we decided to fly our own kite. Oh My goodness! It was sooooo hard! This is Ken and Jasper flying Ken's old PeterPowell Stunt Kite from the 70's (apparently they go for a fortune on e-bay!)

Jasper launching it....
Even I had a turn....it looks impressive from the pics doesn't it? But sadly I have to admit it barely stayed in the sky for more than 30 seconds at a time!This is those brief few seconds in the sky! Apparently it was the wrong sort of wind! Too gusty and not steady enough.

We had also bought a small seagull kite which was no easier to fly either! This was my favourite picture of the day; Katy looking rather glamorous whilst launching it!

Another fortnight comes to a close then. I was a bit upset to miss the Kite Festival but hey ho, maybe we could do it next year!

End of Year 2 Book

At the end of the school year I like to make a present for my class teacher from the children. This usually takes the form of a book with photos of the class or drawings accompanied by a little message from them too. Two years ago when we went to Corfu, we had to buy some coffee filters. I carefully saved them, and brought them home to use...."one day". Well this was that one day!

I used the new doodlebug papers as we have been doing "Come Outdoors" topic this year. I covered the coffee filters and made tags from plain card for the children to write on. I can't show the tags as they have photos on but each child has written a message underneath and I added a sticker or two to each one too. She has three different little books now! I don't know if she likes them but I like making them so I don't mind what she does with them afterwards!

This is proof that you should never throw anything away! You never know when you might use it!

The CJ continueth....

Look at that! Two entries in two days! You can tell I have no soap to wrap at the moment. Well here is the next CJ. Not my favourite stamp and I have to say I thought it was going to be a toughie. I came up with two ideas; "How do you solve a problem like Maria" and this one. I have never done much in the way of masking and this idea required extensive masking and lots of thinking about positions etc!

This is my second attempt. First of all I stamped the gun part onto the reverse of a post-it note and cut it out so that I could stick it on the stamp and ink it, then remove it to stamp, thereby eliminating the gun image. Then I gradually built up the images, masking as I went until I added the complete image in the middle and continued on to the top.

I then decided to pick out the odd nun by colouring her, using watercolour pencils on a scrap of paper and picking up the colour to apply with a damp brush. I find that easier than colouring and then wetting for detail. I gave her some eyeshadow and then added glossy accents to her nails! I actually quite like it now 'tis done and I really enjoyed the masking so I shall have to try that again some time.

J fortnight

So did we do better in this fortnight? Well we certainly tried! The J activities began with Eliza making some jelly. You would think that we had never had jelly judging by the silly antics that went on for some arty pics of jelly as we tried to take to make it look more interesting! This first one is Jasper with his jelly...

and Jess in the background of her jelly...

On the final Sunday of J fortnight we were all free, no concerts, clubs work etc (well apart from Ken who was in bed after nights). So we decided to go on a journey. First of all we drove to Jevington. Now we didn't just go there because it began with J...

...we went to see the Hungry Monk restaurant which is where they invented.....

We thought about having a piece but it was closed....and it was £7.50 a serving!

Then we began our journey; this is how it worked. Every time we got to a T junction or cross-roads we tossed a coin; heads was right, tails was left. This is the first junction...

Finally after a tour of the housing estate in Seaford and a dead end we ended up at the seafront in Seaford (where we discovered they were flying some huge kites AND advertising a kite festival next week in Brighton for K fortnight!!!). We have been enjoying this gorgeous weather so we had packed our swimmers, just in case, and decided to stop here for our J-picnic;

Not very well-balanced but there was juicy cherries and juicy pineapple in there with the Jaffa cakes, old Jamaican ginger beer, jumbo peanuts and jam donuts!

Stopping at the beach was not one of my better ideas as it was blowing a gale and the only way to stay warm was to wrap up in a towel or lie flat so the wind blew over the top of you! However were are British so the sea had to be entered, whatever the temperature and the children did some wave jumping.

After this Eliza and Jasper decided it was too cold and got out but Jess and Katy went swimming! After a bit they had to get out too as the coast guards were clearing the sea because it was too rough. Here is Jess escaping the wind...

By then we were all feeling rather windswept so we went home!

Once home I began on the final J activity with some strawberries that we had all picked a few days earlier....jam!

I cooked and cooked it for about 3 hours, testing etc and finally put it all in the jars to cool.

The next morning it was not really very set......so I shall call it conserve instead! Why is strawberry jam soooooo difficult? I have made all sorts of different jams and jellies all my married life which have set beautifully except strawberry. I just can't seem to get it in that moment that it is set but not caramelised......tips anyone?

So onto K fortnight...I thought we did rather well this fortnight!