Day 355 - Campsite prints from found plants

Doing some painting at the campsite with my Little A and we decided to do some printing with a few bits and pieces we found on the ground. A gumnut, some leaves and some bark. We made these into a flower.

Day 349 - Japanese Kokeshi Dolls

Juliet and I went to a workshop at the Bendigo Art Gallery during the school holidays. We learnt how to make dolls from toilet rolls based on traditional Japanese Kokeshi dolls.

Here's what we got up to.

We decided to make some more today. We used an old calendar for the dresses.

Day 347 - Adventures with wee ones

This week has been a strange one. Some sad news for me, but also some miraculous rain. After 7 months without it, the sky finally opened up, and how excited we all were about it. Since we survive on tank water only, we are well aware of water conservation and just a couple of weeks ago needed to get some water trucked into our property to fill our tanks. The rain brought with it a beautiful sound on our tin roof, the smell of the damp Aussie bush, and best of all, muddy puddles to splash in.

Here's some of the fun we've been up to.

Aidan and I decided to make this little house and garden for the fairies and woodland folk who live up the back of our property. You can spot them if you look carefully enough.

The 2 little boys and I went to Melbourne yesterday to visit my Nan who is unfortunately quite ill in hospital. While we were there it seemed a sin not to visit an op shop, and Aidan chose these adorable bubba cino (espresso) cups which we got for $4. How cute are they? He does love his cinos.

This inspired me to create a home corner in the lounge room for a bit, with old sheets, pillow cases, ribbons and lace, boxes etc. It was a definite hit!

I had a box with some lace and ribbons to play with and I just love what Juliet did with it.

Day 341 - Homemade playdough

Today we made some homemade playdough with a little bit of lavender from our garden and made some playdough creations.

Here is my playdough recipe for great playdough.

Mix a cup of flour, half a cup of salt, 2 tablespoons of cream of tartar, 2 tablespoons of oil, 1 cup of water, food coloring and a small handful of lavender together.

Stir over heat until it thickens and rolls into a ball.

Smells good, feels amazing and provides hours of entertainment. Even my almost 8 year old loves it.

Then we made our own creation that we call Mr P-Playdough head. He's as cute as a button!

Aidan has also been regaling me with tales of the good old days when 'we all used to be octopuses'. he has drawn a self portrait of himself as an octopus and I recently found out that I used to be a pink octopus as recreated below. Love the way his mind works. I have always thought of him as an old soul so perhaps he is right. ;-)

We then had a picnic in the bush out the back of our house and these are our instagram entries for this weekend's hash tag project #whpleanwithit. The idea is to take a photo of people imitating leaning or funny shaped trees.

Day 337 - Rice and food dye fun

Lots of fun today playing with rice, which we coloured first with food dye. It's like a sandpit, kids can spend hours shuffling it around. Great fun and good chill out time with your preschooler.

Day 317 - A socktastic picture

School resumed again today after the long 6 week break, and although I generally love the holidays, this one seemed more difficult than most, and I am glad to be home with the two little ones again. I feel like a balance has been restored.

Dylan is not too well, and Aidan and I have had some time today relaxing, and making this sock picture, inspired by the Nick Sharratt 'Socks' book we borrowed from the library yesterday. We used some of Dylan's old tiny socks. Aidan was quite keen to ensure we got all the details correct.

Day 297 - Random kids crafty

Having some fun crafting with the kids today. We used a fair bit of food colouring for Juliet's party a few weeks ago so we started off doing some play with the little bit remaining in the food dye tubes onto some old tea towels and fabric scraps.

Then we put a little bit of food dye with water into a spray bottle (old spray detangler bottle) and used stencils to make some pictures.

Nice and relaxing and fun too. We all need some quiet activities amongst the chaos sometimes.