Yesterday, we all needed a pick-me-up, and to stop the car battery dying 🙂 So, I took the girls to the McDonald’s drive thru for a late breakfast. I was amazed that my daughter loved the bacon and cheese flatbread. I had one too and I can see why she did 🙂 My other daughter got some pancakes. I’m pretty sure they use golden syrup instead of maple syrup, but whatever it is, she seems to like it. We had a chat in the car and looked at our surroundings, so it felt like we got a break from the house without leaving our car 🙂
When we got home, we did some craft activities together. The first was an idea I found online for making sun catchers out of PVA glue and food colouring. I suspect it might take ours a few days to dry – I used such a thick layer of glue! The girls keep checking it and expressing their disappointment that it hasn’t set yet 🙂 Hopefully, if it ever does, it will have been worth the wait 🙂 We used a yogurt pot lid (it said you could use any plastic lid) and we poured glue on, added gel food colouring and the girls made patterns with it using a clay tool. You could use a cocktail stick too, or a lolly stick. I wanted to do a bright, patterned one, but I wasn’t sure if liquid food colouring would work, so we omitted it and made a swirly blue sky instead. The girls used up some Christmas sequins on top to finish them off.
Afterwards, we got out some air-drying clay my sister had got for the girls. We decided to make little trinket dishes with it for the girls’ jewellery 🙂 I helped one of my kids to shape hers while the other one made a pumpkin dish. They pushed little beads into it with their initials and added more for embellishment. They ended up coming up with lots of their own ideas and it kept them engaged for a long time 🙂 I liked the fact my daughter made a one-armed gingerbread man 🙂 She ended up making something like silly string out of the clay and that was when the crafting came to an end 🙂
This week, my younger daughter’s school had suggested making ice decorations. I had never heard of them before, but they are a good idea and produce something that doesn’t create a lot of waste. It said to fill a saucer with water, so I filled a couple of plastic bowls. On our walk, we collected any leaves and twigs we found lying on the ground. My daughter befriended a worm while she was doing it and seemed sad that he had moved on when we passed the same spot earlier. The girls added their nature bits to the bowls, we added looped string so they could be hung up after they were frozen. It said you could place them outside overnight to freeze, but it seems to have warmed up the last couple of days, so I put them in the freezer instead. My daughter reminded me to get them out today. They pressed out easily after running some water over the base of the bowl. It was a challenge finding somewhere to hang them up in the garden, with everything pruned back but we found a spot and I’m interested to see how long they last for 🙂
We made some of our own sweets for the first time. I just looked up a rock candy recipe online, and it was so easy! We boiled the sugar with golden syrup and when it solidified when dropped into cold water, I added the peppermint flavouring and food colouring and poured it into a greased tray. It only took about twenty minutes to set. Then, we sieved icing sugar over it and broke it up. I think that was the part I enjoyed the most 🙂 I had to refresh my memory on sterilising jars and we put it into one I’d saved for our next art project. I always seem to need a jar for some project and never seem to have any 🙂
Last night, I had some quiet time and did the kingfisher in my adult’s sticker book 🙂 I’ve been working my way through Bleak House too, but it’s hard to get enough peace to truly get into the reading zone 🙂 I think I need to prioritise reading more too and put on jazz and light a candle while I do it – it seems to foster a positive atmosphere for reading 🙂 Sometimes I think I have to be doing something all the time for it to count as something worthwhile, but reading is a valuable use of time too.
This morning, the girls and I went for a walk/scoot and stopped at Guilt Trip on the way back 🙂 I’m making a conscious effort to support small businesses as much as I can at the minute; I knew the Lockdown is particularly hard on them. I love the quirkiness of independent businesses too 🙂 The girls loved the shoebox-style box the donuts came in and my daughter spent most of the walk home trying to work out what the text on it meant 🙂 The girls each chose a cinnamon and sugar donut for their Friday treat and I got an espresso one with coffee cream on it. It was the best donut I’ve ever had 🙂 I had an espresso to compliment it and I think I must have been extra tired today because I didn’t even notice the alleged effects of all the caffeine 🙂
The Funky Thrifter 