The Ballad of the Origami Ships

Once Upon A Time a mother and her daughter created some origami ships, they were good ships, of many sizes, and were launched with all due ceremony on the Ocean of Paddling Pool.

Those ships floated and floated well, pushed by the gentle breeze, and all was good with the world - until suddenly a storm, known as Hurricane Little Brother was unleashed upon the peaceful ocean and waves crashed upon the tiny paper boats - the daughter did her best to save the ships and rescued 3 of the most precious, but the others floundered in the storm, finally rescued as Hurricane Little Brother blew itself out, and scooped from the ocean by the Hero Fishing Net, to be repaired and ready to sail another day.

The End 

:D Just a little snippet of our day today ;)

Summer Solstice and Father's Day

Well I am not sure that the weather has got the message that is officially summer today wink emoticon but I have put together a little collage of some of my summer designs available to buy or commission, to brighten my day! It is also Father's Day here in the UK and my hubby has been treated to an array of handmade cards and a bowtie my daughter made in her sewing class at school :D so sun or no sun we are looking forward to a day of fun!

 Don't forgot, if you fancy treating yourself to a slice of summer there is free UK p&p available this weekend when using code FREEPOSTJUNE in my Etsy Store.

Birthday Fun!

This week was my daughter's 

7th birthday. She always loves planning her parties and this year kept saying that she really wished she could have a Halloween party, but that her birthday is in summer - so after watching The Book of Life a few weeks ago we decided on a vaguely Halloween/Book of Life/Day of the Dead/Mexican Fiesta theme full of bright decorations, sugar skulls, paper flowers, facepaint and donkey pinata!

We were super lucky with the weather and were able to spend the whole afternoon outside, painting faces and making paper flowers for the girls hair, and my hubbie even did a magic show, but the pinata at the end probably stole the show! Having never done one before I know idea how long it could take - it took 10 kids almost 20 minutes but they did it, and I reckon they all slept well last night!

There's a little collage here with a few of the pics - I am loving the gorgeous flower tealights I got from Tiger and that we put on and around the cake - and the cake itself is great because my daughter decorated it all herself - it's a sugar skull drawn in icing! The paper flowers are also lovely and super easy to do, I am thinking that might be my next tutorial I show you, they are brilliant for parties as craft activities and decorations. The girls at the party each made their own and then wore them in their hair, they looked great with their facepaint!

Please don't use any photos without my permission, these are family pics

That's all for now but I will try to put together a flower tutorial soon, the paper fans pictured are also great to make, although I did actually cheat a little and buy mine ready made, but there are lots of brilliant tutorials to be found for these on you tube.

Bye for now, Mel