Learning about fruit and veg

I got this postbox idea whilst seeing a  speech therapist  with my daughter. You can make all sorts of games using postboxes.  In our case it´s  a “Learning about Fruit and Veg” game. I looked for  line drawing pictures on the net, printed them out and coloured them in. Then Annabel helped me to laminate them. We made postboxes out of washing powder cartons.. they are brilliant  because they are very strong.

First of all  we named and sorted the fruit and vegetables. We posted the fruit into the red box and the vegetables into the green one. Then we put a teddy bear behind the red box and a little sheep behind the green one and we started to feed the animals. I asked Annabel to give a banana to the teddy bear and a cucumber to the sheep. Later the instruction became more difficult. We played this game in turns so Annabel gave me istuctions as well. It really was fun.

The cards are in both languages, so it is interesting for my husband to play as well. Although it was boring for me as I knew all the words.. maybe we should add German  (and/or  French) as my husband speaks them both.

Bird Watching Weekend

A few months ago our English grandma subscribed Annabel to RSBP magazine. And now we get the magazine every other month. Annabel loves the magazine! Pictures and stories are so lovely there. Well.. I must say that I enjoy the magazine as well.

So last weekend was the big bird watching weekend. We have been prepared for that. Two weeks ago, at 7!!! o`clock in the morning Annabel insisted on making a birdfeeder. How can I say “it`s only 7 o`clock” if my daughter is so enthusiastic.. So we took the material out and ended with two birdfeeders. Later I bought some sunflower seeds to put in them.

And yesterday we made the binoculars out of loo roll tubes. We  also looked at our bird magazine once again to be sure that we recognize all the birds we saw. And out we went.

We have some birds inside the house too

These lovely colourful birds are  from here.

Fairy Princess Wands

Annabel`s favourite game lately is “To be a Fairy Princess”. We have got a few lovely fairy princess dresses but no accessories. So I thought I would make a wand for her. As her friend Lisa’s birthday came up at the same time, I made one for Lisa as well.

I cut out two heart shapes from cardboard and glued a little layer of cotton wool on them. Then I cut out two heart shapes from Annabel`s baby duvet cover and added some decorations. Then I stitched everything together. For the stick I used five bbq sticks. Lots of ribbons as well.. and.. looks cute, doesn`t it. And what’s most important- it`s still in one piece. The one I bought from the shop last summer broke within 10 min of playing with it.

Dollshouse update

We  now have four floors.  On the ground floor there is the  bathroom. It is still not finished yet. We need to make a sink and a cupboard and also a little rug. I am not happy with the bath tub either. I covered the bathtube, toilet and umbrella stand with tissue paper but it did not turn out the way I wanted. I should have glued white tissue paper under the patterned tissue paper.  So we need to wait until we finish another box of butter… (We don`t really eat butter so it takes a bit of time ). Until then we will have to play with the set we have got now.  And of course we need to finish the shower as well and add some taps.

On the first floor we have the bedroom and the  living room. These little finger puppets are perfect for our dollshouse. As you can see I have actually made three chairs.. the middle one was the first one but it did not turn out well and I made another one. But it is still good for playing with :)

On the second floor we have the kitchen. I organised it in the Estonian way We always have the dining table in front of the window.. not the sink.  The little stools are made out of wine bottle corks and milk bottle lids. All the pots and pans are lids from different bottles.

On the second floor we have another bedroom. The chest of drawers is made out of  a little cereal box. And the bed is a cream cheese box. I planned to use foil to make mirrors but then I thought that little real mirrors would be nicer. We need to make a nice rug still.

We have a new memberof our family- a little doggie. His cosy place is under the stairs. But we still need to make a nice mat for him.

I think the “stairs” idea is perfect. Easy to make and looks nice. I found this idea from the net but unfortunately I can`t remember where.

It is such a joy to see Annabel playing with the dollshouse. This morning, and last night too, the prince and princess left their castle and went to visit the dollshouse people   One thing I do know though -  it is very dangerous when my husband plays with Annabel and her dollshouse – he keeps on finding more things that I have not yet thought of.  He said we should have a coat rack and Annabel has just decided that we need a laundry basket in the bathroom, so no sleep for me for a while.

Home Decor :D

These castles look so cute on top of the tv,  it looks like  home decor.

Annabel insisted that my beautiful queen live in the grey castle with the witch.

The castles are made out of loo rolls.

Valentines Cards with a Difference

Who says there have to be only  red and pink hearts on Valentines Day cards

I bought a birthday present for Annabel`s friend from Monsoon and got a lovely paper bag with it. It was so beautiful I couldn`t put it into our recycling bin. Instead I cut it apart and made four envelopes. As I used recycled material for the envelopes I wanted to make cards the same way. I looked around the house and found two empty cereal boxes. I thought just to cover the boxes with some scraps of paper but then I saw that one of the boxes had a cute picture on it. And I just added a little piece of ribbon and a few flowers cut out of a Early Learning Centre magazine using a punch. They would have been cool xmas cards really but are nice for Valentines Day as well. Aren`t they?  The card as the bottom is just covered with a piece of Monsoon bag and flower cut outs. I had to cover this one because there was only writing there. But the card is very cute, better in real  life than in the photo.

My favourite is the piggy card. I found this website and had to try at least one card straight away. And I know a person who loves pigs.. so I hope she will be happy This website is absolutely wonderful and it is very easy to make these pop- up cards. Piggy card idea is from here.  As the card was already nice and red on the  outside I did not cover it at all. I think it`s quite cute.. double decker Valentines buses. Although I needed to put a little piece of paper over it ecause it said on the cereal box- please recycle this card   So the next time I shop for cereal, I will only buy boxex with nice pictures on.

Pantomime

Our English grandparents took us to the Pantomime (Sleeping Beauty) at the beginning of this month. It was the first time for Annabel to see the Pantomime and for me too. We both were thrilled! It was so funny and interesting! As Annabel still talks about it we decided to play the story ourselves as well.

I had been thinking about making the  peg dollies for a long time. And now we had a good reason to make them. At first we painted the dollies pink and then drew some clothes on them. Well I did plan to make posh clothes from crepe paper or even fabric but then I decided to keep it simple and quick. We used yarn for  the hair and ribbons for clothes. I think it is quite obvious which ones Annabel has made

From the left- Princess, Prince (yes, pink hair was Annabel`s choice), Queen, Witch. It took me a while to convince Annabel that the Witch does have quite an important role in this story. She did not want me to make it. She said that the Witch is naughty. But when everything was finished she played with the Witch quite happily.

We really did not plan to make anything else this evening. But while playing with the dollies we realised that they need a place to live ….. And just before going to bed we started to do some cutting and gluing again..

We will finish the castles tomorrow.

***

This time we read the story in Estonian. Along with “Sleeping Beauty” we read other princess stories as well. It is a very lovely lovely book with beautiful drawings.

Another chair and some cushions.

Fishy Armchair

After seeing THIS  lovely chair I thought- voila, this is exactly what is missing in our dolls house.  At first I wanted to use exactly the same template but then I realised that it is a bit small for our dollies. So I adjusted the template a little bit. The fabric is left over from our bathroom window curtains. THere are five fishes in total on this fabric so some more fishy chairs are coming. I am very pleased with the result.  And.. thanks, Pandora!

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