Thursday 21 November 2013

Crochet Soother Chain

2 posts in one day – Wow, I must really be avoiding cleaning.

Here’s a very simple crochet pattern – it only takes about ½ an hour and voila – your baby has a decorative and functional soother chain, easily washed and can be remade when it gets too ratty.

I haven’t written many patterns so forgive me as I try to explain it as best I can and use a few pictures to help explain.  Hope you can figure it out – it’s pretty versatile and you can make it to your own technique too once you have the concept.

Crochet Soother Chain with Flower

Supplies
Cotton Yarn (doesn’t pill, washes well, kind of a pain to work with)
3.75 mm hook
Button with loop on the back
Suspender clip (found at the sewing store and took it apart so I was left with the clasp)

Chain 50.
Count back from your hook 15 ch and join with single crochet.
Continue sc until you reach the end.
Join your flower colour (leave a long string for sewing).
Work 8 hdc in a circle around the last sc in the chain.
Join to first hdc with slip stitch.
*Work 3 dc in same hdc, sl st to next ch* repeat from * to* finish off.
Attach your button and clasp by sewing through repeatedly until it feels secure.
Weave in ends.









 With a Barrel and a Heap of Crochet fun,

Stephanie


Under the Sea Birthday Party

I haven’t blogged anything in a while.  Life has been full and fun but maybe not anything notable or inspiring to write about.  We did have a busy birthday season last month with my one year old, followed by my Father-in-law’s 65th and then my 3 year old.  It was a busy three weeks filled with decorating, baking and celebrating.  I particularly loved my 3 year old’s birthday.  Considering she is child #3 and was turning 3 on October 3, I thought she should get as special a party as possible (and I shouldn’t slack off just cause I overdid it with the first one’s and now I’m feeling “done” with elaborate birthdays).   

I’ve always thought birthdays are special and a time for each child to be in the spotlight.  Cate was on a Nemo kick for a long time so I had been thinking about an under the sea party for a while.  However, she recently changed allegiance to Little Mermaid, but it was still along the lines I was planning.  I chose to not over do the “Disney” aspect and went with the “Under the Sea” theme.   


My patient and wonderful husband put up the streamers the night before while I finished the cake.  

I tried to keep it simple as the kids are only 3 (some still 2 ½).  I opted to do a drop off party, even though they are still young, I had enough adult helpers and it is easier to focus on the kids if you aren’t trying to entertain the parents as well.  Plus our house would be too full and it was too chilly for an outside party.   

We started with a relatively simple craft, but since they are so young they needed a lot of adult help.  I thought this was so fun, unique and could be done with many different materials.  

Fish bowl art
Supplies:
Sandwich plastic bags
Pre-cut blue card stock
Pre-cut fish shape
Pre-cut fin shapes
Googly eyes
Bendaroos (waxy string) cut in half
Rice
Glue sticks (1 per 2 kids)


 




We handed out the supplies one at a time and let the kids assemble them.  You can see my 6 year old’s is what it was supposed to look like.  The other is my 3 year olds creative flare coming through.  They don’t care if it’s perfect, it’s just something fun to do and take home.






 Next we did cake.  I kept it pretty simple as kids don’t tend to eat a lot of cake and I have thrown out a lot of cake in the past.  The kids each got a cupcake and the small cake was left over for the next day.  


 We played a few simple games:
my teacher husband put his creative juices into "Pin the Tentacle on the Jelly fish".

There was also, pass the tissue paper ball (wrap a candy in a layer of tissue paper and add candy in different coloured paper until you have a big ball with enough candy for each kid.)  You pass it around the circle while the music is playing and whoever is holding it when the music stops gets to rip off one layer and eat a candy.  Pretty simple but still needed guidance at this age to keep it going.
I had a bit of a fishing station set up with dollar store rods and magnetic creatures.  And there was a bean bag toss. 
















For lunch it was fun and kid friendly.  Octopus hot dogs (simply cut half into 6 and boil, they curl up nicely).  

 Grapes on a stick (cause anything on a stick is fun).  Fish in Jello cups (these didn’t look as good as I hoped, the gummy fish got really slimy).  

 
 Rainbow fish crackers.  And juice (coloured blue with food colouring).  Kids don’t tend to eat much at parties so be prepared to throw out leftovers.


We then had a bit of a gift opening.  And then the party moved outside to whack the piñata.  I don’t always get a piñata but my kids have learned to associate parties with piñatas and this was Cate’s first one, she was so excited.  The little kids couldn’t break it and even the big kids didn’t do much damage.  In the end we dumped out the candy and the piñata hangs in her room intact.


This was one of the least stressed I felt about a party and it went off without a hitch.  I’m so glad I could give my little girl the party of her dreams.  

With a Bushell & a Peck of Party Time,

Stephanie