Egg decorating round up...

To dye the eggs above I boiled the eggs in blue and green food dye and left them in the water over night so that they came out a nice bright colour. The brown eggs I boiled with the skins of onions and left them to soak for a couple of hours. We tried wax resist with some, the green egg at the bottom of the picture was coloured on with white crayon before putting to soak in the green dye. The marbled egg at the top was done in a salad spinner, a couple of the eggs were decorated with paper punched shapes and stuck on with glue.

I really wanted to try the Ukrainian egg decorating that I have seen floating around the web, I found what looked like an easy tutorial and we gave it a go. The problem was, when we dipped the hot wax onto the egg the wax got cold and fell off! We were left with a lot of wax dots on the mat and nothing on the eggs. So, we got out the white acrylic paint and decorated with that instead, using a pin pushed into an eraser as the 'brush'.
In the archives, you will also find, colander eggs, fabric scrap eggs, rubber stamped eggs (another super easy, minimum clean up one), wax resist kool aid eggs, and tissue paper eggs.

Then just to finish it all off you need a set of bunny ears, tutorial found here.

Salad Spinner Eggs...

If you want a fun way to decorate eggs but with a limited amount of mess then this is the technique for you!

You will need:

• hard boiled eggs
• food dye
• pipette
• salad spinner
• vinegar
• small child (optional)

First dip your hard boiled egg in vinegar, the dye will stick to the egg better if you do this. Put the egg in the salad spinner, get your small child to use the pipette to drop splodges of colour onto the egg, put the lid on the spinner and S-P-I-N.... open and you are done!

It is fun to experiment, try doing one colour at a time then spinning or try putting 3 colours on in one go. When you take the egg out of the spinner it will be virtually dry!

Playdoh recipe...

as requested. I have tried lots of the playdoh recipes out there but this is, by far, my favourite and if you store it in an air tight container or zip-locked bag it will keep for ages. I also actually halve this amount since we only have one kid playing with it. If you leave it out, it will dry up, so once you have done playing with it, put it in a bag.

1 cup water

1 tbsp vegetable oil

1/2 cup salt

1 tbsp cream of tartar (this is the preservative)

food colouring

1 cup flour

Put all the ingredients except the flour into a saucepan and heat until warm, stir to mix the ingredients well.

Remove from the heat and add the floor, stir until it forms a ball then tip it out onto the work surface. Leave it to cool, whilst it is cooling, mix up the next batch.

Once it has cooled you need to knead until smooth.

For those in Japan, I used the food colour from the supermarket, it is in a tiny jar and powder, not liquid, I used about 1/3 teaspoon to make the doh in the last post, it is really strong and much more vibrant than the food colour from home.

Rainbow kebabs....

I made some new playdoh on Friday in nice bright red, yellow and blue and then drew 6 small circles in a big circle. We start out by placing a small ball of red, yellow and blue doh in the wheel then I asked Ebi-kun to take a bit of blue and a bit of yellow and to mic them together, I asked him to predict what colour it would turn and although he knows from paint mixing what colour it should make, he seemed uncertain with the doh.

Then he mixed the two colours that were next to each other such as the yellow and green.
And when he was done colour mixing, he made a rainbow kebab!
We are back at the doctors tomorrow, we are all hoping that he is given the all clear, fingers crossed!

Rockin' Spring Chick...

We made this little rockin' chick yesterday, easy to do and you probably have everything you need lying around the house.

What you need:

construction paper - we used yellow and white but you could always use just white and colour them in.

scissors

pens/crayons

pencil

empty tin a tuna can works well, that sort of size.

lump of clay/plasticine/blutak

double sided sticky tape

1. Draw around your can then cut out the circle.

2. Cut the top of the circle so it looks like a cracked open egg.
3. Draw round the can again but on yellow card, the circle just acts as a guide so you can see how big to draw your chick, his head and wings should be out of the circle. Cut out your chick and add the facial features.
4. Using double sided sticky tape, stick the chick to the can.
5. Then use a bit more tape and stick the egg on top.
6. Use a lump of clay or similar and stick it to the bottom on the inside on the can. (playdoh will dry out so not the best choice if you plan to keep this more than a day or so)
7. Give him a nudge and watch him rock.
A note about using cans/tins please be careful of sharp edges, if little ones are going to be making/playing with this I recommend putting tape over the edges of the can.

Since we are all about chick today, don't forget that you can download my free spring chick pattern here.

I knew it...

mom's just know don't they, it is like a special mom sense or something. Wednesday we were out on the street playing with the other kids but Ebi-kun didn't seem himself, couldn't put my finger on it, he just wasn't 'right'. Yesterday morning he was off his food, he had a bit of pasta for lunch then started complaining of tummy ache and a sore throat which was soon followed by vomiting and a fever. He slept in with me last night, I say he slept because I didn't get a wink of sleep. He is currently snuggled on the sofa watching TV, there is something great about snuggling on the sofa when you are sick isn't there? Hopefully it is one of the 24 hour bug things.

Anyway...

Have you ever wondered what Japanese kids have for school lunch (if they don't take their own fancy bento)? Well, it's not sushi and whale every day that is for sure. A friend posted a link to kyuushoku's blog on FB and I thought you might be interested too, he works at 4 different elementary schools and post pictures of the school lunches

photos by Kevin McHugh

At my elementary school, the food was prepared at the middle school and bought up to the village in big heated containers. Every day was a variation on meat and two veg plus potatoes, I remember having shepherds pie, toad in the hole, lobby (a local version of beef stew) and once a week we would have chips (fries). We would also get a pudding often some traditional stodgy English pud with custard and the custard came in different colours, pink, yellow or green! I imagine these days the menu is a bit more diverse and the puddings a wee bit healthier.

What kind of food to kids have in elementary school where you are?

Fabric Swap

Well, I think this swap was a big success, I really enjoyed this one (I think I say that about all of them!) The great thing about this swap was it was pretty open to interpretation and so I had no idea what kind of fabrics would be swapped, I got ridiculously excited as each package arrived. This first one was from Sabine in Belgium, she wrote a really detailed explanation about the history of linen and the linen she sent is so soft, I was really surprised. She picked the modern pattern because she felt it represents the contrast of the big cities and the countryside.

Zonnah sent this package, the traditional fabric pattern is taken from the Navajo rugs, I am thinking of making a little 'rug' with it to add to the continent box and the modern print is cute too, Ebi-kun says they are eggs, maybe an Easter project with this?
Dawn wrapped her fabric like Christmas presents, I had to include a picture of the spotty tissue paper because I have never seen it before! She sent traditional fabric printed with road signs, I have never been to the US but this is the image I have in my head! Her state has a big dairy industry, hence the cow fabric, which made me chuckle, I hadn't thought of selecting fabric like that, she also sent a bonus piece of green fabric from Bali.
This last one was from Lenka in the Czech Republic, I had an extra set of fabric so I asked her if she would like to do an extra swap. She sent Kanafas as the traditional fabric, it is colour woven not printed or dyed and some patchwork cotton because that is in vogue in Czech Republic just now. I am tempted to use a little from each piece of fabric and make something as a keepsake but for now, I think I will just look at it all!
So, a big thank you to all my swap partners, it has been great getting to know everyone too and thank you to everyone else who has taken part, if you blog about the swap please let me know, I would love to see what everyone else send/received.

And since we are on the subject of swaps, my regular swap partner Kristel sent this, guess what it is...

A National Holiday...

Yesterday was a national holiday, for the spring equinox or something like that. We were at odds at what to do, we have tried to avoid places where Ebi-kun will want to run/climb/jump until his arm is better so we decided on Kitamoto Natures Reserve. This was our first trip here of the year and it was a lovely day, I did remember to put the camera in my bag, I did NOT remember to put the recharged batteries in the camera! duh! So the photo's I did take are not great since I used my phone.

We spotted lots of little tadpoles and even a frog coming out of hibernation and a few birds but apart from the pigeons I didn't know what any of them were. The reserve also have a centre with a library of books and lots of things for the kids to look at plus a table with lots of things to touch....

When we finished there we went to get to lunch then we stopped off at Beninana Sato (I think that is right), I had stopped there once before briefly but wanted to go again to have a proper look. They sell local veg and have an udon shop and a small cafe plus some traditional toys for the kids to play with, here the boys are attempting to do kendama, the way Ebi-kun was swinging it, I was expecting a big lump on his head at anytime.
Outside they had the most beautiful magnolia tree and it smelt wonderful. After that the boys went to the park whilst I popped down to the shops. Not a bad day, back to the usual grind today...

A New Shirt....

Well it took me a while, no thanks to the stinking cold, but I finally cracked on with it yesterday and it all went together quite easily and it fit when I finished! I used Cal Patches book to draft the pattern, I have no idea what I did the first time but the muslin didn't fit at all, so I started again. Much better second time round. It needs a little bit of tinkering, nothing major and it is certainly wearable as it is but the next one I will play with the pattern a little bit. This one ended up being a short sleeved shirt because I didn't have quite enough fabric to make the full sleeve.

So, another thumbs up from me for Design-it-Yourself clothes. Next is another shirt but something a bit less casual that I can get away with wearing at Ebi-kuns opening ceremony at yochien. The trauma of what to wear, formal or not formal, black or spring colours, designer handbag or erm not! I have decided not to stress about it, I have never followed stupid uniform rules before and I am not about to start now, if they are lucky I won't dye my hair blue to match my shirt Ha! I might even make the effort not to wear joggies and a sloppy T-shirt, my uniform of choice :o)

I love parcels...

even when I have paid for them :o). I love how Sarah wraps everything, it feels like Christmas every time I make an order! I put in a small order at paper-and-string for some lime green buttons, Ebi-kun picked them, they have to be sewn onto everything ready for yochien. It seemed like a good excuse to get some cute dotty orange buttons for me and some giant rik-rak, which I have no idea what I am going to use it for.

and inside the green present? GIANT buttons, look how lovely they are.

and they really are giant size, hmm, suggestions on how to use them?

And, thank you for all the well wishes, still snotty but I am planning a sewing session this afternoon when the boys are out!

I don't eat fish...

Most people think this is really odd since I live in Japan but I just don't like it, the smell, the taste, urgh! I do, however like taiyaki, probably because there is no actual fish in it :o)

The outer shell is made with a thick batter, something like a waffle, it is poured into a hot mold and a filling added - hmm delicious.

We went for chocolate in one

and sweet bean paste in the other, it took me a while to get my head round eating sweet beans but now I really like it, I even craved when I was pregnant with Ebi-kun.

Just can't shake it...

this head cold, that is. It is so draining and I am just not getting any of the things I need to get done even started let alone finished. Although I wanted to curl up on the sofa with a hot cuppa on Tuesday we went into town instead to buy the rest of the yochien things, bento box (has to be metal so it cost a small fortune), 2 cups, spoon, chopsticks etc. We managed to get most of it, didn't find a raincoat but I think we have everything else.

Ebi-kun wanted to go to the cafe that sells Gorgonzola potatoes for lunch, the food is lovely, so off we went BUT they had changed the menu and no more Gorgonzola potatoes, I thought he was going to burst into tears, we ordered fries instead but we weren't impressed, they were no where near as good. On the way home we popped into the foreign food store, Ebi-kun had been pestering for doughnuts but I spotted some Gorgonzola so asked him to choose what he wanted - he went for the cheese, lol, strange child of mine!

Hubby was home early last night, so we went through the lists from yochien again to make sure I knew exactly what I was supposed to be doing, hopefully I will get some cutting out done today, the sewing shouldn't take me that long. I am just waiting for the buttons we ordered from Sarah and I am set, the boys are going to football on Saturday, so I will get a few hours peace :o)

The exciting news is that we have booked the campsite for Golden week, which is the end of April, we are heading up north to Kitakami, which is where I lived when I first came to Japan and where I met hubby. The campsite is near to Tenshochi, which is beautiful in the cherry blossom season, that just so happens to fall around golden week there. There are about 10,000 cherry blossom trees along the river. We will be catching up with old friends and doing a bit of sight-seeing too and of course picnicking under the trees. This also means I need to get a wriggle on with the next quilt!

image from bike.livedoor.biz

Random Japan

I often come across things in Japan that either make me smile or sometimes laugh out loud or have me completely baffled and now mobile phones have cameras it is easy to get sneaky shots of such things, like this that I spotted in the convenience store....

I will have to go through my photos, I am sure I have more random pictures.

We had another 2 hour stint at the hospital yesterday, they took an x-ray and decided he has to keep it strapped up for another 2 weeks and Ebi-kun wasn't happy that his favourite nurse wasn't there. He asked me how old I thought she was, too old for you young man! He then said he needed to have a nurse as a girlfriend because he wants to be a doctor when he grows up!

Amazing!

When Baa-chan heard about Ebi-kun breaking his arm she had a chat with him on the phone and told him she was sending some money, he was to get get a toy, a book and some strawberries with the money. We are all clueless what the starwberries have to do with it. Anyway, it just so happened that the day before the phone conversation a kumon catalogue had arrived and Ebi-kun had been drooling over one or two things in there, one of them was this maze and since Baa-chan was paying for it we ordered it. (I usually squirrel away any money she sends for him). The coloured pieces slot into the holes so you can make up your own maze, it also comes with some boards that you put into the base then you have to find the right sized pieces to make the maze. Although he found it a bit tricky wen he could only use one arm, now it is easier and he has played with it quite a lot.

Ebi-kun says this about it

I like it, I have to think hard about how to do it and which way to go, I have to use my brain and it's fun!

We are a household of sick puppies at the moment although Ebi-kun seems to have shaken his cough and cold, I went to bed with a slight fever and I am producing more snot than I know what to do with and it feels like my head is going to explode. Daddy-ebi crawled out of bed and went to work today Blahhhhh. I hate being sick. We also have to go back to the doctors today to get Ebi-kuns arm x-rayed, I am hoping it will have the all clear. We have been to the hospital more in the last 4 weeks with him than we have the rest of his 4 years, I am blaming the excessive amount of time in the hospital for our colds too - best way to get sick, hang around in an over heated hospital full of sick people, so, fingers crossed that today is the last day for quite some time.

One Blog - One Tree

I received an email from a German site called kauda who promise to plant a tree for every blog which participates.

Their goal is to contribute their part in reducing the carbon footprint by raising awareness of the severe environmental damage caused by carbon emissions. One of our activities is to raise awareness of the carbon emissions resulting from the use of the internet - specifically of blogs. A blog with 15,000 visits a month has a yearly carbon dioxide emissions of 8lb. To neutralise these emissions they have created "My blog is carbon neutral" buttons so bloggers can demonstrate that they care about the environment and the carbon footprint of their blogs.

To help neutralize your blog's carbon footprint they are planting trees in cooperation with the Arbor Day Foundation in Plumas National Forest in Northern California. Thousands of wildfires burned down many national forests over the past ten years and 88.000 acres of Plumas' were destroyed by two fires in 2007. To help replanting we need the support of bloggers all over the world! For every participating blog we plant a tree. One blog - one tree.

So, why are they doing this? They say

We are a German based company called kaufDA, which provides advertisement brochures of local stores online to help consumers search for specific products and find good deals in their neighborhood. This reduces the amount of brochures printed and so the project helps the environment by reducing unnecessary paper in mailboxes. An American on average receives 41 pounds of junk mail per year. This has the same carbon footprint as burning six gallons of gasoline.

If you would like them to plant a tree for your blog too click on the button to the left.

Robots on Ice

Of course, you don't have to make robots, anything goes!

What you will need:

• metal paper clips
• VERY strong magnet
• cardboard box, not too thick
• foil
• construction paper
• pens
• sticky tape/glue

First, prepare your skates

1. Take a paperclip and bend the outer loop so that it is straight.
2. At the point shown on the diagram bend the wire at 90༠
3. The finished skate should look like figure 3, the hooped part is the skate the long stick part will be in the leg.

Now, design your skater, fold the paper double before you start, draw the skater about 10cm tall is good. I found it easier to stick the two pieces of paper together before cutting out, don't put glue on the legs area though.
So, cut out your skater and add the skates, the long piece of wire that you bent at 90༠ needs to be stuck between the the front and back pieces of leg, we used double sided tape to hold the skates in place and then the legs stuck together too.
To make the ice rink, glue a piece of foil onto your box. Pop your skater on the rink the hold the magnet in your hand and put it inside the box, use the magnet to make the skater skate!
Later, ebi-kun found a drinking straw and turned his skating robot into a skating ice-hockey player, a button as a puck.

The men of the house came down with 'man flu' at the weekend and of course they very generously passed it onto me, no chance of me throwing a sickie though :o(

The postman did bring a couple of nice surprises though, two of the fabric swap packages arrived with some great goodies inside, I will share with you when they all arrive.

kurakura habondanma

Hands up if you know what that is!

Cassie over at the Crafty Crow is having a month of crafts from around the world, there have been some great posts already Katy did Luxembourg, and there is Turkey, India, The Netherlands and Italy, I have them all bookmarked for when we get round to studying that part of the world. In between the main posts there are also other crafts from all over the place, go and check it out. So, back to the kurakura habondanma, Ebi-kun was given one of these by the shien centre sensei when he was about 2 years old, we were all mesmerised by it, easy to make, difficult to photograph, I have written up all the instructions, just pop over HERE.

Fabric fit for a knight.....

and a very excited little knight he is too!

4 hours of bliss...

Picking up from where I left off yesterday, the boys went off for an afternoon nap, for 4 hours! whoo-hoo that gave me 4 hours to myself! I took a look at all the cleaning, dusting and tidying and then ignored it all. Wrote up a guest post for another blog, I will let you know when it is up, rather excited since it is one of my fav spots! Then set to re-drafting the basic shirt pattern from the pattern making book I posted about here. Yes, I said re-draft, the first version was a bit of a bodge up, I could only just get my arm in the sleeve, the shoulders looked like I was trying to bring 80's shoulder pads back into fashion and it was a tad tight across the bust, the bit I was worried about, the collar, was perfect LOL. So, I took all my measurements again and started over, I should be able to cut out the muslin today, especially is ebi-kun takes another monster long nap.

I also got started on my army, I plan to take over the world with little wooden people, OK, they are for birthday presents, well some of them, I imagine some will end up in the shop...

What a lovely start to the week.

Well the crap week started with a crap weekend really, daddy-ebi had to go into work Saturday to finish an over due deadline so Ebi-kun and I went to the hospital for his daily dose of rehab therapy for his arm. Of course, it was Saturday so double the amount of old people were in there which meant waiting double the amount of time, 20 minutes treatment actually took 2 hours! Of course, Ebi-kun being a cute small boy all the nurses and oldies fuss over him, although I imagine that anyone under the age of 75, gets the 'oh here is a young 'un' special treatment.

Sunday I had big plans, the boys had tickets to go and see Omiya FC play, opening season match and I had plans to go and mooch around at a craft fair, but the gods had other ideas. The weather was awful, cold, wet and a forecast for snow, both the boys were coughing and sneezing and showing the signs of man flu (similar to swine flu but much worse) so they decided to stay home and I decided that the craft fair would be miserable too since it was an outdoor event.

Monday morning, daddy-ebi decides it isn't fair to spread man-flu around the office and ebi-kun is suffering with trainee man flu so off they both go to see the doc, I figure this is a good way to kill 2 birds with one stone and get them to get the broken arm checked while they are at it. Knowing they will be there for ages I run some errands, nip down to the post office and get my swap parcels sent off, start thinking to myself that the wii fit must be doing some good since the bike ride seems at lot easier than usual, then remember I haven't got 17kg of small boy on the back of the bike! Pop down to the supermarket and ¥100 shop, then do what all concerned women of sick boys/husbands would do, I go to the coffee shop and treat myself to a fancy orange-mocha something-or-another coffee, hmmmm good!

Come home, make a nice healthy carrot and ginger soup, just what a poorly boys need, apparently not since ebi-kun threw it all up again, sigh. Now I have sent them both off to bed so hopefully I can get something done, or failing that, nip back off to the coffee shop and try the other fancy coffee they had on the menu lol.

Regarding the broken arm, he is out of the cast and sling but still has it strapped up and he has to go back for x-rays next week, hopefully it will be all mended by the time he starts yochien.

Using Flickr as a Montessori resource

I love Flickr, it is a great way to store my pictures and share them with everyone, with the advantage of having different levels so you can make the pictures as private or public as you like.

We live in a small town and the town library isn't really up to much and obviously it is all Japanese, I would love to buy books for everything that Ebi-kun is interested but we don't have the space or the money, so this is my latest trick...Flickr.

Go to Flickr's main page, here. Then click on the search link....

Now click on the advanced search link....
Which will bring you to this page, now you can fill in what you want to search for and make sure your search is safe, although this is not 100% fool proof it is the best way to go, you can also set other search restrictions here. If you are looking for images to use other than just looking on screen you can select creative commons which is at the bottom of this page (couldn't manage to get it on the screen shot).
Then click the search button at the bottom of the page, that will bring up a new page full of images, click on slideshow and sit back and enjoy the show.

Ebi-kun is loving this, there are so many beautiful images but then you get the odd everyday shot thrown it too. I think this gives a better representation of a country than a book on say Canada. With Flickr you are seeing it through many peoples eyes and the range of subject matter is much greater.

Obviously this doesn't always work fantastically, I tried doing the same for polar bear and got some very odd images but some of those included images of blokes with 'I am a polar bear' written on their chests, this led to a discussion about why these fella's had done it, from the caption I could tell it was a global warming demo.

Do you use Flickr? If so, how do you make the most out of it?

Drawing

Having a broken arm hasn't stopped this kid from wielding a pencil, this is a game of ice hockey, I just love the guys skates and apparently they are all fat because of the padding :o)

As he was doing the continent work, I put on the North America music play list then when he finished I thought we would try out something new. I put on the song Take Me Home Country Road and had him close his eyes and listen to the music. When it was finished I asked him to draw a picture to represent the music, so here we have the blue skies, the mountains, trees, river and home!
It was a fun exercise, one that I think we will be doing again.