Fathers' Day Cards

This last week we got down to a little card craft in the Wishes house ready to show all the Daddy-types in our lives how much we love them.
We made a few more variations of the shirt card we made at Toddler Group. The Small Person made one for her Grandad (my Dad)

The Smaller Person made one for his Grandpa (my Grandad)

and this mini square version for his Grandad (my Dad).

Then the Small Person designed and made her own Fathers' Day card for her Grandpa (my Grandad)

She used a small white square card and a pink pipe cleaner which she formed into a fluffy heart and glued to the centre of the card.

The Smaller Person had made Mr Bogert's card when we were at Toddler Group (he also made a second card which was going to be for either Grandad or Grandpa, but I got confused and gave it to Mr Bogert by mistake, so Mr Bogert had 2 cards from the Smaller Person and we had to make another card! Ooops!)

The Small Person made a card from my Pinterest all by her little self for Mr Bogert

She has used some blue checked scrapbook paper, drawn around her hands and cut them out. She has used a red pencil to write 'I' and 'You' and glued a felt heart between (I love you) and then stuck the 2 hand shapes together with a strip of concertina folded paper. She used the red pencil again to write 'This much' across the strip with a heart tipped arrow pointing in both directions across the strip. She did a great job without any Mummy interference.

They also did some papercraft at school for Fathers' Day. On Friday, she brought home a little hand coloured paper basket filled with colourful tissue paper and a cheese scone that she had baked at school.

What a sweet little note! And I do believe this is a portrait of Mr Bogert and his 'cool' hair. Yep, that definitely looks like my hubby :)

I also used a little Pinterest inspiration for my Father's Day card for my Dad.  This is my version.

And then that gave me the idea for this card for my Grandad

I have used a small textured white square card blank, a set of 'Studio g' alphabet stamps, some glue and a piece of black craft foam for the tie.

The Small People bought Mr Bogert a pair of new shoes that are sort of semi-casual. They're a bit smarter than his Animal trainers or running trainers, but not too smart like his work shoes.

We made chocolate brownie bites for my Grandad and Dad, which we wrapped in parchment paper and tied up with a thin blue ribbon.



The Small Person and Grandpa



The Smaller Person and Grandad

Poor Mr Bogert didn't get his usual breakfast in bed :( He had to drive me for a bridesmaid dress fitting, but he did get a full breakfast when we got back at 12pm! Mushrooms, Sausages and all the works. He played modelling dough creations with the Small People and we watched 'Look Who's Talking Too' - I'd forgotten I quite like that movie - followed by 'Getting Even With Dad'. I think he had a nice day, I HOPE he had a nice day, so long as he knows we think he's the most awesome Daddy ever!

I hope you all had a lovely Father's Day.

Toddler Group Tuesday

Coming up on the 23rd June, we have our Village Open Gardens and Scarecrow Trail. This is an event that takes place biennially, you can see details from the last one here and here. It also coincides with our Village Church Flower Festival in which all of the village groups and organisations are invited to display a flower arrangement. Toddler Group is always asked, and the previous three years, I have been the one to put the flower arrangement together. This year though, I have asked one of the local mums if she would like to do it and she has said that she will. She is part of the local gardening club too, so should have some good ideas.

I have tried to include a craft project for the children each year that can be displayed with the flowers. Kathryn has also offered to arrange not one but two craft sessions with the results to be displayed in church.

This week Kathryn had us all making pretty Paper Flowers.

For this craft you will need:
 - A Paper Plate
- Scissors
- PVA Glue
- Glitter and sparkly bits
- a Pencil
- Coloured Paper

Sorry, I don't have any photographs of the process (it was rather manic at the group this morning!), hopefully the instructions will be clear enough.



Pre-prepared supplies (you can just see the card blanks and cut out ties in the background for our Fathers' Day craft too).

First, draw a flower shape on your paper plate and cut out.

Cut some leaf shapes from green paper and stitck to the back of the paper plate flower so that they can be seen sticking out from the right side.

Fold an A4 sheet of coloured paper into quarters. Draw around your childs hand (or if they're old enough, they can do this themselves.) and cut out through all 4 layers. You now have 4 coloured hand shapes.



Kathryn helping cut out some paper hands.

Glue the hand shapes to the centre of your flower.

Make a tube from a piece of coloured paper. Glue this to the centre of your flower on top of the hand shapes.

Glue as many sprinkles and shiny bits to your flower as you like.

Look how lovely they look together and this is only a few. Here are some on their own to show a bit more detail and how very different they all are:



This masterpiece is the Smaller Persons. He was most interested in drawing around his fingers (I think the pencil tickled!) and of course, sticky messy glue and lots of sprinkly glitter is always a winner!

Next week, Kathryn has arranged for everyone to make Flower Fairies.

As it is Fathers' Day coming up this Sunday, I did put some quick cards out for the children to make. It wouldn't be right not to include the Dads in our crafty creations!

There are various versions of this card all over the internet (and I think possibly in one of the Small Persons craft books).

You will need:
- Card
- Scissors
- PVA Glue
- Patterned Paper (scrapbooking or wrapping paper is ideal)

Fold and A4 sheet of card in half to form the base of your card.

Draw a tie shape on the wrong side of your selected patterned paper, cut out and stick to the centre of your card.

Cut a 1-1.5" strip of coloured card from the short edge of an A4 sheet.

Fold this strip 1/3 of the way across at an angle so as the top corner point touches the bottom edge of the strip. Repeat for the other side. This is your collar.

Glue this to the top of your card as shown so that it overlaps your paper tie.

Cut 2 small rectangles of card. Glue them to the back of your card at angles to form 'sleeves'.

Cut a 1cm wide strip of card from the short edge of an A4 sheet. Write your special message on it and glue in place across your finished card.

These cards also have glitter all over them. This wasn't part of the inital plan, the glitter shakers migrated their way over from the flower table, and why not? Add a bit of sparkle to Dad's day!

Open Gardens - part 2

Well, that's it all over and done with. We did manage to get around everything and the weather was far better on Sunday. We've taken lots of photos which I've yet to sort through them all.

The scarecrow competition was judged and the winner was the operating table (photograph in last post), we looked at all of the flower arrangements in the church, we stopped and had a ploughmans lunch at The Old Rectory (where I left my cardigan - mush for brains again!) and we looked at all of the craft things by the old smithy.

Our Pirate scarecrow

Sheriff Oaks

The man (David Salt) who does all of the metal work (from Wyvern Forge) had some beautiful pictures of creations either he or his colleague has made. Now if only I had some spare cash, I'd certainly comission a pretty new garden gate.

I bought a bowl from the wood turner to keep for my Grandad's birthday. It's made from local ash. Every time I see the wooden items at different village events (he usually has a stall at Christmas) I just love the smooth finish and the lovely rich colours and patterns of the wood. I made Mr Bogert buy me a lovely bowl made from walnut the last time we saw him :)

Unfortunately, the bee keeper couldn't make it on Sunday, so we missed them. I really wanted to see if they were selling honey. We did however spot a bees nest hanging in a tree in the churchyard :)

Also, I am very cross with myself >:( We walked past the wool spinning lady, but as she was taking a break and having a chat, I thought, well I'll just come back later. I forgot! So cross. She spins using fleece from the local farms, and I really wanted to see what she had for sale. Fingers crossed, she'll come to another village event soonish.

The photograph exhibition seems to have been quite well received. We're hoping we may have generated enough interest to get a new member or two, but if not, at least most people know we're here now. It didn't take long to break everything down either. Much quicker than putting it up! We'll keep all of the prints safe now until another time.

Here's a quick snap of how my personal display was arranged.

I also managed to get very slight sunburn. I put sun cream on, I just obviously didn't put enough on my ever expanding cleavage. Ooops. Mr Bogert found this amusing as I'd spent a good few minutes nagging him about his sun cream. It's not really bad though, not sore, just slightly pink and itchy. Thank goodness for aftersun lotion.

The whole weekend was finished off with a lovely BBQ. All those involved in some aspect of planning or running the weekend were invited round to one of the gardens for a get together. The evening weather was just right, and it was so nice to see so many familiar faces. We all brought our own meat, but our hosts provided salad, bread, drinks and dessert. We took extra meat and shared it with some neighbours from down our road and the man from the smithy who does the metal work I mentioned. It was a perfect end to a lovely weekend.

Obviously somewhere in the midst of all this we celebrated fathers day. Mr Bogert was treated to breakfast in bed made by the small person (so it was toast, a yoghurt and a banana), he had a huge box of chocolates which even he didn't manage to finish in one sitting (but blamed that fact on the 3 desserts he ate at the BBQ!) he got his Dad head which he was very impressed by, and his lovely hand made card. Alexandra ran him a lovely relaxing bubble bath and put his towels in the bathroom. So he actually ended up having a bath with Eeyore the Donkey and 2 rubber duckies. (He REALLY didn't want me to show any of these half awake pictures of him in public, so I'll just give you a really quick sneak peak.....)

(See. All gone.)

We also called round to Grandads to deliver his Father's day gift, and then met my Dad briefly at one of the local pubs to have a drink and give him his card and gift. Yep, we just about managed to cram everything in!

Today is my day of rest (after I've cleared up that is!)

Dad Heads!

Yesterday was our fathers day craft project at toddler group. All the kids got to make dad/grandad heads using papier mached tinfoil balls as heads. The idea is in one of the Usborne crafts for kids books (I think it's the one with ideas to make just for guys/dads.)

I had an appointment, so I missed the start of the session. The small person made a couple of heads, but as I hadn't been able to join in we made 3 more at home today.

What do you think?

This is Grandad head (above with comparison photo :D)

This is Grandpa head (above and comparison piccie :D)

And this is Daddy head. I truly think this is a shrunken version of Mr Bogert :D ( I figured if you've been on the blog in the past, there's no need for a comparison piccie!)

I also managed to complete the mini scarecrow for the flower display (which I'll be putting together on Friday ready for the weekend activities). He needs a name.....