Congratulations Sophie!!

Before I start with any holiday pictures I want to back track a couple of weeks.

My lovely Sophie left primary school on 24th July and she came home with her end of Year 6 report.

Straight across the board Sophie was given A grades for all of her subjects!

This is the third time this year that she has done this which has shown consistency and that she has found her natural ability level.  Hubby and I do not bribe but we do like to reward her in some way and it has been a couple of weeks and still she has yet to let us now what that reward might be (she is not a greedy person at all, last year it was just some crafty items until I suggested up grading her toy sewing machine to a midi one instead).

There was also another piece of paper with her report and this contained her Sat's levels.  For English, Maths and Science she had a mixture of Level 4 and level 5.  We do need to work on the spelling but her reading has improved in leaps and bounds!  This did show the time, effort and determination (plus a small fortune on books) that if applied can improve things.  Sophie picked up on this without any prompting from us.

So just before we went on holiday we set off and bought her new school uniform and PE kit.  She was so proud of it that once she got home she insisted that I take some pictures of her wearing it.

Our job is to try and maintain this enthusiasm and sense of fun over the coming years.  Issue praise, rewards, support (the odd shoulder to cry as this will happen at some point) and fun.

With my professional hat on Sophie has made a good start already and the key is having a good first half term up to October.

I shall keep you  up to date and I am hoping that perhaps Sophie might want to add to her own blog about her first year at Secondary school.  Might help with her creative writing perhaps.

At the moment all she is wanting to do is make Loom Band stuff!

Looking at her today I am wondering where my little girl starting in reception has gone but every now and then, when she still likes to play with her dolls etc I see a glimpse................

xx

Sophie's latest Project

Sophie and I have decided that during the summer holidays we are going to set up a blog for her and I shall have access to it as well.  She is now making so many much more complicated things and using the sewing machine independently.  Sophie has also asked several times about it and I think it could help with her ICT skills and general writing and literacy.

So here is her latest make............with a bit of help as this was her first zip application.

 Sophie found this lovely elephant fabric on a day trip to Lostwithiel.  It has sat in her sewing box for just over a month until last weekend.  An idea began to take shape in her mind, something to carry her art and small sketchbook around in.

So a zip was also needed and luckily I had one just the right size.

This  isin fact the second zip because the first time Sophie closed and opened her pencils case the first purple zip broke!!!! It was a new zip and I had spent time teaching her how to sew a zip in, which she did herself under supervision.  You should have seen the look on her face it was heartbreaking but she never said a word.  I started to unpick it and she said  "No Mummy I will do that and let you know when I have unpicked it"  Unpick it she did as well.  I like zips to be well stitched in so you can imagine how long it took.  So when I found another one and triple checked it was ok I stitched it in this time to make up for the disappointment.

The owl tab was an added extra we popped in at the same time which she found at Coast and Country on the way to Falmouth.

 So after a bit of drama and despair at the quality of today's zips Sophie know has a lovely case for her art materials and small sketchbook which is of her own design.

She is now working on a sock cat.  this is why her own blog might be in order!

Take care.

xx

Hurray! Sophie did it Again!

Sophie has really enjoyed Year 6 so far and joining the Netball Club has been a real turning point for her.

She has been in the B team and every now and then she has played for the A team.  She does not really mind at the moment as long as she gets to play.

Last week she had a really nasty tumbled and bashed one knee and badly grazed the other....but she carried on.  That's my girl!!

This was on the Tuesday.  On Thursday at their weekly practise she was given player of the match again.  This is the second time in as many months.  She was again mentioned in the monthly newsletter and commended for carrying out despite hurting herself.  She is actually quite proud of her knees as this is really the first time she has grazed them badly.  Sophie has always been a very surefooted toddler and we have been very lucky not to have had more playground injuries over the years.

I am very proud of Sophie because she decided that she wanted to join Netball at the end of Year 5 and had not in previous years due to attending various music clubs.  She decided that perhaps she was going in the wrong direction and decided to change.  She has stuck to that idea and seen it through.  She does tend to do this even with simple, but potentially difficult situations,  such as buying school shoes.  Once a decision is made she sticks with it and sees it through and does not whinge or regret (so far).

I am sooooo lucky and I hope that when she goes to secondary school this year she will change a bit but not too much as I like this young lady who knows her own mind and can reason out her own direction.

Hubby is working away a lot at the moment so our evenings, once jobs and homework/marking are done, is  choosing a DVD and crafting until she goes to bed.  So my knitting needles did come out, but not as I expected.  Hopefully more on that tomorrow.

xx

GO! Sophie G0!

At the end of Year 5 Sophie started to talk a lot about wanting to join Netball Club with the chance to play for the school.

So at the beginning of this school year Sophie asked again and even though it is on the same day as Brownies which means lighting dinners and a whirl wind day she has been playing Netball.

After just one practise session ( I perhaps need to say that quite a few of the other girls have been playing netball for a couple of years while Sophie was learning Samba band.)Sophie found herself in a Home match at her primary school and they won.  She is in the B team.

A week later and an Away match was cancelled due to such heavy rain that it would have been more like Water Polo!

However, the next Away match with the B team ended in Sophie being presented with the above trophy!

 Sophie was awarded Player of the Match and the write up in the School newsletter was great...."Sophie worked her socks off running around to support her team....!

That's my girl!

The trophy has seen better days and is glued together so Hubby suddenly disappeared  into the garage and came back with another one and offered to donate to the school.  It has been duly accepted and the plaque and badge is being changed over.

 The look on Sophie's face when she showed it to me was worth all of the rushing around every Tuesday and was definitely a Slushy Mummy Moment!

It sat with Pride of place on the mantel piece for several days and has now gone back to school.

I just about manged to get to her school this afternoon to see part of her practise session and it is a sport that Sophie has said that she would like to carry on into big school next year.

As an added bonus, my Year 10 GCSE Art Textiles group told me today that my lessons are the best ever!!!

So a good week all round.

xx

Sophie's Art Brownie Badge

Sophie has always been very keen on her weekly Brownie sessions and this is matched with her wishing to chose and work for different badges.  Since last summer she has been working on some badge or other and the latest is her Art Badge.

So we have been planning which of the sections of the badge requirements that Sophie wants to do.

The first thing that we did was set up a fabric printing station. Sophie had made her own printing blocks months ago because she saw me making some for my Art Textiles course so it made sense to use them again.

A few trials to make sure that the colour was just right on some spare fabric which Sophie will take along to the Brownie tester to show what the fabric looked like before cutting it up .

A great deal of concentration required now and Sophie decided what the design should look like.  That little apron she is wearing was a present years ago when she was about three!  It seems to grow with her.

I showed her how to load the printing block with a paint brush and left her to work out the rest herself.

Sophie added to the fabric using a cotton wool bud and her fingers!

She then used a template of mine and drew out a paper pattern.  She then pinned the paper pattern to the fabric making sure that she picked the best bits of her fabric (her idea to do this) and then using her sewing machine she pinned, stitched, stuffed each of the above hearts with ribbon to tie them together.  The best bit is that she also stitched up the opening with the stuffing inside without any problems on her own when I said that I would help her with this bit.

They really are very good indeed and Sophie made these all by herself I was just in the kitchen with her to be on hand of needed.  I really was not needed (don't tell me that I am on the scrap heap already?)
She is delighted with them and I was delighted at how she coped with this and problem solved as she went along.  A real slushy Mummy moment when steps forward like this occur.  Sophie is only 10 years old and has a lot of ability that I intend to nurture as she grows up.
This is only a part of what she has made for her Artist badge and she will be tested on it after Easter so I shall show you some more in my next post.
I am now on Easter holiday, I have six boxes of work and I think that I have the lurgy coming that half the nation has had.  Brilliant timing as usual.
Have a great Easter weekend where ever you may be.
xx

Wonderful Weaving - By Sophie

As regular readers will know Sophie loves her Arts and Crafts.  At the end of last week she brought home a lovely and colourful piece of weaving that she had created at school.

The rows had been really packed together and the final piece was very strong and had been finished really well.

The pleasure and pride that my little girl had on her face was a joy to see and I had one of my Slushy Mummy Moments!  This is why Craft and Making  skills need more promotion in education (not just the academic stuff) as it gives a glowing sense of achievement in a way that may be some subjects do not.

We are going to add a method of hanging and put it up in her room.

Well Sophie!

Weaving is a really fun and inexpensive activity which has great results.

I am off to Bristol tomorrow for a course and I am really looking forward to several hours of uninterrupted reading on my Kindle. Bliss!

xx 

Simple Gingham Layered Skirt for Sophie

There are many things that I love about being a Mummy.  The hugs, the kisses, the big smiles and of course the requests to put my sewing skills to good use.
Making skirts for girls is not something that I have done very often.  Even at college we tended to make items for adults.  Made may other clothes but not many skirts, not sure why either....anyway.

Sophie mentioned a RaRa skirt months ago and to be honest the weather did not really spur me on.  A week before the summer holidays Sophie spotted some lilac gingham with a delicate white daisy printed on it.  With no actual pattern I took a deep breath looked at the width of the roll and said "1 metre please".

Due to not having a pattern I decided to Google it and I found a tutorial over at Dana Made It.  It is called a Layered Skirt but to me it will always be a Ra Ra skirt, it is my age you see.  

I did tweak the instructions a little to suit the measurements I needed and my own approach, but it went together surprisingly quickly.

Two tiers was about right but Sophie wanted it just a little longer and thought that it would last longer seeing as she is growing so quickly.  I wonder sometimes....is she only 9 years old?

Sophie did help with the making by whizzing along the edge of each tier with my over edge stitch before I turned up a small hem.

Unlike the tutorial I decided to work from the waistband down to check length and I changed the proportions of the first tier to make it a little narrower.

Sophie had quite an input to the overall appearance of the skirt, it could have been much frillier and with more layers but this is exactly how Sophie saw her new skirt in her head, as she puts it.

It has already been worn many times and ready for its first go in the washing machine (crikey) and a request for some lightweight dungarees has been put in.  Not got a pattern for that either...any suggestions any one?  

I had a hug and a "Thank you Mummy."

Oh...a slushy Mummy moment.

xx

Sophie's Artwork

My 9 year old daughter loves drawing and making just about anything.  She likes to see things take shape and become reality, especially if the idea is hers.

Sophie also likes my Polaroid Pogo Printer.

So last weekend I showed her how to take some pictures of her latest creations and then print them out.

They are usually stuck on her wardrobe with blu tack.

Sophie likes to draw anything.  Fairies are very popular.

Toadstools seem to be appearing more lately as well.

Jolly sea creatures.

The above picture was one that she had in a dream and wonders if I could make it?!!

Once all of the pictures had been printed off she stuck some on to the cover of a small sketchbook and the rest inside it.  She says that she will draw in the book and add pictures of any that are too big to glue in.

I think a Polaroid Pogo may need to be in Santa's sack in December, what do you all think?

xx

A Special little Gift............

Sophie disappeared upstairs for ages the other afternoon.  All was quiet and I called up to make sure all was ok.

"Yes Mummy"

More time passed and then she came downstairs with the above bracelet and asked to have a knot put in the elastic.  Not a problem and the knot was duly added.

Sophie then told me that she had been upstairs making this bracelet for me.  She thought that the colours would go with most of my clothes and that the little silver bells added a bit of zing.  Zing..... now I need lots of that by the time I get to Friday!!!

There was not a reason for making this. It was one of those "just because" gifts that are special.  

I did suggest that she could have kept this for Mother's Day but she said that she could not wait that long to give it to me.

Yep......a slushy mummy moment.

I do have several lovely cards that Sophie made when she was at nursery, I just can not bear to throw them away as they are a part of her childhood and she likes to look at them now and try to understand that she was only three when she made some of them.

My hubby has had more handmade key rings from Sophie than he can really use but they all have some keys stored on them, even if they never actually leave the house.

The above gift will be put on as soon as I get home from work at the start of the Easter holidays.

What gift have you been given that has sentimental value such as the bracelet above?

A Christmas Bake

This year Sophie decided that she would like to enter the school Christmas cake competition as part of the Fair this year.  You do not have to make the cake it is the decorating that is the main aim.

Together we settled on trying to male a Christmas tree.

We bought some round sponge cakes and stuck them together with butter icing.  We shaped another sponge cake and gradually built it up to a point at the top.

Around this we stuck small buns with the top side facing out to gradually make a type of cone shape.

We then hit a problem.

Green food colouring is not as good as it used to be and my butter icing could only manage a bright pale green which frankly looked awful.  An emergency dash to Tesco to find some colouring paste, all gone.

So back to the drawing board (with a slight tinge of panic) and we came up with a snow covered tree hence the cream icing.  We used two sizes of nozzle and Sophie learnt how to do basic piping.

Sophie then decorated it with strawberry laces, smarties and jelly tots.  An all chocolate star went on the top

Finally Sophie put some sparkly parcels on the cake board which came from the decorations section in Asda.

Voila! Sophie's first cake. 

The result of the competition is that it was rather badly organised and we came away not knowing who can 1st, 2nd or 3rd and Sophie has decided not to do another one.  This is not the first  time that she has thrown herself into something and then it has not been followed through.

We did put ours up for the silent auction and someone happily took it home with them.  So in that respect the cake was a winner with someone.

Off to the Clothes Show at the NEC tomorrow with 43 students so I better get some sleep.

xx

Sophie's Homemade Dessert

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School breaks up next Friday for me, a couple of days early due to us working some INSET evenings. Sophie finishes the following Tuesday, but we are both getting into holiday mode which means Mummy and Daughter cooking time. Plus sewing etc as well.

So for this dessert (and a good way of getting some more milk inside her) you will need an Angel delight mix, you can get sugar free versions, some biscuits, large dessert glasses or bowls, milk and some fruit.
Put the biscuits in a bag and using a rolling pin crush them into bits. Not too much otherwise you will simply have a bag of powder! Sophie liked this bit, thank goodness hubby put the counter on securely.

Add the biscuit to each glass.

Cut up the fruit into chunks. We have taught Sophie to use a small knife safely and she is very good at it. Supervised of course. Add some of the fruit to the glasses.

I loved Angel Delight as a child and it is so easy to make and is a nice change. Just follow the instructions on the back. Makes a good alternative to Jelly at a kids party as it can be made the day before and refrigerated.

Whisk in the milk until the Angel Delight is fluffy and can form peaks.

Carefully spoon some of the mixture into the glasses on top of the biscuits.

Add some of the chopped strawberries into the glasses.

Spoon in the rest of the mixture and level off the top.

Hopefully you will be the layers of the biscuit, fruit and mixture.
We then popped them in the fridge until tea time.

Just before serving another strawberry was popped on top with some chocolate sprinkles to finish.

Yum! Yum!

Go on....give it a go with your own preferred fruit etc.

xx

Sophie's Ballet success

A couple of months ago Sophie took her entry level Pre-Primary ballet exam and she got a merit. She was a little disappointed as the two previous exams she gained distinction, but things are now getting harder to learn. She is determind not to let it happen again.

Along with her certificate she was also award the above badge which she has now proudly

put on her ballet wrap cardigan.
When we got home from her lesson on Saturday she found the badge awarded for her first exam and they both sit side by side quite happily.
Now need to get another matching frame for the latest certificate.
She has been going to ballet for nearly four years and we are very proud of what she has achieved so far but also for sticking it out and keeping it going.
Well done Sophie!
xx

Happy Father's Day

A card that Sophie made at Brownies.

Happy Daddies Day

Love

Sophie

xx

Sophie's Cereal Maker

Sophie asked for a cereal bar maker featured in Argos for Christmas. We had a go in the New Year and last weekend we had another try. We used cooking chocolate, just one bar. Sophie is an only child, so we do not want to make much other wise it takes ages to eat it. Not healthy to have too much anyway.

So I melted the chocolate while Sophie got the cereal bar maker ready.We then added some rice crispies, just judged it by eye.We also added some cranberries which are lovely. I put them in buns and all sort of puddings. It says that they are dried, but they are not hard at all. Very soft really. I buy them in Asda but I am sure that they can be found in other shops too.This is the cereal bar maker. It works a bit like a press and squashes the ingredients together in the two moulds that are provided. You need to line the mould with cling film. Put some mixture in the mould and press it a bit in the corners. Then wrap the cling film over the top of the mould before popping the lid on top.
There is a little flat lid that goes on the top of the mould and then you wind down the top clamp to squeeze the bar in the mould. (I hope that this is making sense).The kit comes with labels!You keep turning the clamp slowly until it makes a little squeak, then stop. Raise the clamp and pull out the mould. The above picture shows the lid still on.It should look the above.There is also a false base to help push the bar out of the mould.
A label is then put on the bar and then popped it in the fridge to finish off.

Do not leave them in the fridge as we have found that they go a bit too hard and could damage teeth. It comes with a little book and there are other ideas to try out. Sophie likes this as she can pretty much use it by herself and by mixing in some fruit and keeping the chocolate a low as possible, it is a way of getting her interested in making things in the kitchen.
Hubby is going a away on business next week so we shall be having a go at making some of our dinners because it will not matter how long it takes!
xx