Silent Sunday

Gingerbread Snowman Christmas Craft!

I adore Christmas and even more so now I have an imaginative toddler to join in the Christmas fun! I actually, for once, didn't get this idea from Pinterest (which is my usual place to get nifty fun ideas from!)

Rocket loves gingerbread men so we have a few cookie cutters in gingerbread men shapes and one afternoon I thought it would be fun to make some salt dough gingerbread men with a snowy twist!

The salt dough mix is pretty straight forward. 2 cups of plain flour, 1 cup salt and 1 cup luke warm water and mix to a dough. It was fun to see Rocket enjoying this bit as he usually doesn't like being messy or getting things on his hands!

After you have formed a soft dough but without the stickiness, you can go ahead and roll it out. We used the kitchen floor (clean) to do this as we don't have much kitchen worktop space.

We then pressed out our Gingerbread men and put them onto a separate baking tray with backing paper on so they didn't stick. I had to learn that they didn't need to be perfect, especially not when they were made by a 2 year old ;) some kind of therapy for me!

There are a few different methods of drying salt dough out but we baked ours in the oven on a very low heat (just under 100) for approx 4-5 hours. Time will vary depending on how thick your salt dough is but it is very important not to get impatient and turn the heat up as your salt dough will burn on the outside and not dry out in the middle properly.

The next day we got onto painting the Gingerbread Snowmen.. another job that the littlies can help out with (although I got the brush in all the nooks and cranny's afterwards). When the paint is dry you can pencil on the design you want, I went with the classic snowman design and as he has feet, some cute black shoes.

Once your Snowmen are completely dry, you can choose to varnish them with gloss (this will make them last many Christmas's) or go au naturel, which is what we have done this time.

I wanted rush this post through so I haven't actually got a Christmas tree to put the on yet but they will be hanging pride of place and Rocket will be happy knowing he made his own Christmas decorations this year! (maybe a little disappointed they don't taste like gingerbread men ;))

Best thing is they cost next to nothing to make and you can be as creative as you like! Get some cheap cookie cutters and make Christmas trees, angels and stars!

Family Photos

This last week has flown by and I have been tking many photos for other friends of mine in the run up to Christmas. As we already had the background up I thought we would get some snaps of us as a family, my husband and his handy long arm snapped these for us! One of them is being used for our Christmas Card this year so it worked out well!

Because some times...

you need to be in a box!

Peppermint Bath Salts!

After spending literally hours looking for things I could make for Christmas presents, I stumbled over a gorgeous idea of making candy cane bath salts! (Scented with peppermint oil). It looks so pretty when displayed and its also really good for your skin! Here's how I did it:

You will need:

Epsom salt
Sea salt (I used course)
Food colouring
Peppermint oil
Mason jar or similar


First you need to get 2 bowls and mix the Epsom salt in one, along with the peppermint oil and red food colouring. Make sure you thoroughly coat it well so the cover and scent is even. Then get tr next bowl and mix the course sea salt with the peppermint oil (I used about 6 drops in each bowl but you can add more or less depending on personal taste.

Once you have the two bowls mixed well, take the jar and tilt it to the side (this will help provide the candycane effect) I think you are supposed to use a funnel for this bit but I didn't have one so used a teaspoon.

Layer slowly, the White Sea salt then the red Epsom salt and repeat until you've come to the top of the jar. Make sure you compact the salts down or they may crumble when turned upright.

If you've stored the jars and salts for a while before you gift them, you can always add a few more drops of the peppermint oil in the top to refresh the scent!

That's it! A gorgeous smelling simple but beautiful gift! Best thing is it can be tailored to different occasions! Valentines day you could use rose or jasmine oil... Cheer someone up with and orange or yellow jar with orange oil! The list is endless!

Enjoy!

Gone

I did it, I finally deleted my blog (it will be back but not self hosted) . It's quite sad to see when I tried to load it after it was cancelled for the first time but its refreshing to move onwards!

My mum actually printed off my entire blog for me (took me about 4 hours copying and pasting it!) and now I had a proper diary of all the things that have happened in my blog life to go through whenever I want.

Now I can focus on my fresh start here, it feels good, energising!

Watch this space!

Start of a new era

Today is when I move over to RocketBum the blog officially. I know I have had this blog for a little while now but it was slightly dormant as it was confusing running the two. The mummy life will no longer be self hosted and will exist on basic wordpress and I've just spent the last 3 hours copy and pasting my entire blog into word so If it all goes tits up then I wont lose any of those important posts from when Rocket was a little squidge!

The last week we went to a fireworks display across the road from my parents house but Rocket hated the banging so much he pretty much freaked to the point we couldn't take him and he ended up hiding in my dads computer room with my dad.. I felt bad for the little scrap as even a week on he is telling me the fireworks are gone and they are sleeping.. in a desperate bid for reassurance! I'm really hoping next year at 3 and a half he will enjoy the fireworks and not miss out.

I've been totally snap happy recently and have been taking christmassy photos and have ended up with over 50 from which I now have to chose the best for a Christmas card and I cant choose! argh!

I'll leave you with a few catch up photos ;)

Family

Athletics at the Olympics!

I have just got back from a weekend of excitement, nerves, fear and just plain awesomeness!

A few weeks back I had entered a blogging competition with Coca Cola to win 2 tickets to the Olympics and knowing it was my dads dream to go and after failing to get hold of tickets I decided to enter!

Unfortunately as the winners were chosen, my name wasn't on the list, but seeing the fabulous entries, I was please for the ladies that won and didn't think anything of it and put it to the back of my mind.

It was only Friday morning that I got a rather desperate but exciting sounding message from Karen, asking me to call her that I discovered one of the winners had to pull out at short notice and I was chosen as runner up to receive the prize! 2 Tickets, travel, food and accommodation in a hotel in Canary Wharf! I was absolutely blown over and to hear my dad on the phone when I told him was the best feeling in the world, I could hear his smile beaming down the handset and I knew that this was going to be a dream come true for him.

We set of on our journey to London,  little unsure of what to expect. I had a major case of butterflies and it was lovely being on the same train as Karen and her husband as we had some fantastic chats and could get excited for what was to come!

When we arrived in Stratford and headed over to the hotel we booked in and omgosh.... the hotel had one of the best views I have ever had in a hotel. The view span was the full size of the room and we even had a dining room and a Jacuzzi bath (which came in handy after the many miles we had to walk later in the evening!)

Then was time to go find the other guys and head to Strada where we had a delicious meal and great company! By the time we finished we were full of yummy desert and ready for the Athletics!

After jazzing up in my Union Jack tinsel (my pound shop bargain ;) ) which got me many many compliments that night! we went to find the Coca Cola Beatbox which was amazing! 

  We learnt about how the music was put together very cleverly using the sounds from athletes, like the squeak from shoes, tennis balls, heart beats and breathing. I was very impressed and it was interactive so it's great for everyone to get involved!

The walk back to the stadium was the killer for me, you just don't realise the sheer scale of the site and I had to physically push myself on knowing i could flomp in my chair when we got there!

Our seats were absolutely incredible! If you had asked me if I wanted to change and I could have sat anywhere, I wouldn't have chosen different! We had the flame to the left of us so we could see perfectly but not too close that we couldn't get pictures.

We saw all the race finishes perfectly too as we were on the corner and luckily my lens meant my dodgy old eyes could keep up!

Summing up my evening, to go to see an Olympic event, itself is  lifetime experience but to see your team come away with THREE Gold medals?! I tell you there were plenty of tears flowing in our seats! The atmosphere was wild, people were friendly and caring, different cultures coming together and cheering all the athletes on, not just their own team, it was pure spirit. Humanity can be beautiful.

I would just like to thank Karen and Coca Cola for giving me this wonderful life experience, something my dad and I will never ever forget.