Ponies!

My darling daughter absolutely loves anything equestrian related and so we have a nice little collection of pony crafts.  It started when we put up her first poster:

First Poster

On request we drew and coloured a picture for her bedroom door together.  This is "Lil Dan", her favourite pony.(Yes I said it my daughter has a favourite pony)

The second painting-by-numbers I did was also for her room. I know that painting-by-numbers is cheating, but I thoroughly enjoyed painting this. I love painting but can't draw and don't mind cheating:

Painting-By-Numbers 

Then the little minx found up a pen drawing I did a couple of years ago as part of a mixed media art course and pinched some blu-tak when I wasn't looking. The next thing I knew this was on her wardrobe.  I don't even know where she found it, but I am presuming that she found it when we unpacked and hid it until she found the courage to put it up.

Since she is so fond of it I decided to turn a blind eye and she thinks that I haven't noticed yet.  Bless.

I want to share a photo of her My Little Ponies with you.  When she was younger some friends of ours found up the collection of My Little Ponies that they owned when they were younger, including a stable that their father had made.  They didn't even mind when we painted this lovely stable bright pink and purple!

As luck would have it, one of the blogs I follow posted some My Little Pony patterns, (Dork Stitch: Old School My Little Pony Sprite Patterns ) so I think I am now going to stitch these on to something for my daughter's stocking, what with that C word just around the corner.  

Spotty tops for Children in Need

I received a text message from my daughter's school last night! I just wanted to put that sentence out there because I thought that was really odd, anyway the text was reminding me that today is Children in Need and could children bring in a donation and wear something spotty.  We had the donations set aside and I knew that it was to wear something spotty, but for whatever reason it didn't click in my head that they didn't have any spotty clothes. So cue me last night sewing felt spots onto tops for the kids.  I think they turned out quite sweet, although my hubby thinks they look more "Gruffalo pox" spots rather than "Pudsey" spots.

The kids were thrilled with them and they both went off to school/nursery as happy as clams. The teachers and pupils at both school and nursery had all made a brilliant effort and as soon as my daughter got to the playground, despite being November and cold, she had her coat off so she could compare spots with friends.  
There is plenty of Children in Need stuff out there so I'm not going to go on but it is particularly close to my hear so just in case you want it here is the link to donate.

The Door to Moria

I received the best swap gift last week.  I genuinely could not have chosen a better hand made gift for myself.  So first of all Thank You to Starrley - go and check out her blog here .  
Now I was having dog issues when the postman knocked and I desperately needed to take my mind off of it so it couldn't have been better timed. ( Lets just say that our neighbours poodle got into our garden and my boxer was rather pleased to see her...nobody should have to deal with boxer/poodle love first thing in the morning!) Anyway...
The first thing I saw was a card with this image:

Now this was exciting enough as I love Dune, and when I listed it as  one of my best games/books etc I really didn't think many people would have got it. So this card alone cheered me up, then I look at the framed item and all I can say is WOW!!!

The Framed Door to Moria

This is so beautifully stitched and just looks so right in the frame. Also this was sent all the way from Texas so the fact that she actually added the frame is so lovely because it would have increased the postage by a ridiculous amount.

The Embroidered Door to Moria

The elvish on this is tiny and detailed and done so neatly.  I know that I am being overt with my praise but I still can't believe someone sent me this, so so so happy with it!
Also for a quick comparison, this was the image that it was based on:

The Door to Moria

If there was ever an incentive to hurry up and get my map done, this was it!

A Homemade Chalk Board

We have been decorating!  I love painting so am always happy to don some rough clothes and a roller out. I really like having a blackboard in the kitchen because i quite like to have something to cross out  (if it is on the blackboard I am much more likely to do it so I can cross it out) and since a lot of the recipes we use are online I can write it all up on the blackboard while I am cooking.  So my lovely hubby decided that this was something that we could make rather than buy. 

We painted a big black rectangle on the kitchen wall with blackboard paint which for some unknown reason amused the kids to the point of hysterical giggles.

Blackboard paint

I had nothing to do with the cutting of the picture rail other than holding the "non-being cut end", but found that varnishing it was ridiculously therapeutic.

The lovely blackboard fairies put it all together when I wasn't looking so I don't have any photos of this stage, but the next thing I know VOILA :

Fin

Look at how lovely it looks!

And an action shot:

The recipes are for homemade naan bread and rice pudding  ; )