Freezer paper stencilling...with children!

In a bid to steer the girls away from so much TV I cracked out the freezer paper and fabric paints. I haven't done any since Isaac's last two shirts (lion, tortoise) and felt it was time for another one; and what better way to spend a Saturday morning? Here are the results.

L-R: Aoife's, mine & Roisin's

The girls had a great time doing the drawing & painting. I think the most difficult bit for them was waiting for it to be dry. This wasn't so bad as we'd booked to take them to a children's play at the local theatre studio so the paint was dry by the time they got home.

Evaluation

This was the first time either of them had done this and it was the first time I'd supervised anything like it. For future projects I think I need to be more instructive, i.e.: "draw me a strawberry" or "draw me a teddy bear." Roisin got a bit carried away with her drawing and included sky & background so I explained that we could only really use the girl for the stencil, but she could paint other stuff on after which she was happy with. Might need to be more clear when explaining, but then too much explanation and they lose interest. Catch 22!

I know they had fun & it was a valuable lesson for me in letting go of some of my perfectionist neuroses. The kids are used to dunking their brushes in cheap poster paint tubs and slapping the paint on rather than delicately dabbing at the excess paint inside  the lids of quite-expensive-for-the-amount-you-get fabric paints and then stretching the paint out on the fabric. I just kept reminding myself "only 6 & 4" and it went really well. I could really tell that Aoife's now starting to think about things more rather than charging ahead and being upset when it doesn't look how she expected it to. It's lovely to see Roisin drawing actual people and things, since she started school her drawing has come on leaps & bounds.

Goodness knows how (in-fact I do know how - they're kids) they got paint all over their fingers/elbows etc, some of which ended up on the shirts. An additional whale on Aoife's shirt and a cunningly placed balloon on Roisin's meant the worst was disguised. They are only 6 & 4 after all so I think they did extremely well!

Just for good measure - Roising & Isaac playing after the shirts were done.

He's not quite sure what to make of Rosh sometimes!

Getting my craft (back) on…again…and breastfeeding gush

So I couldn't help myself. I've stencilled again!!

 

 

I think I like his face the most...smug, yet benign.I couldn't stop myself buying some plain tops today from H&M. Watch this space for more freezer paper antics!

Isaac at 12 weeks, with hat

In other crafty news, Isaac needs a slightly bigger hat. The one pictured left is now not quite big enough to comfortably keep his 19 week old cranium completely covered. It's amazing the growth that occurs in only 6 weeks! *scratches head & tries to remember what size hook was used for this hat*

Now for the breastfeeding. The more I learn about breastfeeding, the more I marvel at the wonder and beauty of nature. We went to our NCT weaning course on Sunday, yesterday. We got onto mixing breast milk with mashed up fruit etc in the early days of weaning to up the calorific value and so we talked about expressing. Now, I've given up trying to express because it's soul destroying to only get 1/2 oz from each boob each time. What I didn't realise is (and call me stupid for not) that if you do it regularly at the same time every day, your body actually starts to produce more at that specific time. WOW! That wow has 2 parts - A) I cannot believe that I missed that completely. You really do lose part of your brain post-birth huh? B) How incredible is that? How totally and utterly mind bogglingly amazing? Not only does the human female body  provide everything a baby needs up to approximately 8 months (depending on which government you decide to listen to), it constantly changes it's milk production to meet the exact needs of its growing baby, factoring in such things as illness (& the provision of antibodies) and calorific content AND it can schedule in additional production times/change feeding schedules/reduce feeding schedules in accordance with the baby/ies feeding from it. Now that's what I call absolute perfection.

Right, I've gushed enough for one evening. T'ra!

Getting my craft (back) on

What's this?? 2 posts in 3 days?! Goodness. Calm yourself Sarah.

So anyhoo, I've had my roll of freezer paper since before Isaac was born with the intention of stencilling many things. I've been building up a stash of fabric paint since then too (having painted some climbing flowery stuff on a hoodie of my own already). Last night I actually got around to doing some proper stencilling. I have to say that I'm rather pleased with the result!

I did a base layer of the yellow colour & then painted on the brown, white & black. I think I probably should've done a second layer of the yellow so the stripes underneath don't show as much, but still - I'm so pleased! I'm not a huge fan of many of the t-shirts designed for kids as they have stupid words on like Trouble Is My Middle Name etc. Also - plain tops are cheaper - hurrah!

So. If it sits still long enough, it'll probably get stencilled!