11 August 2013

elephants and pigs

Ah, Sunday... I do love a good Sunday. I spend most of them with my parents and we try very hard not to watch any TV at least until late afternoon when madam can't cope any longer! (She only really has it as background noise, she doesn't watch it intently for long.)
 
There is a ban on kids TV channels so it'll only go on if there is something good we all want to watch. Last week we lasted until Deadly 60 (or one of it's incarnations) and then we have to watch whatever my dad chooses...
 
I used to spend most of my afternoon either reading all the magazines and supplements from the 2 Sunday papers my dad always gets. But now I have a laptop and can sit in the living room and still be unsociable by being welded to the internet, but remain in the same room as everyone else! :) Brillbobs...
 
I have made another top for madam, with the beautiful elephant fabric. It was just big enough to make a cute little sun top and madam spent Thursday wearing it whilst we went to the cinema to watch Despicable Me 2And she enjoyed it almost as much as I did... Only minimal fidgeting involved!
 
The top was pretty easy to construct, I chose to make it harder as I didn't want the elephants marching on their sides. They are on the straps, but there was no way to avoid that... I cut a front and a back, stitched them up the sides and turned down a bit to make a channel for the elastic at the top.
 
I made two folds of fabric for the straps, and threaded elastic through them so they have a cute gathered look and it's really easy for madam to get the top off and on. I sort of followed a pattern I'd come across on Pinterest, but mainly so I got the dimensions, I was going to make it reversible, like the pattern says but couldn't decide on a fabric for the reverse.
 
 
 
I think I made it harder by not though, because I then had to make the specific elastic channel, and I couldn't just trap the straps between the layers to secure them. None-the-less, I'm really pleased with how well it turned out. And so was madam, despite this facial expression! 
 
 
 
 
Yesterday was spent trying to sort out a birthday party for madam. Her birthday is still two months away but I wanted to know I had somewhere booked. Her birthday is on a Friday this year, which also makes it harder. I started off looking at church halls as then we'd just be able to do the invite everyone in the class thing and let them run riot.
 
However, it was so hard to even find out how much the halls were charging. I only found two that listed their hourly rates. The rest just gave me a phone number to call. (We remember how I feel about phonecalls...) I really can't see the point of dedicating a whole section of your website to Hall Hire if it just then says: For all enquiries phone... Useless.
 
I tried the local leisure centre as they do hire too. Again, no rates given. But my mum then asked about their party package and I pointed out it'd be a minimum number of kids and that we would end up paying quite a bit. She pointed out that, judging from the prices we had found, if you added that plus the food and all the hassle, it might be easier to pay for a party.
 
So then we checked the local soft play centre (parent hell, kiddie heaven). Here we found an actual list of prices and a detailed description of what their parties entailed. Finally! And we realised if we booked there we would be able to get it actually on her birthday, too. We'd sort of been looking at the Sat/Sun for hall hire.
 
So I rang up (I know all the people there, so not that hard) and we managed to get after school on her birthday pencilled in. Then mum said she'd pay the deposit so we could secure it. Bonus :) So that's it. We have to invite at least 10 kids at £8 each, but they get two hours playing and food. Normal entry is £5, so it's not bad to get them all the food and save me the hassle.
 
Just need to make a cake and sort out party bags and I'm done :) I have made a pinterest board for party ideas as madam had asked for a piggy party. Might have to find/make her a piggy costume...   



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