Continue reading »]]> This week I went on a trip to the National Museum of Scotland with Lexie (and her sisters and her mum). While it re-opened last year this was the first chance I’d had to go and it was worth the wait. The museum is excellent and the feel hasn’t really changed with the refurbishment.

Lexie wanted me to sniff the smelly skunk and essentially to touch everything she could. Fortunately the museum staff clearly had kids in mind and there are plenty of child friendly bits plus lots of more quiet adult bits for me to visit next time.
Given the short visit I really only saw a small portion – Ancient Egypt and the Animal Kingdom sections mainly. Still there was plenty to see as we wandered around. I particularly liked:
Spiky Knees – worthy of any Munchkin.

Fighting Peacocks (Peacock being a favourite P-Bird) I discovered that I am as heavy as a Dragon – ok so a Komodo Dragon but still a dragon (Lexie was as heavy as a koala bear).A Fat Dog Pot
A Totem Pole -where the bottom section was a beaked animal eating a child

The wonderfully titled badger with kettle

and Rats!

Continue reading »]]> My God-daughter, Lexie, is big on Batgirl. Apparently she and her friends play ‘Batman’ at playtime in school – she gets to be Batgirl. In fairness I am big on Batgirl, mostly thanks to the fact that her alter ego, Barbara Gordon, was a librarian. So I decided to make her a little Batgirl doll (small enough to fit in an Altoids tin) as part of our London fun.

Thing is she has two sisters, and Clair said it was unfair to only make one for Lexie, so I made another two mini dolls. I opted for Wonder Woman (who I also admire) for Charlotte and (at Tom’s suggestion) Black Canary (who is the wife of the Green Arrow) for Minnie.

The nice thing is they are pretty easy to make so I thought I would share the pattern and how-to (for personal use only of course). I’m giving the how-to for Black Canary and hopefully you can work out how to do the others (if not drop me a message and I’ll try and help).

Right the first step to your very own mini Black Canary is to print out the patterns -

Next you need to cut out the felt pieces (being sure to reverse the templates as needed).

To make up the doll you layer it together like a jigsaw. I started by adding the front of the hair to the head.
Next I worked on the body. Essentially this was the same thing twice – once with the back and once with the front. Black Canary wears a jacket so I stitched on the bodice then added the sleeves (on the reverse body the bodice is a straight line and the jacket is a solid piece).

Then comes the fishnet tights which I embroidered on. As a rule it was easier to embroider the details on one layer and then stitch that piece in place.
Adding the boots and gloves to finish it off. (The back of the body is the same again).

Now it’s time to join the body together

Leave the neck open and stuff it lightly (I used felt scraps). Once it’s stuffed stitch it closed.
Next we need to make the head up. Embroider the eyes and mouth at this point.
Stitch the back of the head on – leaving a gap for stuffing.
After stitching this closed, attach the head to the body.
Finally attach the back of the hair – I only attached this around the sides and top.
There you have it a mini Black Canary.

NB: I freely admit that at various points I trimmed felt to make it fit better so feel free to do the same.

For Wonder Woman the pattern is:


For Batgirl the pattern is:

Continue reading »]]> So planning for the London Trip has had me thinking about badge we could work towards. Shan suggested one based on the A.A Milne poem ‘Lines and Squares’ for not being eaten by bears.

The poem, in case you didn’t know this, is all about being careful while walking on London – as if you step on a crack there are bears just waiting to nom on you.

And the little bears growl to each other, “He’s mine,
As soon as he’s silly and steps on a line.”

The best thing though are the illustrations that accompany the poem by E.H.Shepard.
So I decided this was a badge worth making. I got some badge blanks, sketched out the design based on the E.H.Shepard illustration, embroidered the outline and then used fabric stamping ink to add colour.

Now all I need to do is miss the cracks so I can earn it.

Continue reading »]]> SS12 continues to charge ahead in planning alas the badge is back in design mode. The design I had created back in January was deemed too large by the planning team when the company producing it said it would be 3″ diameter at smallest.

So it was back to the design board. Still limited by the new branding requirements of using the trefoil (that along with it would need to say Girlguiding Scotland and SS12 at least) it was decided that to make the small badge the planning team wanted we’d drop the trefoil entirely and only have the event name. So now there is a new problem how to make it look like a Guide thing without a trefoil. Plus something that says Scotland, oh and if it can have a biscuit theme all the better.

Not sure any of these manage all of this but these are what I’ve cleared with SHQ and are now being passed to the manufacturer to see what size they can make them or if they can even make them.

This first one is a small version of one of the original ideas featuring a Viscount, Custard Cream and a Party Ring. Biscuits – yes, Scottish – not really, Guides – not at all.

The highland cow i’ve suggested annually but never accepted (not because they didn’t like it just there was always a more suitable option or in the case of the Aberdeen way camp it was too close to another camps badge).  Biscuits – no, Scottish – yes, Guides – yes thanks to neckie.

Custard Cream -  Biscuits – check, Scottish – not really, Guides – not at all.

Westhighland Terrier (aka Westie) -  Biscuits – no, Scottish – yes, Guides – not at all.

This one is shortbread, a very Scottish biscuit, but the fact I felt I had to explain that here means I think it may be a fail.  Biscuits – yes, Scottish – yes, Guides – not at all.

This features the new Girguiding Scotland logo (it can be used on it’s own – I checked).  Biscuits – no, Scottish – yes, Guides – yes, dull as ditch water – totally.

So what’ll it be? At this rate you’ll have to be at SS12 to see the answer.

Continue reading »]]> Having all got to the airport it’s time for our first challenge badge – Sweetastic. The badge was created by DEVA Senior Section and basically it’s a bunch of sweet related challenges. I used it on my last London trip with a bunch of Guiders when we went by train and it worked really well.
This time the challenge will be done on the plane and each girl gets a booklet of challenges and a bag of goodies. (The bag label is from Chica and Jo.)

The idea being that at least some of these goodies are use in the challenges. SO the girls are challenged to:

1. Design their own Jelly Baby – including name, colour, flavour and characteristics.
2. Make themselves some Candy Bling using the elastic and sweetie beads.
3. Design their own chocolate bar – including name and contents.
4. Make a candy aeroplane (as inspired by Disney Family Fun) using the rubber bands, polos, refreshers and chomp.
5. Play tic-tac-toe with the lime and orange tic-tacs.

Continue reading »]]> I’m off to London soon with two small children – one is my God-daughter (the Rainbow) and other is her sister (the Brownie). Luckily for me their mum (aka Clair) will also be there and as we are all members of Girlguiding what could be better than some London Badge Challenges. So epic are the challenges that I’m going to have to do the challenges over a series of posts despite the fact we are only there for three days!

So first up Travelling.

The first treat is a snap bracelet each with a contact mobile number for mum on them (these were bought from Baker Ross and decorated with a fabric pen) and a union jack hairclip (from a supermarket though I’ve forgotten which one).

We are flying down, so I wanted to pack things we could do to fill the time waiting around. I’ve got a pack of Olympic Top Trumps, mini notebook and pen, a Littlest Pet Shop toy each (on sale so about 50p each) and a pencil case each with crayola twist up HB and colouring pencils, rubber and pritt stick. Each girl will also get an A5 folder with activities. The idea is that they will carry these items in their bags.

I decided to make the girls an A5 pocket book folder of distractions but also turn it into a journal of their trip. The folders I got have a pocket on the front so I added a title page with their name and the trip dates on it – I did the letters in an outline so they can colour them in. The image of the skyline I pulled off  scurri.com (I did look but I can’t see an original source).  I’ve then collected a bunch of stuff – mainly from various websites to fill the books;

1. Guy Fox – London Children’s Map (bought from Amazon)
2. A map of the UK with London highlighted so we can mark off where we travelled from (from Activity Village)
Plus a I-Spy for the airport from Kidstravel2
3. Two pages from ‘I’m going on Holiday‘ I found in a doodle pack on trunki.co.uk the first records the journey and the second is ‘holiday masterpieces’ where they doodle the highlights of the trip.
4. Three of the journal pages from trunki.co.uk which we can fill in at the end of each day.
5. Printable pictures to colour-in -
From Activity Village – A London Bus, Big Ben and the London Eye. Plus their Jubilee Colour-in of the Queen.
From i-Child Westminster Abbey
The WAGGGS flag via leaderlobby.net
The London 2012 Olympic mascots via Dutch site kids.flevoland.to
Kylie dress up doll from the V&A Museum
6. A model bus From the London Transport Museum
7. Paddington Bear colour-in and maze from the official Paddington Bear website.
8. Horrible Histories – brain buster form the CBBC site and a couple from the Horrible Histories website (I opted for Spot the difference on Shakespeare and Where’s the Rat?)
9. Muppet Theatre from Disney Family (nothing to do with London but we all love the Muppets). I made it all up in advance (I opted to make the theatre without the floor) and stuck the characters onto lolly sticks rather than as stand ups.
10. A London Eye info/activity page from the DK book ‘Cool Stuff Exploded‘ via the London Eye website.
11. A set of the Olympic mascot stickers (I got them in Tesco for about a £1).

I had to make them all A5 size (I did that by just adjusting my printer so they printed in A5) and cut out anything that needed cutting out (no scissors allowed on planes people). Anyway, at any point they have something they can be doing – so no excuses for being bored.

Continue reading »]]> April’s 4D Challenge –

A – Aberfoyle – DofE training weekend at Dounans
P – Presents for my wonderful hubby Tom who is a year older.
R – Romance – Susan and Andy got hitched
I – Irritable Horatio’s been with us for a year and so has
L – Little Nelson!

Try something new – Baklawa – Mediterranean Treats made from filo pastry, honey and nuts (tasty and happy to eat them again) or I could count doing an Orcadian Strip the Willow down the side of the pitch at Murrayfield.

Book – Anthony Horowitz – Sherlock Holmes and the House of Silk – read an enjoyed.

Exercise – Archery for the 7 hours. I’m thinking that while archery is a sport it isn’t high impact and it doesn’t really rise my heart rate (unless Tom tries to tell me to change five things at once but that’s more anger induced). So from May the challenge will be that only 3.5 hours of the 7 can be use on any one sport or physical activity.

Badge – WAGGGS 2012 celebration badge.

Craft – Super productive but some of it has to be kept under wraps so the only thing I can currently share is Hibee – a bear I made for Susan and Andy as a wedding present (Hibee is the nickname of the supporters of the football team Susan follows).