Button Trees on Canvas

As we haven't done any crafts in ages, instead of working on our famous artist study today, I thought it might be nice for the girls to make something.

I saw these on Pinterest (I am a Pinterest addict!) and knew we just had to give them a go.

They are quite simple, just grab a canvas and start drawing a tree and paint it (or freehand paint if you are confident in that area) and then simply randomly glue buttons on the branches. I grabbed some cheap buttons from a couple of second-hand shops yesterday, so overall it was a pretty cheap craft.

The Fashionista thought it would be nice for a branch to come across the canvass rather than a full tree.

Agent Smelly decided she wanted to try and paint her tree with her finger. It actually gave the trunk quite a nice effect. She did use a brush for the thinner branches.

The Fashionista decided to use her Aunt's favourite colour combination, purple, blue and green and make her canvas for her as a gift.  Aunty H is going to be so delighted with it.

Agent Smelly used all the various colours we had in the container.

I had some faerie buttons so the girls decided to include them in their pictures. Can you spot them?

Journaling their wee History

Today for history, just to shake things up a bit, instead of using their traditional text books I had them do a timeline of the history of their short lives to-date.

Agents Smelly's timeline. Love the latest pic of her doing gymnastics.

It was actually very funny listening to them trying to work out what they did each year that was worth drawing onto their timeline.

By The Fashionista; the little circle of girls she drew for when she joined Pippins (Guides) cute?

Once they finished them, I had them place them into their journals for prosperity.

White Chocolate & Vanilla Biscuits

The Fashionista was simply dying to make something from her Girls Rally magazine and asked if she could make some White Chocolate & Vanilla biscuits for home economics this week. It was their Grandma's birthday so I agreed, as I thought it would be nice to pop down with a fresh batch of those and the ANZAC cookies her little sister was whipping up.

I have got to say that even though I am not a fan of white chocolate, and we found out later neither is my mother-in-law, we ALL (yes even the ma-in-law), absolutely loved these biscuits and just kept eating them. Which is lucky because there was no quantity on the recipe and so we ended up making a whopping 66 biscuits!

I really cannot recommend this recipe highly enough.

White Chocolate & Vanilla Biscuits

Makes; approx 5 doz

Ingredients

• 375g butter, softened
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 6 Tbspn condensed milk
• 3 tspn vanilla essence
• 4 cups flour
• 3 tspn baking powder
• 1 1/2 cups white chocolate buttons (chopped)

Method

1. Preheat oven to 165.C
2. Using an electric beater, cream butter and sugar until pale and fluffy.
3. Beat in condensed milk and vanilla essence.
4. Sift over flour and baking powder and mix well.
5. Mix in chopped chocolate buttons.
6. Spoon walnut sized balls onto a lined baking tray - flatten slightly with finger tips.
7. Bake for 10-12mins until firm and golden.

Recipe taken from Girls Rally Member Mag, No 2 - 2012

They're at it again ...

I have mentioned before how the little madams enjoy dressing up. Today they arrived in the school room dressed like this ...

Apparently this is going to be their new school uniform, am sure I have heard that before ... personally I think they look like those English nannys.

They wore these outfits all day until they had to get changed for Girl Guides, yes even the hats. I am not sure which school wears these skirts (we got them from a second-hand shop for a themed party) but am considering sending the little minxes there!

Fantasy Party

Today the girls attended a lovely friend of their's 10th birthday party.

The theme was fantasy so they went as a couple of Harry Potter characters.

Agent Smelly as "Ginny Weasley"

The Fashionista as "Luna Lovegood"

We grabbed the school skirts from a second-hand store and they are wearing The Papa's ties ... The Fashionista is wearing his school tie in fact.