Milly's Action Figure Clothes Design and Make

Milly loves to design and make doll's clothes. Her own too.

This is a practice dress for her action figure from the movie Frozen. We've had a few 'moments' working on this. Mainly her impatience/eagerness in the cutting department!

Milly has not made a dress properly from scratch before and neither have I so it is pure guess work. Ultimately its fun and she's REALLY loving it... more pictures to follow...

So here are more pictures and how proud does Milly look with the end result. She is currently using fabric pastel dye sticks we found on offer in a shop that's closing down (it was too good an offer to just leave them there). She's creating a lovely design. Very bespoke.

So we have both learned much in this process and Milly says "it's not as easy as it looks". We fully appreciate all the hard and intricate, painstaking work that goes into all these mass produced doll's clothes shipped in from China. So much skill goes unnoticed... not from us, anymore! We are novices and happy to learn and constantly appreciate the luxury and privilege of being able to at our leisure.

Mummy's Proud Moment

Weight Watchers did it for me!

Milly's Masks

Milly has a great interest in prosthetics. This is her work, making copies of her family's faces, her own interpretation. So far she's created Martin, Aunty Sam and Hector.

She uses PVA, kitchen roll and acrylic paint... she discovered by accident that she can make many from one very flimsy, plastic mask from the art shop.

Quite brilliant :-) Very proud Mummy.

Family Advisory Panel

The first of the year. We are one of the few families on the First Site Art Gallery Family Advisory Panel. It requires us to attend two hour long sessions each month to trial activities the public will then be invited to do at the gallery.

We had an interesting introduction to the new exhibition which includes work from five different artists.

We watched a short film showing one artists work and then did some art together (sketching one installation... one pencil, one piece of paper and three hands)... that was a giggle!

There was more work to be done with a new artist at the gallery. She had us look at the art we had done and choose an element of it, trace and rub and copy it a few times. The idea was to copy it many times using different papers. Repeat the pattern. A collage in effect.

It was all to do with Kim Dotcom and a New Zealand artist.

We also looked at Henri Chopin the concrete poet.

In all a fabulous way to spend an afternoon followed by a movie, courtesy of the Gallery - Fern Gullet.

Lung shaped Focaccia!

My own creation. We much prefer these odd shapes rather than the normal shaped bread (though there is nowt wrong with a good square of Focaccia) ;-) this was completely unintentional but curiously satisfying! I don't eat bread at all but LOVE making it for my family... delicious with a good slug of Olive Oil, Maldon Sea Salt and cracked black pepper, perfect!

Dominoes and Hot Chocolate

Enjoying warming drinks with Nanny in Maldon's lovely cafe Nanna 's. They have a big selection of traditional board games... Hettie also thrashed me at Chess! Milly and Nanny had a wonderful chat in the snug area!

Fully Baked Plait and Pooing Man

Bread Making and the Hundred Years War

Impromptu bread making often leads us onto random conversations. I'm not even sure what exactly prompted the discussion! Still, it was interesting albeit brief! Milly had made a lovely plait and Hettie has enjoyed employing her knowledge of the human digestive system by creating a pooing man! Minutes after setting their beautiful Focaccia to the side to prove they opened a variety pack of paper from the lovely old Miller's Stationers. It's sadly closing down now so they're are lots of bargains. Hettie has started copying out a poem from Stitch Head for her friend and Milly is designing and making book marks.

The girlies version of tidying up the Lego

Lego strewn on the rug in a huge pile... we're happy with that. Then they spend hours together creating this vast 'crazy-house'... we LOVE that even more!

Highwoods Walkie-Talkie race with Daddy and Hettie

Hee Hee... our Walkie-Talkies ran out of batteries en route and still we beat them. Milly was brilliant at her 'gut-reaction' to take certain turns... I felt very safe with her direction choices. Hettie built a wonderful den with Martin and this gorgeous woodland wand, Milly relished the feeling of height, I did a spot of functional fitness and we all went home for tea and to warm up. More pictures to follow. A lovely Sunday... Martin is desperate to have a log fire to come home to... LET'S MOVE TO DORSET THEN M'DEAR! LOL XX 

Books we're reading

Milly's Homemade Pyjama Trousers

With the careful guidance of our fabulous friend, Milly managed to piece together a pair of scrummy PJ Trousers. Jules brought a delightful book round with a fab pattern in it for Milly to try. Previously, I had found, unopened and new, a pack of bedding. Candy stripe brushed cotton. Ooooooooh sooo soft!

And Ta-Dah! With help from Jules, engine power from Milly with the sewing machine and a tad of crappy finishing off from me (I'm NOT that good OR fussy/neat) a gorgeous pair of PJ Trousers. And... a very VERY happy Milly. XX

Hettie: "Have you made me a pair too?" 

Me: "Errrrrr... not yet!"

Operation 'PJ make'... starts tomorrow then!

Hettie's Picture from our Manga lesson

Milly's Manga Lesson

Waiting for our lovely friend to come, Milly decided to hold a Manga lesson. I thoroughly enjoyed being her student and she's a fabulous instructor. I think I did quite well with my Gardener. I think I've been inspired by the lovely Monty Don. Milly's is a beautiful Victorian girl. You can almost feel the texture of her dress. Hettie got involved too. We talked about perspective and light. Colour, shape and form.