Handmade cards with hanging heart Christmas tree decoration

These Christmas cards combine techniques from two of last year's craft projects to make a lovely Christmas card with a removable Christmas tree decoration.

They're very simple and all you need is

• White card
• Wrapping paper
• PVA glue
• Wool or string
• Needle

1. Begin by ripping the wrapping paper into smallish pieces. If the paper has words or motifs on it, such as snowmen, try to keep a few of these whole and put them to one side.

2. Fold the white card down the middle

3. Draw a heart on the front and cut this out - both the heart and the hole are needed

4. Take the cardboard heart, pieces of paper, and pva glue and begin building up layers of paper over it as in Paper mache Christmas decorations

5. After a couple of layers, and while the glue/paper is still wet and soft, push the needle through the heart where it will hang from.

6. Let the glue dry, then add a final layer using the pieces that you put aside earlier.

7. Push the needle through the hole again

8. On the inside of the folded card, lightly draw a slightly larger heart around the heart shaped hole

9. Follow the instructions for Sew simple Christmas cards to stitch the outline

10. Thread wool through the hole in the heart decoration

11. Line the heart decoration up with the cut out heart, and make a hole in the back of the card so that heart can hang - tie the string loosely at the back so that it can be untied and hung on a tree later

12. Write your greeting on the front and you're done



Blue sky thinking, or head in the clouds?

Cloud computing and Software as a Service (SaaS)  is often said to be cheaper, easier, faster, more reliable and even greener, so it’s right that every organisation explores these opportunities.

Put simply, cloud computing refers to a network of computer resources that are located just about anywhere and, for a price, part of this can be yours- short or long term.

The concept of SaaS running in the cloud has actually been around for a long time. With personal email such as Hotmail, being a well known example of SaaS that has been going since 1996, with 400 million accounts worldwide.

The approach can be compared to the potential flexibility of using public transport rather than committing to buying a car - you can choose a different mode of transport depending on your needs for the journey. A train could be faster, a bus could be cheaper and everyone sharing could potentially be more efficient and green.

 You also won’t have the initial outlay or be responsible for the maintenance, but with less responsibility comes less control.

Services might not run exactly when you’d like them to; they won’t get you right to the door; they could be less reliable; or in reality you might find yourself in a taxi (private cloud) every time, paying more for the luxury!

There are a lot of things to take into consideration, including remembering that just as owning a car doesn’t stop you from catching a train when it suits, the use of SaaS is not an all or nothing situation.

Despite clouds gathering on the horizon and talk of a government G-Cloud forecast to rain change on the public sector, it seems clear that we are likely to continue to host some applications in the foreseeable future, but that cloud computing is also genuine option for others.

What does minimum mean to you?

Sign the petition at 10,000 signatures a response will be given...
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/106123 



Last month I queried my nursery bill because the Early Years funding seemed like such a spit in the ocean.

The nursery showed me a table provided by the Council which told them how much to knock off my bill.

I contacted Newport City Council, who within a day got back to me with a helpful response confirming that each child receives £6.83 for each session attended.

Unfortunately however, this amount does not cover the actual cost.

So I contacted Huw Lewis, Minister for Education to ask whether he was aware of this short all and to raise awareness of the big difference in Early Year funding between England and Wales.

Almost one month later I received an email from someone working in Foundation Phase Policy. The points made were fair, in that she mentioned that Wales and England vary in lots of ways, and that there was additional funding where it was felt it was needed. However she did also confirm and I quote;

In Wales, all 3 and 4 year-old children are entitled to funded early education for a minimum of 10 hours per week over a minimum of 38 weeks in the year – a minimum of 380 hours. 

And this is my key point - due to the shortfall between the funding and actual cost, we are not actually receiving the minimum number of funded hours.

The government is providing funding at a rate of  around £30 a day, when our nursery (and all others in the area) charge £37.50

I replied to the response I received, but 8 days on I have had no response.

I wanted to raise awareness of this shortfall, but it seems Huw Lewis never even saw my email sent to his official email address. I tweeted him twice but was disappointed to get no response.

I also tweeted my AM, Rosemary Butler, to ask whether there was any other path I could take, but again got no response.

So maybe I'll jump down off my soapbox and do something more useful with my time.

Sign the petition...it probably won't change anything but at least it will have been considered again
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/106123 

Free Childcare in England vs Wales (England wins again)

"All 3 and 4-year-olds in England are entitled to 570 hours of free early education or childcare a year. This is often taken as 15 hours each week for 38 weeks of the year." [gov.uk]


In Wales however, the Wales.gov.uk equivalent page reads:

Sorry, the page you are looking for cannot be found. [Wales.gov.uk - as linked from above .gov.uk website]

It cannot not be found by searching the website for Early Years, or Rising 3s.

This doesn't surprise me at all, as the early year/ rising 3 funding in Wales is a challenge to understand.

As I understand it, it must have an education element, it cannot simply be free childcare, so my daughter had to move nursery to qualify.

Each child is entitled to attend up to 5 morning or afternoon sessions per week. These must be taken on separate days.

Each session is between 2 and 2.5 hours per day.

This is term time only.

Ok, so that makes sense, yes it does.

In my case, Miss Megan attends nursery all day, but her pre school session runs from 12:30 to 2:45 each day - 2 hours 15 per day

Given we have 39 weeks of education per year, I would expect her to receive just short of 439 hours of free childcare per year.

Already this puts Wales 131 hours of freeness down on England (or to put it another way, parents in Wales are £485 worse off than those in England)

But then when you query your nursery bill, it turns out the situation is slightly different to what it advertised.

Hours don't come it to it at all in Wales - each child receives £6.83 per session attended.

So off a monthly bill of £801, you get £111

Now let's put that back into hours - it's £1332 per year, doesn't sound bad initially, but in reality it doesn't cover the cost of the FREE sessions

Nursery is open 8am to 6pm (10 hours) and costs £37 per day, so £3.70

£1332, divided by £3.70 is actually only 360, meaning instead of the 439 hours I was expecting to receive, we actually only get 360 hours free per year - losing me another 80 hours on if we'd stayed living and working in England.

In reality we are 210 hours worse off per year than if we lived across the border. This is also known as £777

Put simply the government gives us 67p less per hour than we pay for the FREE sessions.

Therefore it costs  parents £130 for their child to attend the free sessions.

You might argue that our nursery is more expensive than average - but this is not true, in fact the nursery we moved from was more expensive again, and there is definitely no nursery in the area that charges less.

Potentially of course your child doesn't have to attend all day, they could just come for the free session and leave at the end.

While I was on maternity leave with my second child, Megan did this 2 days a week. But practically, although it may benefit the child in terms of an introduction to education, it would not allow the parent to work. 2 hours 15 is not really enough to do anything much at all.

Christmas tree baubles

This is a bit of an addition to my Paper mache Father Christmas decorations, rather than a completely new post or idea.

Basically you follow the instructions in the Paper mache Father Christmas decorations post to create a solid paper mache base, but then instead of proceeding to paint it pink and turn it into Father Christmas, we go down a very slightly more tasteful route!

You will need
 

• Pva glue mixed with a dash of water
• Paintbrush or spatular
• Christmas wrapping paper
• A paper mache bauble (see Paper mache Father Christmas decorations )
• Need and string

Begin by carefully ripping out motifs from your Christmas paper - e.g. a whole reindeer or penguin, the words Merry Christmas, or whatever is on your paper.

Set these aside, they go on last to ensure that they remain whole and are not covered by other layers.

Now rip the rest of your Christmas paper up any way you like.

Cover your bauble with glue and then build up a layer of Christmas paper.

Once the whole bauble is covered with bright Christmas paper, add the pieces you set aside earlier as a final layer, trying to keep the motifs whole.

Finally, once dry, take your needle and firmly, but slowly, push it through the top of the shell and pull string through to create a hanging loop.

Then you're done!

Paper mache Father Christmas decorations

So these are simple paper mache decorations, built from scratch using nothing but scrap paper and then decorated with felt.

However, they are also my revenge Christmas decorations! Every time my mum visits she brings more and more toys and bag loads of plastic tat, which subsequently ends up strewn across my living room.

As way of thanks, little Nutmeg and I are making her lots of very beautiful Christmas decorations which I am sure she will treasure (and feel obliged to display!)

As each layer is added it will need to dry, so this is a project that we have been adding bits to every day this week. (Perfect for a 3 year old who gets bored quickly as she can do a little bit each night)

You will need

• PVA glue mixed with a dash of water
• Paint brush or glue spatula
• Balloon (or water bomb for nice round shape)
• Scrap newspaper or brown paper
• Pink paint or pink paper
• 1 sheet of red and 1 sheet of white felt (or thick paper)
• Black pen
• Scissors
• Toilet roll tubes (optional)

Getting started

Blow up your balloon to the desired size. My decorations are going to be hung on a tree, so were kept quite small, but there is no reason why you couldn't go BIGGER!

Mix some PVA glue with a little water

Rip up your scrap paper into small pieces (it is important that it is torn and not cut so that the edges blend better)

Next begin covering your balloons in glue and then paper, painting each piece of paper with glue as you go

Once the balloon is covered in paper, it's ok to add a second layer of paper immediately.

After this, place your balloon on a toilet roll while it dries (avoid it sticking to the table etc)

Once completely dry it's time to burst and remove the balloon...

Make sure that you are holding the end of the balloon as you burst it to ensure that the balloon doesn't fall inside your decoration.

Then gently wiggle it out through the hole.

At this point your decoration should be quite firm, but would benefit from a couple more layers to give it extra strength and to cover the exit hole.

Paint the whole decoration with glue and add 1-2 more layers of paper.

Standing the decoration on a toilet roll tube may make this easier and avoid sticky fingers.

After letting decorations dry over night, either paint pink them or cover them in pink paper

Either way, they will need to dry again...

Now for decoration

To make the hat, draw a circle on the red felt/paper and cut it out.

Cut this in half and then wrap it around to create a cone. Gluing down the seam.

Add a strip of white along the bottom and then add details like a beard, mouth, eyebrows and eyes

My final step will be to put a piece of white wool through the hats so that they can be hung on a Christmas tree.

Alternatively you could colour/decorate the toilet roll tube and display your Father Christmas as a standing decoration.

With the 3rd balloon we covered, we will be making an angel/fairy for the top of the tree next week. Isn't my Mum a lucky Grandma!!!

(Please see also a slightly more tasteful version of this craft project where the baubles are covered in Christmas wrapping paper - Christmas tree baubles )

Sew simple, homemade Christmas cards

Sew simple Christmas cards (made by a 3 year old)

Christmas is coming and my daughter is at home with me (and her baby brother) 2 days a week, so I am always looking for things we can do together.

It's an extra bonus if it isn't messy and makes something that you might actually want at the end of it! I think this ticks both of these boxes.

Today we made Christmas cards from blank cards and scraps of coloured wool.
Megan is only 3 and hers came out good enough to send (with help of course) so I am sure older children will enjoy this and be able to create their own designs too.

You will need...

• Blank cards and envelopes (mine were from John Lewis)
• Pencil
• Bodkin (not very sharp wool needle)
• Coloured wool
• Merry Christmas stickers/stamp (optional - especially if your children are old enough to write, my stamp was from John Lewis)

Let's do it...

Begin by drawing out your design on the blank card. As wool is quite thick it is ok to do this on the right side (front) of the card, the wool will cover any lines.

 



Next take your needle and make guide holes through the card evenly around the design. This will make sewing much simpler and mean that your child is only gently pushing the needle through an existing hole rather than needing to force it through the card.

Now begin to sew between the existing holes. This should be done using back stitch where you skip a hole, and then work back to the previous hole filling in a gap. The next stitch is then started from end of the previous stitch. (repeat)

 

It is not essential that back stitch is used, but this avoids oversewing the whole design twice and means the back of the design shouldn't be too untidy

 

 

Finally tie off any loose ends and add a greeting of your choice.

 

Simple but I'm sure our family will like receiving cards Megan has made herself.