Maybe a little OCD!?

I love the way Eden pays such attention to detail and likes things 'just so'!
Here he is eating an orange in his usual way yesterday - lining up the pieces first!

And here is playdough after he had finished playing - each playdough spot to fit the dot on the tablecloth!!

New Look!

I hope you like the new blog look! I thought it was due a makeover!

old look....

 new look....

New web address!!

Jovial Spondoodles is now dot com!!!

I am slowing moving a lot of the posts over to www.jovialspondoodles.com. I will still be posting regularly here for family related posts, but a lot of the tutorials etc will be on the dot com address. Do take a look and let me know what you think! It will be a slow process transferring a lot of the old stuff but hopefully worth it!

Egg box and toothpicks!

I needed a quick activity to keep Eden occupied whilst I cleared out the kitchen cupboard. I found a bog egg tray and a load of cup-cake novelty toothpicks and he had a fabulous half hour totally immersed in popping a pick in each turret. When he was finished I was treated to a lovely rendition of 'Happy Birthday' with his completed 'cake'!

 

Silks!

It was a great session at trapeze class last night! We actually spend most of it on the silks which I usually dread as it requires lots of upper body strength. But I managed to do a foot lock I often struggle with, which led to lots more tangly positions! We also did the drop again which I LOVE!

Here is one of the shapes from last night!

And here is the drop from a few weeks ago!

Lego Key holder

After several mornings recently running late due to not being able to find my keys I thought I'd better find a solution! The answer came in Joplin's lego box! I fixed a base piece to the wall with a couple of double sided poster tabs and now each set of keys has a lego piece with a hole on the key ring! It is a real pleasure clicking the keys on when I come through the door, and I now know where my keys are!

Christmas wrapping!

I had lots of fun wrapping my presents this year! Each one was different and it was really enjoyable making them look pretty!

 I used a mixture of lace, printed sheet music of Carols, stick on jewels and various trims. The paper was cheap brown paper but really came to life with the accessories. I don't think I spend any more than I would have done with traditional paper as the accessories took up the cost that the brown paper saved. A little more time maybe but lots of fun and worth it!
Here is the sheet music I used to print. 

Bottles were given the Rudolf treatment with brown paper, stick on eyes and nose and pipe cleaner antlers! It made a boring bottle of wine or beer gift a lot more fun!

JJ Art T Shirt! - 'Scary Man'

Joplin did a great drawing the other day! I thought a good way to show how proud I was, was to make it into a T-shirt for him to wear! I had a couple of one pound t-shirts left over from his PE kit multi pack and some pound shop t-shirt transfers so it wasn't an expensive project, but lots of fun!
I won't use the pound shop transfers again though - they didn't really stick well enough and didn't last a wash, so it would be better economy to spend a couple more pounds and not loose the t-shirt. (It didn't help that he wore it the day knocked his front tooth out and got blood all over it - another story!) It won't be expensive to replace though and with a decent transfer and the other multipack t shirt I should hopefully be able to replace it quickly.
Here it is anyway! I think he looks great and he was very proud to be able to wear his art!

New Years Eve!

Well it was quite an eventful one in the end! We had friends Jane and Dean over with their son Joey. The 3 boys get on really well together and were very excited to be staying up until midnight! They very soon disappeared up to the boys' bedroom, however half an hour later there was a big scream and Joplin appeared with his mouth covered in blood! He had switched off all the lights to show Joey the new glow stars on the ceiling and then tripped over his wooden castle and pretty much knocked his front tooth out! 3 hours later after phone calls, a trip to A&E and a very nice emergency dentist who kindly stayed open an extra hour for us, we were back to smiles again - a big gappy one! He bounced back amazingly well and it wasn't long before he was up to eating the special NYE cupcakes!! (Eden helped bake them and they certainly went down well!)

I made a balloon hat for myself for the occasion! Couldn't resist!

The boys were occupied with making treasure chests - I use these a lot for my parties. Basically they are wooden chests that can be decorated with pens and stick on jewels.

They had great fun, and Joplin's has since been used to keep his tooth in!

The grown ups meanwhile had great fun with a game I remember from my Auntie Peggy's New Years party when I was about 8! A cork is attached to a string with a tack with the other end attached to a safety pin. It is pinned onto the player's bottom whilst they try and use it to put ot a tea light candle on the floor! A lot of laughs!!

 Despite the dramas it was a great night!!! Happy 2014!

Paper globe

I was so pleased to find this fantastic free printable globe from Joachimesque.com.
Basically you the free pdf onto card and it slots together in a sort of honeycomb style. It's a very clever design - completely glue free but very solid. Anyway, I had great fun putting it all together before I passed it on to Joplin! I would imagine that maybe 7 plus years would be able to precisely cut and put this together with a bit of help, but this time I got play!

Anyway, once put together Joplin loved it! He is really into maps and countries and is suddenly loving and putting effort into colouring-in in the last few months. It took a few days to complete, but he had such fun and let us know every time he  coloured a new country. The globe is great to throw and catch and is amazingly sturdy from just a few sheets of slotted together thin card.

A great activity I would thoroughly recommend! You can down load it at http://joachimesque.com/globe/