Bunting

Don't we all love a bit of bunting. It makes us feel like there's a bit of a celebration going on. I shared Kathryn Grogan's Mud Kitchen photo on facebook this week and I have to say it went NUTS! Currently it's had 396 shares and over 26,000 views which is unheard of for my little page.

The group is Isle of Wight Wildlife Tots and the web address is www.hiwwt.org.uk

As you can see it is a cracking photo but I was wondering what made it so VERY special to be whizzed around the world that much. I think it's the stump oven, I've not seen one of those before and it is a wonderful creation. But a few people commented on the bunting and I thought yes, bunting does make things look marvellous. 

The street I live in had a Bunting Evening once. We like a street party every now and then and had an evening of cutting and sewing to make some for our 25 Year Party (our Jubilee!) We used the kids old duvets, sheets, flowery 1980 dresses and anything we had really. When it's up I like to look and see what memories are hanging up there.

I think this was a Royal Wedding street party - any excuse!

I've also made Hapa Zoma bunting when I've been working with students. It's quck and easy and a wonderful collaboration as everybody contributes to a beautiful whole.

 I started thinking of ways to make cheap bunting with what I already had and remembered all those plastic bags shoved down the side of the cupboard in the hall. You know those 10p 'bag for life' ones - the ones I always forget to take with me to the shops so end up buying more each time. I dug out the ones which were a bit tatty and the ones with holes in and decided to use those. I also thought these would be great in England where we have so much rain. Waterproof bunting!

Step one - cut down the sides of your bags and turn them inside out. Fold then in half again so you can cut lots out at once.

Step two - make a triangle template and use a sharpie marker to draw a long row of triangles.

Step three - cut out (I had about 22 from one bag)

Step four - lay in the order you want and attach to string with staples. Well, this was my original plan but after jamming two staplers and finding myself banging them hard on my desk I switched to double sided tape!

I hung a short length on my children's old playhouse (now my tool shed) and I think if it can make that look bright and cheery it would do a good job anywhere.

As soon as I took this it poured with rain and ten minutes later was sunny

  

Sun and Shadows

Despite the horrendous damp weather I managed to have a lovely Saturday morning at Brambles Pre-School a couple of weeks ago. The drive down by the side of the Avon showed many fields where the river had burst its banks, the road into the village had been flooded and looked as if a giant biscuit cutter had cut chunks of the tarmac out of the surface.

The staff and children at Brambles spend 80% of their time outside in their large outdoor space with a small wood next door. The children are greeted in the village hall car park and have to walk across a footpath at the edge of a field to get to pre-school so everyone is dressed ready for the weather when they arrive.

I'd been asked to go and run a session to bring in a few new ideas. The weather looked quite rainy so I took a backpack of different options but we were really lucky and managed to create several ideas with an old sheet, some mud, clay and the sunshine!

I like to take the minimum of resources with me when I work outside as I want people to be able to use what they have locally without having to spend lots of money on new things. The costs for this session were the clay and I already had the old sheet.

The ladies made some beautiful boggle puppets...

I love the variety of  'faces' using just what could be picked up in the playground. I took some terracotta clay and they already had the grey.

I think the one above looked a bit 80s, could be the 'tache!

We strung up the old sheet with a lot of discussion about knots. Some of the staff have Forest School qualifications but had trouble remembering their knots, come on girls! They have a great outdoor shelter on site which we were able to use and tied the sheet quite high, we'd have put it lower for children. It would create a good talking point with them about where best to 'catch' the sun. There's an interesting video clip about shadows which would be good for older children.

I do like a playful team and they certainly were at Brambles!

As well as using the sheet for shadows on a sunny day it could also be used as a the 'stage' to hide the puppeteers on a cloudy day.

To complement the 'stage' we cut some triangles from the remaining sheet and made some bunting which the ladies decorated by using Hapa Zoma (leaf bashing!) and also made twig brushes with hazel sticks and then painted with mud. They were a really inventive group and made some very beautiful bunting.

We finished with a bit of brainstorming; going through books and pdfs to leave the setting with a bank of new ideas that they could do with resources that they already had. A windswept walk back across the field to the car and still no rain!