Legejunglen - GREAT for a rainy day

Free for the adults and unlimited play once you've paid for the kids.

Laura (6) and Petra (1.5) were ready for an adventure the day I
took them to the play jungle in Slangerup. 

It is huge - especially by Danish standards.

But as you can see by the shutter speed, it soon became clear that Laura would be up,
down and off to the next challenge long before Petra made it past the first hurdle
- with me following up her rear.

I'm going to post this while I walk the dog and then put up some more photos.
He's crossing his legs, and not being the most tech-savvy blogger in the worls,
I wouldn't want to add 'washing the carpets' to my list of things to do today :).

WATCH THIS SPACE

Phew, that's better. And I've cleared up the hedgehog poo outside 
ours and the neighbours' too. 
There must be an industrial application for hedgehog poo - 
it has EXTREMELY effective adhesive qualities.

Good job they are so cute.

Anyway, back to the play jungle and the first ball pit.

The biggest slide was certainly the volcano.

Laura was great at finding handholds.

Petra seemed to think she could toddle on up there - look grandma, no hands!

Wow. Halfway up!

Near the top!

And parachuting down again. Good idea to wear leggings!

And no the person who left more than a CO2 footprint wasn't us, 
but it did make us think about getting angles of trajectory right!

Come on Grandma, you can do it!
Our next post will show more fun obstacles, including this 'mangle', which I was pleased I managed to get through. Headfirst, and fairly quickly. I didn't have much choice as both kiddies had shot through it in a matter of seconds and were heading off into the interior intestinal tract of the monster playground.

Last Christmas at the open air museum

I guess Father Christmas's reindeer had a cold -
he was feeling a little horse, at least. 

Here's the cosy museum shop with plenty of ideas for good quality presents from the past. 

The sails were on at the mill, which was open by chance.
Check out the website to find out exactly when the mills are open at

 www.natmus.dk/museerne/frilandsmuseet

It would have been nice if that link had been blue 

but I guess the nissers (Danish Christmas goblins that play tricks) 

have been up to mischief.

A nice view is waiting at the top.

Oops here's the nice view.

And inside, you can see how different types of wood are used for
 the teeth, wheels and central treetrunk around which the mill turns
to make the most of the wind direction.

It was really impressive to see how flour was made all those years ago.

It was also interesting to think that mel in Danish = 'flour' in English
but we have 'wholemeal bread' in English too.

There were lots of houses to explore and big barns where
you could enjoy food and drink. But they were full of people who
might not want to be on a blog. So I've only used photos
without close-ups on faces except for these lovely ladies who
might well be serving again this year. 

Yummy!

Jake warmed up with a meatball and bread...

...before polishing off a traditional pork sandwich with all the trimmings.
Well not all the trimmings because there were hearts and nissers all over the place!
This is Denmark after all!

We'll be back this year for seconds!

Make a cute mouse egg cosy

These are the cutest egg cosies I've ever seen and you can 
buy them at the Open Air Museum in Lyngby, which is well worth a visit.

If you live on another continent, or fancy a couple of hours sewing, you can follow
 in our footsteps and have a shot at sewing something similar. 

Cut out a shape roughly like this. Mice are all different sizes -
they just nibble their mouseholes a bit bigger to fit,
so exact measurements are not a problem ;o)
Just make sure that the lower edge of the fleece is long enough to go right
round the fattest part of the egg cup and leave a bit for a seam down the side.

This is what ours looked like. Fleece is great because you don't need to
hem edges, it's stretchy but firm to sew and you can trim ears as you go along. Eeek,

This is the point when Jake took the raw egg we were using as a pattern and
tried to demonstrate some law of physics he'd seen in a video.
That's why the table is shiny wet and I had to wipe down my machine.
In his defence, yes, I believe raw eggs are strong if you push top to bottom
but NOT if you squeeze them round the middle! Yuck! 

Now that's all cleared up, back to the mouse. Sew a seam
down one side and across the other shoulder.
Fold the nose back, as shown, and sew the two sides.
 Trim the ears rounder, see above. 

You can see the lines where the stitching are better in this photo.
One shoulder poked out more than the other, so we ended up running a
 seam of stiching down that side too at the end to even things out.

Now take a deep breath Mr Mouse as we turn the nose inside out
and then tuck it into the neck hole. 

Push it right down until the whole nose is inside the body
with the edges meeting at the top of the neckhole.
(Like you do when sewing a sleeve into a shirt).

There will be pleats/bunched up bits but that will all be under his chin, and most
 of us have a few spare chins tucked away under there. I stitched this by hand as it was a bit fiddly.

In the very foreground of the picture above, you can see what will
be the top of the head and the ears each side.
DON'T SEW THESE BITS TOGETHER YET! 

Now turn the mouse the right way out by pushing the nose right into the body
and pulling the body down until the seams are hidden inside.
Now push the ears through the holes and run a line of stitching around the base of one ear,
around the back of the neck and around the base of the other ear (see above).
When you gather this stitching slightly, it will shape the head and ears.  

Now we sewed on button eyes and a popper-stud nose.
Then Jake stuffed the head with offcuts of fleece
and other grey matter to pad out the head.
Brainy.

Jake thought this photo was really blurred...

So he took this much better one instead. Complete with whiskers and a smile.

The perfect dipper eggs take 5 minutes exactly from when the eggs are lowered gently
into the bubbly water - by a grown up.

HAVE FUN!

Finally, the Paverpol culture vultures and course dates and times

A bit later than expected due to a dead computer but here we go...

Susanne will be holding a weekend of Paverpol classes this autumn for children aged about 10 or over with a mum, dad or other adult. Yippee! It takes some concentration but is great fun.

Paverpol course dates: Saturday 12 and 13 September
Price: one day DKK 400 per person
          two days DKK 650 per person

Sign up by mailing her at sussdesign@gmail.com

Here are some beautiful ladies made by one of Susanne's friends.

Here are our finished vultures!
And below, you can see how we made them.

Silver foil, an old wire frame from a dead pot plant (very apt), an old sheet from
Halloween, masking tape and garden wire are some of the things we took along
for a two-day course with our friend Susanne. 

And while jake was making his Sith Warrior figure, I began trying to figure out
what on earth I was going to make 

It took a lot of wire winding, two branches and some tape to start
 holding it together. 

But something was wrong. This was far too elegant for my garden.

So I started giving the bird a hunch back. That's better.
Susanne explained that you have to try to fill in the bulk of the sculpture 
before swathing it in strips of sheet dipped in Paverpol.

I used some old cables. Suddenly I caught sight of a microphone on the end of one - once I'd firmly knotted it into place. It said 'Creative' on it, which rang a bell. Hmmm that was a programme installed on one of my computers. One of the ones you can't remember what it's for - a camera? A free game? Well, now the mystery was solved. Too late to save it now though. 

I look like Obi Wan strangling a Star Wars chicken. 

The second day Jake had finished his and went to play with his dad,
so I had to rig up a stand to hold my birds while I slathered them in Paverpol - without getting any on the floor.

And here they are. Complete with drawer handle eyes. Of course now the drawers in my office are not complete but that just means that getting into my drawers is even harder :o). 

And here is a far more appealing Kiwi bird too, made with seaweed.

Here is a doll given a new lease of life in the garden.

Another bird but MUCH BIGGER than ours.