A Busy Start To The Holidays!

We've been busy busy busy these past few weeks.

 School sports day and then end of term leavers assembly where we said goodbye to some friends moving on to senior school and also to our headteacher who was retiring after 10 years.
Then that same evening we were off on a train down to Kent for the kids to be whisked away on holiday with their cousins & grandparents.
They had an awesome time Little Halden Farm in the middle of the Kent countryside. Climbing trees, exploring the woods, cooking on a campfire, sleeping in a big tent, having water fights and just being free!

So when they returned home on my birthday (don't ask which one!) they were all suitable knackered!
We spent another week "down south" and we went exploring the Olympic Park and tried out some sports at the Copperbox arena there. Bird liked Netball (probably helps she's quite tall!) and was shown the basics by ladies from a professional netball team. Fluff enjoyed the handball and wheelchair basketball.

We also went for a day sightseeing in London. I've been there so many times as a kid we didn't need to go on no tour bus to see it! We managed to go to The Science Museum (didn't manage the Natural History due to huge queues in the rain), Bank of England Museum, St Pauls, South Bank, Houses of Parliament, Trafalgar Square, Westminster Abbey & Buckingham Palace.
 We also spotted a few places from the Harry Potter films. Notably Australia house on The Strand (Gringotts Bank) & The Millennium Bridge (Death Eaters destroy it in The Half Blood Prince).

So after 2 packed weeks in Kent & London we got the train back home.

Within 2 days of being home this happened:

Bird managed to drop something on her foot and break her toe! Its got to be in plaster for at least 3 weeks.

Half of the things I had planned for us to do in the next 4 weeks of the holidays had to go out of the windows as she can't really walk very well on it (even with crutches). So I've been hunting down things to do at home that don't involve much walking or trips to town.

So watch this space for the thing we've managed to find and do.

Removing Sticky Residue Without The RAGE

Just a quick one!
There's loads of pins about removing the sticky goop left behind my stickers or labels. The most popular 2 seem to be using peanut butter or a mixture of oil and Bicarbonate of soda.

I've got a small box that used to contain chunky chalks that I got from Poundland a while back. Its the perfect size for a mini first aid box for the kitchen. The only problem was the old label didn't come off very well and left a huge tacky patch on the front where I wanted to stick my nice First Aid sticker I had made.

Over to Pinterest! I found a good pin to use peanut butter on the sticky goop to remove it but alas I didn't have any peanut butter (the kids cleaned me out on Saturday). So I kept scrolling and came across this pin for DIY Goo Gone from Two Million Miles.  
All you need is vegetable oil and some bicarbonate of soda I used baking powder but its basicly the same thing.

• Mix the 2 ingredients together in equal quantities. I used 1 tsp of baking powder to 1 tsp of oil.

• Smother the area with the mixture and leave for about 10 mins. The time it took me to do the washing up!
• Wipe it off! Before i wiped it off I gave it a good rub round with my finger to make sure all the subborn bits were loose.

Apologies for the awful quality picture. The kids had faffed about with all the presets on my camera!

It seriously is that simple! I was really surprised as no matter how much I'd scrubbed that crap previously it wouldn't shift!
I'll update this post with pics of the finished product (I still need to print off my sexy new label).

I'd say DEFINITELY say that...

AWESOME Recycled Carrier Bag Bunting

Painted Coke Bottles

My husband loves Coke out of glass bottles so once in a while he treats himself to a 6 pack of them. This weekend he treated him self as I had bought some cider and nibbles for watching Eurovision (YAY Denmark by the way).
After he had gone through them I saw them sitting in the recycling box in the kitchen and thought that they were too nice a bottle to just throw away so I looked for some ideas on Pinterest for reusing them. I finally came across a pin which suggested spray painting the inside and using them as vases. There was a similar pin using a syringe thing to squirt acrylic paint in to bottles too.