Ladybird Tuesday - Plants and How They Grow

I have been extremely remiss on my Ladybird Tuesday posts for the last few weeks, while the lovely Mrs C has soldiered on alone.  Mrs Fox's Crafty Boxes, our wonderful children's craft boxes,  have been taking up all our time.  This months box will be going out this week and it's all based around the theme growing.  So, my Ladybird Tuesday post is very 'on-trend'.

Plants and How They Grow is a Ladybird Natural History Book by F E Newing, Bsc & Richard Bowood with illustrations by Ronald Lampitt and is part of series 651.

"A plant is any member of the vegetable kingdom.  Everything which  grows in the ground is a plant: flowers and vegetables, grass and ferns, bushes and trees.  In this book we shall find out about plants and the wonder of growth; how they grow, feed, live and reproduce themselves."












This is a book that I bought from a charity shop a few years ago.  We have an allotment as well as a small garden and I am an avid (though untidy and unskilled) gardener and have many gardening books.  This book however approaches plants from the stance of a botanist.

It defines the parts and process of a plant, it's growth and survival.

Roots, stems, buds, leaves, flowers, fruit and seeds are examined, and their role in the plants structure and lifecycle illustrated with simply experiments.

Food, warmth and light are defined as the essentials for life and experiments to demonstrate this described.

The different types of plants are also shown; trees, ferns and mosses, water plants, grasses etc, along with fungi, which I'm sure I was taught in biology was not a plant at all.

My favourite page is the above, on parasites and the sundew, mostly because I love mistletoe and have always wanted to grow carnivorous plants.  I'm impressed that this group of plants is covered, it's a good choice as I think they are such interesting plants, likely to capture a child's imagination and spark an interest in plants that could last a lifetime.

The final page recommends botany as a hobby; "There is no end to the delight in finding out about plants, from the smallest wildflower to the greatest tree, and getting to know their species and their ways."

I had forgotten how good this book was at explaining the wonder of living nature and suggesting ways to explore, observe and record it.  My little Una Fox loves helping on the allotment and in the garden, has a little flower press that she got for her birthday last year and already loves taking photos of flowers, maybe I will suggest we make a little project of this - Let Operation Botanist Fox commence...

This post is part of Ladybird Tuesday started on the Being Mrs C blog, take a look at her posts here.

The rest of Mrs Fox's Ladybird Tuesday posts are here and if you have a collection of Ladybird books, please do feel free to join in.

Pulse - London

Magnetic Wallpaper by Sian Zeng

We Mrs Foxes went to Pulse-London on the weekend.  Pulse is a trade show that brings together over 600 of the latest lifestyle brands in London organised into five distinct show sectors: Home, Gift, Fashion Accessories, Wellbeing and Launchpad.  So, although Pulse is not exactly aimed at the children's market we wanted to have a look at what was out there, catch up with some favourite designers and see what was new.  The Launchpad section brings together the "hottest new inspirational design-led products", designers new to Pulse in plain English, and was by far the most exciting section. Here are some of our favourites:

Sian Zeng's magnetic wallpaper (see above) is fabulous.  It illustrates a fairytale forest with hedgehogs, frogs and houses.  Magical creatures including birds, flying pigs, geese riding lamas and speech bubbles can then be added to the paper, all held in place magnetically.  Her cushions, prints and cards are in the same vein, and I want her stuffed cloth scissors for my studio.

http://www.sianzeng.com

Jack the Clown Beakers

Butterscotch and Beesting have added to their remarkable circus of wonder, which was already one of our firm favourites, with Jack the clown ceramics above and more from Bumblewick Beesting, the magician whose circus parade creates gorgeous patterns on homewares including lampshades and cushions.

http://www.butterscotchandbeesting.com

Ruby Ruth Dolls

Ruby Ruth Dolls are handmade partly from recycled fabrics, with huge button eyes.  We loved them, Mrs Jackie Fox found herself drawn to rubbing their oversized tummies again and again.  Jenny, their creator, told us she is also working on a stop frame animation with these characters. 

http://rubyruthonline.com

Ketchup on Everything's U is for Unicorn

And the great retro kids prints by Kay Vincent from Ketchup on Everything.  She creates these wonderful animal alphabet designs on prints, placemats, posters and tea towels.
http://www.ketchuponeverything.co.uk

Lion Paper Costume

OMY Design and Play is a French company whose playful graphics cover prints, vinyl stickers, placemats, posters and the wonderful paper costumes above.

http://www.omy.fr

Sinead O Moore's porcelain tealights

Finally, nothing to do with children this one, I just loved Sinead O Moore's beautiful, fragile porcelain ceramics.  The tealights are exquisitely delicate, like the petals of a flower, and it is my birthday next week so I will be treating myself.  You can find her at Greenwich Market in London most Sundays.

http://www.sineadomoore.com

So many clever, creative people it was all very inspirational.

The Fox's Allotment

I do like to get the little foxes outside as much a possible, gardening is one of our pleasures.  But this year, until the last week or so, it has been quite a feat to maintain my enthusiasm for the Great British outdoors, thanks to our miserable weather.

The tomato seedlings above are in the studio at the moment, where I've discovered a use for some of those uneven pegs that were rejected from the last Crafty Boxes, (see here for my post).   The little foxes and I did most of the initial seed sewing in the garden a couple of weeks ago when there was a brief break in the weather.

We have an allotment.  We waited for over a year before being offered a large plot next to the gate house to the manor house in the village.  We are very fortunate that it is a large plot backing onto fields and separate to the rest of the allotments in the village that are opposite the church.  It makes it much more relaxing for me and my loud, rambunctious family to not feel like we are disturbing anyone else.

We started our seeds a little late this year, but now that they are under way this week we've been seeing things really springing to life in our greenhouse.  

In the greenhouse we have;
beans,
peas,
broccoli,
cavolo nero,
onions,
leeks,
peppers,
beetroot
and various types of cucumbers, courgettes and squash.  While in the ground there are our potatoes, broad beans and a few remaining onions.

After our late snow and harsh frosts I am still a little nervous of planting anything else straight into the ground. But his Friday the weather was so good, we had to make a quick watering trip.  As we had the camera with us, Una took some pictures of the spring flowers.  This is my favourite, beautiful bluebells:

Also linking this up to Mammasaurus and her How does your garden grow? linky.

Bank Holiday Sunshine & Cinco de Mayo Party

We had a wonderful Cinco de Mayo party thanks to the colourful and super easy to make party kit from Happythought 

I love making things with my daughter, we were up late in the studio getting ready for the party, and she made the whole thing fun.  And what wonderful bank holiday weather for a change!

Cinco de Mayo Party Kit from 'Happythought'

Happythought's Cinco de Mayo Party Kit

You know me, any excuse for a party.  So as the weather is finally showing us some mercy I am going to have an impromptu Cinco de Mayo Bar-B-Q on Sunday and Happy Thoughts Papercraft - I love this company! - are the place to go for my partywares.

Happythought's Cinco de Mayo Party Kit

Above are some of Happythought's printable projects for Cinco de Mayo.  In case you didn't know Cinco de Mayo is the celebration marking the defeat of the French Army by Mexican soldiers at the battle of Puebla in 1872.  I used to live in California and Cinco de Mayo was a fab celebration with piñatas, beer, Mexican wrestling, amazing food and foul tasting Mexican candies.  

Happythought's Cinco de Mayo party kit is an instant download containing party invites, cupcake wrappers and toppers, popcorn boxes, play figures and ornaments, a loteria game, garlands, party signs and lots more.   It's listed here and costs $5USD, which is only about £3.20. 

The kit also includes tutorials and templates for mini piñatas.

On the Happythought site there is more information about Cinco de Mayo, free printables (the Lucha Libre masks above are free to download), craft and video tutorials.

I bought Happythought's peacocks as a craft for Little Una Fox's birthday party and I can vouch for how easy the printables were to create.  Ellen & Harry at Happythoughts design beautifully clean and simple craft, party and decorative items that you can download and print yourself.  They also create beautiful silhouette prints of your children at a very reasonable price.  And I am only a little jealous that they are raising their children in the sunshine of Chile.  Go take a look at their site for more. 

The Last Peg - Crafty Boxes

All our Crafty Boxes for this month have now been mailed out to our lovely crafty subscribers.  We had a few requests last month for the easter box from people who didn't necessarily feel they could commit to a monthly subscription.  So, this month we have created a few extra boxes these are on sale on the website HERE for £12 + £4.50 p&p.   There are a very limited number so you will have to be quick if you are interested.

Inside Mrs Fox's Crafty Box for this month, you will find:

5 old style wooden pegs with stands

5 modern wooden pegs

2 scrap packs of cloth, paper & string scraps, labelled A & B

1 roll of washi tape

Detailed instructions to make peg dolls, peg leg animals, Big Fish, Little Fish, Cardboard Box, Peg Leg Horses, concertina paper dolls & flip dolls.  Plus ideas for other crafts leading on from these, tips and skills covered.

All you need to add are some crafty little foxes, paper, pens, glue and cardboard left over from your re-cycling.

Our Crafty Boxes will inspire your children to be creative and teach some real crafting skills.

If you like this craft box you can purchase a subscription for £10.50/ month +p&p

Paper Concertina Dolls

Mrs Fox's Party Boxes are on their way to all those lucky little crafty foxes out there.  We are already working on next months, the theme is growing things, the late spring has inspired us.  This month we put together some wonderful ideas for crafts with pegs, both old style and modern pegs.  We can't wait to see the results of this months creations, so, please, please, when you have created your peg people and animals we'd love you to send us a picture.

Making the traditional peg dolls made me think of the really simple ideas that my granny used to keep me occupied at her house when I was a little girl.  One of my favourites were paper dolls.  

I thought that everyone would know how to make these, but a friend said that she had never made them as a child.  My little foxes and I have now developed a bit of a hair-style fascination when we create ours.  Here's how we make our paper dolls:

You will need:

paper

pencils or pens

scissors

glue

Take a rectangular strip of paper and fold it accordian style.  Draw your doll figure onto the top flap and remember the hands and feet should finish right on the edges of the paper.  Cut out the figure.  You can then decorate them, colouring or painting each doll.   We like to cut out the hair styles in a different colour paper and stick them onto the dolls.

This is a really simple craft, one that can be done on the fly using newspaper if you are caught out for something to do.  The set that Una just made were used as a "Thank you" card for a friend of ours who bought her a very generous easter gift.

So, it just remains to say thanks for the waggletags Louise, xxx.