World book day

Behind the scenes I've been busily crafting away on a variety of projects that I've yet to get around to letting you know about. Until I find a few moments to finish and take some photos I wanted to share with you this year's costumes for World book day.

Emily has suggested a wide range of ideas from 'a pencil' ("The pencil" by Allan Ahlberg), 'a loaf of bread' ("Hooray for Bread!" by Allan Alhberg), 'a rainbow fairy', 'a guinea pig' ("I love guinea pigs" by Dick King-Smith) and 'Norman' ("Norman the slug with a silly shell" by Sue Hendra). Eventually we agreed on 'Keith' ("Keith the cat with the magic hat" by Sue Hendra) and this crochet hair band is what I've come up with.

Sam was much simpler... he at first wanted to be a moving castle ("Howl's moving castle" by Diana Wynne Jones) but happily settled for Calcifer the fire demon instead for which I've made him this mask.

I'm so pleased to have costumes sorted well in time for World book day and that we've managed to do characters from books that both my two love :-)

Books and baking

Currently at Tea Towers we are busy getting the most fun possible out of our Summer holidays. We have a long list of what we want to do with our time and have been enjoying reading, crafting and playing games.

My reading pile is looking pretty tall right now. I was delighted by all the beautiful books I received for my Birthday recently and I have further added to these with some lovely ones from the Library and a few borrowed from friends.

"Sense & Sensibility" by Jane Austen
"The Lie tree" by Frances Hardinge
"Stone mattress" by Margaret Atwood
"The Heart goes last" by Margaret Atwood
"The Street" by Bernardine Bishop
"Charmed life" by Diane Wynne Jones
"Witch week" by Diane Wynne Jones
"The Magicians of Caprona" by Diane Wynne Jones
"The Lives of Christopher Chant" by Diane Wynne Jones
"Norse Mythology" by Neil Gaiman
"Ruby and Custard's crochet" by Millie Masterton
"Crochet home" by Emma Lamb
"The Gentle art of stitching" by Jane Brocket

Talking of books I also was given a copy of Nadiya's "Bake me a story" which is a lovely book containing a range of recipes to try with the kids each with a story to read.

We had a try at making the 'Breakfast muffins' using blueberries from the garden.

We have also had a go at the 'Zebra cake' recipe which is a rather tasty chocolate topped marble cake.

Yumm! I hope your Summer break is just as tasty as ours is turning out to be!