Alpine Strawberries chains and new exciting projects on the go.

Just back from a week's holiday at the Devon area with the family. Amazing time, visited exciting places, which I am going to write about very soon. The weather was so good, felt like being in South of France again.  Discovered rural England and the English Riviera, so many beautiful spots. 

It’s good to be back home though for some normality after packing so much into one week.

And now I have started on a project for my young daughter’s room. It’s going to be featured in a post where I will explain how it was made, the materials I used and how much it costs, some tips on the making and the final result. I am very excited and happy for the way it is turning out. Can’t wait to share here!

Meanwhile I will be posting about my travel experience and inspirations I came across.

And to start it off, here’s a little happy memory from my early childhood. 

After coming back home yesterday we found large amount of ripe wild Alpine strawberries in our back garden. I showed my little girl this little tip and she kept herself occupied for a long time collecting strawberries and making Strawberries chains/ kebabs (however you want to call them)

Thea Caldwell - Creating a better place every day©
Wild Alpine Strawberries Chains

When I was the age of my younger daughter, I used to go our in the mountains during the summer days with my grandparents. They would cut grass and collect straw for the farm animals and I would explore the surroundings with my two cousins. We knew where the natural water sources were and we knew about plants and wild fruit trees. One of our favourite activity back then was searching for Alpine strawberries and competing who was going to collect more. And this is how we were carrying and eating them.

       You need any small fruit to make this chain, very useful when going for a walk in the Nature and finding wild raspberries, blackberries, blueberries or wild strawberries. Although it can also be done with fruit you would buy from the local stores. 

         All you will need is:

• Long grass with strong, thin stem and slightly big flowering tip (to hold the fruit on the stem)
• Excited children and/or adults (never too late to feel like a child again)
• Start by taking off all sticking out grass leaves from the main stem until left with clean, strong grass stem.
•  Place the fruit on the grass one by one.
• Take pictures.
•  Let children eat the fruit off the grass stems. Fruit will taste twice as nice when eaten this way. Children love it and will eat fruit they probably wouldn’t try other wise. Enjoy!
• Make sure children do not eat the grass! It is not part of the project, leave this to the animals.  

  

  Thea Caldwell - Creating a better place every day©
  Grass stem used as carrier for the soft fruit.

  
  

  

  Thea Caldwell - Creating a better place every day©
  Take pictures. Let children eat the fruit off the stem, it's a great fun.

Create outside colourful bunting out of plastic drinking straws

Great garden or indoor decoration project, made of plastic straws. 

Needed:

1. Packet of Plastic drinking straws
2. Garden twine
3. Scissors

We bought the materials from the Pound Shop and it cost us £3.00 (£2 for 2 packs of mulitcoloured plastic straws, £1 for the garden twine) 
Love a bargain!
This little project will be great for decorating your garden as it's water proof, children's rooms, birthday parties and so on. Get your children involved, they'll love it as my daughter did. Working on it will improve their eye-hand coordination. I made this one double flagged, but you can start by making single flag bunting. Also you can make sections of only one or two colours you may want for special occasions.
(not suitable for children under 3 years of age)

Outdoor bunting made with plastic straws. TheaCaldwell.blogspot.co.uk©

Follow these easy steps to create the bunting:

Outdoor bunting from straws . TheaCaldwell.blogspot.co.uk

Just follow the above steps. Make bunting sections of about 2 m in order to be more manageable. You can tie the sections together after they are ready. If you want to make single flag bunting, please use step 1 and 2 only (using two twine strings).  When cutting the size of the twine when starting, please cut one and a half longer that the bunting length for the first twine string, two and a half the length of the send string and for the third row please cut three and the half times the length of the bunting required. Example: If you intend to make 1 m bunting, your first twine string should be at least 1.5 m; the second twine string should be at least 2.5 m and the third one should be at last 3.5 m. As for the length of the straws please note it is only a guide, you can cut them they way you want them, give it a go and try.

£3 for materials from the Pound Shop

Great Garden wind catcher and decoration

Tie a knot and repeat steps 1 to 3 again.

You can see the three twine strings and the length of the straws.