How To Make A Pirate Spyglass

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We've been sent a few pirate items to review lately and it's prompted me to have a week of pirate activities. No pirate captain can be taken seriously without a looking glass. It's also the easiest thing in the world to make!

What you'll need to make a pirate spyglass:

  • a kitchen towel roll
  • black paint
  • gold paint
  • gold foil
  • metallic decorating pens *
  • paintbrushes
  • glue

pirate party craft

  1. Paint the tube black and leave to dry.
  2. Paint three gold rings around the tube, an inch from each end and one in the middle. This will help it look like it's one of those sliding ones. Use the metallic pens* to dot gold and silver patches over the other sections for some extra 'pirate bling'.
  3. Once dry, glue around the very tip of each end and cover with gold foil. Leave enough to foil to bend over and glue on the inside of the tube; we don't want scratched faces or eyes!

If you want to see another brilliant pirate spyglass, nip over and check out this 'How To' from the marvellous pirate mummy, Multiple Mummy.

I was sent the item marked * by Yellow Moon to see what I could do with it.

I'm going to be sharing a few pirate activies this week. If you've got anything pirate that you'd like to share, please add it to the linky below to create a great reference for me and others.



Monsters and Pigs (Review)

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There are two characters that The Boy loves more than any others at the moment: The Gruffalo and George Pig. Therefore when I was asked by Jokers Masquerade, if I'd like to review some fancy dress costumes for him, I chose them without a second's thought!

The first thing that I need to point out is the sheer quality of this official costume: the fur is thick and doesn't pull out, the colours and attention to detail are spot on, the seams are well constructed. The size is 3-5 years and as The Boy is very tall for his age (95th percentile) he found it very comfortable with quite a bit of growing space in it. The Gruffalo costume is available for the currently reduced price of £23.99.

The second costume we were sent was a George Pig costume. I was concerned before it arrived because I've tried tabard style costumes before and they are snug to say the least. In fact I squeezed my poor one year old boy into a Very Hungry Caterpillar costume for his birthday and had to yank his arms through, and that was sized three years. So when this costume arrived (aged 3-5 years) I was really pleasantly surprised by the sizing: roomy and well constructed with a velcro fastening to halfway down the stomach. At £14.99, it's very reasonably priced.

It's roomy and there's plenty of headspace in the hood section, you'll have to excuse the fact that my son is honking George's nose, he was obsessed with it! I was really impressed with the quality of this official costume again, it's spot on for pirate George!

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go and read The Gruffalo and The Pirate Island for the eleventy billionth time!

I was sent these products for the purpose of this review. My opinion is honest and unbiased.

Country Kids: Ahoy There M'Hearties!

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In a break in the weather this weekend we decided that The Boy needed some more practise scooting and pedalling, and so we packed up various paraphernalia and headed down to Cardiff Bay Barrage. It's an ideal place for The Boy to practise his bike-riding because it's completely flat and there is no traffic on the road.

It's normally packed down there, especially on a Sunday, but there was only a handful of people around! It meant that The Boy had plenty of space tonot perfect his steering, but to focus on not falling off his scooter as he noticed the mud dredgers in the Bristol Channel. We then ended up like typical parents, having to carry his scooter while he rode the rest of the way to the sand park three quarters of the way across.

It's a fantastic park, completely enclosed with only one way in and out, but the best bit is the theme: it continues the maritime theme by having a 'shipwrecked' pirate ship 'sunk' into the sand. As there wasn't another child in sight, The Boy had free run of the park and we spent a good half an hour or so there, pretending to be pirate captains.

We haven't been there in about two months, and it was fantastic to see the difference in The Boy's physical development. This time he was perfectly confident and happy to climb the nets or the climbing wall whereas before he's been too worried about falling and hurting himself. He's had a growtth spurt at the moment so I think it helped that he could reach the next step each time.

cardiff bay barrage pirate park

cardiff bay barrage pirate park

I'm hoping that this boost in confidence will help him keep up with Burton from Mummy Mishaps when we meet up on Thursday!

—

Sponsored Video: Driving Me 'Round The Bend

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Last week I was pulling out of one of car park sections onto the road that ran through the shopping centre. The furthest car was 100 foot away and there was plenty of time to pull out. Only he sped up when he saw me pulling out and tried to prevent me. I stopped, he stopped, I edged forward assuming he was letting me go, and he started moving again. Repeat this three times. In the end it was getting so silly that I pulled out and drove off into the petrol station.

Whereupon he saw fit to chase after me, pull alongside and call me an 'ignorant woman'. I pointed out that I had a child in the car and asked him not to shout at me over a misunderstanding. He highlighted that he had a child in the car too, and so I reiterated, "Don't shout then!" I had another mouthful of abuse thrown at me and he zoomed off. No doubt his ego was firmly polished in front of his tweenage son and he clearly felt good about himself while I bit back tears of frustration.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not adverse to the odd mutterance under my breath about incompetent drivers but a) it doesn't get me anywhere, and b) The Boy is now beginning to ask what I mean by 'that person being a silly driver mummy'. So I've taken to smiling sweetly and using sarcasm in the hope that he doesn't understand what I mean.

However, QuoteMeHappy have undertaken a project to assess people's personality types while driving. For some reason, 79% of people will allow that tin box on wheels to provide them with the protection required to verbalise their annoyance. Everyone fancies themselves as the next Jenson Button, but what is it that makes everyone so mouthy and tetchy in the car? In the car, Brits shed their reserve: 63% admit to sounding their horn, 53% flash their lights and more than one in five (22%) will shout or swear in response to other drivers’ bad behaviour. I'm guessing the testosterone-laden oaf that chased me into the petrol station falls into the 22%?

Watch this video and see if you relate?

While it's amusing to watch, repairing damage caused by anti-social driving costs the average British motorist £920 over a lifetime. Like the guy who drove too close to my car down a country lane and smashed my wing mirror in. Would you claimn on your car insurance for that?

This is a sponsored post

366 #31

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Rubbish. It's been a rubbish week for me with photography. I don't think I've picked up my dSLR once and we haven't seemed to do anything that has generated any outstanding or interesting photos; they've all just been snaps on my phone or the iPad. I suppose it makes up for all the lovely blue skies photos from last week?

Anyway, you know the drill by now! Don't forget that the linky is open until midnight on Monday during the Summer season.

  1. Choose your favourite photo from the past week and link it up below.
  2. Please add the badge to your linked-up post so that other people know how to find all the other fabulous entries.
  3. If you can spare five minutes to comment on just a few other entries I know they'd appreciate it!
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I'm A Butlins Ambassador!

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When we went to Butlins for the Tots100 Christmas Party back in December of last year, I was pleasantly surprised at how it broke all my misconceptions of the famous holiday camp. Imagine Hi-de-Hi, big groups of lads or lasses on the razz, and redcoats with bobby socks. Well that's nothing like Butlins of 2012 (or 2011 as it was at the time) at all! The Bognor Regis resort had two hotels along with the normal self-catering accommodation and I didn't see a group of drunken adults there (apart from the Tots100 bloggers that is!).

As a result of our fabulous trip, I've had it in my mind quite a lot when thinking about British holidays, I enjoyed the entire trip and as it was cut short I felt short-changed in my experience. I wanted to go back! Which is why I filled in the application form at the Britmums Live! blogging conference in June to see if I could be selected as an ambassador for the brand.

Yesterday they announced the selected bloggers, and instead of the intended 20 they chose 40! And yes, I was one of them!

Hurrah!

So for the next year you will see a lovely bright red Butlins heart in my sidebar pointing you in the direction of the Butlins website. If you're considering a British holiday I cannot recommend them highly enough; the hotels are excellent and there is a range from family to boutique, there are activities for everyone (bowling, cinema, mini-golf, funfair, soft-play, swimming, adventure) including action activities or spa treatments, there is a range of resturants (pizza, pub, classic British restaurant) and they are always in the best of the British locations.

I'll be visiting them at Easter time next year and we can't wait to share all the fabulous family fun we'll have. Until then, thank you Billy Butlin!

Butlins Official Ambassador

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