alifrew

I joined in with The Rebel Readers online book discussion for the first time today and had a great time. I joined the group as soon as I heard about it in the Facebook group and have read all the books but haven't managed to join any of the online meet ups until today. I had a thoroughly lovely time discussing the book and am looking forward to the next one already. My soap-making kit arrived today so I'm looking forward to having a go at that soon. I'm making good progress with my quilt too and have finished sewing all of the quilt blocks today. I 'm currently trimming them down then need to bind them together to finish the top. After I've quilted it, I'm going to have a go at using a self-binding method and a baby blanket as the backing. Slightly nervous but very excited to see how it turns out... I've done a fair bit of knitting over the last week and have nearly finished the scarf I started as part of the craft badge. I need to see my friend soon to glaz

 I took my houseplant for a walk last night! Yep, I went to the beach on the north-west coast where some of the filming for Andor was done and took 5 photos of the plant at various filming locations. Also ticked off a few more BKS clauses by making the houseplant a sandcastle, going on a swing and a slide and having a picnic of favourite childhood foods. In other news, my Advanced Reader badge has started as I have chosen a challenge - to read 75 books from my TBR list. I have a bookcase in the house which is FULL of books that I have bought or borrowed (mostly bought) and not read yet. Some of them I have even bought twice and not read, as I discovered when I did a big book clear-out at Christmas to make space for new purchases. This isn't an ok situation, so I need to make a big dint in this as I know I will continue to buy more. I'm not banning myself from buying more books as I recently bought an e-reader and don't have a huge pile of books on it yet, and I also take pa

Well, the summer holidays have started and the weather so far has been pretty rubbish. It's given me some time to do some badge work, which is great, but is also limiting outdoor time which is stopping me from getting on with a few things, annoyingly! I made my dinosaur fossils and absolutely love them. I want to try to replicate something similar with the children at school next year so need to to come up with an idea where they can make their own. They'd love it. I still need to paint mine but it's a clause well on its way to being ticked off. I've also put a fair bit of time into my scarf and it's now more than halfway through. That's a great one for Craft 1. I had thought about doing calligraphy with this as part of the diarist badge and do a gratitude diary but I've been rubbish at keeping up with it regularly. I need to work out a way of doing this well... Instead of calligraphy, I'm going to do quilting and have made a start on a baby quilt for a

I'm starting the palaeontology badge this week and have been doing a bit of research into how to make my own fossils because this sounds very exciting. I've been getting prepped to do a lot of badge work over the next six weeks and I think the fossils will be the first one. Plaster of Paris has arrived, as have my dinosaur toys and I picked up some modelling clay on the way home. The weather forecast doesn't look great for the weekend so I think badge work will win!! Although perhaps not Big Kid Summer... I went to watch Six! The Musical last week so I'm going to review that for the critic badge and try to organise a few more things to watch/listen to so I can get working on that in earnest. I've finished the reader badge, strictly speaking, but I'm in the middle of a book and want that to count towards it so I'm not officially finishing until tomorrow then I'll claim it. I've done everything else and started in April, so just need to document all my

Work has been pretty bonkers recently so haven't done as much badging as I would like to have done. I've only got one week left before a big holiday though, so should get plenty of time to get stuck into a load of badge work whilst I am off. I'll be finishing my reading badge tomorrow, which marks three months since I discovered rebel badges. I started the reading badge the day I read about it in the book as I had unplanned surgery the day after my first book turned up, so was a bit limited in movement. Reading fit the bill perfectly though. I'm very slowly working my way through Big Kids Summer. I tried rum and raisin ice cream today. I know it's not a particularly exciting choice but it was the only one the ice cream van had that I had never tried. Really didn't like it!! Won't be having that again. Raisins in ice cream? No. Just no! Determined to try something more pleasant before the end of the month.  I had to pop into town today so I bought some water