Sock Snowman

This little guy is really cheap and easy to make.

You need:

scissors
One large white sports sock
3 elastic bands
cup of rice or toy stuffing (I used a bit of both)
buttons or felt or felt tip pens
Glue or needle and thread
strip of material/ribbon (about an inch wide and 7 inches long)

 Take the sock

 cut it across at the heel

 Take the top part of the sock you just cut off and turn it inside out.

Tie the part that was closest to the heel with an elastic band.

 Turn it back the right way so the elastic band is inside.

 Pour some rice into the sock and shake it about a bit, the bottom will become 'fuller'.  Once I had a shape that stood ok on it's own I stuffed it with tot stuffing.  It would be fine to only use rice.

Wrap an elastic band about 3/5ths up to create a neck.

Put some more rice in and again I topped it up with toy stuffing, but all rice would be fine.

Tie the top off with the last elastic band.


(The first time I found the head was quite wobbly when it was stood up so I replaced some of the stuffing for extra rice to make the head heavier.)

Take the foot part of the sock . Fold the cut end over and place it on his head to create a hat.

Tie the strip of material or ribbon around the neck to cover the elastic band.

I stitched the buttons into place.  A hot glue gun would hold them.

Or you could draw on the face with sharpies.

Or you could glue goggly eyes and a felt nose and buttons or go to town with pom-pom buttons.

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Christmas Tree Cupcakes

My chocolate village didn't last a week, let alone until Christmas, so I moved onto plan B just before Christmas.

These silicon pots were to be my tree pots.  I lined a couple with chocolate and peeled the pot back to get a chocolate pot.

I baked chocolate cake into the moulds.  I was worried I'd under filled them but the smallest ones dropped into the chocolate pots fine.

and once they were iced they were full enough.

Fondant icing Christmas trees perched tidily inside the pot with a smartie star on top.

















I was rather pleased with the result.

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Stop all the clocks

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

We are still doing Christmas stuff and life marches on.


But I feel like a spectator.  Not actually doing but watching myself doing it.

That probably makes no sense to anyone apart from me.





 I thought once the Christmas post for the Scouts was done and we had our last Ranger meeting I was pretty much finished Guiding until camp.  But it turns out I had been given a bag packing slot at a local supermarket and they had forgotten to tell me.  So the Saturday before Christmas (and the days running up to it) was spent cajoling and organising, then a day of bag packing.  We raised lots of money, it was worth it.  I painted a smile on my face and had some amazing support and I watched myself cope.

A Ranger that left for university in September came to pack with us for 4 out of the 6 hours, she knew I needed the moral support and she gave up her time for me.  She's a lovely girl.

The last uniform wearing of this year was our Rainbow Leaders funeral.  I  watched myself traverse that today.  Maybe now the fog will start to clear.

There were over 20 uniformed past and present Guiders there including the County and Regional Commissioners.  She would have been totally humbled by them being there.  They came a long way on Christmas Eve to pay their respects.

The first uniformed event of the year will be our winter camp.  The last time we were there our Rainbow Leader camped with us.  

Facing Guiding things at the moment is hard.  But it is also where a lot of people that support me most are.  

I also received some very upsetting news about one of my Rangers this week.  It is an issue that I will need to try and help tackle, I'm not sure how yet and I think it is going to be a long and difficult journey.

I can only give thanks that myself, HWMBO and Cog are all well and not facing the challenges that others around us are facing at the moment.

I hope your challenges this Christmas are more about turkey cooking times than empty chairs and that your holiday is a succulent feast of fun.

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Chocolate Christmas houses

 I thought I'd have a go at something a bit different to the gingerbread house or tree we made in previous years for out 'Christmas cake'.

Chocolate houses.

 I was amazed when they came out of the mould well, not one broke. They were really easy to stand up and ice together.  I didn't even need to prop it up to start off.

 They started to look lovely with frosting on.

 I made 4 but the first one didn't make it to the 'village stage'.

 The people, trees, flowers and first of the 3 houses didn't make it to the end of the day.














The last of the 3 didn't make it to the end of the week.

 I think I may be baking Gingerbread after all!!

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Chocolate Reindeer food craft

 These have gone down a treat (in the making and the eating) with every age range in Guiding.

The Rangers were very excited as I pulled the bag of 'bits' out.

"Oooooh are we making reindeer? We made those with Brownies/Rainbows, yeah! I get to do my own"




They like to do stuff like this with teg units they help out at but also alone so they can just chill, do, eat.

You need:

A chocolate covered cake roll (I used cadburys mini-rolls because they were on special!) for the body.
Chocolate mint sticks for legs
a rollo for the face
a smartie for the nose
silver balls for the eyes
then for the antlers more mint sticks/twiglets or pretzels.

(The face and nose were 'glued' on with Betty crocker chocolate icing - because I was too lazy to mix up any home made butter icing or get together the stuff for the Rangers to make it.  Melted chocolate would stick it too or even just a glace icing I would think)

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Christingle and Cameras

 Christingle is my favourite service of Christmas (next to midnight Mass).

I love to help making them.

 It always feels like the 'real' start to Christmas for me.

I found the service especially emotional as it was the first time I'd been into Church since Bunny, our Rainbow Leader, passed away.

This week I also helped out at the 3 school Christmas Advent services at our church.  A packed house for each one.

It's been a difficult week emotionally.

I've had a new camera, I've not gotten used to the white balance yet, so bear with!

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Loss

This week I lost a friend of 14 years.

Rainbows lost their leader.

Guiding lost a true guiding light.

A family lost a wife and mother.

As a Guider for over 10 years, I never heard her get shouty, even her strict was gentle.  She was permanently nice to everyone.  I don't believe for one minute she didn't get frustrated or annoyed but she always showed her kind, caring nature.  She really cared that the people around her were happy.

The politeness, happy, caring nature of her children are testimony to her outlook on life.

A new hole in my life.  A friend shaped hole that can never be filled.

Loss.

W. H. Auden
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.
The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

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Christmas round up - 1D, duck, balls and post

 Christmas has kicked off.

A multi-house, multi-pc approach to One Direction ticket sales meant we managed to get a set of VIP tickets and a set of incredible seats at a less stupid price within 5 minutes of the tickets going on release.  A great relief in terms of Cog happiness, a great blow to the bank account.  Luckily I managed to sell the 'mistake' buy incredible tickets within 6 minutes of letting my friends know of my predicament.  Popular boys!

We have had our Automatic Crispy duck night, earlier than usual because of pre mock exams and the stress that will be the run up to Christmas because of them.

 We put the tree up earlier than I would normally too.

 The usual cat humiliation that goes with the tree decorating happened too.

 Little kitty isn't as patient as fat cat and she took herself off to hide pdq,

Fat cat felt it would be appropriate to sit on her!    The traditional Christmas cat fight ensued.

 Funny how Christmas must follow the same routines for pets and children alike.

Cog loves unwrapping her 'old friends'.

 And playing with the old Christmas toys,  this one is 15 years old but still as good as new.  She's always looked after her things well.

Some things are new though.  The local Scouts and Guides are doing a Christmas post this year.  We have put boxes out and people pay 20p a card. The Rangers were given a delivery weekend and it has been a fret for me for a while, not sure how many we would be expected to deliver or how many girls would turn up. But these things have a habit of working out and it did.  We got it all delivered in 2 hours with 7 girls and HWMBO doing the 'difficult' ones.  It took him as long to do 4 cards as it did us to do 50.  Some people's houses are very well hidden and some envelopes are very badly addressed.  The great god google helped him through it.

In the usual lead up to Christmas the wrong gods are hand holding me there, hopefully soon my advent will be less about chocolate and more about preparation for the Christmas festival.

The first candle lit on Advent Sunday is for God’s people, the candle of hope. The second candle is a reminder of the Old Testament prophets, the candle of peace. The third symbolises John the Baptist, the candle of love.  The fourth is for Mary the mother of Jesus, the candle of joy. And the last candle, lit on Christmas day, is a symbol of Jesus – the Light of the World.

So many Christmas lights are going up, it's lovely to brighten up the dark winter nights. It's also good for me to occasionally remind myself what they represent - hope, peace, joy and love.

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Who say's men don't remember

HWMBO is fairly rubbish at the whole gift business.  And the plastic dolphins and gift vouchers leave me feeling slightly (read very) disgrunted but also feeling a tad spoilt bratish at my disgruntlement.

In a move to mitigate it this Christmas, I've given him a list.  Nothing amazing, it just has on it the shampoo I like, the perfume I wear and the camp kettle I'd really, really like to take on my next camp!

I got home today and it was on the kitchen work surface, so he'd obviously been looking at it.  I was a little disappointed by the total lack of ticks against any thing at all.

"Been shopping dear?"
"Maybe"
"There's no ticks on the list"
"Maybe I've not bought off the list"
"Been to Cartier?!"
"What's that then?" (He was totally serious)
"Oh FFS, I totally married the wrong man"
"Twice"

Touche!


Maybe he's holding out for Tiffany's.

But I'm guessing not.

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Egg Box Christmas tree

I've been saving egg boxes all year and was rather pleased to finally be able to clear my spare bedroom of them.

They went to Wise Owl's house for assembly.  The original plan was to make the tower Christmas tree shaped, we have seen many Pinterest pictures of them, but balancing it all was a bit of a nightmare.

 So we went for a more solid approach.

 After lots of painting by the Brownies, a little help from the other leaders and a lot of time spent by Wise Owl, the boxes were all painted and assembled at church.

'We're Egg-cited about Christmas' was the theme.

I thought Wise Owl did very well.

My mum put an entry in too.

The Rangers and Guides spent a lot of time serving hot drinks and mince pies to help raise money for the church and there was a uniformed organisation carol service at the end of the weekend with a collection for the local wildlife hospital.


Another weekend of community service.  The Rangers are doing very well chalking them up this year. I have to say though I really need to take a break from it, all of these things seem to take me an age in time and paper work for the girls to be able to support them and then there's my time there too.

We've had the fireworks display help, the Christmas tree festival and the Christmas post all in quick succession.

I'm looking forward to a short break from it to recharge my giving batteries!  I'll do that as soon as I get the  local Chill-out table decoration helping and christingle making out of the way which will take me into camp prep - no rest for the wicked!!

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Deki Loans - A great Christmas gift for kids and teens

I get a little bit annoyed when someone buys me 'a goat' for Christmas.  It's a juxtaposition, I know I should get a warm fuzzy feeling inside but I also wanted something for 'me'.  You just put your goat to one side and poof the  fun is gone.

But I do like giving (and receiving)  Deki loans as gifts because the person you give it to has to do something with it.  They decide who to loan the money to and they get the money back for themselves at the end of it.  It's a hands on charitable gift.

The person you give the loan to will pick the person they choose to loan the money to and then yes, they have to wait, but the loan will be repaid fully in 6-12 months. At that point your recipient can then choose to withdraw the money from the scheme and keep it for themselves or invest it with another entrepreneur. 

They can have a direct impact on people’s lives by lending anything from £10 to an entrepreneur in the developing world.  100% of the money you lend goes directly to the person they choose to support.
Deki is a charity designed to help people work their way out of poverty, so the loans don’t generate profits for lenders. 

There are lots of people to choose from that are looking for money for different business ideas. The total loans are often made up of mini loans from lots of different people so with £10 you can 'complete' a loan and set the person off on their journey to work their own way out of poverty.

This is a great way to give money as a gift to a tween or teen and let them make a difference to a life but with complete autonomy, they choose who, what for and they will see the money come back to them.

To give a loan as a gift you just pay for it and print out a gift voucher, they have something to unwrap and then they can do their favourite thing - log onto the internet!

And remember the money does come back to them and if they want to they can take it back for themselves and buy the iTunes voucher they always dreamed of, or they can re-lend it to another person of their choice.

I think it's a great way to introduce children to charitable giving, to give them a sense of being part of one large world and learn that as individuals they can make a difference to someone very far away.

The fact that they can have the money in the end if they want it makes it different to your standard 'goat' or 'mosquito net' gift.  But maybe they will re-lend it so that it really can be the gift that keeps on giving.

Have a look:

 

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The Guide Law and Guiding Method Game

Following on from my Learning Look Wider game, I decided to give the Laws a go as after a few discussion it was clear that none of us knew all the Guide Laws.  I added in the 5 essentials as I have so many doing their Young Leader Qualification at the moment and knowing the Guiding Method is a part of that.

I split the laws down into parts on cards and, determined to make the most of the large dice I bought for the unit, I did it based on dice rules.












The 'take a treat' dice throw worked wonders in the motivation to play stakes, just as it did with the Look Wider Game.  Nothing like a biscuit to get a Ranger moving!

The rules I gave them were:

Place the cards dice side up in piles
Throw the dice
Follow the dice rules card
If it’s a card you can’t use put it to bottom of the pile face down.
If you can use it stick it up (each law must be built up in order)
Remember to mark up your points

The points seemed to go down as well as the biscuits and kept them motivated to finish the game.

Initially their major battle was that they didn't know the Laws (despite most of them having come through Guides) and they were trying to fit the 5 essentials into the Laws. Like 'A guide works together in small groups!!!

I pretty much left them to it apart from popping in (I was in a different room in a District meeting with a couple of Rangers that needed to attend a meeting for their YLQ) to explain what the 5 essentials are and how they are used by every Leader to plan the meetings across all the sections (Rainbows, Brownies, Guides and Senior Section.)

They really were struggling with putting the Laws together, I think that it not being easy helps learning but in the end they got there.  I suspect Google may have had a hand in there somewhere!

I may do this game with them again at a later date when I am there so I can help explain the Guiding Method in more detail and discuss the Laws and what they mean to them more.

But sometimes they are better left to just get on with stuff without the 'lecturing leader' in the background.

They were squealing with laughter and spent a lot of time talking and drawing on the flip chart sheets I gave them for the points.  All of this time is a good bonding experience away from the pressures of school life and peer pressure groups.  Just a tin of biscuits and an easy activity for an hour.

They will have learnt something about Guiding and it introduced the concept that there is a unique Guiding Method to them which will help with their Young Leader Qualification.

I have uploaded the game cards and full instructions and you can download them to use or contact me

 

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