Wonderful Water Wall

Having tried loooaaads of messy play ideas with little bear, none of which he has been particularly interested in, I thought I should indulge his interest in water. I can't remember where I first saw water walls but decided to make one - my husband's reaction was 'Oh, great, something else for you to obsess over until you've done it'.

I asked on our local Facebook selling group but no one has any spare trellis I could have, so bought a 6x3ft piece of expandable trellis from our local hardware shop for £4.99. Bear was very helpful in getting it home!

I also got a pack of 50 cable ties for £1.80 but we only used about 15. As I mentioned before, my husband is a teacher. Each year, a class wins a prize for most commendations; £25 to spend how they wish. Last year, they ordered pizzas for lunch but this year, they wanted party food. This slight ramble means that most of the bottles were completely free, as they were left over from the party. Husband was under strict instructions to bring the empties home!

So it was just a question of arranging the bottles, punching holes in to tie them, and adding some cable tidy tubing we had in the shed. We made funnels, troughs and roses.

We used some tacks from the shed to nail it to the fence. We live in a rented house so wanted to be able to move it easily; you could build it on your fence if you wanted to.

He liked it but can't quite reach the taller ones - something to grow into. 

It is easy being green

I'm sorry, I just completely forgot to do a what we've been doing post on Wednesday. My husband is a teacher and he broke up for the summer on Tuesday afternoon so we've had some relaxing family time. I've also signed up to walk 26 miles in the London trekathon in support of the PSP Association (not so relaxing! More on this to follow) so I was a bit preoccupied thinking about when I can fit in training.

So here is a post I wrote a while ago about cloth nappies:

It probably comes as no surprise that we use cloth nappies on little bear. We use the totsbots 2 part system and have size 1 (which bear grew out of around 4 months old) and size 2 which should last until potty training. Each set contains around 20 nappies and 5 or 6 wraps and we got both second hand for £50 each; a total outlay of £100. Bargain!

We also use cloth wipes which we used exclusively for a couple of months but we now use wet wipes for poos. We put paper liners in the nappies (from tesco, a few pounds for 100 but they are really wide so we tear them in half. 2 for the price of 1!) Bear is also in disposable nappies at night as we couldn't find any combination of cloth nappies and boosters that didn't leak. Having said that, he doesn't wee as much at night anymore so I've been thinking about switching back to full time cloth - it's just having the courage to do it one night...

We wash every other day at 40°, line dry in the summer (radiator in winter) and don't iron them. This keeps the 'running costs' down.

The Nappy Lady explains that it can cost £800-1200 for disposables from birth to potty training. This means we have potentially saved  upwards of £1000! Plus, we will reuse the nappies for any subsequent babies.

I love cloth nappies. We've never had a 'poosplosion'. We rarely have to change bear when out and about anymore but have a wet bag if necessary. Cloth don't sag like disposables do and they're really no more bother than disposables but the environmental impact is so much less. Annecdotally, babies in cloth potty train earlier because they feel the wetness more obviously than disposables, which have become too good at wicking the moisture away, ironically. My mum once told me it's the one of my parenting choices she is most proud of.

Plus, they're really cute!

5 a day

To go with the kitchen, little bear needed some play food. I googled 'crochet play food' or something similar and found this directory. All of the these are from patterns on this website.

There's an apple, orange, banana, strawberry, pear, leek, potato, carrot, mushroom, egg, bacon and slice of bread.

I have a rather extensive yarn stash so these were all made with scraps. I also have stuffing in the cupboard as I used to make amigurumis and have been knitting some animals. This means that all this food was FREEEEE!

Facebook Finds

In the town where we live, there are 2 very good selling groups on Facebook; one for general items, and one specifically for baby and children's things. I've picked up some real bargains - not necessarily age appropriate for bear yet but it's sometimes too good an offer to turn down.

This massive bag of megabloks, including the bag was £5 (small child for reference!)

This big bag of brio (or a compatible brand) was £20 and will be saved for Christmas or a birthday, whenever bear takes an interest in the set he was given for his first Christmas.

 Just picked up this little tikes car for £5. I think I'm going to spray it like the door of the play house. 

What we've been doing Wednesday

Going to the park (again).

Picking flowers

Watching the world go by

Little bear also said 'Mama' for the first time today :)

Play Kitchen

Departure from What We've been Doing as this is what I've spent the last few days doing. I waited all week until we could go to our local second hand furniture shop, Emmaus. They had this cabinet for £30. This was more than we wanted to spend but it is really good quality, all the hinges work, and the money goes to help homeless people get back into work and find accommodation.

Job number 1 was sanding it down which didn't take as long as I thought it would.

I then primed the whole thing. (I'd started painting the inside of the oven black before I remembered to take a picture).

When hubby got back from his mum's with the drill she let us borrow, he set about cutting the hole for the sink. He drilled all round lots of times until the middle fell out. I neatened it with a small saw and sandpaper.

Then came the painting. Lots of painting. I bought tester pots from B&Q for £1.10 each (2 black, 2 turquoise, 1 ocean blue, 1 white and 1 silver acrylic from Hobbycraft). Everything needed 2 coats, including the inside of the cupboards. I had definite backache after I'd finished! I laid out the sink, tap and hob to check it all fitted. It was at this point that I thought it needed a pop of colour so decided to use the leftover red spray paint from the playhouse for the knobs.

The knobs are model wheels from Hobbycraft. The tap is a J decoupatch letter, also from Hobbycraft. The sink is a curry dish from Poundland that hubby broke the handles off. For the hob, I used some old coasters which I painted black.

Finishing touches were adding the oven handle, drilling some holes for the knobs and threading each one on a screw with a washer so they will spin, and super gluing on the tap and hobs.

Here is a breakdown of everything I used;

Stuff I already had/ borrowed
● Tools (brushes, saw, drill)
● Coasters
● Screws and washers
● Red spray paint
● Sandpaper
● Primer

Cost breakdown
● Cabinet £30
● Paint £6.90
● Knobs £1
● Sink £1
● Tap £2
● Door handle £3 (I thought this was £1.50 but just checked the receipt)
Varnish £7.95 but I used about 1/3 which is roughly £2.65

Total: £46.55

Not as frugal as I'd hoped but if you take out the cost of the cabinet, it was only £16.55 to transform a tired cupboard into a fabulous kitchen!

Tah dah!

What we've been doing Wednesday

Helping to tidy up

Working on fine motor skills with chalk

Watering the plants. Sort of.