Build your own den part 5 - the big reveal....

We had aikido in the morning and because Ebi-kun had a national demo to attend the following week he couldn't skip class. So after aikido we grabbed some lunch then got straight to it. The first job was to put up the pillars, we used L brackets to do that.

The attached the cross beams for the roof...

There were a couple of re-calculations that had to go on, due to the plans not being quite right but nothing major.

Then they put netting over the roof frame to help prevent bugs and beasties getting in..

And this it was time to put the walls on. Either DH or I helped them put the wall in place and get the first couple of crews in and then the boys got busy and did the rest.

Daddy took charge of the roof. It would have been great if we could have had another weekend to work on it but the following weekend we had plans then we fly to the UK a couple of days later, so it was crunch time and no slacking off was allowed.

And here it is... a lot of sweat, no tears and quite a bit of blood loss (thanks to the mozzies) went into building this! Ebi-kun is one very happy chappy, this incidentally is his birthday present! Nothing quite like having to design and build your own birthday gift. 

I think the experience he will carry with him forever, long past when the den had gone. 

Interview with the designer:

On a scale of 1 - 10, how difficult was this project?

7 because working out all the problems was difficult.

What did you learn from the project?

How to use the tools.

That it was really important to do all the plans first and it's good to have people helping you.

How do you feel about the final result?

It was fun but difficult to build it. It's cool and turned out better than I thought it would!

What I feel he learned from the experience was project planning, that it's sometime slow and boring but vital to get get a good end result. That you have to be prepared to make changes along the way and that creative thinking will help solve a problem. 

And that big projects don't happen over night, that perseverance is very important and that quitting half way through is not an option. I think this is really important these days as we live in a time when everyone expects instant results and life really doesn't work like that.

I'm really proud of what he has achieved and I'm sure hours of fun will be had in the den. He has yet to do the interior, I will be sure to give you a tour when we get back from the UK. I did suggest a trip to Ikea for interior design but they both look at me as if I were mad! can't imagine why...

Build your own den part 3

We left you hanging, wondering about the solution to the concrete foundation blocks! Before that got figured out the boys measured the frame and cut the wood to size.

Starting off with the hand saw..

But soon moved onto the power saw. Once all the frame pieces were the right length, we set about the foundation blocks - OMG this was such a huge job!

This is where we needed daddy muscle on site, the blocks are really heavy and he decided that the best thing would be to dig holes and level them that way. Easier said than done! Eventually we got all 7 blocks in.

There was a lot of taking out and putting in. I'm pretty sure this wasn't the most efficient way to do this job! Part of the learning curve.

Ebi-kun filling in the soil around the blocks after checking the wood was level.

Finally, this took hours. We finished off all filthy and exhausted! The wood hasn't been fixed on here so that went back in the car. We'd have to wait until the following weekend to continue on the project...

Build your own den part 2

And yes, the excitement continues...

Once the project has it planning permission (from me and daddy ebi) it was time to make a start. We headed off to the home centre and prayed that the crazy weather would hold off for the day. We started off getting the concrete blocks that the den would be built on... I think Ebi-kun is doing a good impression of heavy lifting here but not actually doing any!

Then it was off to get the timber for the base frame and floor boards. He had decided that the pre-treated wood was the best idea but we didn't know what the wood was treated with, so we asked the staff and they were clueless too. DH had to shoot off an email to the company website to find out whether it was safe or not. We got the OK 

The wood was too long for us to get it in the car so we had to have it cut to length...

Next was packing the wood into the car, we don't own a handy white van so it was a fun addition to the project!

And this was another reason we had to break the project up, we couldn't buy everything in one go anyway!

When we got back, Ebi-kun went round to collect his friend S-kun who had been roped into the building process too. Their first job was to prepare the area.

We also needed to take down a section of the fence, which we were planning to do anyway since the wood had rotted. It's the first time either of the boys had used the power tools so we made sure that either DH or myself kept a beady eye on them. They did a great job and shared the workload.

We had a comedy moment when they were trying to undo the big bolt that holds the pillar, neither DH or I realised that the boys hadn't used an adjustable spanner before and it wasn't until we noticed that they weren't making any progress that we realised that they were doing it all wrong!

They got there in the end, clear away the fence and prepared the ground. The area was measured and the concrete blocks put down and we ran into his first problem....

The blocks weren't stable if they were on top of the stones - the solution was to remove the stones.

Problem 2 - the ground is not flat so it wouldn't be a good foundation to build on.

The solution...find out next time!

How your kids can make their own Alien T-shirt

 This was a fun and easy project. For some reason, Ebi-kun decided he wanted an Alien T-shirt. So I sent him off to find a plain t-shirt as I dug out what we needed:

a plain t-shirt
freezer paper*
pencil
scissors
fabric paint
paintbrush
iron
scrap of cloth

First I cut a piece of freezer paper to size, then Ebi-kun drew the alien face.

He cut out the face and the eyes and mouth, then ironed the outline of the face to the front of the t-shirt.

Then he added the eyes and mouth and ironed them in place too

He placed a work mat inside the t-shirt just in case the paint soaked through and got to work painting the green face. He left it to dry, once dry you can peel off the freezer paper. I forgot to take a photo but he finished it off by painting the eyes and mouth black. We left it to dry over night then fixed the paint by ironing it again, this time with a cloth over the alien, the heat should fix the paint but check the instructions on the paint jar.

Then go and model the t-shirt with Captain Santa in Tokyo! 

*freezer paper - a friend sent me two rolls form the US. You can buy it in the crafts stores here, it is usually near the quilting paper stuff. It has a coating on one side which sticks to fabric when you iron it but doesn't damage the fabric at all and just peels off, leaving no residue. 

I bought the fabric paint from the crafts store, it was about ¥600 for a jar.

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Water - Action Pack - Win A Copy

As you know I am an Action Pack fan and this year Kathreen has changed it up a bit. She is currently taking a year and travelling/camping around Australia with her family and still managing to pull together the Action pack magazine.  This time round she is doing 4 bigger bumper magazines spaced over the year, the first one this year being Water AND, I am a contributor - whoo-hoo.

Action Pack Water

There are lots of great experiments & activities to get stuck into, the age range is 7-12 but I think younger kids can enjoy many of the experiments even if they don't understand the science behind it yet or you can work together on an activity rather than letting the child do it independently, like an older child would do.

Of course, it is all beautifully and clearly laid out and this edition includes activities from making a water rocket to surface tension to water crackers to density towers, plus puzzles and quizzes and there are some great contributors to boot.

We explored density towers which was as much fun for me as it was ebi-kun and we followed it up with some of his own experiments, that is one of the things I love about kitchen science, follow up experiments can easily be done without any worry of setting of some kind of dangerous chemical reaction (chemistry was not a strong subject for me at school)! 

Click HERE to buy your copy now - it is an instant download, there is also a freebie included on that page and/or pop your name in the box below to win a copy.

Just enter your name and email address to win, the winner will be chosen by random generator at 9am JST March 7th.

How to make simple felt bowls

These little felt bowls are super easy to make and would make a great little starter projects for kids. They look so pretty stacked together or can be used for trinkets. Those with little ones, kids LOVE sorting so these make perfect sorting bowls too.

What you need:

8 pins

needle and thread to match the colour of the felt

Felt circle

The circle can be any size, you can use a cup or plate as a template to draw round. If you want to make large bowls then I recommend using thicker felt to make it a bit studier.

Fold the felt in half and put a pin in the half way point on both sides, then fold it again the other way so you have pins effectively at North, East, South, West.

Now fold it again so the north pin touches the east pin and add another pin to the centre of the fold, continue until you have pins placed equally around the edge.

Fold your felt together and make a few stitches a few mm from the pin, you can get fancy here and add beads or contorting thread.

Take out the pin and it should look like this. Continue all the way around until you have sewn each marked spot.

Taa-daa, finished! Seriously, how easy was that?

 Now get a different colour of felt and start again, by starting with felt circles staggered in size by 1-2cm you can make nestled bowls...

Fun! What would you use yours for?

And if you are looking for more great sewing projects, take a look here!