We made these guys from another of our taking-things-apart sessions…

…this time, a mini stereo which my Dad, who’s the handiest person I know, just couldn’t fix.

We thought that the speaker cases might be able to become bird boxes – so that might be another post…

We ended up with these guys – it was as if they’d been hiding in the stereo all that time…

It’s made me wonder what’s hiding in other electrical appliances around the house…….hmmm….

This is a very fun thing to do with a collection of flowers and/or stones from a walk or from the garden…

Arrange them in a tupperware tub,

fill with water and freeze overnight. Then sit the tubs for a few seconds in a larger bowl or the sink with a couple of inches of warm water, to release the ice block.

So beautiful! We kept it in the freezer for ages…

Sam decided it made a perfect home for these critters…

Here are some cute critters and their home that we made with some foil, a hot glue gun and a bunch of seashells…

…oh and some googly eyes of course!

Shape some kitchen foil into a mini cave,

add some shells using the glue gun,

and move your critters in!

You can even make them a pool garden to go outside!

On one of the warmest evenings of the summer, I decided it would be cool to bake our own potatoes in a fire – just like my brother and I used to do in the fields near our childhood home many years ago…

Sam was not convinced they were going to taste any good, but once we got through the charcoaled skin, and put some butter on of course – he said it was the best jacket potato he’d ever had!

We visited Birtley House in Surrey to see a sculpture exhibition which they were hosting. Sam’s favourite was this kingfisher.

And I liked these mushrooms…

…and this cone.

We got some ideas for things we want to make ourselves, and have decided to turn our own garden into a sculpture garden. I reckon there is so much we can do with recycling – watch this space…

And I really want to work out how we can make one of these for Sam,

and one of these for me!

There’s a lot of paper airplane making going on in our house at the moment…

I’d recommend either of these books if you want to learn some more adventurous styles, available on Amazon for much less than everywhere else.

A mix of Sam’s own designs, and some from the book. We invented a game called ‘Across the Nile’. You sit on either side of a marked-out area (the Nile river – could be a rug or a piece of cardboard or a masking tape area on the floor), you start with say, ten points each, then you lose a point everytime one of your planes lands in the water whilst trying to cross. When someone loses all their points, the other person is the winner. We played it fast and furious – it was a lot of fun!

Today we got some more stuff to dismantle – a toaster, a computer keyboard and an old toy tank with remote control. I had thought that we’d do one today and save the others for other rainy days, but Sam was so into it, we spent all afternoon working through one after the other…

We have started saving the electrical bits, for example, we got three working motors out of the tank, and an on/off switch from the remote control. And we save any bits that could be recycled into little critters or anything else for that matter.

For example this rubber mat type thing came out of the keyboard…

…Sam’s idea was to cut it into a bath mat for his animals!

And this is the circuit board for the keyboard. I thought it was quite beautiful, I’ve stuck it up in the window! It makes me think of an Underground map for some futuristic city maybe, or a monochrome stained glass in a space cathedral…

And I’m planning some mosaic (watch this space), so these keys will come in nicely…

In April Jeremy was running the Paris marathon, so Sam and I tagged along for the ride! We didn’t actually get too involved with the marathon itself, in fact we headed for the other side of town and the Jardin de Plantes (outside the Natural History Museum), where we came upon this beautiful cherry blossom carpet.

And these glorious poppies!

We were excited to discover that one corner of the Jardin de Plantes is given over to the Menageries (the zoo), so off we went exploring…

Neither of us had actually seen real live giant tortoises before. As Sam pointed out, they were as big as sheep!

A lizard in the reptile house showing us his strange skin close-up.

Walking through the gardens toward the museum buildings, the afternoon light was beautiful.

And to top it all we found a new friend. Our very own (very adventurous) giant tortoise!

A couple of months ago Sam got really into volcanoes. We visited the permanent volcano exhibition at the British Museum, and started reading lots about them, finding out about the different types, and looking them up on Google Earth (we found Etna in Sicily, and Kilauea in the Hawaiian Islands, among others). These are some of Sam’s pictures:

Our old DVD player had given up the ghost…

So we decided to have a look inside…

It was like a whole new world!…

Sam got to work straight away with the pliers cutting out as many wires and bits as he could.

An hour later we had lots of little components which we weren’t quite sure what to do with…

Ah but then we got an idea… little creatures of course!

I’m so glad we didn’t just throw it away. Can’t wait for the next household appliance to break now! Just kidding