Egg Cup Penguins

We celebrated Penguin Awareness Day at Guides this week. There isn't any great reason behind this 'day', it is one of those funny ones that people make up for fun, along with Hugs Day, Wear Your Knickers Backwards Day and Rocky Road Appreciation Day. We thought the girls might like it though, and invited them to come to the meeting dressed in black and white, bring a penguin friend, wear a penguin onesie (if they had them) and just enjoy themselves. We played lots of games like Pass The Balloon (a paired game where they have to waddle whilst keeping a balloon balanced on their feet, then pass it to their partner without the balloon falling on the ground), Flip The Iceberg (a group game where all penguins stand on a blanket and have to flip the blanket without falling into the icy sea), A Real & Fake Quiz (the girls had to decide whether the names of penguins we called out were actually the names of penguins or ones we had made up), and a Name The Penguin Game (where we printed out images of penguins from films, adverts or logos and they had to write down the name of the penguin and which film or advert they were in).

My favourite part of the evening was the egg cup penguins though. I had seen this idea on Pinterest and it was so easy to do!! All you need is an egg box or two, some orange card, paint and googly eyes. We did discover very quickly that the shape of egg boxes has changed from how I remember them as a kid. I'm sure that the boxes used to be made up of complete cup shapes which could be cut up and used individually, but now they have changed the shape so that you only get a proper cup shape on the corner cups!! So we ended up using far more egg boxes than we thought we would need as the middle cups were completely unusable- just something to bear in mind if you were wanting to have a go at this- check the shape of your egg box cups.

Once all our egg cups were cut out we painted on little white tummies and a coat of black. When that had dried we made little feet and glued them on from the inside of the cup with sellotape- if you make a little tag on the end of your foot this can be bent up inside the cup to make it easier to glue. The beak was also cut out of card and glued on, followed by some googly eyes.

I had taken some pom poms along with me which the girls latched onto very quickly and the most amazing hats and hairdos were created. Two of the penguins in the below image were made by me, the one on the left and the cool dude in the middle with the mohican.

Such a cute little project for the girls to take home and keep.

Yesterday The Mother and I went to the Spring Quilt Festival at Ardingly Showground. We had never been before but would definitely go again!! So much fabric! Such beautiful designs and intricate work, especially in the exhibition part of the show. Hours and hours of stitch work and piecing and quilting. Photos weren't allowed otherwise I would have taken hundreds of them to show you.

I went a little bit mad and came home with 17 new fat quarters and two bundles of scrap fabrics which had been rolled together. I think I was quite conservative with what I brought home, in my head the whole lot was coming with me but I don't think that would have been practical- we don't have enough space in the house for everything that was there. The Mother brought home lots of batik fabrics and a wreath book and kit from Dandelion Designs, one of her favourite designers. A couple of our local shops were there too, The Patchwork Dog & Basket (in Lewes), and World of Sewing (in Tunbridge Wells). The stands were all really lovely and I would write up links to all of them if I could, but one that stuck out (although we didn't end up buying anything from it) was Quilting Antics which were exhibiting their use of wools and tweeds rather than the more traditional cottons, although they do sell Moda and other popular brands on their website. We really loved their wool kits but they were a little out of our price range on the day.
So my stash has been thoroughly topped up, now I just have to think of a project in which to use all of my lovely new fabrics!