Baked Playdough!
Yesterday was somewhat of a blur - we were rather busy! We spent a very lovely morning making then playing with playdough. Aprilia had the idea to try baking it which I wasn’t terribly sure about as it’s not salt dough and I had visions of it coming out all crumbled and cracked like it goes if you leave it out to dry but hey, we are scientists aparently and the only way to know is to try. So we filled a baking tray with creations and baked at Gas 1 for an hour. it worked! Everything puffed up a bit (that would be the cream of tartare then!) which actually was really effective and had a smooth surface although it was a little more spongy underneath. Aprilia glossed them all with PVA on the top surfaces adn they are now all face down to make sure they are totally dry on the underside before she glosses that side too. Once I’ve cured my current uploading issues I’ll blog some pics (Flickr have changed how you upload adn it crashes my system at the last second… just as you think it’s all worked 
) If all else fails I’ll hijack Dukes machine and try from there! Needless to say we will do that again! It may not be as easy to do fine detail as Fimo is but as a practice medium it’s ace (but if you mess iwht it too long the gluten gets going and it goes all stiff until you let it relax again - good job I make it by the bucketload!)
In the afternoon it was swimming, this time with Harley but no Lola. He was in a very silly mood, I think he’s finally managed to unwind, and spent most of the hour reducing Aprilia to helpless giggles by throwing her into the water and tickling her. I did wonder at one point which one of them was the grown up.
Duke decided that it was not fair that we had seen Shrek and he hadn’t (even though I’ve been waiting since it came out for him to say when he was free to go see it) so decided that he HAD to go and see it that evening so booked tickets for hte 9pm showing to allow us time to get there and eat. So more Old Orleans food - served by the same waitress who is really lovely and should be given an instant pay rise - followed by a wander round Boarders. We had a voucher for 25% off everything which we felt obliged to get good value out of (so it’s a good job that I did 3 overnights last month as I think I’ve spent it all!!!) and came away very well loaded down….. There was a paperweaving thing and a Lego contraptions kit for Aprilia, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain (which was no where near the price beign charged on Amazon!) plus the workbook for me and a stack of Jasper FForde books for Duke and I am not going to fess up to how much it all came to…. The 9pm showing turned out to be a 9:30 showing which started late and had lots of ads first so we were very late home but I have to say that I think Aprilia caught a lot more of hte jokes on a second viewing and it was well worth a second go (although on two consecutive days is probably taking it a bit far!!)
Today we have done very little except play with the new paper weaving thing and chill. Verdict on the loom (if you can call it that) is that it’s okay but I would have been peeved if I’d payed full price for it. There is a plastic doodad for tearing your paper into even strips which is a good idea, a roller thing for putting 3 creases down your strips so you acn fold them neatly ready for weaving, which is also quite handy and helps give good results where there would otherwise have been wonky folds and tears but the "loom" itself is a bit average. Now I’ve seen it I can see it being used as a starter then us getting a few bits of dowel and making something wider to save patching so many bits together if you want to do a big project. we managed a very passable piece on the first attempt though which I consider to be promising! I can also see it working with fabric strips which could be something to explore at some opint.
I am refraining from starting my drawing book until my birthday as it’s meant to be my prezzie from Duke but he’s let me have them early cos he’s a softie of the highest order! I do need to nail the last TMA before I get into it though, I’m hoping to start working on the creative bit of me whilst working up to the exam and then keep going once it’s all over before the next course starts - I want to be albe to draw pretty pics on my mind maps and I want to be albe to look at them and know what they are!!! I know I *can* do art stuff, I’ve had a lot of fun painting sunsets and rainbows but I seem to forget how as soon as I try to draw anything else.
