Pinterest has much to answer for!

I have to admit, before I say anything else, that at the moment my newest addiction is Pinterest.  I absolutely love being able to see what other people find interesting, and also I love the fact I can pin the websites I want to remember rather than saving them in my already heaving favourites...  And when I say heaving, I mean literally bursting at the seams...  As in, I have so many websites in my favourites that I literally can't find any of them half the time when I try and find something!

Anyway, I have never been the crafty sort at all, but Pinterest has put the seed of creativity into my head and I can't shake it off.

So this week I was looking for creative ways of helping to calm down a couple of my children.  They're good kids but very occasionally they get so wound up emotionally (whether it's anger or fear or sadness or excitement) that they really just need to sit down quietly and focus on something else until it dissipates.  However, telling them to sit down and calm down rarely works as they just get more frustrated.

So, thanks to Pinterest I made two very handy little Calm Down Jars.  They're pretty and calming and the kids all love them, and so far they seem to have worked really well.

They were really easy and quite cheap to make.  And yes, I used glass jars because I know my kids and I know they won't throw them, but lots of people use plastic ones just as effectively...  I used 2lb jam jars and mixed a little over 2 cups of hot water with about 60ml of glitter glue and about 5-10g of glitter (basically a jam jar, filled with water from a fairly freshly boiled kettle and a small tub of glitter glue and enough extra glitter to make it really "glittery") and shook the whole lot up until it seemed "right"...  See, I told you I wasn't very craft-minded!  LOL

I've also been spending some time on "me" recently...  I joined a local knitting group that meets up once a week.  They're really friendly and more than anything I just enjoyed the time away from home for an hour or two in the evening!  I've been socialising with friends again and getting out the house and I've also joined a local WI group.  And yes, everyone has laughed at me, but I don't care.  I get out the house, I do interesting things with women who I feel I have something in common with, so I enjoy it and they can laugh!  LOL

I am hoping to get the Singer sewing machine out this week and start it's restoration.  That should be interesting!