Making postcard books.

 At the beginning of May, Andrea had some time off work..... so we decided to organise our mail art postcard!!  First of all we sorted them all out into closest to 6 x 4 inches, and then sorted them again into "Portrait" pictures (short side is the top of the picture) and "Landscape" pictures (long side is the top of the picture).  Then we got out our new Bakers Twine (string) and a piece of watercolour paper that we'd cut to slightly bigger than 4 inches by a bit longer than 12 inches (allowing for the spine of the book as well)

 The watercolour paper, we painted it Blue and then covered it in clingfilm while the paint was still wet and then let it dry.  It comes out with crazy paving type patterns on it!!!

 Then we got our Portrait postcards first - we had fewer of those, and they'd all fit in one book.

 We measured each one and then put in three holes at an equal distance.  The middle hole was at 2 inches (the middle of the card) and then we measured an inch and a half out both ways from that.

 We got the watercolour paper and measured in a bit more than 6 inches from one end, and put a crease in it for the back of the spine and then measured in for the front of the spine.  This was really hard work!!!

 Then we did three holes on each side of the spine, front and back, the same distance from each other!

 Then we got the Bakers Twine (you can find that on etsy in lots of different colours) and threaded in from the back cover of the book starting with the middle hole, through all of the postcards.  Then you go through the middle hole on the front cover and then thread back through one of the other holes.... all the way through all the cards and the back cover!  THEN, we threaded back through the last hole in the back cover all the way through to the front again...... and FINALLY back through the middle hole all the way to the back!!!

 So the front cover ends up looking like that!!!

 We tried pulling the twine tight at the back so we could tie one knot in it but it didn't quite work!!  So we tied two knots in the back!!!!!

TA-DAAHHH!!  Our first Postcard Book!!!

We've made another four of these using up all the Landscape postcards!!!  Each one has a different coloured cover too!

Movie Review - Pompeii and Herculaneum

Movie review number 9!! 

PLOT

This is a two disc DVD we got from the British Museum earlier this month when we went to see the Pompeii expedition with Bob, Dilly and Arnty Helena.  It's not really a movie, but we wanted to review it anyway!
Disc One is called "Life, Love and Death in Pompeii" and is all about the Pompeii and Herculaneum sites and what was found there and when, and how and the whole history.  It also explains the layout of the houses there, what the rooms were used for, and where the shops were located.  Each house was for a whole family, so granny and grampa lived there with their grown up children and the grandchildren too.  They had slaves too who did all the cooking and also had shops at the front of the houses where they sold stuff like woven fabric or bread or whatever they were good at making.  When the slaves reached the age of 30, they were freed, and then they went and got their own houses and opened their own shops.
Disc Two is all about the Archaeology Museum in Naples which has a lot of the stuff found at Pompeii and Herculaneum.  The collection was started by the Farnese family ages ago back in the 1400s or something after one of them got to be Pope and started buying lots of statues.  This one we thought was particularly interesting because it explained how the collection started, and how it got moved to the current museum and a whole bunch of background stuff!
These DVDs are an Italian production but has translations in English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Russian and Chinese, so you can pick which one at the beginning of each disc.  It's on the Pal system and can be played in all Regions so if any American people want to buy a copy, it'll still play on your machines!  It can be bought from the British Museum online shop here http://www.britishmuseumshoponline.org/cds+dvds/all-about-pompeii-and-herculaneum-dvd-set/invt/cmcn448020 for £19.99 and it also suggests on the DVD box that it comes from www.oculus-film.com so have a look there too. 

RECOMMENDED
Yes - we thought disc two was more interesting than disc one but if you're into history and archaeology, then this one is definitely worth getting!

SCORE

Beanie gives this 9.5 squeaks out of 10!!

RECOMMENDED SCOOBY SNACKS

Bruscetta with tomato, cheese and Italian ham!!

Andrea's birthday!!

 Yesterday was Andrea's birthday!!  And her brother had flown in from the USA on business and was able to come down to Brighton for the day!!!  We all met up at her parents house for lunch and Champagne (posh stuff that her brother bought) and food and chocolates and presents!!  (more later!)  After lunch, Andrea went home for a snooze and then her brother rang up up saying do you fancy doing something this evening?  Well, it was very nice evening with the sun shining but we still felt tired....... so the movies was out because we'd fall asleep and we weren't hungry enough to go eat dinner yet.  So we agreed to go down Brighton Pier!!!  Brother came to get Andrea in a taxi (Andrea left me at home to guard the Chocolates - very important job you know!!) and Andrea found a new cable box!!!

 Isn't that fun!!!  Andrea and her brother then played the arcade games for AGES and AGES... the same ones that me and Alexander played!!!  Then they went and had fish and chips at Harry Ramsden's and after that had a wander through town and then stopped at ours for a Cuppa Tea.  Then brother went back to parents to sleep!!

Andrea won loads of prizes on the arcade games!!!  She came home with a strawberry keyring and two cupcakes!!!!  HAHAHAHAAAAaaa!!

A New Bear!!!

 A couple of weeks ago, Andrea found an abandoned bear sitting on a cable box on her way to work!!!  She thought he only had one eye....... he didn't look very happy at all, so she grabbed him, put him in her bag and took him to work and then brought him home.

He was a bit of a scaredy cat at first and wouldn't tell us his name but we fed him lots of honey which cheered him up!!!  Then we noticed he actually had TWO eyes!!!  

He said his name was Colin.

He sits on the bed with the rest of us now!!!

Movie Review - "The Boston Strangler"

Movie review number 8!! 

PLOT

This movie is based on true events that happened in Boston, Massachussetts USA back in the 1960s.  It stars Tony Curtis as the serial killer, and Henry Fonda and George Kennedy as the chief Police staff heading the Police Unit specially set up to try and catch him!  The movie starts off with the funeral of President John Kennedy and, on a split screen set up, how one of the murders happened.  It then continues with the serial killings around the Boston area, including Cambridge (over the river where MIT and Harvard University are) and other nearby areas.  Several Police Forces are involved, and Henry Fonda is brought in to set up a Special Unit that brings together all the information from all the forces.  Sally Kellerman plays the surviving attack-ee who tries to help identify the killer.  Tony Curtis is eventually caught by Police on what looked like an attempted burglary and is committed by the judge to spend time in a psychiatric hospital, where he is bumped into by Henry Fonda and George Kennedy..... and this is where they think they might have found The Killer!!!  The rest of the movie is a fictitious reconstruction of the interviews between Fonda and Curtis which, in itself, is quite interesting....!!

RECOMMENDED
This is a really good movie actually.  Even though there has been some recent discussion in the last ten years or so as to whether they incarcerated the right guy, this movie is an interesting insight into the concept of split personalities.  (Although the concept is the Hollywood version of mental health and not necessarily accurate!)

SCORE

Beanie gives this 8.5 squeaks out of 10!!

RECOMMENDED SCOOBY SNACKS
Ben and Jerry's Chunky Monkey icecream straight out of the tub (less washing up!)

Beanie Went Shopping!!!

Yesterday, Saturday 11th, Andrea said we were Going Shopping!!  I love Going Shopping!!

First of all we went to the train station.....

I made sure we left a tag on the table!!

I love looking out of the window on the train......

Oh, here we are crossing the Thames River!!  We're nearly there!!

And there's the number 73 waiting for us again!!!

I tied a tag onto the seat in front!!

Here we are going past Hyde Park...

We got off at Tottenham Court Road again and went past Freddie Mercury,

And we came to an Art Shop!!!!  We went in and bought some stuff....

and outside, I found a Paris Metro ticket!!!

Andrea had to go for a wee, so I tied another tag to the door.

(that was in the British Museum up the road)

And then we went to the bus stop round the corner.  Hey, the number 29 goes to Trafalgar Square!!  We could've done that with Bob and Dilly had we known about it!!!

Well, there's always next time...

We tied another tag on the seat in front....

And here we are going down the road.....

And we got off opposite another art shop!!!  Let's go in!!!

After we'd spent more money in there, we got hungry so we went in here.

We had a fizzy drink....

And left a tag on the pudding list stand!!!

 We got salmon fish cakes and Fries for lunch and they were YUMTASTIC!!!!

 Then we walked down the road to Trafalgar Square

 There was a big event on there, we think about basketball and cheerleading and a thing called "Shooting Hoops."  All a bit confusing to me...

 There's Nelson's Column.

 It then started to rain and also got a bit bonkers busy so we decided to get the number 11 bus back to the station.

 And tied another tag to the seat in front!!!

 Here we are..... but first Andrea said we had to go and look at something!!!

 OH!!!

 That's really weird.....

Some chappie fell head first into the park!!!

We then saw it was a statue!!

Then we went off to catch our train home - and left another tag on the table in front!!

 Then we got the train back home....

 There's Battersea Power Station.

 and on the way home....

 Then we found another grafitti'd cable box!!!

 And then down the road to get the bus home.

 When we got home, I got out the bits that I found!!!  Two subway tickets, two elastic hair ties and two free samples!!!!!

We got a box of 10 empty tubes for when we make paint as well!!!

We also found all they way down the back of the shop a little box filled with Gouache paint on sale, but they only had it in Magenta pink or Cadmium Lemon yellow, so we got one tube of each colour!

At the other art shop, we got 2 Khadi paper square sketchbooks and another travel paint brush!

This brush has a flat straight edge....

 And we got given an information thingy and a free postcard!!!

 And at Victoria Station, we bought a bubble bath bar from Lush!  It's smelly!

 and we also got a tiny little jar of hand cream for £1 and all the money goes to charity.  Andrea's already used some of this, she really likes it!!!