Hinamatsuri festival

Well, it isn't actually Hinamatsuri yet, it is 3rd of March but we went to the shien centre today and we made origami hinamatsuri dolls. Quite cute, now I have to try and figure out how we did it so we can make some more.

Each city has a shien centre, ours is in a beautiful wood and glass building. The shien centre is like a help centre for mothers, it is somewhere you can go/call if you are having any child related problems and they usually have a room where you can hang out and play. They vary from place to place, our last one was a bit tatty around the edges but they had a sensei who would get an accordian out and play songs for the kids. It was only the 2nd time I had been to the new one and today they had a special event on, they do it once a month, they sang songs (non of which I knew) and then did the origami, afterwards was free play. I always have to pluck up the courage to go to these places because I am a foreigner and always get lots of attention - I am the only one who goes to this one and the old place there was just me and my Russian friend. The staff are always lovely though and tend to fuss over BabyEbi - which I'm not sure is such a good thing but at least it gives me a break!
On another note I made a cute little swing apron, from Bend The Rules for my step sisters little girl who will be 3 next month. I haven't met her yet because she lives in Greece and we live in Japan and we never seem to be in the UK at the same time. Once I had made the apron I felt it really needed a matching bag, I didn't really use a pattern for this....

I really should apologise to BabyEbi since I keep making him model all these girly things I have been making, I cut his head off in this pic to save him future embarrasment!