Trip to the West Lancashire Light Railway

 

We took a trip to the West Lancashire Light Railway for their Summer Gala Day.

It was a lovely little place with unlimited rides on the mini trains.

It was a short journey, just 10 minutes to the end of the line and another 10 minutes back, just right for littles.

The volunteers were fantastic, carefully cleaning each carriage after each and every trip.  Each carriage took about 6 people so basically one family per carriage.

There was a little fun fair on site.  Just one ride and one fairground game but the kiddos were quite happy.

There was also an event tent with several volunteers showing off their model railways.  I expected this to be an area that wouldn't be of much interest to my small children but 3 year old Little Dude was fascinated and kept asking to go back in.  He probably spent over an hour just watching the model trains go round their little tracks.  I suspect that Hornby will be making some money from me over the coming years.  I can't say I mind, I love the idea of helping my little one's build all the scenery and buildings to go with their tracks.  

The standard price for our family of 4 is £12 but I booked the tickets in advance and got a discount so it was just £8.  I think this was excellent value for the three train rides we had.  https://www.tickettailor.com/events/westlancashirelightrailwaytrust/415966/

Happy Mail - Peek-a-Boo Patterns Rough n' Tumble Pants

Peek-A-Boo Pattern's Rough and Tumble pants sewing pattern is on sale this weekend.

I've been looking for a new cargo / jeans style pant pattern for my kids (and myself but that's another post) for a while now.  

I have this one from McCalls but the pant legs are huge and I mean really massive and baggy, Little Miss hates the pants I've made her with this pattern and Little Dude is years off growing into it.

The Rough and Tumble pants are unisex so they'll do for both my kidos.  They've got pockets whoop whoop!!  Front and back pockets too.  And optional knee reinforcement which feels like a great idea for kid's pants and I can leave it off if I want a smarter pair of pants.  Like most Peek-A-Boo patterns they go up to pre-teen which I love.  Lately I've been feeling like I find a pattern I love, get to grips with it and my kids love the garments then before I know it they've grown out of it and I have to track down a new one which may or may not suit us.  This McCalls pattern was bought to replace this fantastic toddler sewing pattern from Burda.  I've lost count of the number of times I've sewn this pattern but my youngest is about to grow out of the largest size.

Hopefully the Rough and Tumble pants pattern will be the solution.  The only thing that wasn't exactly what I was looking for is that it doesn't include a shorts option.  This should just be a matter of chopping off the bottom half of the pant leg so it's no big deal.

I'll let you know how I get on sewing it up!

Happy Mail - Craft Label First Edition and Paper Addicts Paper Pads

Craft Label are offering 80% off some of  their First Edition paper pads.  I couldn't resist picking up a few bargains.  

I also bought some Paper Addicts packs.  They were really badly described on Craft Label's website, so I wasn't really sure what I was going to get.  I thought it might have been a mix of individual sheets from a few different paper packs, or what I received which was the actual paper packs.  Thankfully some kind person at Craft Label sent me three different designs.  At 94p each I'm really chuffed with them.

In also got a free pack of adhesive gems shaded like little stars.