How to make a pinhole camera

This morning all parts of the UK will experience a partial solar eclipse (the best since 1999 apparently!) but experts have been warning to not look directly at the sun when it happens so what should you do so that you don't miss this wonderful spectacle? Make a pinhole camera of course! 

What you need:

• A Cereal Box
• Tinfoil
• A scissors
• White paper
• Sellotape
• Something to make your hole 

Firstly, cut out a piece of white paper and sellotape it to the bottom of your cereal box. This will make it easier to see the projected image of the eclipse. 

Next, cut two slots either side of your cereal box and tape the middle together. 

Cover one of the slots with tinfoil. 

I then used a needle to poke a hole in my tinfoil but the size doesn't really matter so you can vary the size with anything you have to hand. 

And there you have it. All you have to do is bring your camera out and face your pinhole in the direction of the sun while you look into the box through the other opening - you should then see the projected image of the eclipse not he white paper. 

Unfortunately, for me, there were too many clouds so my pinhole camera never got used! All I saw was a cloudy sky change to a slightly darker cloudy sky! 

If you want to see what it would have looked out please check out this tutorial from Hilaroad which I followed to create mine. 

Give it socks!

So my New Year, New Skills resolution carries on with Cross Stitch this week. One of my good friends has recently put up pictures on Facebook of her beautiful and hilarious cross-stitch work so it inspired me to take up the needle and get started.

I found a cross-stitch iPhone over project in a local shop and thought it would be a great place to start. The first problem I ran into was separating floss. It's a nightmare. Knots and tangles everywhere!!

But I found this great video on YouTube and though I still had some tangles, it definitely wasn't half as bad. 

The other problem was planning my design. I started just stitching without properly counting the squares and so kept running out of space and having to pull everything and start again! My own fault but definitely make sure you plan before you start. 

And once you've figured out those two things, it really is great fun. You can use whatever colours you like and there are no limit to the designs you can do. I settled on the motivational Irish phrase of "Give it Socks" with two patched socks to inspire me on days when I'm feeling demotivated.