: Tŷ Gwyrdd

Over the past two weeks we have been running family activities linked to the Veolia Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2012 Exhibition here at National Museum Cardiff.

Over 400 of you took part and it has been a fantastic fortnight of photographic fun! I've been busy uploading as many photos as possible to the NMC Photo Club Flickr page and I have to say they look great! When you visit the Flickr page the photos are organised into sets on the right hand side of the page so if you took part all you need to do is click on the date of your visit to the Museum and look for your name!

The photos will be going up on the screen in the Clore Discovery Centre in the Museum on Saturday the 8th of September so if you came to the workshops pop in to see your pictures on display at the National Museum!

I'd like to say a big thank you to Cat, Lauren and Catherine for all their excellent work in running the workshops and I'd like to thank everyone who came along to take part as well. Thanks!

Amgueddfa Cymru - National Museum Wales is looking for new schools to be involved in this exciting project and receive free spring bulbs.

Spring Bulbs for Schools (KS2)

Plant bulbs in your school grounds to study climate change. Join this UK wide investigation and improve science and numeracy skills. For more details visit www.museumwales.ac.uk/en/scan/bulbs

The application only takes a minute to complete and the project  is FREE to all schools who apply by the 30th July.

Over the last couple of months we have held a total of 5 Green Baby days at the T? Gwyrdd here at St Fagans Museum. The idea behind the Green Baby days was to promote greener practices and to lessen the environmental impact raising a baby can have. 

To help us achieve this we invited a number of experts in to help us, all of whom I’d like to thank! 

Obviously one of the main ways of lessening environmental impact when raising a child is through the use of re-usable nappies. This is also a great way of saving money, around £700! These re-usable nappies have moved on a great deal since the days of terry towelling and enormous safety pins! It was great to see peoples reactions when shown examples of the fancy newer nappies and to hear their stories! 

So I have to give a massive thank you to the 3 re-usable nappy providers who helped us over the 5 days. First of all to mamigreen who are based in Cardiff and came to help us on the first 2 Green Baby days. Secondly a huge thank you to Gemma at Little Gems Nappies (based in Pontypridd) who came to help us over 3 days last week during the Easter holidays. And also a big thank you to Melanie at Little Lion (based near Bridgend) who lent us a variety of re-usable nappies that we were able to showcase! 

If you are interested in learning more about re-usable nappies or are considering using them then check out their websites. They all cover most of the southWalesarea and offer phone consultations as well as home visit consultations! 

We also had a stand by Fairdos which is a Fairtrade shop based inCanton inCardiff. As a stockist of all kinds of Fairtrade products this was a great opportunity to showcase their range of Fairtrade cotton baby clothes, toys and bibs. A big thank you to the Fairdos volunteers who gave up their time to man the stand!

 The final area we covered was baby food. Making your own baby food is healthy, cheap, eco-friendly, and you know exactly what’s in it! We had Welsh Government advice and recipe documents for different stages available to read, and many visitors asked us where they could find these documents themselves. So here we go…

English Language Downloads

Welsh Language Downloads 

Finally, a massive thank you to everyone who came to see us during the event and for sharing your knowledge, especially those who entered our competition by posting tips on our Green Babies ideas tree! We will shortly be picking a winner and contacting them about their prize.

Wood for the Trees return to the T? Gwyrdd this Saturday, 7^th of April. Earlier this year they held a footstool making workshop, which was a great success as can be seen from the picture. Participants made their own footstools from start to finish, from planing the stool legs to the upholstery work at the end. 

The footstool workshop was for people who had booked in advance, but this time the T? Gwyrdd doors will be open to all for an Upcycling Chalky Workshop! There will be a chance to make your own blackboard to take away with you and also the chance to decorate some furniture! 

The T? Gwyrdd will be open between 11 and 1 and again from 2 till 4 after lunch, so why not drop in and see what’s on offer!

Click here for more information.