Teaser

Here are some of the lovely Amy Butler fabrics from the Lark range.  I am using these in one of my next quilts, so stay tuned....

A farewell present to a much loved teacher

The twins are in daycare for a few days a week while I have to go to work.  We have been extremely lucky this year to have the most wonderful teacher for them, so when we heard that she was leaving to become an air hostess, we were guttered :(  Hmmm, so what to make someone who will be spending a lot of time travelling.....why, some zippered pouches of course!

The trial run (because I haven't made these in a very long time).

Added bonus is that I get to keep this one :)

The gift for a wonderful teacher called Emily.

I put some little things in there like lipgloss, hand cream, face wipes etc.  She will be missed, but we are very happy that she is taking the massive leap of leaving one profession and diving into something she's dreamed of for a long time.

Pinwheel Hair Clip

So here is the missing piece of the Baby Shower post...the pinwheel hair clip.  It is in the same red, white and aqua colours as the rest of the decorations.  Some people wore them in their hair, others just clipped them onto their shirts or dresses.  Either way, I think they tied everyone into the day nicely.

The baby shower of the year

A couple of months ago, I had the absolute honour and pleasure of hosting a baby shower for one of the most deserving people I know.  It was her first baby, and we had been planning it for months.  I think I'd actually asked if I could throw her baby shower before she was even pregnant!!  She hosted all 3 of my baby showers, and did a fantastic job of all of them.  Nothing was too much trouble for her, and I had a wonderful time at them all.  So of course, I wanted to go that extra mile for her.  I wanted it to be so many things for her, extra special being at the top of the list.  But mainly, it had to be all about her.  So first things first, I set about with the invitations.  She chose a red, white and aqua theme, and loved onesies, so there was my starting point.  I had many conversation with her on what she liked and disliked, and came up with these.  They were very labour intensive to make, but wow, turned out oh so great.

Then for the decorations.  I knew I had to make bunting to hang across the table or wall.  And I also wanted to make some placemats for the table.  Luckily for me, I found a Michel Miller range that had the perfect red, white and aqua colours.

Bunting

Placemats

I draped streamers, balloons and handmade tissue paper pompoms from the ceiling over the table.

We had lots of yummy homemade treats to eat.  Red velvet cupcakes, upside-down plum cake, lime slice, zucchini slice, passionfruit slice, white choc and raspberry muffins, crostoli, mini quiches, lemon meringue, shortbread biscuits.  There was definitely an oversupply of food.  But hey, that's what we do :)

The mother-to-be made these wonderful cookies in a jar as favours for all of her guests.  Don't they look sensational?!

We played a few games, and we also did a baby shower quilt where everyone that came along to the party got to decorate a square of material that I will make into a quilt.  It will be such a personal and unique present that everyone helped make special.

I also made some little pinwheel hairclips for all the ladies to wear.  But forgot to take a photo of these (one to come shortly!).

So, I hope the mummy-to-be had a wonderful day, as she most definitely deserved it.  She is the most amazing friend a person can have, and I'm truly blessed to have her in my life.  xx

Jewellery making

A crafty friend of ours has spent the last little while making kids jewellery sets.  And she sent some down for Madison for her birthday (how sweet of her!).  These are just beautiful, and Madison had a lot of trouble deciding which set to wear first!

Mini nappy cake

I'd already bought a friend a bag of bathtime goodies/essentials for her baby shower, but Madison wanted to help me make something else for her.  Well, how could I refuse :)  So we whipped this up together.  As you can tell, she knows she's having a girl.  Surely you can never have too many things pink...

Fluffy mail

There's not too many things that get me excited about collecting the mail.  Unless of course, there is a big fat envelope full of fabric goodness waiting for me :)

Hmmm, now to decide what to make with it all....  xx

Keeping the kids busy

We are undoubtedly experiencing the rainiest couple of years in Brisbane that I can remember.  Keeping the kids occupied (and not bickering!) can be a struggle at times, but these paper plate fish worked a treat, and kept them busy for hours.  Luckily I had plenty of paper plates, and craft supplies.  After we'd spent most of the day working on these masterpieces, we took them to daycare for them to hang around the rooms (I really didn't like the idea of trying to find somewhere to hang all of these in my house!).

Karina's Quilt

Wow, isn't there a lot around in the owl theme these days?!  But you know what, I just love it!  This owl print is just so happy and cheery and bright and colourful, that I wanted to make everything with it, ha ha.  And a quilt was a must!  I saw this design in my local quilt shop and of course, fell in love with it.  So with a friend due with baby number 2, gender unknown, it fit the requirements perfectly.  Welcome to the world baby Karina.

Tahlia's Quilt

In my opinion, there is no better way to welcome a new baby into this world by giving them a quilt.  One that'll last them years, and that they can grow up with.  I made this one awhile ago, and just had to wait for the right opportunity to give it away.  So when a new little school friend of Madison's got a baby sister, off it went :)  I love this rocking horse print, and how it isn't over the top girly and pink.

Tooth Fairy

My eldest son was a quick teether.  At 4 months of age, he was uncharacteristically grizzly.  I had no idea what his problem was, just assumed he was getting sick or something.  Anyway, the next day I couldn't believe my eyes when I found a tooth poking through his gums!  So it wasn't really surprising, since he got his teeth early, that he lost them early too.  On the day of his 5th birthday party, we asked him to smile for a photo, and thought there was a bit of cake on his tooth.  Woah, hold on there a minute.  The tooth is missing!!!!!  We asked him where he lost it and he couldn't remember.  He was too busy playing with his friends to care.  I searched the grass area where he was playing, but yes, it was impossible to find a tooth on an acre and a half!  So after having to deal with teeth and/or money from the tooth fairy getting lost underneath his pillow overnight, I thought I would make up some tooth fairy pillows for the kids.  Most tooth fairy pillows seem to be very girly, so they weren't going to suit my son.  So this is what I came up with:

The little train/monkey square on the bottom right of each cushion is a pocket where they can wrap their tooth up with a tissue and put it in there for safe keeping until the tooth fairy comes.  And the tooth fairy can always find a pillow like this.  The only thing left to do, is I want to stitch the outline of a tooth on the white fabric now, so that it screams 'tooth fairy pillow'. xx

Learning to knit again

I used to knit when I was in school....which was, ummmm, a while ago now!  But haven't really thought to do it much ever since.  But when our old neighbours came to camp at our place a few months ago, she showed me her knitting (that's what she does to keep herself busy since they've retired).  Well, I just fell in love with one of them, and she very kindly gave me a quick lesson on how to make them.  24 hours later, on my lunchbreak at work, I rushed to Lincraft to grab what I needed to start some for myself (I actually started it on the train on the way home - yes, I did get a lot of 'looks'!).  They are very easy to do (but look very complicated thanks to the type of wool/yarn you use), and are actually quite quick to finish.  I think I did my first one in 24 hours, a bit here and there (no long spells for me).  I was chuffed at the result, and have had many lovely comments about them.  One of my friends said that she saw them selling for $35!  I was quite happy to spend a bit of time knitting one for myself for the big old price of $6!!!  The yard used was Electra, and I've bought a red/white colour and a black/grey/white colour as well to make a few more.

A castle cake for my princesses birthday

This post is quite a bit late.  Sorry.  A year actually, as we've just celebrated my daughter's 5th birthday.  But I wanted to share this as I love it so much.

I make a point of doing all birthday cakes for my kids every year.  My mum did it for my brother's and I, and I just feel that it is such a lovely tradition to keep going.  So for my daughter's 4th birthday, she wanted a princesses castle.  It didn't look too over the top, so I agreed.  I made it the night before her party (she had invited her 2 best friends from daycare along with a few other friends we have).  I think I got to bed about 1am...hold on, you don't think you are going to sleep now do you?!?!  That's what my 13 month old twins obviously thought, as they just whinged and tossed and turned for the rest of the night (with me sleeping on the floor of their room).  Not a good start to party day.  But the day was wonderful, and everyone enjoyed the cake as much as me.  The look on my daughter's eyes when she saw it in the morning was priceless.  xx

A bit of hair bling

Although my daughter is surrounded by 3 brothers, she is very much a girly girl.  She loves her pretty dresses, fabulous shoes, lots of jewellery and definitely hair accessories!  I'd seen so many lovely hair pieces for girls on the internet, so thought I would try my hand at making some.  So along with the help of etsy (lets face it, pretty much my favourite shop!!), and some craft time while the twins were having their daytime sleep, I created these for her.

She loves them!  And wears more than one at the same time usually.  She has gone to bed with 4 flowers and 3 clips in her hair before, bless her.  xx

Fabric storage box

I don't know about other people, but I seem to have so many different types of creams for the kids.  They have all had eczema at some stage (the twins still suffer from it), but of course, the same cream won't do for them all, they all respond better to different creams!  That, along with the nappy creams and god only knows what other creams I've managed to accumulate...well, I'm sure you get the picture of my nappy shelf!  So I decided I must really get some order in there.  Enter the fabric storage box.  They turned out pretty good, although next time I'd use stiffer interfacing (couldn't bring myself to waste a whole morning taking the twins to Spotlight!).  And it does the job perfectly.  No more lost creams :) xx

1 hour handbag

Most women have a number of handbags.  Not me....I have 1.  Just the one I use every day.  So when it came apart on my way home from work one night, I realised I had nothing to put my stuff in for work the next day.  Eeeek.  Enter Mr Google!  And one of the first bags I came across was Jodie from Ric Rac, who had a 1 hour bag tutorial.  PERFECT!!!!  I could knock one up after getting everyone into bed, and still be in bed early enough to handle work the next day.  So I rummaged through my fabric stash and look what emerged...

Ta da. xx

Christmas Wreath

I have never been particularly fond of wreaths before.  Don't know why, just haven't liked them.  That was until they started popping up everywhere on the internet, and I started to appreciate how talented some ladies were.  Even admiring some of them!  So I decided to give a christmas wreath a go for the front door.  I am really happy with the way it turned out. (sorry for the poor quality of photo - taken at night time with everyone in bed!)

Oh dear

Please forgive me blogland...I just can't believe how quickly time goes by!  It seems like forever since I was in here last (and it has been!), but I can assure you that there are quite a few posts to follow.  I have been sewing, creating, crafting away (in my limited time to myself), just haven't ventured to the computer to update anything.  The study is a "no go zone" at the moment, as my 2 year old twins are usually hot on my tail.  They can be happily playing on the deck with their cars, but somehow they hear the study door open from 25m away, and come running!  Anyway, hope you enjoy what is to follow :) xx