Teapot cake

Finally. I have finally made a teapot cake. I had hoped that it would be fairly straight forward and easy once I started. I haven't used fondant for a long time though. And I underestimated the effect of having little helpers that 'help' and also who need attention. So I think I will hang up my cake decorating apron for a little while longer.

I am pretty happy with the way the cake turned out considering. It was a belated birthday cake for me. White chocolate mud cake. Yum.

Barbie's chairs are finished

The Barbie chairs have been evolving for a few weeks now. From my initial idea that came from recycling a mailing tube, to being a shade of pink that didn't really agree with me.

They are now a very groovy textured gold.

Here's what I did. I sketched the shape onto the tube. After I was happy with it, I cut it out. I sized up how high to make the chairs by measuring up Barbie sitting on something. My chairs are about 4 inches tall. Then I traced around the chair shape to make a template for all the other chairs.

I used some scrap photo mat board to make disks and hot glued them into the top opening. To make the cushions I used some disks of board as well and made them up in the same way as I made my fabric name badges.

I ended up using self adhesive contact to cover the chairs when the painting thing didn't really work out for me. I put the contact on and then trimmed off the excess with a craft blade. Finally, I hot glued the cushions on.

The girls were impressed that their Barbie's have chairs now. Except that there is six chairs and only five Barbie's. They said it's handy because if there is a visitor they will have some where to sit :-)

The Barbie box house

I have finished the box house for the kids Barbie's to live in. And by finished, I mean it's getting there. As I showed here, I used glassware boxes I bought from the hardware shop. The kids can change the house around because the boxes are not joined together.

Esther and Ellamay bought themselves another Barbie each with some birthday money they had. We were really careful when opening them so we could use the packaging as part of the wall decorations in the boxes. We used some scrapbook paper too. It turned out great!

I would still like to make some beds, a table and some kind of kitchen cabinet. I would really like to try making a bedroom screen that dorriebelle made after some inspiration from my Fabric farm fences. I haven't had the sewing machine out for quite a while now so not sure when that will happen. I had hoped that I would have actually achieved that one by now but things have been really slow here. When I do get these things done, you'll be the first to know :-)

Amelia on the pump

Amelia has to do this twice a day. It is part of her treatment for CF. She has a strong dose of saline solution in the pump (nebuliser) to help break up the mucus build up in her lungs and help her to cough. That is beneficial to her health. Not very fun though. Asking an almost 3 year old to stay still long enough to be on there is a stretch so we have to find fun stuff to entertain her.

I love buttons and turns out so do our kids! Amelia sorts them, stirs them, pours them and, much to my dismay, throws them. But it keeps her happy.

Until she gets sick of that mask on her face and then she pulls it off and that is pretty much the end of it. Amelia needs to be on the pump for between 5-10 minutes at a time and even though that doesn't seem long, she needs a lot of entertaining in that time.

Aside from button play, we do drawing with "Mummy's special pens", box constructions (which really just involves Amelia sticking heaps of sticky tape to random cereal and biscuit boxes) and of course, the glitter glue.

Last week we went to the big building (Royal Children's Hospital) again for Amelia's regular check up. It was our best visit ever, I think. The specialist said that we could take Amelia off the antibiotics she had been on for about 3 months (HOORAY) and that we can gradually take her off the pump. On top of that, Amelia's health generally is great at the moment and she has put on about a kilo in a couple of months. Winter has been a lot kinder to her this year.

I am playing catch up with house work (blerk) today and also trying to declutter our bedroom. Have a great day.

Box Band

Boxes are fun. Esther and Ellamay decided while we were at my parents place for Sunday lunch they needed to make something. Mum had boxes and they had an idea. It's amazing what you can do with a pile of boxes of different sizes, a couple of cardboard rolls and a whole lot of sticky tape!

Esther is rocking out on the drums.

Ellamay is singing into a box microphone. Ellamay loves to sing. They are so funny.

I have a few posts in the works so hopefully by the end of this week I will be back to some kind of routine on the Crisis again. Still trying to get better. I have been getting all inspired to make things again so I must be improving. I am trying to make myself get caught up with life first though. See you soon.

A cold and a blog mention

It hasn't been frosty the last few mornings, but wet and rainy. And cold. So windy and cold. The kids went back to school but I am sick again so I haven't been doing much of anything. Stay tuned though. I have been planning some new things for the Crisis and I have lots of projects to finish off (how strange). 

Something before I go, I was pretty excited yesterday to get a mention over on Meni's blog for the Gardener Amelia post I did here. It was an idea I found on Meni's blog. Another idea I saw over there is one for using magnetic numbers to do maths with. Great! Esther and Ellamay are just starting to do sums at school and this would be a good way to practise.

Thanks Meni.

Chairs in the making

Don't know when I will get these completely finished. Here is a quick look at the beginnings of some chairs for the kids Barbies.

They are cut from a postage tube that Tim was kind enough to give me with the comment "Can you make something with this?" As soon as I saw it, I saw chairs. I scribbled the shape onto the tube as I went. Should have used pencil because the paint I have put on them isn't thick enough to cover the pen. Grrr.

I am hoping that the chairs won't look like toilets when they are done. I have made little cushions for the seats and have painted them but I am not happy with the colour. I'd really like to use some dark wood grain contact on them but I haven't got any. I will post some pictures when they are done.

I have made some more rooms for the Barbie house too. It looks pretty cool. I will post that soon. Esther and Ellamay start back at school next week (HOORAY) so I hope to get back to my stitching and what not.

Glitter glue

At the entrance to the shopping centre I often go to is a Riot Art and Craft shop. I hate it. Mainly because I can't walk past it without going in for a look around. The other day I went in to see what was on offer and was completely overjoyed with my discovery.

This glitter glue was on sale for $2.99 a bottle, down from $9.99. GASP!

I already had these two which I had bought on sale a few months ago but not as cheap as $2.99. The reason this discovery was so exciting is because when Amelia has to go on the pump, we use glitter glue to entertain her. She can use it and make beautiful sparkly pictures and there is no water or paint that can be split on the carpet or worse still, the pump itself.

We were using these great packs (above) and some different cheap stuff (which didn't work very well) but it was a rather expensive exercise. Last winter, everywhere I went I was on the look out for glitter glue. We would often use a whole packet of glitter glue in one session on the pump so my supplies weren't lasting long.

Great timing for a bargain as Amelia is just starting back on her saline treatment again (finally) so we needed to stock up. So it's back to finding glitter all over the house, on clothes and all over the basin in the bathroom! Everyone needs a little bit of sparkle though, don't they?

Twirling wands

Trying to find things to make on school holidays can be a bit of a problem. The kids are usually pretty happy if you give them a pile of boxes, paper and sticky tape but sometimes they like an actually project. Now this one is probably a bit of a stretch to call a project but whatever. It took two minutes to make and the rest of the afternoon to play with. Good crafting!

I found a packet of these party favour wands at the Reject Shop. They were $2. I already had some crepe paper streamers at home.

The kids picked out which colour streamers they wanted and we just tied them onto the end of the wand. We did try threading them through the star but that didn't work too well. Then they pranced, played and danced around the house. Happy kids. Yah! Some streamers got ripped and so they decided to do that. Rip their streamers that is. So we suddenly had screwed up streamer pretend food and decorations in their rooms and shredded streamers everywhere.

And still, happy kids. I got out a new DVD to go with their prancing too. The girls are very into their Barbie DVDs.

I could probably sing all the songs now. I start singing them while I am doing things around the house. Then I realise I am singing them so I stop and hope that Tim hasn't noticed :-)

Only one more week before school starts. I am hoping to post some more kids crafts before the end of the holidays. I have emptied out all the stray papers, worn out box constructions and forgotten creations from last week so we can start fresh for this week.

Project 52 - 3 more dates

I am not keeping up with the posting of the dates so here are three together.

Date 22 -
During the week I had been sick and Ellamay was quite sick too. And it was Esther and Ellamay's 6th birthday so I was blank on date planning. We ended up watching a favourite movie again (the same as we watched for Date 5). We gave each other foot massages and talked.

Date 23 -
I was still trying to shake this cold and was feeling pretty overwhelmed after a tough couple of weeks. Tim started us off by drawing more houses and talking houses again. It quickly turned into time for me to have a cry and talk through all the stuff that had been happening. Tim is so wonderful and it helps to talk out things with him.

Date 24 -
Our latest date was short and sweet (ha). We made honeycomb. Yum. Tim did the stirring and I did the recipe reading, not there is much to read out. We used this recipe. While we made the honeycomb there was a Bond movie on the TV in the background. I am not a Bond fan, but Tim wanted to watch it. It was quite funny though. It was one of the older ones and terribly predictable.

Let's hope this week I can think up something good and actually post it on here a bit quicker!

Check out Simply Modern Mom for more date night stories.