Lincoln's notebook and pen roll holder

Amelia's best friend turned four recently. Amelia thought they were like twins now because they are both four. :-) Isn't that cute. Anyway, we decided Lincoln needed one of my notebook and pen roll holders since both his older sister's had one and they use them all the time. I haven't made a boy one before though so I wasn't sure what kind of colours or fabrics to use.

Amelia picked out the fabric. That made my life easier. It looked a little plain so I added the felt circle on the front with Lincoln's name stitched on there. I really like the way it turned out. I think if I make anymore of these with the plain fabric, I will have to add some stitched felt on top.

I have to make one for his little sister now. Her birthday is at the end of the month. Nothing like a deadline to get some motivation! I just hope I can get it done!

Amelia's 4th Birthday

Pretend if you will, that it is still September and I am actually posting this on time. HA! Not likely with the way things have been around our house lately.

This is how we started the day, way back when Amelia turned 4. Present opening in bed with the family.

We were going to have lunch at my parents house and tea at Tim's parents house so we decided to sing happy birthday to Amelia at breaky. I made her a little jam toast stack to put the number 4 sparkler in. Big hit - breaky birthdays. Might have to try and keep that up I think.

The birthday girl at Nanny and Parpy's for lunch. And candles in birthday trifle.

Chocolate cake I made, under Amelia's instructions, which we had at Nan and Pa's house. The aunties and uncles were all there for that.

Here is Amelia with her big present. She had to wait all day for this. I felt mean but we had to give it to her when there was time to ride it! All Amelia really wanted for her birthday was her own "Shakey bike". It took a little while to work out but Amelia wanted a bike that had streamers on the handle bars. We found out that you can buy the streamers separately so when we found the bike but no streamers, the problem was quickly sorted :-)

When Amelia started riding, she had real trouble turning the bike at the gate so she would stop, get off and pick it up and turn it around. Esther and Ellamay bought their scooters into town so they had great fun on them while Amelia rode her bike.

The expression on Amelia's face was priceless. She was so proud of her new bike. And she was concentrating so hard.

Okay, so I am biased. She's a cutie. Cheeky monkey. She has been through more than any child should have to go through by the age of 4. She is still a happy and healthy little girl who loves things that 4 year old girls love. Hello Kitty, green, dressing up, riding her bike and scooter, playing with dolls, talking on her pretend phone and making things.

She also knows that "God is the biggest". If she is afraid or if she sees that someone in the family is upset she will tell them "Don't be scared, don't worry, God is the biggest." I pray that her faith will always be so straight forward and obvious to her. It will see her through all her days.

So better late than never, right? Amelia's birthday was over a month ago and I can hardly believe I am organising Kinder for next year for her!

Once I have uploaded all the photos from last weekends Echidna Day, I will share the all about the animals we saw on our adventure, including the sleepy echidna.

Have a great weekend.

Amelia's birthday

Amelia celebrated her fourth birthday at the beginning of September. (I am so far behind in posting!)

And guess what her big present was? 

Our baby girl is getting big!

Button obsession

I have a thing about buttons. They are useful for all the usual buttony type uses but also for things like entertaining kids and for making pretty things. I had a small stash of buttons. We have looked through them a lot. We use them for pump time entertainment. Buttons are quite a happy thought to me. If I have trouble sleeping or I have had a bad day, I like to think of a quilt shop I went to a couple of years ago that had a huge tub of buttons there. You could buy buttons by the scoopful.

I put the suggestion out months ago to my in laws that I would be perfectly happy with a bagful of buttons for my birthday. Didn't matter if they were new or old. I just wanted more buttons. On my birthday, they certainly delivered. Look at the great supply I received. That terrific buttony bag above which is a perfect project size.

New buttons in all different colours, shapes and sizes.

I was handed this old biscuit tin which felt kind of heavy. I was a little bit excited because old buttons often live in old biscuit tins. It was from Auntie Jill. And it was the family button collection! I let out a shriek. Because isn't that what you do when you discover old buttons in an old biscuit tin?

These are some of my favourites. That dog one is so cute. I wonder what it use to live on?

And those green buttons with the flowers painted on are so pretty.

There were some still on their cards and other interesting treasures in there that often end up in button collections.

I love this sparkly blingy button. What could this have been for? Something super glamorous perhaps? Or maybe it was bought and never used? Now I am hunting out all the things I can make with these buttons. Can't wait to start. :-)

Do you have a crafty happy thought?

Err... 31 again

It happened again. I turned 31. Actually, I turned 33 but I have decided to stay 31 from now on. It doesn't seem anyone is that convinced my plan will work. Whatever. I am not really that worried. If you see my hair suddenly change though - you'll know the few grey hairs I have got the better of me and I've started colouring. :-)

I had a perfectly wonderful day. I woke up to Tim remembering to wish me happy birthday (you only forget your wife's birthday once in your lifetime!). After the kids gave me all their precious creations (I must remember to get some of the pictures on here), the kids had their breaky and we hurried off to school and daycare. I went to town because I booked myself in for a hair cut. That is such a treat. I love to doze off while I get my hair washed. I love the smells at the hair dressers and all the snippets of conversation you hear. And most of all I love how lovely my hair feels when I come out of the hair dressers. I get the hair flick thing happening then :-).

Anyway, I managed to wander some little shops around the hair dressers too. And bought myself a little bird ornament for my growing random collection of cute things. I met my great friend for lunch and we sat and ate chicken wraps while we chatted before she needed to go grocery shopping. I picked up Mum then and we went to Spotlight to buy some random crafty/sewing things.

When Tim got home from work, Tim and the girls carefully carried out a gift for me. It was a new laptop! Spoiled! :-) That kind of distracted the rest of the night then. Tea was late. It was an easy tea and yummy sponge cake for dessert (and candle of course).

So all in all, a great day.

Here are some of the goodies I got for my birthday...

Notice the quilt under the books? My sister-in-law made that one for me. It is so toasty and pretty. I snuggle under it every night on the couch while doing Amelia's physio and after she has gone to bed.

Some cake books, one new, one vintage. The vintage one is so great and shows how to do all manner of icing techniques. When the kids are bigger, I hope to get back to some serious cake decorating again.

Also, I put out the call for buttons for my birthday. I didn't care if they were old or new, I just wanted buttons. I have a slight obsession. Well, I think I have got more than enough buttons now. Although, maybe buttons are like chocolate and you can never have enough?

The buttons are a whole other post :-) So there you have it. It was such a great day. I loved it.

Can't believe we are at the weekend again. The weeks are going by so quickly at the moment. Stand by for a very buttony post coming up soon. Enjoy your weekend. Stay warm (or cold if that's what you need :-]

Matchbox cameras and party craft

I love that when the kids friends come over now, it is just expected that they will be making something. I always wanted to be a mum like that. And what do you know? I am here. So it was natural that we would be doing some kind of crafts while Esther and Ellamay's (un)party was on. I started with the photo booth idea, which lead me to camera's, which seemed like a good theme. Here I was "planning" an (un)party and I now had a theme. Typical. Anyway, this is the main craft we did. It was a big hit.

We used a matchbox, ribbon, card stock, scrap paper, double sided tape and scrapbooking bling.

I cut out some scraps of white card to fit the tray of the matchbox so the kids could draw their own "photos" onto them.

"Say cheese!"

Other (un)party crafts we did were decorating photos mounted on mat board. We used stickers, markers and bling for that one. I had photos of all the kids from another play day together and had them printed for everyone. That was very exciting to everyone because it was pictures of another fun time together. :-)

As a stand by, I printed some frames from here onto A4 sheets and then everyone could make their own masterpiece that was already in a frame. I am keeping a few of these on hand. You never know when someone will need to create a framed artwork.

Call him Art

It was my younger sister's birthday the day before Esther and Ellamay's. She is an artist. She is at university studying fine arts. Least I think that is what the course is called. Anyway, she is an artist. So for her birthday I made her a notebook and pen holder. It needed something else though. Here is what I made for her last year. We kind of have a running moustache thing. So I found out her favourite paint brushes and then turned it into a him. Meet Art.

He took me quite a while to stitch. Too many lengthy breaks in between. Anyway, I quite like him. I stitched on the face last and he suddenly had some personality then. Thankfully. I was terribly worried I was stitching him in vain and he would be neither funny or friendly.

I love the texture of his bristly hair. And the moustache of course. :-)

Photo booth fun

For Esther and Ellamay's birthday, they had some friends over for a little (un)party. See, it wasn't really going to be a proper party. There was no cute invitations. No party games planned. No big lead up. I just planned with my friend (who happens to be the mother of the kids friends - convenient, yes?) to have 3 of her kids over, if every one was healthy and we weren't busy.

My (un)party idea got out of hand of course because how can I look at all the cute stuff on the internet and not get inspired to just make a little bit of stuff? Okay, so I might have went a little overboard. Especially for an (un)party. It's what I do. I planned some making things for the kids to do.

I thought a photo booth would be fun too. I saw these photo booth props linked on facebook. I spent the tedious task of sticking them onto mat board and cutting them out. In hindsight, cereal boxes probably would have done the job... but they were pretty sturdy which is what you need with bouncy kids playing with them.

They went over well, although I think more fun was had with them after the kids left and the grown ups had a turn. :-)

Turns out chocolate malt sticks work as moustache's too.

I will get around to posting the crafts at some point too.

Esther and Ellamay turn 7

I can hardly believe our little baby girls are 7. They are acting so grown up now but are still happy to watch little kids tv shows. They still like to get a cuddle of mummy and daddy, though they are referring to us more as Mother and Father these days. I think that has come from watching Mary Poppins.

Here is Ellamay opening the felt sewing things, hoop and book. All "cool" presents apparently.

Esther opening the Littlest Pet Shop Blythe doll. I was on such a winner with that! The girls have been in love with all the Blythe dolls they have seen on the internet so it was pretty exciting to get their own little ones.

Here is Amelia with her new book. Not her birthday obviously. Does anybody else have to do presents for younger kids on siblings birthdays? I only gave Amelia a couple of things - I hope that by next year she will understand that it isn't her birthday so she doesn't get things.

Here are the birthday ice cream cupcakes the girls had that night. They wanted an ice cream cake. In the middle of winter! My hands were frozen by the time I was done! I saw some ice cream cupcakes that had brownies as a base. Yum. I kind of ran out of time to try that one though. If you are interested, here is the link.

It has been a month since their birthday. I am so slack with the blogging lately. The kids are on school holidays at the moment so I am still fighting for the computer. Perhaps since my birthday is coming up, I can drop a few hints for a laptop of my own (that works) *pretty please with sugar on top*. :-D

More birthday stuff to blog and some other crafty endevours too. See you another day :-)

Thinking about birthdays

Esther and Ellamay are going to be 7 in June. As they are about to be 7, they no longer want "baby stuff". Yikes! Trying to work out what will be good gifts is a bit tricky. I decided to go with some creative gifts. I like to encourage their creativity because I want them to grow up being able to look at something and have the skills to make it themselves if they want to.

Using my vast collection of acrylic felt, I cut out some simple shapes that they can practise their sewing skills on. I also cut out some Little Pink Houses and some owls. Follow the links to find the patterns for them. The owl is actually a pattern for a teething toy. I thought if they don't feel like sewing some of these, the shapes can be glued onto a canvas as a cute picture for the wall. I have packaged each felt project in little click bags and even printed the little house picture out so Esther and Ellamay had a reference for it.

These are some other bits and pieces I have bought for their kit. I am including some coloured elastic head bands that they can sew some of the felt shapes onto.

I have also bought some kids stitching books. I will share those another day though. (Need to take more pictures).

Scraps of a birthday project

Craftiness! Hooray! I do still have a little bit of craft left in me. I know it's been lacking around here. I hope I have got my groove back now. Esther and Ellamay are turning 7 next month. My wee little babies aren't babies anymore. I have been trying to come up with suitable presents for them but have had a hard time this year. They are getting so grown up apparently.

I have been working on sewing kits for them. It was a great idea because I have such a huge stack of acrylic felt to use up and it is perfect for them to learn to sew with. And I can whittle away the stack. Everybody wins! :-)

My next project is to take photos and post them here so you can look at all the pretties.

Hopefully, I can steal a bit more time on the big computer to do that. :-)

Dancing Doodles book

I bought a couple of these books for Esther and Ellamay when they had their grommet operation back in February. They have been pretty popular, even though I think they don't quite get the concept yet.

I bought some more copies to go with the notebook and pen roll holders I have been making up for birthday presents. So far they are going over well. It's great to hit on something that is popular with kids. I just hope they don't all get sick of getting the same thing by the end of the birthday's this year :-)

You can find the Dancing Doodles book here. There are a variety of other books in the same style which I think would be especially suited for older kids maybe. Or grown ups. I did my fair share of colouring and drawing when I was stuck in hospital for weeks waiting for Esther and Ellamay to be born. One of these kinds of books would have been just the ticket!

New notebook and pen holder

Here is the latest project I have been working on. My new (hopefully improved) notebook and pen holders.

Actually, I am calling them notebook and pen roll holders. Does that make sense? Now that I have typed that it kind of looks like it's a holder for notebook and pen roll's. Hmm... Oh well. Maybe you can see what I am getting at when you look at the pictures.

When I made the notebook and pen holders for Esther and Ellamay's birthday's last year, I followed a couple of tutorials I found but mostly just made it up as I went because I wanted the notebook to be held in a different way. The way I made the last ones only had space for ten pens too. I had bought packs that had twelve pens. My solution to this last year was to leave out the grey and the dark blue pen. I figured they would use the other colours more and they could have the extra pens if they wrecked any of the ones they had. This time though, I decided I would make the holder have enough spaces for the full set.

I measured and figured and made a pattern. I wasn't really sure how it would end up but I didn't let that stop me :-) Once I had finished the sewing I put in the pens and notebook. It didn't look right just having it folded in half so I just folded the pens on top of themselves to put it away and think about it for a while. I kept coming back to it and decided that it looked pretty cool they way I had packed it up. So there it was. I attached the button and smiled. A finished project.

I made two pretty quickly (aka: over a couple of days - I had help from Amelia you see) and have two more cut out ready to sew. I now have an excuse to go and buy some more colours of this fabric. The little girl who received the pink one loved it which makes me happy that I persisted with the project and that it didn't disappear into the mid-craft pile (as so many projects often do). And Esther and Ellamay told me that everyone in their class wants one now. It looks like I will be getting a lot better at sewing these too :-)

Meanwhile, don't you just love pretty pens all lined up. I do. Stationery is lovely. I think I might add one of these for me to the list. I deserve one too. What colours to make it though?