Some kids aprons that I made to sell at our car boot sale that I organised to fundraise for our mainly music group. You can't see them very well because it was a bit windy!
Pencil rolls for the market and I also made a lot of other funky pencil cases and hair clips etc. Sold really well.
This is the latest quilt. For my baby Joash.
A very dotty spotty quilt with dotted minkee on the bottom.



My goodness, it's been so long since I have written here. Much has been going on. I have had more birthday parties to create, and bake for, and markets that I have been organising and selling my creations at, and of course...more quilts! By the way you should check out Poppy Bean and Bloss for a great giveaway at the moment!

Hey everyone..check out the fantastic giveaway at the moment from Handmade Kids. It's heaps of gorgeous stuff.

No photos

I know I know....it's been ages since my last post. But I really do have some good excuses..and well yes..some bad ones too.!
It's that long ago I can't even remember what the first reason was...I think that I was sick. Then the kids have been sick and then there has been all the birthday parties. I think nearly the entire class of year 2's were all born in the same month! I am going broke with all the gifts. I would like to think that I could craft them all something, but there just hasn' t been any time. I have been busy sewing and crafting for my own childrens parties. I would love to be posting photos of everthing I have been making and doing, but one of those reasons for not writing has been that I like to have photos to post each time and so I have waiting until I could. You see, my camera died and I have been waiting for a new one which I have now, but have already misplaced, somewhere amongst the chaos and clutter of material and piles of washing...the downloading wire attachment thingy. So no photos until I find it! So I shall describe my projects to you and you can just use your imaginations.

I finally finished the quilt for Jemima. I then made loads of toadstool cushions as you do when your daughter is having a fairy party. They are red material with white felt dots all over them that I blanket stitched on to look like the toadstools. Now this whole party was going to be in the garden and so we had been working really hard on finishing all the garden beds and we made a sandpit in one corner that looks like a beach with dune plants along the edge and drift wood sitting on the sand. Eventually we will paint a mural on the wall behind. I planted Lavender around the edge of the new clothes line so that the washing can brush against it smell absolutely delicious. My new no-dig garden beds for the veggies are ready to be planted out now and I created a new herb garden by the back door complete with a pond.
We created an area that was to be the for the fairy garden that the girls were going to plant. However after all this work leading up to the party..it poured solidly for nearly two weeks. There was no way the girls were going to be able to go and dance around as fairies outside. So with only a day left I had to come up with something for inside. So a quick dash to the shops, I came home with two king sized pink and white checkered flannelette flat sheets that I stitched together at one end and hung over a rod from the ceiling to create a tent. We pinned the corners to funiture and on the ends I hung purple organza and pinned fake flowers all over the whole thing. It did look very inviting. Underneath I laid the new quilt that I had made her and placed all the toadstool cushions under there. I then whipped up a bunting of beautiful fabric triangles and hung it across the room. The dining table was covered with fairy glitter and stars and beaded wire in the centre and lots more flowers. We had merangue grubs, fairy cakes, marzipan toadstools, fairy bread (of course) and tiny teacups made with tic toc buiscuts for the saucer and marshmallows as the cups with a freckle chocolate as the froth on top and a half a life saver as the handle. They were very cute. A dolly varden cake made up as a fairy was a big hit too.
After party games the girls then went out onto the verandah to plant the fairy garden into an old tin bath tub. They loved doing this and then placed the iron fairy into it and sprinkled it with fairy dust (loads of fairy dust!) and made wishes. They then danced around the verandah catching all the bubbles from the bubble machine. Ahhh, success. Everyone had a lovely time and went home with an organza bag filled with lolly necklaces and a miniture fairy ornament, a tiny bottle of fairy dust and a wand, and other bits and pieces.
They all looked lovely and Jemima loved her new fairy costume that I made. An underdress of shimmering silver material and a skirt of green, pinks and puple strips of tulle and that sort of material, and peices of fluffy rainbow wool. A lovely jacket with a flared skirt in a shimmering pink material over the top with some wings velcroed on and of course the ballet slippers and hair plaited with flowers to adorn!
Lots of work but lots of fun.

Eli had also had a party before all that. A movie night party. We opened the front widow that was adorned with fairy lights as the ticket booth. They had to present their tickets ( the invitations) as they arrived to come in and recieved a popcorn box full of goodies for the movie. The lounge room once again was decorated with strips of film hanging across the ceiling. Good movie night food was easy...pizza & popcorn. They cake was also looked like a piece of film. They watched a movie projected on the wall while sitting on beanbags. Now 6 eight year old boys I thought, in my naivety, would sit quietly and watch the movie but no...they jumped, and wrested and had pillowfights (yes it was a sleepover). Fun was had with not much sleep.

Now parties are all over and I am exhausted but still lots of crafting to be done. My baby turns one in August so I am working on a quilt for him.
Another quilt that I am working on is called a Daisy Chain quilt. It is for a friend of mine who just lost her first baby three days before she was due. She named her Daisy.

Op shopping

This weeks op shop finds. I have always wanted a set of these colourful tin cups in the zip up leather case. My uncle had a set for camping in his caravan and as a child I always adored them. Now I have some for my children.
A new basket for my knitting....love it
This soccer game was a big hit straight away and it folds up into a carry case.

I always look forward to browsing in the op shops or going to garage sales to see what treasures I can find. Loving these ones this week.

Grateful Mothers Day

365 Reasons to be Grateful was the topic that I spoke on at our Mothers Day service on Sunday. That is why I had not posted anything on here since early last week as it was a big week preparing a beautiful creative morning to celebrate all those fantastic mothers out there. I inspired for the idea from an article in a magazine `Notebook' about a woman that took photos of things that she was grateful for to help her overcome depression. She took one photo a day for 365 days. I started to do the same and it really does change you as you do become more grateful. We can be grateful for our lovely children and families and for life. I am. My children brought me some bacon and eggs on toast in bed. That was after setting the smoke detector off and dropping the best bit of the egg on the floor! But another freshly cooked egg made it to me along with a nice cup of tea in my new mug.
The above photo is the little soaps that we gave each of the ladies that came to our service on Sunday. Aren't they cute? Some were about to eat them as I forgot to mention that they were actually soap!!

I have almost finished Jemima's new quilt. I love it and so does she. I just have to get it all quilted together now. Next I will be making toadstool cushions for the fairy party. Each child will sit on a lovely red with white felt polkadots toadstool cushions at the fairy tea party on the new quilt in the fairy garden. I don't know who is more excited about it. Jemima or me!

I was going through some boxes of things that have been stored in the cupboard for a long long time and Jemima found this outfit. It was my Genie costume for ballet when I was her age. I think I may have been a bit taller. So she has had it on since she got home from school today and wanted to wear it to bed. I think it will be a hit for quite awhile sepecially with some jingly jangly jewelery to adorn. This evening I shall continue to piece together Jemimas new quilt.


New books...Love love love Debbie Bliss creations. Can't wait to start on some of these. Recieved a package in the mail today from my wonderful Mum. She sent me a number of her knitting magazines and books. Had a lovely afternoon browsing through them while the rain was pouring outside on all the washing I had just hung on my new clothes line...not happy about that...but loved the rain all the same.





Some new additions to the family. The guinea pig came a week ago and was promptly named `scratch' although I think it's name has changed several times since. The chickens finally arrived yesterday and are settling in well it seems. There are 4 new ones that are looking a bit poorly compared to the one chooky that I already had who is quite used to free-ranging the back yard. They should condition up well soon enough. There are plenty of slugs and snail and so on to go around all of them. I love the excited cackle that they make when they find one.

My Garden

These are some shots I took of my garden. Well actually things that go in my garden when the garden gets made. I am about to set up a new permeculture garden of sorts. I had a veggie patch but after the birth of my third child it kind of got neglected. I am very keen to get it started again however and very motivated to start since we built the new clothes line. It's a lot more fun when everyone is outside woking together on project. So I'm hoping we all have some time on the weekend. My husband did just get his boat back after not having it for a month however, so I may not see him for a month! Not if the fish are biting!

A lovely Day

It was a lovely day today. I went outside early thismorning after a downpour overnight and filled my lungs with the wonderful fresh air with a hint of smoke from someones chimney. I wish I had a fireplace. My new clothesline is still waiting for a load of washing to hang on it because it has been too wet.
A bit of a look around the op shop today and I found an old typewritter which the kids were absolutely thrilled with and began publishing stories straight away. I enjoyed the sound of the click clack as I sat at the sewing machine and made Joash yet another pair of pants, this time out of an old shirt of daddy's. Look out Daddy, you may have no shirts left! Nice and easy as the side seams and hems were already sewn! I got the idea out of Amanda Soule's book `The Creative Family'.
Whilst out in the car today I snapped some shots of a chubby bubby in the carseat. Lovely.
Now the house is still as the children are settled in bed and all is well. Time for a cup of tea.

A new washing line cont.

A new washing line

Saturdays....I love saturdays. A slow start to the day no rushing around ironing uniforms and packing lunches, but taking our time to enjoy breakfast. Then on with the music up nice and loud and dancing around whilst cleaning up the house after a long week. Then it's outside for the rest of the day.
Today we were making a new old fashioned clothes line for mummy (and daddy or whoever else might feel the urge to hang out some washing). Everyone pitched in to help (Joash excused).
How satisfying it is to do a good days hard work and see the finished product by sundown! Eli enjoyed helping Dad using the man tools... drill, and hammer. Whilst mum and dad broke their back shovelling a tonne of rocks the kids filled buckets with the rocks and transported them to under the new clothes line. I am sure we will all feel the pain tomorrow.
I have always wanted one of these types of old clothes lines. There is something satisfying about seeing long rows of sweet smelling washing hanging on lines. Speaking of sweet smelling, I am going to plant some sweet peas in the old wash tubs so that the washing can brush against them and I shall also plant some lavenders along the edge of the stones. Lovely.
Our day ended by lying on the trampoline looking up at the sky as the sun shone from behind highlighting some clouds....another lovely. So now to do some washing! Perhaps after a bit of sewing that is...hehe! P.S. I had photos to post with this but I can't seem to get it to work tonight so they shall have to follow in another post!

A pair of new pants for Joash, made from an old vintage cot sheet...too cute!
A jelly roll! Don't you love that name for this roll of precut beautiful fabrics?!
My favorite book at the moment...The Creative Family by Amanda Soule that author of my favourite blog site.
Whoops I added the same photo twice...I'll get the hang of doing this soon..

I have finally finished my mothers day quilt and now onto the next. Had a lovely morning in the patchwork shop and picked out some beautiful soft vintage pastels for a log cabin quilt for my girl Jemima. She is turning 6 in June which just amazes me. Where did those years go? She wants a fairy tea party and what better way to dish up a fairy tea party than on a lovely new quilt in the park. Better get cracking to finish it in time then.

Yay...I finally have a blog of my own. I have so much to share that I really needed to start one. I shall fill you all in on my home, family, crafting, gardening, and cooking adventures. I may be a little slow to start with as I learn the ropes and get the hang of blogging but bear with me. So until next time I leave you with a look at my favorite things in my life at present.