The last day of being 4....

The smallest member of our family turns 5 tomorrow.  Five!  Blink and you miss it.  Seriously!

 

Who doesn't remember those last final moments before you meet your new person?!

 

 We were a little jaundiced.

 

Turning 1 with a babushka party.

 

 

Turning 2 with Humpty Dumpty and our obsession with all things Play School!

 

 

Turning 3 with That Rainbow Cake from Pinterest!!!

 

 

Turning 4 with an almost life size Peppa Pig cake!

 

 And here we are, almost being 5....

 

Stop.  I want to get off now.



December 1st 2013

I know today is traditionally putting the Christmas tree up day, but I was feeling a little stressed during the week and popped it up a few days ago!  The smalls did help with the decorating with most of their 'kinder craft' taking pride of place at the rear of the tree!!! And exactly how does one manage to choose the child that gets to put the star on top of the tree when all three where throwing epic tantrums regarding who deserved the honour?  Send them all to bed then sneak a child number 1 out, whisper to them not to tell their siblings and let child number 1 do the star.  Return them to their bed, remove the star, go to child number 2 and repeat the above process.  Rinse and repeat for child number 3.

 

Score 1 for the parents.

 



 

We haven't had Christmas stockings in the past but I found this wonderful pattern in Granny Square Love by Sarah London and before I knew it I'd whipped three up from some leftover yarn (hence the non traditional Christmas colour mix)!

I spent last night and today filling our advent bunting I made.  I have tried to fill it with little Christmas notes, a few chocolatey treats and some small trinkety bits.  The notes say things like, "Let's all watch a Christmas movie together!", "Let's go for a Christmas House Lights search tonight".  There are loads of lovely non-chocolatey advent ideas on the interwebs! 

 

We also nipped down to the local shopping centre today for our photo with Santa. 

$42 later....

 



 

How's your Christmas decorating coming along?  Please tell me no-one has finished their shopping yet because I have not even started!!!

Dishcloth Swapsies Number Two!

Round two of One Crafty Mumma's dishcloth swap has been going strong. 

 

I followed this simple pattern for all of mine and am seriously considering whipping up some more as teacher gifts this year.  Who doesn't love handmade!!!???

You can see some of the lovely creations on her blog (including mine!).  I was super impressed with the ones I received in the previous round and can't wait to see what arrives in this one.

 

 

Since they are all made with 100% cotton you really can use them as dishcloths. They wash up quite well although I do tend to keep them away from manky saucepans of any kind!

 

 

It's beginning to look a wee bit like Christmas...

 

I spied some beautiful cards the other day that had doilies sewn into them and felt all inspired to do my own. With Christmas fast approaching and this simple and easy pattern from The Royal Sisters I've ended up with these...

                  

   I've made them in the past as bunting too which I will be doing again this year!

Is anyone else freaking out about Christmas Day being one month from today!!!???

 

I am literally about to go and get the tree out of the garage so I can do a decoration sort before the tree goes up on December 1st.  Really, it was such poor planning on my part to birth a child in early December as I always feel like my head can't cope with birthday parties and Christmas prep all at once!

Garden Party Prep!

We are in full swing at the moment with a certain young lady's fifth birthday fast approaching.  Initially she was quite keen on having a trampoline party at Bounce but their rules and regulations surrounding 'junior jumpers' were quite strict so I had to give her free rein of the birthday cake books instead to try and come up with another idea.  Smitten with the ladybug cake from the Women's Weekly book we have settled on a garden party at home - no boys thank you very much and can she please lock her brothers in their bedrooms for the duration!

 

I, of course, turn straight to Pinterest for party inspiration these days and as luck would have it the wonderful Maxabella loves had just had a beautiful garden party with lots of lovely ideas for me to pinch... I mean copy... I mean borrow!

 

 

 

Tissue paper and pipecleaner party invites.  Hand delivered to all our wee friends given their delicacy!

 

How good are $2 shops these days?!  I scored these gorgeous flowery head wreaths and a collection of these sweet mini milk bottles with bunting for each party guest!

Another gorgeous tutorial I found was over at My Poppet, (who incidentally also had a garden party for her sweet daughter) to make these wonderful paper butterflies!  I confess to being obsessed!

 

And of course I started with rectangular paper which then needed to be made into squares so with the off cuts I was forced to make even more butterflies, the mini version!

 

 

 

They are now quite happily fluttering around about above my head in my craft room on a home made mobile!

 

 

One of the shops were giving away some cardboard angel wings the other day so I have traced around that one on to some more coloured card and attached some elastic so the party guests will be able to decorate their own 'butterfly' wings.

 

I have a beautiful dress for the birthday girl to wear on the day, borrowed from a lovely girlfriend, so of course I needed one for myself!

 



 

Little Tienda Dress

Just excuse the dirty mirror and the dorky selfie!

 



 

 

 

 

 

 



One Crafty Mumma's Dishcloth Swap

 

These wee dishcloths are off to Tassie tomorrow after I whipped them up this week so I could participate in Mel's Aussie dishcloth swap.  I've always quite liked the idea of crafting something up to swap with someone else and have done a couple swapsie things in the past - here and here.  I think one just has to be careful not to participate in something that's going to overwhelm you so this dishcloth swap was perfect!  They come together so quickly and are almost too pretty to use.  I made these with Panda Herron which is 100% cotton so perfect to use for washing!

Getting my late night craft on!

What's a girl to do when she spies Pip's crafty larksfoot iPad cover in the new Mollie Makes Crochet book but to go right ahead and make it!

 

I just used some left over wooly yarn I had from another project to create a bit of a rainbow.  It whipped up super fast (took me two nights and just a couple of episodes of True Blood...which I am secretly addicted to!!!!) and the pattern was very easy to follow.  Makes me want to use it again on a larger blankety style project. 

 



 

 

Click here for a linkyloo to Pip's larksfoot pattern on her blog.

 



The tooth fairy

Get the rotten child?!  I am assuming that is an updated version of tiggy!

And the tooth fairy (otherwise known as daddy's wallet) did indeed leave $20.  How could she not when a note like that is left for her!? And it was a front tooth!

 

Days later....

The second big tooth get's the wobbles!

Poor tooth fairy!

 

 

 

 

"To the tooth fairy.  I have lost my very big tooth.  My dad pulled it out when I was drying myself.  I got dressed and mum came home and I showed her.  It is like $12.95.  Now I have no front teeth.  From Isaac Robinson"

 

$12.95... Well, that's the price of the bug magazine the newsagent is currently selling with the awful dead scorpions and spiders moulded into clear plastic that go with it!

The Joys of Relief Teaching

 (a recording with an image of my shoe cause it's probably not the done thing to record strangers children then post them all over your blog!)
 

Oh, the joys of relief teaching.  There are many good ones... no reports, no staff meetings, np parent teacher interviews, scampering off as soon as the bell goes, no planning, no preparation...

 

The flipside.

Taking music for two days.  When I have no musical skill.  And the grade threes have recorder practice.

At least in a crisis, I'm your gal for a kickass Mary Had A Little Lamb rendition!

My creative space... The sunny spread

A while ago I came across an pattern called the Sunny Spread.  'Twas pretty and quite yellow.  I pinned it and then promptly forgot about it.  Then I came across the beautiful crochet work of Dover and Madden, and quite clearly I was so enamoured I had to copy her!  I realise this is soooooo not the done thing and is quite frowned upon by crafty types but I'm not selling this, or mass producing it or anything.  It's merely a wee blanket gift for my brother, his wife and their soon to be baby (girl!!! so they say!!!). 

 

The pattern itself is so super simple and so lovely!  Those raised sections are created by crocheting behind a stitch as the circle increases.  Super Clever!

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's not a huge blanket and is really only intended to be used in the pram or praps in a cradle when the lovely wee baby comes home.  I should also have blocked it, something I have never done with my crochet because I am a lazy crafter.  I think I shall just sit something heavy on it and hope for the best!

 

How can one not include a photo of the craft project with peeping toes on display?!  This is standard crafty instagram fare when photographing blankets right?!

 

Then I tried to get toooo crazy....

This is totes supposed to be one of those shots of the crafty type with their crafty blanket floating beautifully next them... looking all crafty, serene and clever. 

Perhaps not.

Work in progress....

Poor me.  I am having such a blah day.  No reason really, 'cept I'm feeling on the sluggish, fat side and I turn 38 next week which is really not that far away from 40.  Poor me.  Play the violins.  I should probably not have eaten the entire wee tub of chocolate covered proper fresh raspberries that I bought home from Tassie with me.  Or the marshmallow chocolate snowballs from the chocolate factory.

 

Something that always makes me feel better is to pleasantly waste the day away on Pinterest looking at pretty things. 

 

I came across this pretty thing recently and knew straight away it would be perfect for my brother's as yet unborn baby of no known sex!

 

I loved the greys, the yellow and the black in it and am shamelessly copying the beautiful colour palette that Vicki has produced in this blanket.

 

The pattern is called Sunny Spread and is really simple to follow and looks amazing as a finished square.  It has this quite funky stitch called a front post treble crochet where you make your treble behind a previous stitch which then creates the ridges you see on the square!  Very fancy!

 

 

 

 

 

Has anyone ever actually tried crocheting with black wool?!  Well nigh impossible!  Wear glasses!  And have a good light right behind you!  And squint!

 

 

 

So far I have only done the border on one circle just to see what she looks like and I think it's marvellous!  It may need blocking though as they all have a tendency to curl up on themselves.