Crafting Hit & Misses

Maybe it's all this party planning, but I've been hit by a craft-bug lately.  I had this brILLiant plan to make a colourful diamond pillow for our guest bed, it was all just TOO super exciting.  So I found a quiet moment (rare) and Eleanor and I got our craft on.  Erm.  Faaaaaaail.  When finished, Eleanor looked at it sideways and said, "it doesn't really look how you wanted it to look, does it, Mum."  Soooo close to my vision, argh!  

A few days earlier I gave Eleanor all the supplies needed to create some cards for her friends.  Oh, swoon.  I love.  She wished to write 'welcome' on them, so I gave her the necessary letters.  Her style...  Eleanor looooves to draw, but mostly prefers pen, for capturing small details.  So it was extra fun to see her working with colour.

As for my own failed project, I think I'll try again.  I find sewing a little tedious generally, but I really REALLY want a cool diamond pillow or five!

Advent Crafting

Yes, I assisted with the gluing of facial features, and yes, I showed Eleanor a cool way to bend the pipe cleaners to make hair, but all that aside, look at what my clever children have made!

We had a morning of side-along crafting in prep for the Carnival (which was C-to-the-RAYZAY), and little Miss E swooped up a whopping four prizes for her entries.  She was pretty thrilled, even if she did think that the cupcake she had herself decorated was actually also her prize.  *Shrug*.  Don't mind if I pocket your cash then, Kid? JOKING!!! I let her spend it on horse-rides and crazy jelly glow rings :-D

Intermission:  Some flowers.  A beauteous arrangement, from a dear friend.  And also, stolen from my 'garden' (a prettyish kind of wilderness).

Annnnnnnnnnnyway.  I am quite besotted with these cards (middle by Garland, flanked by Eleanor's masterpieces), in a ridiculous 'it can't just be me that thinks these are amazing, it's not just because they're my kids, THESE CARDS ARE AMAZING!!  LOOK AT THEEEEEEEEM!'  

I assure you, should you step inside my home, I WILL force you to look at these cards, and you will be expected to wax lyrical.

And the grand finale:  A decorated bike.  Girlfriend will never lose her bicycle.  And in case you forgot, each of these Advent activities was foreshadowed by this guy...

Thanksgiving, paper crafts & plans for some sweet Summer salads...

Don't worry about my dirty windows.  They're fine.

On a recent Group Friend Date to see Catching Fire, we managed to convince some friends (who just happen to be American) to host a Thanksgiving dinner for all of us.  It was so lovely celebrating a new (to us) holiday with some of our favourite peops, and the food was *amaze* (singing).  Including some garlic cauliflower mash, that might be my new favourite dish everrrr.

It was a super relaxed affair, lots of eating and talking - yanno.  But we did also fit in some Thanksgiving crafting ^top of post.  Ya.  We are that cool!  

Anyway, with Christmas approaching, and the possibility of MUCH more delicious eating ahead, I'm thinking that Jeremy Dixon's Revive Cafe Cookbook might be my go-to this summer.  The book couldn't have arrived at a more timely moment, as I simultaneously attempt to eat well, and come up with fun recipes to take along to Pot Luck dinners (tis the season).  I kinda wish I'd had a good look through here before we made Loaded Mac and Cheese for Thanksgiving (sooo not healthy eating!), but there's always Christmas!  Salads are in, y'all!

We will shortly host the same little group for a Christmas dinner at our house, and so stayed tuned for some pics of delicious Revive salads... 

Pick up a copy of this cookbook here, find out more about Revive (including where to visit them) here.

A review copy of this book was sent to me, but all opinions expressed remain my own x

Birthday Skirt

This year I tried so very hard to keep up with the self-set goal of hand-making a birthday outfit for this kid.  The skirt was a bit of a fail.  I based it on this one from last year, which is hands-down my favourite sewing idea ever.  It was far less successful this year, perhaps partly due to my fabric choices, which didn't quite pack the same punch.

I 'made' her top buy purchasing a basic tee from Cotton on, and appliquéing remnants of another tee-shirt onto it.  The elephant came from a Christmas top that ended up destroyed after only a couple of outings.  I was kinda pleased to give it a second life, even if my appliquéing technique leaves a lot to be desired...

Lucky lady had a school gala fall on her birthday, so she got to wear some birthday gears to a public event.  And I was just a tiny bit relieved when she asked to wear the skirt.  Mission accomplished...

Play Kitchen

This is how it began.  It began with me finding my dream desk on Trademe, for a mere $10.  I loved that desk.  It was pretty (though in desperate need of a paint job that I was always too busy to give it).  It suited a room.  It kept all my random pieces of paper nice and safe, you know, birth certificates, old bills, kiddo scrawls.  But the desk had a few 'issues', and took me a long while to admit that.

There's Desk!

Desk showing Dollhouse how to be a cool shade of blue.

Behold:

Okay, so it definitely didn't happen overnight.  Here's what we did (I did take some WIP shots, but there are too many After photos to bother adding those too...):

• Cut holes in the desk for the taps, faucet and sink (taps and faucet from Trademe, enamel bowl/sink from our own cupboard).

I also made a few mini tea-towels and a kitchen cloth, just for fun

• Sanded the entire desk and drawers
• Repainted in the same colours as previous

• Cut out a back board, painted it, and attached shelves (we already had the shelves, but Zan sliced them in half so that they would be narrower)
• Added hooks and things

• Removed three drawers and replaced with the smaller drawer that was previously in the centre of the desk, so that it became the 'warmer drawer'
• Made an oven door (total mission, easily the hardest part of the whole reno, and you'll notice that it still doesn't have a handle yet - we ran out of time, and thankfully Eleanor was so distracted by all the pretty things adorning the kitchen, she still hasn't even noticed that there's an oven!)

• Added elements and dials

• Made a 'skirt' to cover the empty space in the centre of the kitchen (where we now store excess toys)
• Made some matching bunting

• Filled it with all the lovely kitchen things that we already had in our collection.  The only new items (other than the kitchen, obviously) are some cute hand-knitted pieces of play food made by Frangipani, and the gorgeous coffee maker that was gifted by Stace

Does Eleanor like it?

Later: Kitchen = dismantled (we had to remove the taps until we can fix them permanently, they were just too tempting... Btw, any tips for removing gunk from gold plating?)

Eventually (with the promise of food) we coaxed her away to open the rest of her presents.  "Oh cute" she said to each one, before rushing back to make us teas and coffees...

Because I've had a few requests for details since posting this - the pastel pots and pans as well as the pastel/polkadot tea set were all part of a larger set that we found at Countdown last Christmas  - $40 - hopefully they will bring it out again this year so that you guys can find a set too!  And in case any of you were wondering about the other items in our kitchen - the wooden baking set (gifted to us a few years back) is from Nature Baby; the little tea set with red polkadots was from an op shop, but I've seen complete sets of these on trademe; the red colander was part of a set that my mum found at Millys Kitchen (or a similar kitchen shop); the plain pastel tea/espresso cup set was a gifted by family in Australia - maybe from Ikea? And the red silicone utensil set was from KMart.  All the other items were thrifted and gifted at various different times...  

And finally: Tiny Ted(s)

I had the most fun with these guys.  It was the quilts.  The quilts made me swoon.

I don't even know when or how I made the decision to create them.  Just found myself cutting wee strips of fabric and sewing them together...

Making is fun, and these were especially fun to make.  It was hard to stop at five, and to be honest, it won't be long before I make a whole bunch more.  For what purpose?  Who knows.  For fun.

Goodbye little bears!  All heading off to new homes... I'm glad we're keeping one...