School holidays

Long time, no blog! 

I've been hearing the whip crack, so I thought I'd give an update on what we got up to in the school holidays.  I love school holidays!  They usually seem to go so quickly, but this time they seemed to slow down a little, so I felt like we got to enjoy it more! 

Tassy had wanted to do some crafting, so we did a bit of fimo modelling, glass painting and scrapbooking.  (I now realise that I didn't photograph Tassy's glass painting or fimo LOL.  The scrapbooking is hers tho!)

 

 I dragged Tassy along to Jazzercise each day, much to her chagrin.  So I took her to the shops after each class for a bit of a treat.  One day we went to San Churro (oh my goodness - LOVE!), then we saw Maleficent at the movies, which we also loved!  Here she has a hot chocolate we were sharing at San Churro - I won't make that mistake again.  We shared evenly, but half a hot chocolate is not enough!  By the way, she mustn't have hated coming to Jazz too much, because last weekend she ASKED if she could come with me - she wanted to do an hour of "nothing" (she drew pictures the whole time).

And we tried a few new recipes.  I'd always wanted to make honeycomb.  It was fun and easy and turned out pretty well, except next time I won't cook it as long as the recipe says...

A year or two ago mum gave my sisters and I a copy of the Women's Weekly Little Squares and Slices cookbook.  She loved it when she bought herself a copy, especially loving the styling.  She found out later that her friend's daughter was the stylist!  And she'd used a lot of her mother's and grandmother's tableware.  which made mum love the cookbook even more!  It is a beautiful book and I am working my way through the recipes.  This time we made raspberry chocolate brownies and boy they were so good.  I do love a good brownie, but with the addition of tart raspberries - wow!

Tassy also had a sleepover for a friend's birthday, which was aaaaalmost a 24 hour sleepover!  Although, of course, not a lot of sleep was had.  I think they got about 5 hours sleep and surprising Tassy wasn't obnoxious the following day.  Maybe she can handle it better as she gets older.  They went ice skating too - it was 24 hours of party!  It was really nice for Tassy's parents too, who tried a new restaurant and enjoyed some quality time.  Oh, two new restaurants actually, cos we went out for dinner then lunch the following day!

Handmade gifts

I made a couple of little gifts this year. I made this bauble for my parents using street directory maps of the suburbs they grew up in and the suburb they live in now. It made mum cry so I guess it was a hit! Then I made them for my sisters using their current suburbs, and my Auntie using the suburb she's lived in for the last 30 years. Oh, and I just made one for us today - better late than never!

This is mum and dad's.

I really wanted to make Tassy some Christmas jarmies. My original idea was to buy a nice Christmas Tshirt and make some matching jarmie shorts, but do you think I could find a NICE Christmas Tshirt? I loved one in the Kmart catalogue with a sweet deer on the front, but when I went to buy one I realised they only went up to kids size 6. Do'h! So in the end I appliquéd on a plain red Tshirt, using a design from the Mollie Makes Christmas book (a Christmas present from Lea).

I bought the gorgeous holly fabric in Spotlight before Christmas for the princely sum of $3/m! And I used some vintage trim given to me by a friend, so all up they probably cost less than $2. I had the Tshirt done before Christmas but only did the shorts last night. Again, better late than never!

And all my family got involved in a cookie swap. We have cookies coming out our ears!! We've already eaten lots but here's what we have left! Mine are the pistachio and cranberry wreaths in the first picture and Tassy's are the little reindeer near the bottom.

Gingerbread (edible and not)

Every year I buy the gingerbread house kit from Aldi - once I bought the train which was cute too. None of us like gingerbread to eat, we just like to make it look pretty... and then eat the lollies. Surprisingly I think they look pretty different each year. This red and green one from a few years ago is a favourite.

We made this one last weekend.

I printed some cardstock gingerbread houses from this blog. They are absolutely adorable! If you want a super quick and easy craft to do with kids, this is it! Just cut, fold and glue-stick. They would be cute with some glitter added too... in fact... I only just thought of that, so I might go and do it!

Crafting

I had heaps of fun using some tiny fabric scraps to make these little birdies. I made some hanging ornaments and some smaller ones for brooches. Thank you Pinterest for this inspiration! How I love you!

Bunting necklace

I love bunting necklaces but hadn't found one that I really liked. So I thought I'd try making my own. I was inspired by this pin. I had some red faux leather, cut out the triangles and painted each one a different colour. I even painted the red one because I wanted it to have the same texture as the other colours.

Then I punched holes at the top, joined the triangles together with little rings, and threaded wire onto each end. I used a necklace clasp to join them together.

Ideally if I made one again I would make the flags a bit smaller, but I do love it!

One up

Tassy had been planning her tenth birthday party for months. She decided early on that she wanted a video game themed party. Then the pressure was on - constantly "What games can we play?". She wasn't talking about playing video games (good, cos I wouldn't go for that) but video game themed party games. Have you heard of any? No, me neither. More on that later....

I happened upon an awesome idea for invitations on Pinterest. There's a link to the printable pattern there. It went perfectly with our video game theme and our love of pop up cards and books! I SO love these invitations. Although my fingers didn't love them.

Tassy dressed up as Princess Peach, complete with yellow umbrella with a smiley face. I didn't get a photo of her with props but dad snapped this one out the front - also featuring her follow-the-pacman-to-the-front-door. It's a bit hard to see with the dappled light.

I think what might have originally given Tassy the idea of a video game party was an ice cube tray we've had for a while. She asked if we could use it to make chocolates and I said yes. I think her brain ticked on from there... The chocolates turned out pretty cool!

She requested some toad cupcakes too.

Now for some games!

It took me a month or so before I came up with the idea of "Character Bingo". Tassy chose and downloaded 24 pictures of game characters and I put them into 14 bingo sheets. This was no easy task cos each bingo sheet had to be different! But the game was a big hit. After all the work I put into it I won't be deleting the files from my computer so sing out if you'd like me to email you 14 bingo sheets!

While Tassy was surfing the net she found all the versions of Mario through the years and thought it would be fun to play "Chrono-Mario". So I gave each person a pile of Marios and they had to arrange them in chronological order. Can you work out the order?

We also played a version of Celebrity Heads using the same video game characters from Bingo. It was good to have the Bingo sheet to refer to cos I don't think anyone knew ALL the characters. I didn't get a photo of that game {sad face}. And we did pass the parcel too. Tassy thought they might be too old for PtP but I said my friend's 16yo daughter requested it at her recent birthday party LOL.

It must be time for cake! I had been to keen to do a rainbow cake for Tassy's birthday last year but she had other ideas. She also had other ideas for this year but I talked her into a rainbow Pacman cake. :) The cake looked fantastic inside!

Lastly - party bags! I remembered seeing things printed onto brown paper bags on Pinterest a while ago so thought I'd try printing Pacman games onto some paper bags. I found a picture of a game, removed the black background, then attempted printing. My printer must have been hungry cos it ate quite a few of the paper bags. I had about a 50% success rate but I didn't give up and in the end I got enough. I do love how they turned out!

Even before her party day she had chosen her theme for next year. Movies!

Handmade gifts

I love making gifts. I feel a bit weird making gifts for people who aren't crafty... I think that instead of appreciating the thought, planning, seeking out of supplies and crafting time (as well as money) that's gone into the gift, that instead they will think I'm cheap. So I only really make gifts for people who I think will appreciate them.

Like my dear friend Lea who had a birthday recently.

I bought an unframed tapestry at an oppie recently. I loved the rose design and knew exactly who would love it and thought I might turn it into a cushion. It had obviously been stitched without a frame and was really warped (bummer - forgot to photograph it then!). The square was warped into a diamond shape. But I thought I could rescue it. I soaked it in water for a day or two, then stretched it out in a frame for about a week. Then ironed it to help hold the square shape. I made it into this cushion, backing it with some vintage sheeting. And I love it.

We suffered two wardrobe malfuctions when we were away on holidays in January. The strap broke on one of my dresses, and Tassy put a hole in her leggings. I thought a sewing kit would have been handy! So then and there I started thinking about making one for Lea's upcoming road trip. I thought about what would be handy to have in a tiny sewing kit, and then made up a little pouch to hold the goodies. I remember Lea told me once she loved this floral fabric.

It has pockets for the scissors and tape measure.

Do you like giving handmade gifts to crafty friends and family? How about those who aren't crafty - do you give them handmade gifts too?

New cushion

I admired a teatowel in Adairs last year when I was shopping with mum so she bought it for me for Christmas. I love the design so much, but when I hung it from my oven handle I realised all I could see was the tree trunk LOL. Either that or an upside down tree top. So I decided to repurpose it so that I can appreciate the gorgeous design, and I turned it into a cushion! It was actually a triple pack and I used a graphic design teatowel from the pack for the back. I completely sewed it up without a zipper, cos really... how often do you wash cushion covers? Me? Never!

Sunday Crafternoon

Tassy loves a crafternoon. I bought some dolly pegs at a cheapo shop a few days before and she was super keen to make some peg dolls. I said I was going to make Little Red Riding Hood, so she decided hers had to be themed too. Can you guess what it is?

Bloggy advent calendar DAY 26

More inspiration from Pinterest! Oh Pinterest - how you inspire me...

I can't remember exactly what I saw on Pinterest but it gave me the idea of making bird ornaments from air dry clay. I rolled out the clay (between two sheets of baking paper, otherwise it's sticky and messy) and laid a piece of lace on top of the clay and rolled again. It leaves a great impression in the clay. Then I cut them out using cookie cutters and left them to dry overnight. The next morning I rubbed some metallic rub-ons I've had for like, ever, over the birds to highlight the design. Metallic rub-ons are kinda like creamy eye shadow (as opposed to scrapbooking style rub-on images).

This trio is on a mirror near the front door and although I made them for Christmas I'm thinking I'll leave them there year round.

I made tree ornaments for my mum and sisters too, using stamps to write "mother" and "sister". This one was the first and it's a dud cos the words are too close to the lace, so I kept it for myself. I rubbed a pearly metallic rub-on onto this one and it's nice and subtle, and almost impossible to see in the photo LOL.

Christmas pinspiration

Thank you Pinterest for inspiring me again with this picture! It was mum's idea to use music paper and isn't it beautiful? I made it in the same way as the fabric bauble.... gluing the torn music paper to the styrofoam ball with Aquadhere, then smearing Aquadhere over the top. I'll have to make another one and sprinkle with glitter like the one on Pinterest.

A Blythe dress

I wanted to show you a little dress I made for a friend recently. I made lots of clothes for Tassy's first Blythe doll before she arrived for Tassy's birthday in May and I don't think I've posted any of them on my blog yet! I'll have to make amends. Tassy has taken lots of photo of them posing. Hmmmm... maybe that could be a blog topic in January. :) Great idea!

Anyway... here's the dress I made recently. I thought it might be a nice Christmassy dress, but suitable for the whole year too. I used some fabric I love from an Op Shop and some of Dianna's vintage trims. Tassy loves it and has put in an order for one the same for her dolls. Ohhh... I think I've actually run out of time to make one before Christmas!

Bloggy advent calendar DAY 20

Here's a Christmas ornament I made recently. Thank you Pinterest for the inspiration, as always! Here's the one that inspired me. I love that it uses tiny scraps of fabric. I had plenty of tiny scraps of red fabric. I used aquadhere (just cos it was handy) to glue the scraps to a styrofoam ball, and spread aquadhere over the fabric as I went too, just spreading it out with my finger. It was so easy and not messy - I did it sitting on the couch watching TV.