Little Red Riding Hood

Here is Lilly's bookweek costume from last month.

Little Red Riding Hood

 We did quite a bit of recycling and reusing for this outfit.

 

The red cape was mine when I was a little girl and is in super condition considering its 30 years old!  I lived in this thing, it was actually a super hero cape that my Grandmother made me and in later years she added the hood when I needed a bookweek costume.

We used the Handmade Dress Miss Madeline pattern again, but had to upsize it a bit to fit Lilly girl now she is a size 12.  We also reused a favourite doily, that was on a Miss Madeline dress a while back.

We used some cute red embroidered ribbon on the hem too.  And made a simple basket liner which Lilly wanted to fill with cookies for her classmates.

 Pretty girl picking flowers from our garden bright and early in the morning.

Joey's 5th Birthday...party food, cake and scavenger hunt

 Finally here some pictures of the rest of Joey's 5th birthday party back in July!!

We had lots of yummy food, choc dipped strawberries, cupcakes, cheerios, raspberry coconut white choc chip muffins, fruit, special teacup biscuits and a few other things cause it was that long ago I've forgotten!

 Here are Joey's version of the teacup lolly biscuits, no handles, smarties on top- something different from the girlie teacup.

A couple of years ago, Stephen built me a 3m not so wide trestle table esp for kids parties, it also doubles as my sewing table.  Each year I make a new tablecloth for it using Spotlights spots and stripes.  I get about 3.5m and just hem each end, and it makes the perfect tablecloth, this year I added a blue spotty one to our collection.

There were over 25 kids at the party, it was cold and to be honest am a bit over party games esp pass the parcel.  My clever cousin suggested a scavenger hunt!  I drew 8 items that  you would find at a park (we did a trial hunt to test it!) and printed out 25 copies and glued them on brown paper bags.

It didn't take the kids long to gather the items.  We scattered around a few feathers for them to find as well.

Here is Joey and Poppa scavenging at the park.  The game suited all ages as the pictures helped the little ones who couldn't read.

Here is the line up presenting their bags and me checking the items.  I think I gave them a freddo frog each for all items, some big kids were sent back to get the correct stuff!

Here is Lilly's collection of stuff.

And now the birthday cake, the brief was lollies, milky way tiny teddy cars, soccer, aeroplanes!

So I just made a number 5 cake and went crazy with all those things.  Joey loved it and helped me decorate it too.

It was a cold cold day but very colourful!

Happy 5th Birthday big boy, love you lots.

Joey's 5th Birthday Part 1...making of the Pinata

As requested I made a pinata for Joey's birthday party.  This time, I allowed enough time to get it dry between layers of newspapers instead of putting the wet mess every night in the bathroom with the heater light on as I had to do for Lilly earlier this year.

I did this pinata properly, adding the rope to hang it between the layers of paper.  p.s. I use newspaper and pva glue watered down to make the pinata over a big balloon and for the last layer, instead of the glue, I make a thick floury paste to coat the newspaper.  This makes it really hard, you can see the coating of flour in the pic above.  When its dried well, you cut a small opening and pop the balloon and do your best to remove the balloon bits.

Then add lollies, wrapped ones are best since they'll be heading for the ground!

This is a photo inside the pinata.  Then seal up the trap door with some more paper and glue and allow to dry.  Joey decorated his pinata with streamers and his sister made some cute signs to go on it, see pic below.

Here is the birthday boy in the park with his pinata.

He loved it!  I loved it, so colourful!

You are too cute Joe boy! I love yoU!

Time to smash it!

All the kids got a go of giving it a good whack with the soft baseball bat.

Joey got the final hit making a big hole in the side.

Scavenging for lollies!

These things cost next to nothing to make and are way better to smash up than the bought ones, they do take time to make though but well worth it.

Stay tuned for the party food segment and the awesome party game segment...

Bunting and lots of it!

I decided to make aprons and bunting to decorate our school fete cafe!

I think I am a little crazy!

The fete is not for a few more weeks, but Joey turns 5 this Sunday and his park party needs this bunting.

So, together with Lilly and Joey, we made bunting! Lots and lots, about 25 metres I think.

It looks awesome here in our lounge room.  I moved the sewing station upstairs for the ordeal, too cold down in the garage at this time of year.

I need to thank a couple of people/things...Lilly and Joey for being so well behaved while I sewed and sewed and my bias binding maker for assisting me with the 30 odd metres of white bias we made together!!

I took a break mid-bunting yesterday, to make this cute cord skirt for Lill.

I sewed on a small granny square I had laying around, it looks very cute.

Today's Projects

Today Kimmy and Wolf came over.

The kids played and we did a bit of craft. 

I have been saving tins to mod podge so we did a little bit.

The conversations are unreal when we are doing this stuff.

Alot of laughing and stupidity.

We got a photo of us today, standing in front of the fabric piles and ironing board where the best work happens.  Now she has gone over to her sisters to bake cakes, for no reason, just for fun.  What a fun day she will have had!  p.s. they are entering my kitchen rules as a sister duo, lets hope they get in!

Here is my latest crochet project, this one will see me through till next winter I'd say.

It's a Lucy inspired from Attic 24 Granny Stripe Blanket.

I thought it would be a good way to use up some wool.  I am not thinking about the colour combinations, just using up wool but making sure there is enough to complete to rows in each colour at least.  It's pretty long, so we'll see how quickly I get bored with it. 

This is a crochet hat for Lilly.  It is a touch too big.

I finished this off when the kids were fishing the other night.  See where I ran out of light pink wool, nevermind I think the darker band looks ok.  And the flower was pure scraps, which I made up as I went, the centre is a little dodgy!

Here is the little boy in his new crochet hat he had to have.  His is plain blue 100% wool and fits like a glove.  I've got his size and pattern sorted just need to perfect Lilly's.

Crochet Hat for Violet

I paid 20c for this model this afternoon.

Cheap.

This is for cousin Violet who is 1 soon and since I'm into crocheting at the moment and its a bit cold and her name is Violet and I love her Mum  lots and I've never met Violet yet even though I was given a chance, I made her this hat!

I tried it on a 7 month old baby boy today (a big boy for his age) and it was perfect on him, it is also pretty perfect on my boy above.  I need to write down what I did, cause I think I have finally cracked it on a good shape that fits!

Warm winter things for newborn baby girls

I have finished off the things for my friends new little girl. 

Pink is easy!

A big rug/quilt (not really quilt but you know) made with beautiful flannelette and chenille and binded with pink spots.  No handstitching went on here (binding) as this little beauty needs to be very washing machine friendly as I am hoping this gets used and used and loved and cuddled.

Some warm winter crochet hats for newborns.

Finally I can make these for someone where they will actually fit.  I am determined to upsize this pattern to fit Lilly this year properly.  Here is last years efforts.

There wasn't much in the way of cute flannelette at spotlight this week, I found the white owl print, which is pretty cute.  I just hemmed it into a big bunny rug, can't have too many of them!

and I finished off my crocheted cushion.

Now that wasn't easy- getting that thing onto a pillowcase.

It turned out ok in the end.  But it was tricky stitching it onto the fabric first, without pulling it all out of shape.

Back of the cushion. 

It is going on my bed, not Lilly's!

Now I need to paint my bedroom and make it look worthy of this cute cushion.

My Creative Space

Supplies purchased from the Light yesterday ready to make some snuggly bunny rugs for my friends new baby.  I am backing the animal print flannelette with the light pink chenille.  I splashed out on new scissors too!

Repurposing an already repurposed vintage doily! Is that possible!

This is Lilly's dress which she has outgrown, so I am unstitching the waistband to remove the doily (I slipped it in without cutting into it, knowing it couldn't stay in a dress forever)  thank goodness I did this!  Cause right now, that doily is exactly what my table needs, it is perfect, blue and red to go with the blue enamel jug on my table.  The dress should be ok, after restitching the spotty waistband back down and some other little friend can wear it.  Such a great pattern that Miss Madeline dress from the Handmade Dress.

Monarch Caterpillar update...other updates here and here...

Here we have one of the younger caterpillar's (not Munchie, who is huge now by the way and at school for the project today!)  who has just shed its skin, the kids watched him wriggle out and I caught this picture just as he popped out.  We noticed how bright the yellow stripes are immediately after this and we now know that's why some of the caterpillar's look 'dull' at times.  You can just see the old skin curled up on the leaf behind him, now he is so bright and the black stripes are so glossy, we think they shed their skin about 4 times in the 2 weeks they are caterpillar's. 

What a way to eat your breakfast!  I can highly recommend having nature at the breakfast bench, cause as they are eating, they are studying and watching-  not one ounce of fighting or bad behaviour goes on. 

Here is Lilly, with her 'habitat' ready to present today.  Munchie is on that piece of milkweed in the plastic bottle.  We did up this poster using all our photos and things we have learnt about the Monarch Butterfly lifecycle and she is taking that in as well. 

More Creative Spaces Here!

China Love

Yes sir, I love china, heaps and heaps.

Think it's my Mum's fault.

I've loved it since I was a teenager.

And I especially love it when I get it for a bargain.

Like this selection above, which completely doesn't match, but that just makes it all the more special, cause one day when I find a random bit which does match a bit I've already got- that's like winning lotto (I think kind of, not really).

The blue/gold floral cup above is a new find from the weekend trip to Goomeri, we called in at the (expensive) Kilkivan Antique shop, this cup was $6.  That's alot, for a random cup.  It's a Crown Staffordshire and the saucer under it was also $6 and its Anysley and soooo cute. 

When I find the cup that matches that saucer, that will be a winner!

But until then, I love it like this.

And check out this gorgeous gold Japanese Coffee set for 6 lucky people sipping coffee.

My Mum found me this at the Collectorama on the weekend.  I mentioned that I was into gold china at the moment and she found this for $25.  Now that is a serious bargain, it is mint condition and I can't wait to use it.  Coffee at my house very soon for the local readers with scones too to try it out...actually, that will be open to the 'commenting' local readers only, hint, hint!!  Thanks Mum, I love it.

This is what makes me happy, piles of this stuff!

This is all thrifted china, all english and all old and unmatching, I love it.

This is a few years worth at least, the op shop ladies are getting smart and pricing it high, not as many bargains these days.

I changed my kitchen hutch display last night, to a yellow theme, since I am loving the gold.

That is a very precious carnival glass bowl on the left that belongs to my husbands mum.  I don't know alot about carnival glass, but I believe it is very precious and I really love it.

The plain yellow Royal Albert cup and saucer with gold rim belongs to Lilly, she let me get it out of the china cabinet to join the other yellow friends on the hutch!  I gave it to her last year.  She loves yellow!

And here is my efforts from yesterday's car journeys, nearly sewn up. 

It will be a small cushion but so bright and colourful.

It is Lucy from Attic 24's pattern.  With a couple of changes also known as mistakes. Never mind!  But now looking at this picture, they are so obvious to me and making me a bit mad now the more I look at it!