Simple style

I have been flat out lately and haven't had time to think. For the last 2 weeks, my sewing room has been ocupado with visitors so unfortunately not much sewing has been done. I did however, sneak into the room to complete Chelsea's birthday party dress that I gave you a little peek of in this post. I will post about that in the next few days.

Chelsea received some wonderful gifts for her 3rd party, a lot of beautiful clothes among them. One of the pieces of clothing was a gorgeous dress. This dress has given me an idea. Chelsea love this dress and wants to wear it all the time and because I do wash her clothes, there are days when she can not wear it. Now I know that she has a wardrobe FULL of dresses, but never-the-less, I have decided to create a new version of the dress for her to wear on the washing days of the other. (Any excuse to make a dress hahahaha).

This is how it is starting out...

What a bargain find. I was meeting a friend outside Target today and there was a rack of clothes for sale out the front. I had a browse while waiting and found this orange t-shirt for $1.73!!!! It says 'boys' t-shirt but I think orange looks great on girls too. So this is part of the dress.

The second half (bottom half) of the dress is made from some black check fabric that I have had in my stash for a while. I am going to pleat it and attach it to the t-shirt.

So that's how the dress has started so far, stay tuned for the finished product and I will put up a photo of the inspiration dress as well. 

Hope you have all had a wonderful weekend and please enjoy your week ahead :-)

Motivational affirmations.

I love positive affirmations. I use them daily. I write them on sticky notes and place them all around the house. The most important ones are always next to my bed so I see them when I wake up. For me, affirmations centre and ground me and make my energy for the day a lot clearer. 

Yesterday I went with my sister and my niece to the factory outlet stores. They were visiting us from interstate and it is one of my sisters favourite places to go when she comes to stay. I have been to those shops a lot since we have lived in Melbourne and they always have the same shops within but this visit, there was a new outlet store. It was Kaisercraft! I love dabbling in nearly all crafts but there are a few that I am not very good at like scrap-booking and card making (which is what Kaisercraft sell). Anyway, while walking around Kaisercraft, I decided I might give paper craft another go. And because everything was so cheap, I just had too!

So I picked up these items and had a plan in my head...

A DIY hanging plaque - 3 pieces, some pretty scrap booking paper and some rub on motivation quotes.

I started by tracing around the plaques onto the pretty paper and then cut them out.

I then glued the pretty paper onto the plaques. I then found some coloured paper (cream, pink and red) that I had bought for the kids a long time ago, chose which quotes I wanted to use and then rubbed them onto the cream paper. I stuck the cream paper with the quote onto the pink paper and then onto the red paper and used some fancy squiggle scissors to cut it out. 

After that, I glued the quote onto the plaque, grabbed some lovely yellow ribbon to tie the plaques together and this is the final result.

It cost me under $12 and I completed it in one afternoon. These quotes definitely motivate me and make me smile. I love it!!

Until next time...

Jackpot!!!!!

OK Peeps... I have some very very exciting news...

I won the Jackpot! Hahahah the sewing jackpot that is. In fact, I have gone to sewing heaven. 

You see, here in Melbourne we have a wonderful FB site called 'Pay it forward'. It's where people post pictures of things they are wanting to give away...for FREE. So anyways, I have given away a few things on there. Just little things like Chelsea's baby carrier. A new mum will get lots of use out of it and saves her money on buying one. Also some play station games. We don't have a play station anymore and the games are so expensive to buy so I gave heaps of them away too. Anyhoo...so I was having a browse through the posts the other day and a lady had put up a post saying that she had heaps of Burda magazines from the 1960's and 70's. There were a few ladies who had put their names down for them but it was something that I wanted too so I put under the last persons comment "Long shot but next in line please" I even used a smiley face at the end. I never thought anything more about it because obviously any sewing enthusiast would LOVE them! Well, the first few ladies didn't want them so it came to my turn. I jumped at them...I was really excited about getting them and reading through some Burda magazines for some sewing inspiration and I was hoping that some of them still had all their patterns in them. I had plans the next day which put me out and about in the car so I arranged to pick them up on my travels. 

Little did I know what was waiting for me. 

I arrived at the address I had been given and started walking up to the door, when a lady from a car that had just pulled up outside the house asked me who I was. She turned out to be the sister. She kindly let me in and lead me through what was her late mum's house. Walked into a room and OMG!! The Burda magazines she spoke of were not just a few that I had thought in my head, but boxes of them :) Arrggh I was excited, I started carting them to the boot of my car when the sister (who had just finished talking to the lady on the phone) turned around and said that "all those boxes over there" and pointed to another mountain of boxes, "are patterns, you can have those too". What!! really!! So I started racing them to the car just in case she changed her mind. So I loaded up the car, we have a station wagon and I had to even put stuff on the back seats! Then she told me that I should just take all the craft folders that were there as well. Wahoo!! 10 trips to the car later and what an amazing adventure I had. I could not thank her enough or her sister when I spoke to her on FB afterwards. The whole drive home I was buzzing with ideas and visualizing myself going through everything and drooling over all the gorgeous clothes I can make now :)

Want a pic of just how much I received??

and...

When I got home I started going through my haul and I came across lots of loose bits of paper, recipes, soft toy patterns (lots of those actually) all from the 1960's. Among these papers were these lovely cut out dolls. My daughter is going to love it!

So now comes the hard parts. 1) Sorting it all out into some sort of order and 2) deciding what I should make first, ooh the hundreds of possibilities :-)

I cannot believe my good luck. I am definitely in line for big things this year and I think this is just the start, on the right track for me.

Until next time and have a good night... :)

Helping Premmies

Over 6 years ago, I gave birth to twin boys prematurely. They were born at 29 weeks. 

Back then, there was no Facebook with support groups where you could enlist the advice of lots of other people who had 'been there, done that'. Thankfully these days those wonderful groups do exist and I am lucky enough to be part of one. It is a premmie support group. 

Not only do we support one and other, we also go above and beyond and make up beautiful little packs for new mums of premmie babies. These packs consist of 3 singlets, 3 sleepsuits, 3 outfits, 1 crochet blanket, 2 sensor blankets, 3 hats and a pair of mittens and booties. All of these items are size 00000/prem and donated or handmade. I joined the group and told my story and then saw that they were desperately low on stock for the packs so I piped up and said I could sew! I then became the chief sewer of the sensor blankets.

To begin with, I had no idea what they even were but soon got educated after lots of questions. They are used when premmies are in humidicribs. Mum and baby have one each. Mum puts hers down her top to collect her scent and baby hugs its one and then they swap. So important and so sweet!

So basically the sensor blankets are super easy to make. It's a double sided 30cmx30cm square. I make one side flannelette fabric and the other a soft cotton. Trouble is, I have so many to make and just not enough hours in the day. I have made over 30 so far but still have lots to make to keep in stock.

Here's a look at some so far...

Coming up soon is my little princesses 3rd birthday!!

Here is a sneak peak of the dress I am making her...

Hope you have all had a lovely weekend and until next time...

The 'Paige' Skirt

As a new Army wife, I have made a lot of Army wife friends. I have really enjoyed getting to know them and have became really good lifelong friends with a few of them. One in particular I see daily and not only do we have a fantastic friendship, our 6 children (she has 3 too) are also wonderful friends. However, I don't think I was ever prepared to watch my friend say goodbye to her husband for 6 months as he deployed to Afghanistan. 

Anyways, I remember when the school holidays started, my friend said to me that her daughter (7) needed some new clothes as she seems to have grown so much since last summer. With her not having hubby around, I thought it would be nice to make her girls some clothes, I know that I dread taking 3 kids to the shops on the best of days by myself! The first thing I made was a skirt for her 7 year old. I had some beautiful Japanese Cotton material with some cute little pandas on it and I knew that she would love it. I whipped up the skirt and forgot to photograph it to show you all...oopsy! But, my friend sent me a text/pic message the other day with her wearing it and a message saying that she had picked out her daughters clothes for the day but she put the bottoms back and put her skirt on. I think that was the third day in a row that she had worn it so I think she likes it :) Here's the blurry iPhone pic...

Tonight I decided to make her 6 year old sister a skirt as well. My plan is to make them a skirt each and a pair of shorts each. Her other daughter is 1 and has a lot of Chelsea's outgrown clothes so I won't make her any at this stage. 

For the second skirt, I found this material in my stash. I bought it a long time ago from Spotlight. The little white petals are a slightly raised puffy paint. Its gorgeous...

and I teamed it up with this lace that I bought for 50c from Vinnie's today.

I made a basic skirt with an elastic waist, not just for her ease and comfort but also because they are quick and easy to make :) 

This is how it turned out and I now call it my 'Paige' skirt. Any guesses as to what my friends 6 year old's name is??

I'm sure she will love it. Now to get onto their shorts. I can't believe that I had my sewing machine pack away for almost a year, my passion is ignited once again!!! I have so many exciting projects running around in my head that I'm looking forward to getting stuck into.

Until next time...

It's me...it's really me!!!

I'M BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Arggg how exciting!

After nearly a year which included a move interstate, becoming an army wife and getting a dog, I finally got the good ol' sewing machine out and off I go!!

I had forgotten.......

Forgotten how damn much I love to sew!! Plain and simple. The spark has been re-sparked and I can't wait to get stuck in and create so much.

Anyways, its late so I better get to bed but I can't wait to show you what I have been working on in the last week  :)

Till next time....

100 Projects: #3 - Haahoo!! + Tutorial

Chelsea's favourite show is 'In The Night Garden'. She has loved this show since before she was 1. Her best friend in the world is her 'Upsy Daisy' doll - which is a character of the show. She once lost her Upsy doll, what an ordeal. You can read about that story on my other blog here.

Anyways, Chelsea is turning 2 soon. Her actual birthday is at the start of February but because Nick is heading away to the Army for 3 months on Monday, we have brought her birthday forward to this weekend. She won't even know, she'll just be excited about cake and presents.

Since I wanted to make her at least one gift for her birthday, I decided to make her a Haahoo (other characters from the show). As you can see from the pic above, there are 5 of them. I made the first one for her.

Here is how it turned out....

Here is a quick tutorial for anyone out there who has an 'In the night garden' obsessed child like me.

What you will need:

- Fabric. I got mine from spotlight and it's called 'Rainbow Dots' by Sugar and Spice.

- Toy fill/stuffing

- Felt for the eyes and mouth (or you could use fabric)

- Pins and a needle

- Sewing Machine, thread etc - your usual sewing stuff

- This Template (Body, eyes and mouth). I enlarged it, printed it out over 4 pages, taped it together then cut it out.

What I did:

1. Cut out 2 main body pieces using the template, 1 front and 1 back. Then I cut out the eyes and a mouth using felt. I cut out 2 black eyes, 2 white eyes slightly smaller to give black frame and then 2 pupils. If you wanted to, you could just cut out 2 white eyes and 2 pupils and stitch around the white with black thread. Up to you!

2. (Optional) As a personal touch, I wanted to add some embroidery on the back. We call Chelsea "Chel Belle" most of the time so I embroidered that onto matching fabric.

I cut around the words in a heart shape and then stuck it on the 'back' body piece and did an applique stitch around it.

3. I then moved to the 'Front' body piece and attached the eyes and mouth. I did an applique stitch around those as well. I use this stitch because it keeps the edges secured down.

4. With the main body pieces complete, I placed them together (right sides facing) and sewed around the outside. I used a 1/4" seam allowance and made sure I left a gap open to turn and stuff.

5. I then turned in the right way and ironed all the seams flat.

6. Once ironed, I opened the gap and stuffed it full of toy stuffing. Once stuffed, I hand stitched up the opening with invisible thread.

There you have it. One Haahoo. I am sure Chelsea is going to love it. She found a picture I printed for the template and carried it around for the day. Can't wait to see her face when she opens it.

This is my first ever tutorial so if there are some things that don't make sense, please let me know :)

Hope you have all had a lovely day, we went to the beach again which was nice. Thank you for reading!!

100 Projects: #2 - Voodoo Owl Pincushion

I needed a new pincushion as the one I had been using was great but too small. I recently went out and bought heaps more pins because I am sick of running out but I guess what I should have done was completed all the pinned half done projects to get most of my pins back. Now I have an abundance and my lovely old pincushion was just too crowded.

Since I love owls, I thought I would make an owl pincushion. I downloaded the pattern from www.thediydish.com and got to work.

For the main fabric I used some fabric that was left over from a few other projects. It was a FQ from the Big W of all places that caught my eye and I had to have :) For the wings I used some scrap fabric that I used for my MIL's birthday quilt and for the eyes and nose, I used some felt.

I filled the owl only to about 3/4's full with hobby fill and then filled the rest of the space up with rice so it would have a heavier base. The pattern actually says to use walnut litter (strange!!) but I stuck to rice.

I was happy at how fast this project was and how it turned out. So cute and sweet but then....

I had to start poking pins into my sweet little owl. I felt so mean! I suppose I never really thought much about the project and just went charging in. Anyways, I pinned around the little guys eyes, nose and wings so I don't feel like an evil witch doctor performing voodoo on a nearby owl.

I am still going to use my old one as well. It has some 'yucky' pins on it and lives on the ironing board so when I get all the way upstairs with something that I need to iron a hem on etc and have forgotten my pincushion, it's no biggy, I have one close by!

Hope you all had a lovely weekend! Mine went far too fast and I am sure next weekend will go even faster, just because I want it to go as slow as possible. It is now 1 week until Nick leaves to go to Army training for 3 months. I am going to miss him so so much :(

100 Projects: #1 - Spare Underwear Pouch

My quest to complete 100 projects in 2012 has started well.

One of the first projects I have complete so far is a couple of spare underwear pouches. As Hunter and Zade are starting school this year, I am busy organising school stuff. Uniform, shoes, labelling etc etc. I have everything ready to go but I was a little worried about what would happen if they had a little accident at school. Hunter has been known on several occasions to be 'too busy' to go to the toilet (TV seems to be the main distraction).

Anyways, if they happen to have an accident at school because playing in the sandpit is more important than going to the loo, I don't want them to be upset or embarrassed. I made them a little jockey pouch each so that should an incident occur, they can take their pouch to the bathroom (with a spare pair of school shorts), take out the clean pair of jockeys, put them on and then put their wet pair in the pouch, zip it up and put it back in their back. I lined the pouched with plastic so there will be no leakage as well. Clever eh?? hehe.

The boys picked out their own fabric from the stash so they are happy with how their pouch looks. Hunter's choice was 2 charms from a charm pack (Meadow Friends) that I recently bought and Zade's choice was a boy army drill fabric that I got from spotlight a while ago.

Excuse the divots in the chair.
Chelsea and a pen thought it would look good...I did not!

They have the boys seal of approval so now I just have to hope that they actually remember to go to the toilet and don't have to use their pouch all that often.

Project #1 complete. Stay tuned for project #2....it's a hoot :)

Have a fantastic weekend and thanks for reading...

New Year....

Hope you all had wonderful celebrations over the festive season. Ours, as always, was a busy one and now we need a bigger house after the tonnes of presents the kids received.

When the new year ticks around, I usually make a huge resolution list and then put it somewhere safe. By May, I have lost the list and forgotten what is even on it. This year, I am not making any resolutions. I am just going to promise myself to try and be as healthy as I can and to enjoy the ups and downs that this year will bring.

Please don't think that I am starting this year with negativity by saying downs, I'm a realist and as Nick is entering the Army in less than 2 weeks (will be away initially for 3 months), I know there will be downs but I am going to look at the silver lining and buy a bottle of wine or two...maybe lots more :)

Anyways, also this year I am going to keep myself busy by crafting. My goal is 100 projects this year. 100 projects in 52 weeks. That's roughly 2 a week. Totally do-able and I have even done 2 already this year and we are only on the 4th day. Yay me! I will post about those 2 projects in the next few days.

Also, today is my Nana's birthday....Happy Birthday Nana! I will bake you a nice cake when you arrive home from NZ :)

Thanks for reading and have a nice day :)

Tick and Tick...

Well I have been very busy all afternoon and actually managed to get a few more things ticked off my 'to do' list.

First of all, I got my SIL's birthday present finished. Her birthday was on Tuesday but I knew that I wouldn't see her until Christmas day so I put it off for a few days to get some other sewing done.

So this is what I made her.

A Make-up bag.

I used a Fat Quarter of Nancy Blues (28959) by Windham Fabrics for the main colour and a cream bold cotton for the lining and the bottom trim. I clipped and sewed the corners on the bottom to give it a bit of a box shape on the bottom.

I really like the way it turned out that I'm thinking of making myself one (maybe after Christmas though).

I have also finished another dress. This time it was for Chelsea. Her Christmas day dress.

I used the left over fabric from Sophie's dress to quickly whip this one up. It is a simple shirred dress but I made some armholes and only shirred the top part of the dress. I then sewed on some lilac bias tape around the armholes and up into some shoulder ties and also as a trim on the bottom of the dress.

This is Chelsea saying "lessee" (Let's see) which she says after EVERY photo I take. It has become a lengthy process taking photos of her now as I have to show her on the preview screen what the photo looks like. Kids!! hehehe.

Anyways, it is almost bedtime, hopefully I can finish my list tomorrow so I can relax on Saturday :)

As always, Thank you for reading and have a lovely Friday...

It's the final countdown!!

Not long now til Santa arrives...3 days to be exact. That means I have 3 days to finish a dress and make a top, pants, a clutch and some pillow cases. Should be do-able right?, maybe!!!

Anyways, I have finished my niece's (Sophie, 5) clothes for Christmas. She asked me to make her a dress for Christmas which put a big smile on my dial. (That means she must like the clothes I make).

This is not a great photo because it was late at night when I took it but this is what I started with. The embroidered cotton is a very light cotton and perfect for a summery dress.

I decided to make a pillowcase dress for her. I love how quick they are to make and they look so cute on. I think it will look beautiful on Sophie and hopefully it fits her. (It looked so big making it because I am used to making dresses for Chelsea who is nearly 2).

I wanted to make her something else as well. So I made her a tunic top too. It will look lovely paired with a pair of shorts in the summer and great with some tights and a t-shirt underneath in the winter.

So there is Sophie's Christmas pressies sorted, now on to finishing all the rest of my sewing.

Are you organised for Christmas yet or are you a last minute person like me??

If I don't post again til after Christmas, MERRY CHRISTMAS and enjoy the festivities :)

Meet me on Monday

Every Sunday, Java from Never Growing Old will post five get to know you questions that you can copy and paste into your own Monday post and we can all learn a little more about each and every one of us!! Here is her link.

This week there are 15 questions as there will be none next week or the week after due to Christmas and New Year.

This weeks questions are:

1.Wrapping paper or gift bags?
2.Real or artificial tree?
3.When do you put your tree up?
4.When do you take your tree down?
5.Do you like eggnog?
6.Do you have a nativity scene?
7.Favorite Christmas Movie?
8.Favorite Christmas cookie?
9.Where will you eat Christmas dinner?
10.Angel, bow or star on top of your tree?
11.Most annoying thing about this time of the year?
12.Do you like Fruitcake?
13.What are you most excited about the holidays?
14.Do you open presents Christmas Eve or Christmas Morning?
15.Will you still be wrapping presents on Christmas Eve?

My Answers are:

1.Wrapping paper or gift bags?

Wrapping paper. I love sitting down and wrapping presents, takes ages but is fun :)

2.Real or artificial tree?

I would love to have a real tree but we have an artificial one. It is a nice one though but nothing beats that beautiful smell of pine in your house.

3.When do you put your tree up?

1st of December usually but this year that fell on a Thursday so we just waited until the Saturday (3rd Dec).

4.When do you take your tree down?

I know that you are supposed to wait until the New Year or 12 days or something like that, but after having it up for nearly a month I get so sick of it that I take it down usually 2-3 days after Christmas day.

5.Do you like eggnog?

I have never tried eggnog and I doubt that I would even if given the chance. It doesn't look very enticing.

6.Do you have a nativity scene?

No

7.Favorite Christmas Movie?

When I was a little girl, a movie called 'Prancer' came on the TV around Christmas time. I taped it onto VCR and watched it over and over and over. I loved that movie :) I watched it all year 'round.

8.Favorite Christmas cookie?

I don't really eat cookies at Christmas time but I do eat a lot of Ferrero Rochers and Candy Canes :) mmmmmmm

9.Where will you eat Christmas dinner?

Christmas dinner this year will be at my parents house.

10.Angel, bow or star on top of your tree?

We have a lovely glittery star on the top of our tree this year.

11.Most annoying thing about this time of the year?

The crowds and crowds of people that line all the shops....not that I can talk, I am there as well :)

12.Do you like Fruitcake?

Sometimes. I really have to be in the right mood to want to eat fruitcake. I like it better when it is warmed up with a little bit of thickened cream over top.

13.What are you most excited about the holidays?

Seeing my children's faces on Christmas morning and watching them have a wonderful time. Christmas is all about them now and it warms my heart to see them so happy and enjoying themselves over the holidays.

14.Do you open presents Christmas Eve or Christmas Morning?

Ha ha, Nick and I are shocking at waiting until Christmas morning. We are so impatient that we end up opening our presents to each other on Christmas eve but the kids open theirs on Christmas morning.

15.Will you still be wrapping presents on Christmas Eve?

Yes I will be for sure. This year I have been very slack/busy so I haven't even started wrapping the presents yet. I will be assembling 3 bikes on Christmas Eve as well :)


I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas and New Year. Be safe and have fun!!