1st swap complete!

Really enjoyed my first ever swap, the stocking swap hosted by Selina. Have never attempted a stocking before but used an old one I already had to make the pattern.


I bought some really sweet glittery red fabric and used some gingham/christmas fabric to cut out the 'ho ho ho' letters. I then blanket stitched around them in red thread. I sewed some tiny pale pink pom pom trim around the stocking's edge and some hot pink/baby pink ribbons along the top. I made a hot pink pom pom and attached it with some red gingham ribbon. I also added a cute little ceramic button too.
My stocking came with all the trimmings!
Full to the brim.
All packed up and ready to go. Happy hanging Pam and a VERY Merry Christmas!

my creative space.....

Making necklaces for Kitty to take to the UK (IF I can get madam to wear them)...

...making headbands for the girls for my big brother's big day......

....embellishing a cardigan that probably has enough detail already.......

....putting the finishing touches to my stocking for the stocking swap

Pop to Kootoyoo for more crafty goings on.

Twirling Betty giveaway...

Was very excited to be the winner of the recent Twirling Betty giveaway.

I love her creations, but I also love her genuine and very witty blogging style too.

This headband is going to be an absolute winner in our family of 4 girls as it's so versatile and will add a touch of glam to all of us on those bad hair days. Here it is being modelled by the biggest little girl, aged 10.

Thanks for hosting such a fabulous giveaway and randomly picking me as the winner!

at my house...

snow in blue mountains by Mark Brown

...we just returned from staying at our friend's new gorgeous grey and white painted weatherboard cottage in the Blue Mountains. So dreamy. The Blue Mountains are only a 2 hour drive from me but you feel a million miles from the bright city lights.

We ate the best devonshire tea here, I browsed here for an insanely long time (nice coffee too), I discovered a beautiful fabric store in Blackheath called Ribbons and Rainbows and walked through here. Everything is antiquated and just my cup of tea and there is a really cool mix of bohemian folk buzzing around which leads to my favourite overheard conversation of the trip;

Waitress: 'Morning Julie'

Julie: 'Morning but I'm not Julie anymore I changed my name to Ada last year'

Waitress: 'Oh ok, sorry Ada but that will take a little getting used to'

Ada: {Bemused totally unimpressed reaction}

So yes, I did manage a spot of shopping. Fabrics, buttons, ribbons and all sorts of stuff but my favourite things I found were;

Scotty dog appliques cut from original 1930's fabrics. Have a few ideas with where these will end up.....
..... and this sweet hand painted bowl for Kitty to eat cereal from when she's a bit bigger and has stopped lobbing everything across the room. It was sitting in an antique pile and when I turned it over and saw it was painted in England in 1976 (made the same year as me-does that make me antique too?!) I had to have it. It was $5! What a splurge!

Pop over to Lou for more homely insights.

coffee sacks

I picked up some coffee sacks for $4 from a local coffee shop today. I've seen them vamped up in a few magazines lately and think they look very nice and rustic. I know lots of people make cushions out of them but I thought they were a bit scratchy and also shed a bit too much for that. So....

....I thought I'd try my hand at some doormats. Anybody have any good doormat recipes? I particularly love the colours in that top one, bit of hot pink and turquoise mixed in with some faint coffee bean aromas.So nice.

I'll have to cut them out and hand them over to hubby to do the sewing at the sail loft with some heavy duty machines as this hessian will murder my Bernina!

Anybody got any better ideas for them? Do tell!

my creative space.....

I have been chop chop chopping ribbons. Time is evaporating on me and big brother's wedding is creeping up very quickly. My carnival mobile is what first inspired their brightly coloured, village fete, Cath Kidston country fair themed wedding. So I thought I'd better get making some to take with me. And with 125 metres of ribbon in each one, that is a lot of chopping let me tell you! It's even given me RSI in my fingers!
Whether to dot them around the trees or hang them from the oak beams in the 16th century medieval barn? Aww, what a lovely decision to have to make! Am so excited to decorate the venue the day before.

Kootoyoo is on holidays but I thought I'd still play anyway.

softies at mikes

Pip at Meet Me At Mikes just put out a post about selling softies in her shop. She wanted pix sent in and she will choose some to sell. My girlfriend makes all sorts of wacky and cute softies and I told her to enter so she did! Thought I'd share a few with you;

Hello Kitty in chick and bunny costumes

Boy in frog suit

Yoda

Elephant

Aren't they sweet! She has also started to make some really fun and funky jewellery. I'll pop some pix up later in the week.

tinsy winsy bunting

Inspired by the wonderful Twirling Betty and in an attempt to get semi organised I made a wedding card for my brother last night. I used this tutorial from TB's blog to make the bunting. Making minuscule bunting is so much fun, no patterns, no pins and NO IRONING. However it should come attached with the warning; tinsy winsy bunting should not be attempted (for the first time) under the influence of alcohol at silly o'clock. Your fingers will seem to have quadrupled in size and you will most definitely fall out with your sewing machine.

Kitty's second birthday will be in my mum's back garden this year. I might have to include the wedding bunting (at 60 metres long I can probably wrap it around my parents house twice over!) and I will definitely be making some of this cake bunting, also by the fabulous Twirling Betty (I'm a big fan!). I am getting very excited about her English tea party birthday and the eternal weather optimist in me (this is a compulsory British trait) will keep believing the sun WILL SHINE that day.

flea market finds....

Baby pink colander still with original price tag of $30 I got for $5. Lovely.

The tea towel it's sitting on was 50 cents. They came as a pair, the other one is yellow and orange striped. They look so Eastern European and are made in Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic now!)

I got this simple little top for Kitty which I wouldn't normally bother to show but my friend who I was with at the time whipped it off me and embroidered some roses on it so think it's really cute now and worth showing off.

Pop over to Sophie for more fabulous finds!

handmade christmas

Tracey, I love your handmade Christmas idea. I'm in need of some Christmas inspiration and I had thought about making some pressies to take back to the UK with me in a couple of weeks.

That would be the sensible thing to do, but I will still wait till I get back to Oz, panic, try and make/buy a million things in the space of a week and spend a small fortune sending it back to exactly the same spot I just flew out of. Ridiculous.

But for now, I have to buy these crochet covered beads from here for Kitty's stocking.

new bunting design

My lovely girlfriend Nikki just had another little boy so I made him some name bunting last night.He was named after Sandon point surf break, yes he has a super surfy daddy.I changed the design a bit and left out the calico squares. To make the letters stand out I used chocolate brown thread to do the blanket stitch. I love this fabric, it's called vintage toy town or something equally as cute. I think the turquoise and chocolate brown work really well together don't you?

I was pretty happy with how it turned out. Will pop it in the post to her on Monday.

Hope you're all having a lovely weekend!

my creative space.....

This is a birthday box for Kitty. I'm not so keen on my design (fully rushed into it once I got excited about the concept!). I have kept my favourite card from Kitty's 1st birthday. In that card I have written an account of the day including guests, location, presents, cake and silly things like what day it fell on and what the weather was like. I have also kept a copy of the invitation and a picture of Kitty blowing out the candle inside the card too.

Once Kitty gets bigger, she can start to choose her favourite card (if the control freak in me will allow this!!).

I would have loved a box of birthdays, each one individually described, and it will be interesting to see how the design trend of cards will change over the years.

More creative stuff over here.

justification (again!)

an hour of housework today.....

image

...equals another week of guilt free sewing, hooray!

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at my house...

.... we are getting super excited about our trip back to the UK in a few weeks.

On my husband's suggestion that I pop to the dollar shop and grab a couple of travel diaries for his 8 and 10 year old girls, I got myself a bit over excited, bypassed the dollar shop and next thing you know I'm in kikki.K (the goddess of stationary shops)
Check out this journal it is so sweet.

He asked me to spend a few dollars on them. Well $50 might be 'a few' somewhere in the world?
But there are certain things in life.....

....that you can't find at the two dollar shop....

....and some things that should never be left on the shelf. If you were going overseas you'd surely splurge on one of these wouldn't you!?

Pop over here for more housey goings on.

flea market finds....

A bunch of beads to make jewellery for Kitty $3

THE find of the day. A French oven dish/ramekin set $8-in love!!

London Underground tea towel-couldn't very well leave that behind! $0.50

Tin Cans for the garden $5 for set

More earrings-to satisfy my fetish! $2 each

my creative space.....

I actually made something for myself this week! I had some leftover fabric from the chair I upholstered in our bedroom so knocked up some matching bunting to hang across the bed. I actually detested this bed when I first saw it, but it was my hubbies pride n' joy so I have had to learn to love it. And I sort of do but I just wish the wood was super light and not verging on that dodgy early 90's high shine pine!
Mum always said 'sleep tight' when I was little (and still does now!)
I am the first to whinge about people not RSVP-ing. Apparently my brother's fiancee was also whinging about me not having sent one yet. So I popped this in the post today (I used some of the material from her wedding bunting). It's got me thinking about making some more of these cards and words have been popping up in my head all day relating to different occasions. FUN!

For more crafty loveliness pop over to Kootoyoo.

a nice place to visit

Eden Gardens is a really nice place to visit in Sydney. There is a really nice cafe with lots of nice cakes and a good brew too. There is a super cute kiddies play area with giant wooden lollipops and multicoloured picket fences. There are lots and lots of individual gardens which are full of giant coloured stones, bicycles filled with flowers and cosy corners to sit in. There are ginormous fish which feed from your hand and my favourite thing were these coloured pipes which were not in the play area but we climbed them anyway!

little mummy, little daddy

This is my favourite shot of my mum as a girl. I love the fact the only smart outfit she owned was her school uniform, hence having to wear that to Trafalgar Square to feed the pigeons. I also love the fact that this was one of mum's favourite things to do as a kid, and was one of mine too! We probably fed generations of the same family of pigeons. I love the fact that everybody is posing in the picture. The backgrounders remind me of that advert when everybody strikes a pose for the shot. But my favourite thing is that my beautiful Nan who was a hairdresser, has cut the wonkiest fringe I think I've ever seen. Classic.

This is my favourite shot of my dad as a wee lad. It just epitomises a day trip to the English seaside to me. Another of my favourite activities as a kid. A walk along the pier (not sure which pier is in this photo but guessing Brighton), the obligatory Mr Whippy ice cream, a play on the penny falls at the seafront arcade, fish and chips for dinner and a stick of rock for dessert. Plus, my dad is totally cute and for a family living on the breadline I think they managed to look superbly turned out for their day at the beach!

my creative space....

Here I am, ironing patches for name bunting heading off to Melbourne and France. My iron has only ever seen daylight since I began sewing. In fact I had to check that I actually had one! It's now almost overused, I'm sure my mum would love me to iron some clothes whilst it's out the cupboard, but that will never happen.

I'm also getting excited about the stocking swap. I have my ideas at the ready, bought some really sweet fabric today, and ready to get making at the weekend. And olive green will most definitely be featuring!

Pop over to Kootoyoo for more crafty peeps.