i love birthday parties...

...and wish I could dedicate every single morsel of my time into organising them. To get paid to do that would be fabulous. The reality is me running around like a headless chicken the day before in between the demands of 4 children resulting in a slightly thrown together attempt at an organised 10 year old themed (must always be a theme) party.

The theme was 'around the world' for Zoe's 10th birthday this year. Food is a huge priority in my life so I always like to insert a bit of energy into getting it right. Much to the disappointment of my 10 year old guests who look slightly ripped off by the lack of lollies and chips on offer.
I wanted to make a punch and would have sworn I would be using a Hawaiian recipe but I discovered that punch is a pivotal part of German kids party. Kinderbowle is Grape juice mixed with sparkling water, maraschino cherries and mixed fruit apparently? The kids loved it.
Fairy bread has fascinated me ever since I moved over here. I always wonder where and how it came about. In fact I might google that one right now. The only explanation I can find is that it originated from this poem by Robert Louis Stevenson. Now I'm even more bemused. I'm pretty sure Robert's 'fairy bread' was not 100's and 1000's sprinkled onto white bread and butter? Or maybe it was? If not who was the first person to make this and how did it become such an Australian/New Zealand phenomenon? Any ideas?
Always have to feature a bit of British so in with the jelly and ice cream. It turned out to be a great party with lots of fabulous dress ups, my favourite being the French tart.
And completely off the party chat I had to share this picture of Kitty and Spike I was lucky enough to capture last week. Isn't it the sweetest?

A Christmas present for mummy? Oh no, Kitty!

Thought I'd share with you my all time favourite Christmas present that Kitty received this year. It's even olive green my perfect colour! Aren't the animals so sweet, I think it's from the 70's not sure. Anyway, this picture is exactly how I imagined it adorned as soon as I opened it up. However.....
....it was out with the china tea set and in with the plastic dress up shoes :( Kitty is chuffed to bits with the cupboard's new purpose and I am silently sobbing in the corner wondering how I lost so much control over my 3 year old's room aesthetics.

a bunting for kitty....

After two years of making personalised buntings I eventually got around to making one for Kitty. It's different to the ones I usually make as I have found the lovely old fabrics and trims that I adore do not sell as well as contemporary fabrics so I ever so slightly have to compromise my whimsical tastes when selling online.
So I sat myself down and whipped up a little bunting for Kitty's room with some vintage fabric scraps, some old doilies that belonged to my mother in law and a little bit of embroidery for the letters.
Of course my obsession with murky greens had to rear it's greeny head and I love the background colour on that green and pink floral fabric and used a dark olive green thread to do the letters.

It looks pretty sweet amongst the mish mash of vintagey lovely finds in her room. Including this chest of drawers from Vinnies and this bedside chest from the side of the road.

I have some issues coming up as am having to move Spike into Kitty's room at some point this year. Anyone have any great suggestions for unisex sharing?

santa sacks at the ready....

There are great benefits to having a hubbie who is a sailmaker as he is a dab hand on the sewing machine and can whip anything I ask for up super duper quick. He just made these Santa sacks for the little ones. I love this paper doll Christmas fabric that we used for Kitty's. So cute.
I didn't think I could ever get excited about Christmas in Australia as miss the log fires, hot toddies and family way too much this time of year. That was until a girlfriend told me that as soon as I had children and this became the Christmas they were excited about then it would rub off on me too. She was so right! This is my 9th Christmas on these shores, which have ranged from 2003 camping in Byron Bay living off multipack sausages as a backpacker and childless family Christmas's in Melbourne and now Sydney but this is the first year that I have really felt Christmassy.

On that note, Merry Christmas everybody and thanks so much for following my blog. Will be back in the New Year!

PS. I'm still having small conniptions about my badly placed baubles (see above) and haven't had the heart to crush my 3 year olds creative input and move them around whilst she's in bed just in case she notices!

Christmas Decs are up.....

So here are the paper chains which my big girls painstakingly put together for me. All 10 metres of them. They really make the room feel so cosy and even though they sporadically undo themselves throughout the day and need a bit of resticking they are totally worth the effort as I love the overall 'old school Christmas' feel about them.
The tree is up. It took a few deep breaths to stand back and control my OCD with bauble placement whilst I watched Kitty trim the tree. This was a super difficult task and I have since swapped a few of them around hoping she won't notice! (Check out The Snowman playing in the background, my childhood favourite of which I am brainwashing Kitty into it being hers too!)
We have absolutely no colour scheming in his house and this extends itself to Christmas decor too. Like everything in my life nothing ever matches. In fact I will do anything in my power to make sure it doesn't.
I do however LOVE my mushrooms that I bought when I was back home in England last year. I politely asked Kitty if mummy could stuff all the little bunches of them in the tree as had been looking forward to doing that since I bought them in a sweet little Christmas shop in Wales. Thankfully she allowed me that exciting little task!
The big girls made Christmas cards for all the family. I am such a Grinch when it comes to sending cards. My mum and dad, brother and sister in law and that's about it. I have just never been into sending them which is surprising as I really do love cards.
The day was finished off with some Christmas baking. Iced Gingerbread cookies but due to the lack of ginger (quite a pivotal ingredient I think) the girls named them 'bread cookies' instead. They actually tasted pretty nice and they loved using my new bargain IKEA Christmas Cookie cutters.

So we're now all set for Christmas....sort of. I have put my MadeIt shop into holiday mode as of today in order to focus on finishing off some crafty things for Kitty and Spike; Santa sacks, Cushions etc....Will share them with you once I am done.

paper chains.....

Today I'm at home putting up the decorations. Doris Day is singing Christmas songs on repeat (and driving my kiddies crazy) and the kids are up to 150 pieced together chains made from paper. That is also starting to drive them crazy but I have a plan for how I want to hang them (and will reveal my hangings at a later date)

I seriously love old school ANYTHING and the thought of adorning my house with paper chains at Christmas makes my heart sing! Which then led me to find some old pictures featuring paper chains which I have shared here. How fabulous is this room above. Those paper lanterns don't seem so Christmassy to me though do they you!?
This picture is gorgeous from a 1940's schoolroom....(spot the chains on the wall over there)...
...this is a Woolworths store from the 1930's......
....and this is an old Tottenham Hotspur Footie Christmas gathering..LOVE the chains in all of these!

It's funny as the big kids just said to me 'isn't it so different to hang decorations across the ceiling like this George?'.....

Our house was never without decorations strung from the ceiling growing up....

...so is it just a Pommie thing?

Anyway, it's becoming cosier by the minute in my living room with all these chains being hung and is really starting to feel very 'grotto'ish.

Oops Doris has stopped again think it's time for some Band Aid 'Do they know it's Christmas' now......Fa la la la la.....

let the countdown begin.....

So the erecting of the fabric advent calendar was a wee bit exciting this morning. Being a tad unorganised I actually had to rummage around for a little something to pop into number 1's pocket and found a small bouncy ball that Kitty received so long ago she had thankfully forgotten she already owned it!
So made it my mission today to organise some fun (and new!) things to pop in the rest of the pockets. Came up with a selection of rubbers, sweets, hair clips and will probably grab some bits and bobs as I go. Also perfect opportunity to download the fabulous free holiday printables here at giverslog to use for treasure hunt notes and to write down activities like Santa photos today, make Christmas cookies and put up our tree etc.