Merry Christmas and what will New Year bring?

Christmas has already flown by and the count down to New Year is on. What will the new year bring? what does 2012 have instore? Wouldn't it be wonderful to know before hand?

I have had a month off from blogging and so you are all getting caught up tonight. I hope that is ok. This is post number 3 this evening.

My parents are still here and I have loved having them here the last 3 weeks or so and last night my little sister who is now nearly 20 flew into Sydney too. She is here for nearly 3 weeks and we are all hoping, praying and wishing for some better weather. Bring on the sun. More fun is to be had and just being together and bonding together.

I hope that Father Christmas was good to you and the New Year is fantastic.

Teacher Present

One piece of sewing that I did manage to do before Christmas was a present for Olivia's school teacher Mrs. Weaver.

On Pinterest I saw a pin for free bag patterns so I had a look and decided that they would not be too tricky and that indeed I would be able to manage one. You can find the pattern here and the pin here on my To Make board.

Like the original pattern I decided that a chambray type piece of cotton would be great and then I saw some wonderful striped cotton drill weight fabric at Ikea which I really loved. What do you think?

I would alter this pattern some what if I were to make it again, I would lengthen the straps and thin out the handles a little too. However, it is a really easy, quick pattern to make and did make a wonderful teachers present with a little chocolate inside too.

Olivia loved giving it to a wonderful teacher whom she has had in both Kindergarten and Year 2. We hope you like it Mrs. Weaver.



P.S You can find me linking here at the wonderful Sew Much Ado.

Christmas Concerts and Presentation Days

The last week or so of school was really busy for us.

Oh I think I should preface the remainder of this post with this, I am going to boast about my children and how incredible I think they are, so be warned ok :).

With that warning firmly behind us that last week or so has been filled with school and pre-school Christmas Concerts, Choir recitals, Jazz end of year shows, and Olivia's baptism. With all of this happening my usual preparations for Christmas have been seriously disrupted and basically I have done none, I finally managed to get my Christmas Cards sent out and the presents that have to go to the UK but that is it. Final Christmas shopping was done in the 3-4 days before Christmas and I have really not liked it at all. I promise to be better next year.

Anyway, here are some pictures of the last few weeks to catch up and let me tell you I feel just a little proud of my beautiful girls, there were many times that just a little tear or two was wiped from my eyes. There has been some wonderful fun times and the build up to Christmas has been lovely.

Balmoral Beach with Grandma & Grandpa

Olivia at St. Mary's Cathedral

St. Mary's Cathedral Christmas lights

St. Mary's Cathedral

Christmas Tree and full moon @ St. Mary's Cathedral lights

Olivia (far left of children) receiving a trophy at Presentation Day

Sophie at Zoe's birthday party with the tiara mosaic she made

Olivia (2nd from left) receiving a Principle's Merit Award

Olivia and her Merit certificate

Sophie's Pre-School Christmas concert singing her heart out

Sophie and 1 of her teachers - Miss Janelle - we will miss you next year Miss Janelle

Temple lights - taken by Olivia

Giveaway link

A friend of mine called Courtney has her own blog and little MadeIt shop and very kindly offered to do a free giveaway in Australia and around the world. There are some wonderful things to win very easily, you should totally go check it out. 

The link to Courtney's fabulous giveaway is this http://welfarewisdom.blogspot.com/2011/11/aussie-handmade-goodie-bag-giveaway.html

As I had some of the things from the craft fair that didn't sell I thought that I would add a couple of bibs to her bags. If you are here from that giveaway hello :) and welcome to my little blog about things that I make and my year so far. 

I am looking to start selling some of the things that I make, and am happy to make some custom designs for wraps/blankets, and will add names as I did for my nephew Noah earlier in the year (see below pictures), or bibs, taggy balls, or even a gorgeous elephant which work really well in flannelette, cotton or even cord. If you are interested please leave me a comment with your email address and we can sort it out. On the giveaway page Courtney mentioned that the bibs are normally $12 each. The pair that are in the giveaways were actually $12 for the pair not individually.

Just as a little reminder here are a few lovely things that I have made this year. It is quite exciting really to just sit back and see some of the things that i have made so far this year and 2011 hasn't finished yet. 

Teacher presents and a new Christmas tablecloth are still on the to do list as well as a mountain of mending, so more to do yet, plus Mum and Dad arrive in 2 sleeps. So excited. Fingers crossed that the rain stays away and we have a lovely warm dry summer - doesn't have to be boiling just consistently dry. 

This Week

I am a little disapointed as to how little of mine did sell at the fair this last weekend, however, I am told that not a lot of the baby stuff did sell at all. It is a Christmas fair predominately, I guess, but I was hoping that a few people may see something that they would love for a granddaughter or son or niece or nephew. Oh well, lessons learned for next time.

This weekend we did some jobs around the house and what started out to be just a wipe down of a ceiling turned into a monster job. The lights in the kitchen have made black marks on the ceiling and I thought just a wash with some sugar soap or something like that would clean it all off. Oh how wrong I was, all it did was make a streaky mess on the ceiling that just wasn't going away. So we decided to paint the ceiling. Todd decided he wanted it done before mum and dad arrive on Thursday so yesterday was the nominated day to fix it all up.

Paint was bought, drop sheets put down and brushes and roller at the ready. 

I thought that I was reasonably good painter, with a great little cutting in tool and a roller and I can knock over a wall in just a few minutes with a good finish too. I very naively thought that doing the ceiling would be much the same. Oh how I was wrong. Trying not to get ridges on the ceiling and covering it all without patches was hard work, and I am not saying that it is a good job either by any stretch of the imagination but I was determined to finish it with 2 coats and we finally did. We finally finished at about 5pm. I knew it wasn't going to be a 2 hour job like Todd thought, but that long!

This is a reminder to myself to never offer to pain ceilings again. 

I have a long list of things that still need to be done before mum and dad come on Thursday. They are staying for 2 months and I can not wait to see them. The girls are so excited too. I'm not so sure about Todd as he looses his sofa to other people and well just not having his own space. We shall see how we go.

So the next few days will be filled with food shopping, cleaning my oven, washing, ironing, turning the spare room from a sewing room to a bedroom, cleaning the main bathroom and the usual everyday stuff that I have to do anyway. What can I say except BUSY! 

At the Fair 2011

Here is a picture heavy post of my most of my things, in their places at the craft fair ready to be sold.

You can also find me linking here.

Ready for the fair - Will you sell?

Everything that I am going to get done is done, and everything is ready to head off to to be sold at the craft fair that is happening next week. As always it has meant some late nights over the last couple of nights but I am happy with what is going, (as a test run to see if anyone would be interested in buying the things that I make) but I would have loved a couple more wraps to go, but hey that's the way it goes, I can't do anymore. Too tired.

Sophie is 4

Tuesday was the day when Sophie turned 4.

I am still blown away by the fact that my cheeky, funny, 'swirly wirly'(curls) haired little girl has turned 4 and also a little sad that my baby most certainly is not a baby any more at all.

She awoke to a lounge room with a pile of presents all wrapped up except for 1 super special present that we only decided to get her 2 days before and that was a little pink bike. She has been flying around on her trike so fast for ages now trying to keep up with Liv and her little legs would pump up and down so fast and her knees nearly hit the handle bars of the trike so we bit the bullet. She loves it, and has been riding it around the lounge and up and down the corridor as it hasn't been outside yet to get dirty wheels. She needs a helmet before she can ride outside too, I think a trip to the shops to get that tomorrow is the order of the day.

Zoe, her little friend came to play in the morning, which when I told Soph was going to happen she jumped up and down with joy at, and we had dinner over at Nanny and Poppy's with all the other cousins and Aunts and Uncles that live here. Sophie had a blast. She got some lovely presents and as you can see from the pictures had a lovely day all up.

More partying to come as I promised a party with her pre-school friends which is happening on Saturday.

I love you so much Sophie Smophie, you are a delight yet a headstrong little girl who is clingy to mummy but loves to climb and swim and play on swings. You are attracted to water, puddles, like I have never seen before and you recently have discovered snails, you love looking at them as they go for their 'walks' and you pick them up and help them along their way. Your laugh is infectious and you love to cuddle and be tickled. You ignore mummy a lot and she thought you were deaf this year as I have to say things 3 times to you before you answer, but no perfect hearing, you little monster. I love you Sophie.

YWIE

Wednesday night was our annual Young Women in Excellence, which is an evening at the end of the year where the girls and their leaders show and share with each other and their parents the projects that they have worked on this year and how they feeling and thinking about things, and as promised I had completed the required bunting and tablecloths for our Garden party / High Tea. 

The bunting is in 2 sections and I used the 8 colours of the Young Women values. The colours represent;

• Faith - white
• Divine Nature - blue
• Individual Worth - red
• Knowledge - green
• Choice and Accountability - orange
• Good Works - yellow
• Integrity - purple
• Virtue - gold

The fabrics were all from Spotlight and I believe not any specific designer, though I may be wrong and for that I apologise. Picture me trying to carry 8 bolts of fabric and deal with Sophie and trying to make sure that the colours all worked together and people staring etc. In the end after making a decision on the blue, green, purple and white I dumped all of those with Sophie in a corner and let her entertain herself with the apps on my phone whilst I chose the others.

The red I loved the name of - Chinese Red and doesn't it just conjure images of opulence and royalty and festivities and dragons etc. The gold has a lovely pattern on it and the yellow is a light seersucker. The orange is a floral which was more of a red base than yellow based colour so blended well. I love the colours. The young women cut the fabrics all out using pinking shears so no fraying to deal with and I sewed them all together by lying them on a strip of bias binding, folded it over and one long stitch from end to end secures everything.

The green fabric is just lovely, it is a really light cotton with dobby white spots in it. I would love a kaftan or loose blouse in this for summer. The blue was where I started with a lovely spring floral, white just a cotton  and to end a light purple gingham check. I thought they were a bit vintage but fitted the garden party theme. 

Sadly the weather had been very Spring like and that means hot, humid, storms, and rain. So after three consecutive days of such weather we decided to bite the bullet and the garden party/high tea had to come inside. 

We needed to seat about 17 people so the food was all popped on one table, another table with things that the young women had worked on during the year and then seats all around so that we could listen to the girls tell us of their experiences during the year and watch a lovely dvd that Becky put together from pictures of all our activities through the year together. Songs were sung, Caitlin played a beautiful piece of Chopin that she had performed for her HSC (year 12 music exam) and experiences and feelings shared. 

It was a lovely evening, with delicious supper afterwards and chatting with friends.

I am unsure why I took a picture of the table lopsided - sorry, so tilt your head to either side to 45 degrees and it should look ok. Punch, scones, whipped cream, jam, lemon slice, crudites and dip, fruit platters and many more delicious things were popped on this floral table cloth. Yum.

Sadly we had to say bye, but thankfully just for a couple of months, to Taylor as she jets off to stay with family in Salt Lake for the holidays. We will miss you heaps Taylor and your wonderful positive attitude. 

If you would like to know more about young women and the values that they try to live by and the theme that they hold dear, go here.