Homemade surprise

Hello Everyone! Its been a bit quiet over here, hasn’t it? I do have quite some catching up to do but first I’ll start off with this little update of what we’ve been up to!

It’s the eve of Mother’s day and The Dude and I have been busy crafting a gift for his mom.

Since The Dude can’t (and won’t) attempt to knit or crochet, our gift had to be something quick and easy to make! And something practical and memorable of course!

So I was really happy to find this handy online video tutorial on how to make an accordion photo album!

Now, if you like me, have checked out the photo albums in the shops and thought twice about getting one after finding out how much they costed, then this tutorial is really for you! All it needs is some card stock paper, a brad and some elastic and you are good to go!

The tutorial was so easy to follow hat we finished our accordion photo album in under two hours! Here’s our end result….

A little star shaped brad holds the black elastic in place….

Which helps hold everything together nicely like so!

Stick this album in a specially marked envelope….

And we are good to go!

It’s the perfect mini brag book for grandma I think! Pretty sure it’s going to be a hit! Have a lovely Mother’s day folks!

It’s true….

Bugs has turned two!! There are days I wonder where all that time has gone and of course, days when I wish time would pass quicker. But for today, I did really wish that time would stand still for a moment!

We spent our special day at one of Bugs’s favourite playgrounds. The Dude took time off work and joined as well which made it extra special!

After an action packed morning, it was home to a little celebration with home made cake!

I’m still terrible at icing a cake but this turned out quite ok! But as they say, the proof in the pudding is in the taste and this cake got the two mini thumbs up from the little girl in the house!

The Dude and I did spend a bit of time reminiscing about the good old days. It does feel a bit nostalgic when you look back at pictures and realise how much Bugs has grown and change.

But it’s part of life I guess and I’m thankful that she’s developing well and I’ve been able to be a part of this amazing journey!

I’ll end off now with this picture of precious Bugs that was taken during Easter two years ago. It’s one of my favourites and I hope you enjoy it too!

The Easter update

Ok so Easter is officially over and I’m a little late in updating my posts. But that’s because we’ve been having lots of fun touring the peninsula!

Easter for us began with the traditional unwrapping of the chocolate eggs….

Once we had taken care of that, it was off to the grounds of the beautiful Heronswood gardens for a visit!

The Diggers club is also on site. I was really tempted to get a few seedlings and seed packets home, especially after we spotted this….

And this and lots more amazing produce during our walk through the gardens!

But the Dude reminded me about our success rate with gardening -currently its pretty dismal. So instead we did the more sensible thing and spent our money at the lovely cafe onsite indulging in this gorgeous orange flour less cake!

Our next and final two destinations were to beaches. First up, the Dromana foreshore….

And then to the famous Gunammatta beach where we managed to catch incredible views of the surf and the ocean beach!

Bugs had a ball exploring the gardens and the beaches. But she was especially thrilled when the Easter bunny paid a visit in the evening bearing, yes, more chocolate eggs! Here he is, the Easter bunny that I’d crocheted a few weeks ago….

And watching tv with us after we had consumed his gifts of joy…

The holidays have been fantastic for all of us! Hopefully they have been for you too!

Till later folks!

Decision time

For some very weird reason, we seem to be back in summer. The weather has been blazing hot the last couple of days, which makes lots of things uncomfortable.

Thank goodness most of my knitting is complete, now with these two later projects that I’m about to share out of the way!

First up, a little shrug in a deep red colour aptly titled Budapest!

The Budapest shrug has a lovely leaf lace pattern along the edges, including the sleeves as seen below…

Choosing buttons to complete the garment did give me a bit of a headache. I’d initially chosen some sparkly red ones – see those three buttons in my hand. But they only came in a set of three (I needed four) and it was the really last set. So I settled for some metal ones instead. Still works out well I think!

I’d faced the same issue when I finished my latest project – a lovely cardigan that I’ve named Champagne, after the beautiful Red Riding Hood yarn its knitted in!

These pale pink ones were nice but they seemed a bit lost amongst the pink and yellow flecked yarn…

My personal favourite were these pearl oyster shell ones….

But they were a bit too big for the buttonholes…

Same with these wooden butterfly ones that Bugs picked out (she’s into butterflies now), they were just too fiddly to pass smoothly through the holes!

So we finally settled on these antique looking plastic buttons instead! Doesn’t look too bad yah!

I’m really happy with the results and especially of the fact that these were completed before Easter! They are both going to be my little birthday presents for Bugs who turns two next week! *Gasp! My baby is two! How time flies!*

Bugs’s still a little young for bubbles but at least she’ll have Champagne for her birthday!

Find out more about the designer for my Budapest shrug, Stephanie Japel, here!

And click here to find out more about Georgie Hallam who designed my Champagne cardigan!

One more for the road

Summer is officially over now but that doesn’t mean that we stop indulging in summery things…..

Like good old ice cream, for instance! Especially if they are of the guilt free and fibre rich variety!

This cool little baby was a birthday gift for a close pal. Sprinkles (and added sugar) always make things look a lot brighter don’t you think? I added a little tag to the ice cream to complete the gift.

We packed our fake ice cream together with some real homemade vanilla ice cream, cones and of course, sprinkles! One birthday prezzie all done and dusted and ready to be delivered to the recipient!

With autumn now underway, I’ve started to pick up my knitting a bit more than usual, can’t wait for the weather to turn cold so that this becomes a lot more comforting and less sweaty!

I guess we should count our blessings – the weather is still nice and warm and perfect for long strolls in the park!

Not complaining as long as there is sunshine everyday!

Have a great day folks!

Cool apples

This is Bugs’s favourite book of the moment…

In it, Gerald the Elephant ponders about whether it not to share his delicious ice cream with his best pal, Piggie. Only thing is that he has to make the decision fast….

Inspired by the story (especially after reading it more than ten times a day), I thought it would be a pretty cool ( pardon the pun) idea to make an ice cream for Bugs. Especially after this free knitted ice cream pattern caught my eye!

There’s three delectable ice cream varieties to choose from but I wanted to stick as close to what Gerald had as possible. So I chose the simple sugar cone and classic scoop combo.

So here you go….. One fat free, unmeltable ice cream (grass flavoured I suspect) for a hot day!

On other news, I’ve made my seventh pair of shorts for Bugs! Seven! Can you believe it? I can’t! All i know is that I’m totally addicted to shorts now!

This pair was sewn slightly differently to the previous pairs. I’m loving the waist band finish – that’s the book that I referred to in the background, a Japanese sewing book. It took some time to figure out what to do from the pictures but I’m glad it all worked out in the end!

It’s almost the end of Feb! Where has the time gone? Hope your day is sunny and sweet! Till later!

A new purpose

Bugs’s been eating tons lately which meant that we’ve been needing to buy new and bigger clothes for her. Like this plain white tee that we got from K Mart recently.

Only problem that it got a bit stained after the resident Picasso had a drawing session on herself – you can kind of make out the blue and brown stains in the picture below.

I thought it was a real pity to throw an almost brand new tee away. So after a few moments of googling, I decided to make it into a tee shirt dress!

There’s heaps of tutorials online that you can find on how to make one so what I did is nothing new. First step: cut the tee to desired length. This was a great chance for me to cut away that stained portion!

Next I got some fabric for the skirt bit….

Sewed and gathered up the fabric….

Pinned and sewed it to the previously cut up tee….

Added a little bias tape to the end of the skirt (because as usual I am a klutz in measuring the length of the skirt and it came up a bit shorter than expected)….

And voila! One tee shirt dress done!

I’m pretty stoked at the results! I can foresee I’ll be making more dresses the same way in the near future! Especially with the little artist in the house!

Here’s another shot of the dress – have a great day folks!

Cloud love

Now that the presents have been safely delivered to the recipients, I can now share this post!

Meet Aiko the kokeshi doll- a cute little crochet project that was made for a dear friend recently!

Aiko (or love in Japanese) was lots of fun to make! I’d been searching for a while for an appropriate pattern and when this one popped up on my search results, I knew that it would be the perfect gift for someone who loved Japan! Or dolls I hoped!

Aiko is a truly cool doll! She has a sparkly blue and green obi sash on her red kimono…

And matching blue petals, a little white fan and hair ties in her hair! Well a girl’s got to look good, don’t you think?

Here’s Aiko sitting snugly among the Japanese sweets and chocs that she was packed with!

But wait! There’s more! Along with Aiko was a little something that was whipped up with my precious sewing machine – this fluffy pillow in the shape of a cloud which has a friendly face on the front….

And a Thomas the train print on the back for a train loving fan!

Making this cloud pillow has inspired me to make one for Bugs! Only this time it will be much bigger!

Gift giving is all done for now! Hopefully this post made you smile! Have a great day folks!

How to make a robot

Here’s how we make a robot…

Take one body and add on some eyes…..

Install in the antenna at the top of the head….

Fix on the arms….

And the wheels (how else does a robot get around!)….

And voila! One robot or Luvbot as the brilliant Anna Hrachovec who designed this pattern calls it!

Mildred or Milly in short (my robot’s name – I’m terrible with coming up with techie names) was a stealth knit – I had to hide it from The Dude while I was working on it. That meant knitting during Bugs’s naptime as quickly as I could!

Milly’s hands looked a bit empty so I knitted up a mini pink heart for her to hold! There! Doesn’t she look much happier now?

Add a little note…

And my Valentine’s Day gift for The Dude is complete! Yay!

It was M&M’s for The Dude last year, hopefully he doesn’t mind the lack of chocolate this year! After all, as our favourite author Mo Willems puts it, how can anyone be sad around a robot!?

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone!

Shorts story

Summer is the time for…..

Lazy evening walks and camel rides (only valid if you weigh less than 15 kg)…..

And shorts! Yes – shorts!

Lots and lots of shorts!

The sewing machine and I have been busy lately you see, churning out pair after pair of this summer essential wardrobe item. Here’s the most recent pair that’s just done , made with some cute Spot the dog fabric, which Bugs is a fan of.

It wasn’t completely on easy street making a pair of shorts. I am still quite the novice sewer. The first pair of shorts came up too small- a bit disappointing but luckily enough, it was just the right size for one special member in the household!

The second time round was way more successful (as you can see from Bugs modelling the shorts in the pictures above).

So I was really encouraged with my successful shorts story to date and decided to try my hand at making a pair of pyjama pants! Kind of like shorts but longer, yes?

This tutorial that I found online was a real gem. It took me just under two hours ( with a few brief pauses taken to read a story to the little one when required) to finish a pair and here’s how it looks…..

Not bad eh? It passed the wear test too- Bugs was quite happy prancing around in them when we tried them on her yesterday evening!

A new pair of pants for just about everyone around the house, just in time for the Chinese new year! I think it’s safe to say we’re all happy here!

Have a great day everyone!