See you next year!

Will they ever forgive us?

Christmassy things

The tree is up and as usual we have had fun adding new decorations to our collection.

This I my favourite - Because Bea made it at nursery!

I got this one from Jo Heckett on Etsy for Eleanor and its lovely.

Bea chose this one for Eleanor too.

And this was her choice for herself this year!

Now the rush to finish my customers Christmas orders is over Bea and I have started on some festive projects - including this toilet roll and cotton wool snowman.

I'm very much feeling the Christmas spirit this year as Bea is sooo excited - she has even been waking in the night thinking its Christmas day!  Cute, but not much fun being the one to tell her it was just a dream...

Christmas (already!)

I haven't even started wearing a coat yet but I have just added a christmas card to the shop!  I'm looking forward to christmas already - I always do at this time of year but get a bit sick of it before we even get to christmas day!

The card is a cat and bear illustration on recycled card and comes with a red envelope.  It is available singly or in a pack of 5.

Over the rainbow

Bea has known virtually for the last year that she wanted a rainbow birthday party and we were happy to oblige!  There is a big trend for rainbow themed parties at the moment so I was able to find plenty of inspiration for my pinterest board!

This was the invite and we used the rainbow design elsewhere in the party too.

I made a balloon garland using this tutorial which looked great over the arch in our garden.

Bea wore a fantastic rainbow tutu from Strawberry Annies.  Here she is attempting to bash the pinata.  When asked what the best bit of her party is she says the hitting - I can assure you she is talking about the pinata!

Another game we played was stick the pot of gold on the end of the rainbow using the rainbow from the invitations.

I had lots of fun doing the party bags.  I used these striped paper bags

And filled with lots of rainbow themed goodies!

I can't take credit for the cake - my sister made it - right before flying to Singapore.

The striped layers inside got a few 'oohs' when the cake was cut.

The whole dessert table was rainbow themed - there were rainbow jellies, cupcakes, fruit kebabs, oreo pops and chocolate dipped marshmallows.  All inspired by the pins on my rainbow party board.

It might have been nice to have a real rainbow on the day but I was happy to settle for the last hot day of the summer!

Still here!

Just adjusting to life as a mother of two!  And these particlular two certainly keep me busy, don't let this sleepy little face fool you!  I'll be back next week with details of Bea's rainbow themed birthday party!

Introducing...

Eleanor Ivy, born on the 24th July (13 days late!) 8lb 3oz (a whole lb lighter than her sister)

Big sister Bea taking to the new addition well.

Waiting...

Its not easy being 3 days over due - especially as Bea was 9 days early.  We didn't have to do this horrible trying to be patient thing last time!


We have been doing lots of home based activities this week as I don't feel like straying too far from home, including baking cakes.  Bea decorated these all by herself.  

New friends

I have just added two new soft toys to the shop that I have managed to finish before the baby turns up!


Meet Bernie the bear and Herb the cat. As with all my soft toys they are one of a kind.

A pink post

One of the best things about June is that I can have a lovely bunch of Peonies on the table.  Made me feel a little bit summery despite this ridiculous weather!

I made some more teeny baby shoes as a gift for another baby girl due soon.  I got the pattern here on Etsy and made them in a couple of hours - just the quick kind of knitting project I like!

A few finished projects

As the biggest project round here is finally nearly finished (the new baby is due next week)  I have been trying to get a few other things finished.

The nursery is done but has nothing on the walls yet so I made this little embroidered initial and elephant.

Bea has been ousted from her cot bed as we needed it for the nursery so to make the transition to big bed more appealing I made her a couple of new cushions (she is a girl who loves cushions) with this very cool vintage fabric I bought on Etsy (here)

And finally a little dress for the baby to match this top I made Bea a while ago.  Hopefully we can get some cute photos of them in their matching clothes!

A very British Jubilee

It was a couple of weeks ago now but we were lucky enough to have a Jubilee street party arranged in our street.  It was a pretty big event in the end with loads of people, games and food.  The weather wasn't great and we had a few showers but it didn't spoil the fun too much.

There was a fancy dress parade in which Bea took part.  I must say her costume was more to join in rather than an attempt to win first prize but I thought she looked like a pretty cute queen, Corgi and all.
The crown we made together then I whipped up a simple cloak.

I also made her a Jubilee dress that she could keep on all day.  I only got a couple of quick snaps of it before it got jelly down the front.

(Excuse the grimace - that is what passes for a smile round here at the moment).  I wanted the dress to have a vintagey feel so added a little collar with ric rac to a simple dress pattern, and a wide polka dot border at the bottom.  I really liked how the dress turned out and hope she gets a bit more wear out of it over the summer just as a cute (if very patriotic) sundress.

Curtain shorts

When the sudden hot weather arrived I realised that Bea doesn't yet have many very summery clothes this year so I whipped up a quick pair of shorts while she was in bed. 

I made them from an off cut of a too long Ikea linen curtain Sound of Music style and added the floral turn ups to make them a bit less plain.  a successful quick sewing project cobbled together from whatever I had available!

Stripy summer top

I pinned this lovely top ages ago on my kids clothes board as I loved the horizontal stripes and the wide white bands on the sleeves.  I had it in my mind to make something similar for Bea for the summer.

So last week I finally got round to it.  I adapted a simple pattern from Making children's clothes by Emma Hardy - basically just chopping off the sleeves and adding the white bands.

Obviously its quite different from the original inspiration but I'm pretty happy with it.  The only thing I found with the pattern is that it came up quite short - I would definitely add a couple of inches next time.

This week I hope to make a matching dress for the baby (yes, I plan to be that mother!)

Bella the ballerina

I have just added a new one of a kind cat to my shop.  This latest one is Bella and comes complete with a yellow tutu. See here for more details.

Ripples

I have finally started my first project for the new baby - although with only 8 weeks to go I'm cutting it fine!  I am making a lovely ripply blanket in bright rainbow stripes (as Bea insists her little sister is called Maka paka Rainbow it seems appropriate!) using the neat ripple tutorial from Attic24.


The pattern is easy to follow and a nice simple repeat that doesn't require much concentration.  I'm choosing the colour order as I'm going along so the stripes are random.  I'm about halfway through now  so fingers crossed I can get it finished!  Along with all the other things I wanted to make!

 

Little bow shoes

These little shoes were a quick crochet project for a new baby gift (not for our own baby, although I have at last started making something for her).  The pattern is the French baby booties pdf from Luz crochet patterns on Etsy.  As a self taught crochetist (crocheter?) I generally wing it a bit and hope the finished item turns out ok but the pattern was pretty easy to follow and I think my shoes look enough like the originals to call them a success!

Ani-mix magnets

I have just added a new product to the shop.  It is a set of handmade magnets featuring my mix and match animals.

There are six animals in the set (so 12 magnets) so you can stick them on your fridge and have lots of mix and match entertainment to pass the time while waiting for the microwave to ping!

Corners of calm

Don't let these pictures fool you - the whole house does not look like this - but after 3 weeks and a lot of hard decorating work we are finally starting to carve out some corners of calm amongst the chaos.

Just the hall and girls bedrooms to decorate now, which should be the most fun to do. I have finally almost finished the Daisy chain sampler (I'm on Z!) to go up on the nursery wall.

Just need to get it all done before baby arrives!

Planeta Tangerina

I just saw a post on ninainvorm about this fantastic Portuguese publishers and oh wow - I would love to own all of their books! Unfortunately I don't speak Portuguese and neither does Bea. I will have to see if I can seek out some English versions.

Madalena Matoso

Isabel Minhos Martins - Yara Kono

Isabel Minhos Martin - Madalena Matoso