I have moved house!

My new blog is at milkmaidblues

2012 Christmas Cards

Rosie, Leo and I had a little craft time production line of Christmas cards last week. I'm not sure where I got the idea from, but this year I kept it easy and decided to do potato stamp christmas trees plus sticker decorations.

I bought a pad of watercolour paper (which was thick like cardboard) from kmart and cut it in half to make about 48 A5 cards. I also bought 2 packets of fluoro circle stickers from a cheap shop, plus some star stickers.

Rosie did 90% of the potato stamping, and when the paint was dry I let them both loose with the stickers to decorate the trees.

I think they turned out pretty well!

Bag lady

I paid Spotlight a visit a few weeks ago (and again yesterday when they had their 30% off all fabric hehehe) when I hadn't been for ages. They had some lovely Japanese cotton canvas in cool retro/70's prints so I had to get some! I picked up this 70's brown spotty one in the above pic and decided to make a new bag from it. There is also a nice bunch of fabrics designed by reprodepot- I asked Rosie to pick one out so I could make her a new summery dress, so she chose the cute tulip one. Then there is another range called 'woodlands' or something, and I chose the diamonds in shades of blue/green to make some nice little shorts for Leo.

(on a side note - I think the choice for boys fabrics in SL is pretty limited.....if you want army print, cars, whales or crappy skulls then you are in heaven. If you don't want any of that, like me, then there is not much to choose from....They have a billion and one floral fabrics, but cool patterns for boys are few and far between I think)

Anyway, I have made my bag now. I was so sick of my current (now retired) 'nappy' bag, but liked the size of it and all the pockets. So I copied it and made my own pattern from it. I prefer cross-body bags as I like to have my hands free when I'm out and about for when I need to grab Leo before he destroys something in a shop....

The cotton canvas I used was a medium weight but definitely not thick enough to use without a lining....so I cut up some old jeans and lined it with denim. There are three pockets on the inside and a loop to clip my keys to.

I'm very happy with it and really enjoyed the whole puzzle-piece process of putting it all together. So now I want to make another one.....even though I don't really need it....

Here's something I prepared earlier

Here is a costume I made for Rosie for her daycare's 'book week' a while ago. Rosie wanted to be 'the little princess'.
So I made a little golden crown out of felt, it was a bit floppy even though it was double layered...so I stuffed a bit of quilt batting in there and sewed it up. Perfect!
The 'gown' is from an old kids nightie pattern that I made out of some cheap white cotton-y stuff from Spotlight.
We already had the stockings and shoes ;)

Rosie has grown a big pinky red spot on her face!
I should put my children in masks or something for public internet photos - I feel funny about having their faces on the net. I don't even like my face on the internet.
So big spots it is.

My sewing is going off

This is all I have made lately. One crappy little coin purse thingie to hold my gym card.
I nearly made it too small as well, the card only just fits in hehehe

I did make a 'little princess' costume for Rosie a while ago when they had book week at daycare.

This morning I fixed a pocket in Raff's work pants!

My sewing machine is in overdrive!

September

It has been a bit quiet around here lately and I just haven't felt like writing anything on this blog. I suppose I have been busy with work and so many doctors appointments I just haven't had the time to sit down and concentrate on blogging.

My husband turned 40 the other day and had a few days off work which was all spent as family time. We had a pretty low key day - had a drive around some suburbs in 'The Shire' just to have a look....we are obsessive real estate 'hunters' and wanted to look around the place. There are some nice spots down there, but we decided we would never move further than Tom Ugly's Bridge/Captain Cook Bridge. Unless it was much further down and we ended up in the Gong.
On the way back to our safe haven hehe, we stopped for yum cha in Blakehurst. The first yum cha place I've ever been to where there were no Asian people eating there. Not that it was bad, it was pretty good to be honest.

I have had a few emotional weeks as I start on my journey to better my mental health. As I have written in an earlier post, I have suffered from anxiety/panic attacks for a long time. It got to a point where enough was enough and I have finally started to do something about it. My poor little brain is at the point of panicking over nothing and I'm just sick of it.
First stop was a meltdown at the doctors, this doctor I have been seeing for years and she did not suspect it one bit. I guess I am very good at hiding it and totally internalizing my 'issues'. I have also had a holter monitor to monitor my heart (and basically give me peace of mind there is nothing wrong with my heart....and there is nothing wrong with it) and a few visits to see a psychologist. Unfortunately I am not happy with the psych and decided to stop seeing him, so I am looking for a new one.

I've actually had a couple of good weeks! My sister came down to visit and managed to take my mind of things and I have also started at the gym again which I think is working wonders. My sis and I did our first Body Balance class together and I loved it, I guess it's just like a yoga class and I have never done anything like that before. It made me realise how out of shape I am and I love the fact that it really focuses on BREATHING. Something I forget to do! I am a chronic shallow breather, almost hyper ventilator. I am learning to breathe again.

Anyway for someone that had nothing to say, I said a bit...

oops, more patterns....

Whoops! I may have accidentally bought all of these patterns today for 50c each from my local op shop. They were calling my name from the window, so I had to go in and go through two boxes and choose these ones.

First thing I'm going to make is one of the girls dresses from Style 1325 (2nd from right, bottom row)....probably the right one....something from spring!

And then I might try something slouchy from the 80s women's pattern.

and how cute are those yo-yo toys! I want to make one of them too....

Cushions

Rosie's daycare put out a request for donations of curtains and cushions a few weeks ago. There was a little note on the door that I wonder how many people read...I couldn't help out with any curtains, but I could make some cushions! Any excuse really to whip out the sewing machine and also do my bit to help out my daughters daycare :)

So I gave myself a fun little project and went through my fabrics with no real plan, just make up what came to me. I made 5 cushion covers which will hopefully brighten up the place and also survive being handled by kids and numerous washes in the washing machine.

It was a good excuse to practice my 'skills' (or lack thereof...), I wanted to try a couple of quilted tops. Quilting is hard, well maybe not top stitching part, but the lining everything up so it's all lined up properly part. So mine is a little wonky...

My favourites are the two floral ones.  The leafy one is some cotton drill that I bought yonks ago when Lincraft used to be good. I made some big half square triangles and also piped the edge. The pink floral one also uses HST and bits of an op-shopped sheet, SL polka dots and some op-shopped pink stuff. That was the funnest one!

I also like the back of the bottom one in the pile (top pic) as I used up some legs of jeans I cut off a while ago to make shorts from.

Anyway I am very happy with the results and the lovely teachers from daycare liked them a lot. What was even better though is the little card that Rosie brought home with her yesterday saying 'thank you' and little pictures drawn all over it from the kids. Very cute and touches my heart!

Girl baby clothes

Here is a little present I made for one of Rosie's daycare teachers who is expecting a baby girl later this month. I used Christy's bonnet pattern again (love it!) and also an old newborn pattern that I bought years ago.

I love the blue cherries, it is of course the Denyse Schmidt fabric I bought from Spotlight a while ago, the spotty dotty fabric is also from there.
Her teacher loved it which makes me very happy :)

Aren't handmade gifts great? One of a kind things that are made with love. I bet her baby will look superduper cute in this little set :)

More fabric....

My fabric buys for the week :) All from the op shop!
I'm pretty happy with this lot and have already used some of them.

From top to bottom:
- 2 x 70's pillowcases - I think these will eventually end up on Leo's bed.
- Green/blue floral cotton drill - it looks 60's but I don't think it is...anyway it looks cool and I threw it into the pram! There's about 4m+ of this stuff
- 2 x single floral sheets FULL OF STARCH. what the hell did they do with their sheets in the 60's when they made them??? Even after washing they are still stiff like cardboard.
- Pink and grey polka dot slightly stretchy stuff - about 3-4m
- Pink and grey marle streeeetchy stuff - 3m

I have used the green/blue drill for cushion covers and also some of one vintage sheet for a quilty cushion cover - these are for Rosie's daycare. They made a request for curtains and cushion covers, so I thought I would whip up a few fun and colourful ones :) I will take some photos tomorrow and post them up soon :) I tried a bunch of different things so it was also good practice for me.