Pre-Christmas Wrap Up

Phew, what a busy time it has been here! I've sent my lovely husband off to the park with our children so that I can sort through all the photos I have here of all my pre-Christmas creations that I didn't have time to blog. It's funny how when I first started to think back to last month, I didn't feel as if I got many things done, but it's wonderful to have these photos that prove otherwise!

December saw Jai's last month at kindy, with a big end of year kindy concert and I had volunteered to help out with face painting. One of the other kindy mum's, Linda, has her own face painting business and she ran a morning workshop to teach us the basics. As I'd only used the face painting kit I bought a couple of times at home with my boys I needed lots of tips! I came home and practiced on my two boys and nephew Copper, they all chose designs from the book that came with my kit.

Jordan being a robot

Jai wanted to be a crocodile

Cooper chose to be a shark

I had hoped my little miss would let me practice some more girly things like butterflies, but being almost two and sitting still for more than 30 seconds at a time just doesn't go together! Thankfully the few girls I did paint on the night liked the butterflies I did for them and most of the boys wanted to be tigers, which I found the easiest.

Jai as a tiger for the concert

We were asked to donate some food that could be sold on the night so I made some reindeer cupcakes
For Christmas gifts I decided to make some yummy peppermint fudge for Jai to give out to the kindy teachers as well.

Next there were costumes to make. Cooper needed a dinosaur costume for his end of year concert

Unfortunately I didn't get photos of the others I made, I helped out with some sheep, cow, and donkey dress ups for Jordan's school play - one of the mum's made the hoods and I attached on the ears. Jai was also a donkey in our church play, so I made up a hood with donkey ears and a donkey tail as well.

I made a pair of little baby shoes for my friend's adorable little Emily (these match the outfit in this post). I used the cloth shoe pattern from the Meet Me At Mikes books - these were nice and simple to make, I wish my little miss would fit them still.
I sent Jordan on a mission to find out what his teacher's favourite colour was, and he reported back that she liked red and black. I've been wanting to try out the Buttercup bag pattern by Rae for awhile now, so I found some lovely red and black floral quilters fabric in my stash and I love how it turned out. I think I need to make one (or a few) of these for myself.

I also made her a wire wrapped necklace with earrings to match.


I also finally finished off this skirt for Cheriese, all it needed was the ribbon hem and waistband done - I had it half done when I made the larger size for a friend's daughter a couple of months ago.
Finally here's a photo of me and my three little darlings while we waited for the Christmas pageant to start.

I'll leave the Christmas day post for later, this one is already long enough and if you've gotten to the end thank you so much and I promise that I will try to be more regular with my blog updates this year.

Natalie xx

A baby girl is on the way!

Not for me, but for one of my bestest friends, Jenni! We had her baby shower yesterday which was hosted by her sister and I offered to help out with some of the food and party games. I've been eyeing off cake photos in flickr for quite awhile now and have loved seeing all the cupcake towers so knew that was what I wanted to make for the cake.

I followed a tutorial on Cake Journal to make the stand and trawled through You Tube to find some demos on how to use fondant to make a ribbon bow and voila.....

There are vanilla and chocolate cupcakes, topped with pink butter cream frosting and I made the chocolate hearts by swirling together white chocolate with some pink chocolate colouring. The top cake has a layer of the same chocolate and vanilla mix from the cupcakes. Jenni got to take this tier home to share with the Daddy to be!

I also scrapped the front of a paper mache journal and the party guests got to write a message in it for Jenni.

And you can't have a baby shower without gifts! I used Ottobre 4/2009 design #3 for the dress with a quilter's cotton contrast for the band, then used the same fabric for the applique


and also for the matching bloomers, which are from Ottobre 3/2007 design #2.

I also made my first MCN, I used the Darling Diapers pattern and made this in their newborn size, once again with the same quilter's cotton to match. It was great to finally use my new snap press too, I was suprised how easy it was. I'm so happy with how this nappy turned out, my sister even said it looked the same as the one's I've bought, so now I can't wait to trace and cut out the bigger size for my little miss. I can see lots of matching dresses and nappies for summer!

Minky fleece outer

microfleece inner, with a 2 layer bamboo fleece snap in trifold booster
(try saying that 3 times fast!)

You also can't go without giving a mummy to be a bouquet of flowers:

Little socks, singlets and a face washer all rolled up.

It was a wonderful day and now I just can't wait to meet the new little miss, I hope to have some baby photos to show off in around 6 weeks or so ;)

Natalie xx

School Holidays - Day 1

It's been a lovely lazy day here, day 1 of our school holidays is always set aside for doing as little as possible! We did manage to get changed out of our pjs just before lunch and even did some quick baking..... well, not sure if 3 minutes in the microwave is officially called baking, but it's the closest thing I'm going to get to today. I used this 5 minute Chocolate Mug Cake recipe.

Fresh out of the microwave.

Jai was the last one to finish his serve

"mine's all gone" Jai realises......

Hmmm, wonder if there's anymore left?

nope, all gone!

Natalie
xx