A long over-due Ta-Dah moment & Other going's on

It has been a while since I have written anything. That doesn't mean that I have been indulging in a bit of bloggy reading, I just haven't taken the time to add thoughts to my page. Actually, with things buzzing as they have been, my thoughts have been pretty jumbled anyway (you might not have been able to make sense of them).

There have been calico & rayon bags made for the grandma's (of which I wrapped in a hurry to send with my brother the other day, so in the craziness I didn't even get a photo! Kicking myself for that. It was my own design too!) Easter stuff (like helping set up for the 4 day Easter extravaganza at church), and little dabbles with crochet for babies (more on that later).

Saturday Mr. Kelp took the boys to Sabbath School for a morning of songs, stories and craft. This is what remains of the little Easter baskets they made.

Easter Chicks

Fresh laid eggs ;)

I didn't take a photo of it when it was fresh and first came home - I'd stayed home sick, and the thought of finding the energy to actually pick up the camera and try to get a somewhat decent shot was just all too much.

With family coming and going over the weekend, and rain, rain and more rain, that brings us to now, with a 3 year old with a fever, a 1 year old who seems to be teething (read as shrieking, chewing on his hands, ice cubes and anything else he thinks will help) washing piled up (oh how glamorous - I'm sure you wanted to know that!), I am well and truly ready for a few moments to myself and my little blog. Mr. Kelp did rig up a tarp over the clothes line for me - so at least some of it is getting slowly drier, and I have some things in the clothes drier too. :)

Anyway, I thought I'd show you how my Passion Pour les fleurs turned out...
Are you ready?

Ta Dah!

It has long since been living with my SIL, so I guess I should really work on finishing off some of the other stuff that am working on.

Here is a little teaser...

Hope you have a fab short working week everyone!

S xxx

Fabric Child's Belt Tutorial.

I have a niece that is a tad on the petite side, so for her birthday the other day I decided that I should make her a belt to help keep things in place. Keep in mind that I am kinda new to sewing. This is not the only way to do it, it's just what worked for me. For another easy to follow tutorial, check out Prudent Baby.

Materials:

Chosen fabric. I used Michael Miller Corduroy Flower Crystals in pink.
Light/Medium weight iron on interfacing (or do yourself a favour and get some iron on tape!!!)
2 x 2.5 cm (1") D rings.
Thread to either match or contrast.
Rotary cutter (optional - scissors work too).
Bias tape maker (optional - but it makes it a LOT easier!)
Iron & board
Sewing machine

 

Here's what I did:


1.Cut two strips of fabric 4.5cm (or 5cm if you prefer it a little wider) x your desired length. I made mine 63cm long. I also cut parallel to the selvedge as the fabric was a LOT more stable this way (and it made the lines of the cord go in the desired direction).

2. Cut two strips of interfacing 2.5 cm wide, and 4cm shorter than your fabric strips. (In my case I made them 59cm long).

3.Trim the ends of the fabric into a point (I folded the end in half to make sure I had the point in the middle).

4. Thread fabric into the bias tape maker. (You may find that the tip of your scissors, the end of a pen, or a pin may be helpful here). Iron fabric as you go.

5. Open fabric out and place the interfacing in the middle, and slightly in from the end of the fabric strip (see photo below). Make sure the shiny side is down (you don't want glue on your iron!), and iron it on.

6.Fold ends in an press. (See picture below).

7. Trim corners before folding the fabric closed. This takes out some of the bulk for the following steps.

8. Fold pointy end in and press.

9.Place both strips of fabric wrong sides together and pin.

10. Top-stitch the fabric. You can use a colour that will blend in, or a contrasting colour. I chose something that stood out a little. Stitch as close to the edge as you can. If you like at this point you can sew another line of stitching inside of the first line. I didn't bother.

11. Thread 2 D-rings onto your fabric strip at the end that doesn't have interfacing. Fold the fabric strip over so that the interfacing just covers the D-rings. Stitch down. Reinforce if desired.

12. Wear or gift your new belt! :)

If you have any problems with this tutorial, leave a comment to let me know.

Happy stitching! :)

S xxx

Last birthday party for the month.

Well I haven't been doing much on the blog scene for the a good part of this month - but I have been a little bit busy. With all the birthdays we have had I have been trying to make things for each birthday boy/girl, and have had a few other crafty things going on in the back ground as well. Add to this the usual household running stuff, keeping up with my two rather active little boys (Oh Jellyfish would insist here that he ISN'T a little boy, he's a BIG boy!), and baking for our trip north last weekend, and extra for a certain lovely grandparent, and that brings me to now.

So what did I make for the birthday girl this time? Remember this beanie? Well since I got a bit of a head-start with that one, I decided that I needed to make a little something else, and since my niece is a little on the petite side, a little belt to keep everything where it should be was in order.

I also made some more bug biscuits. I didn't take photos this time. Thank you everyone for your lovely comments for the last ones I made. They are in fact biscuits - not cupcakes - but I assure you they are rather tasty! Mr. Kelp got in on the action too and made some of his own decorated biscuits - so we had butterflies, and a snail, and a flower - perfect for the theme of the day - a garden party!

Here is a shot of the birthday girl's cake. Complete with rock candy and little icing bugs :)

 

So that's it for today - I'm just a tad tired. Come back tomorrow for a tutorial on the fabric belt you saw above. (It's all ready to go - promise!)

Trying Something New...

I don't know about you, but I am one of these girls that has favourite scents, and perfumes that I keep coming back to. You know how it goes. You find a scent that just makes your heart sing, and you feel just a little bit more buoyant when you wear it? Well one of those scents is YSL's In Love Again. The original. Sadly they did it as a limited edition. And I don't have any any more. But my wonderful hubby did scour the net last year for my birthday and came up with something close. YSL In Love Again Fleur De La Passion. And I love it!!! A re-release that they tweaked just a bit. It's not quite as fruity, but still light enough that it makes the sun shine.

www.fragrantica.com

Anyway, I had an idea the other day... I don't want to always be stuck in a fragrance rut, and sometimes it is good to try new things, so I wandered into my local perfume connection as I was leaving the shops the other day. You see they used to have selections of perfume samples that you could buy for very little - AND you got to choose which ones that you wanted to give a go. Short story - they don't do that anymore, however they DO just give you samples of whatever they have been sent (or should that be scent... :P ) so I have 3 to try out... mixed with my regulars, they should last me till the end of Autumn :) Sweet huh? I already tried Thierry Mulger's Alien a few years back (as a winter scent) and really liked it.

So these are the ones that I am now trying. Do you have any of these scents? What do you think of them? Do they make your heart sing?

Birthday's Galore!

Yesterday saw us on the Central Coast celebrating one of my nephew's 2nd birthday. It was a glorious day (at least until the wind came up while we were at the park - water views - you know how it goes!), and a fantastic setting. There was an enclosed play area for the kids with lots of great equipment to play on, and an undercover eating area where we had all the party fixings.

I made some bug biscuits for the party (previously seen here), and altered them even more. Then I added some tiger ones to the mix as the little guy loves tigers. (Ok, so they weren't the greatest tigers - it was almost 10:30pm when I was decorating them... inspiration was getting a bit thin on the ground by then, so I called in reinforcements!). They are deceptively easy to make, and actually taste pretty darned good! (If you like liquorice - which I do).

His Mummy and Daddy made him a tiger cake (I think the grandparents might have had a hand in it's creation also ;) - Great liquorice cutting Arn & the man of the house!), and there was loads of food - too numerous in flavours and textures to list (ALL of it good!).

I gifted the MDF/spray paint creation that I was working on... I ended up getting Mr. Kelp to help out a lot as time was ticking and he is good with that kind of thing (I did all the sanding... just had to get that in there!)... but wouldn't you know it - I completely forgot to take a photo of it when the light was good. And then I wrapped it. Silly, I know. I will have to see if I can get a photo of it from the little guy's parents.
Edit - here are the pictures from his mummy...

So there you have it - three birthday's down for the month, one to go!

My Creative Space - Alphabet

I wanted to show you this last week - but it wasn't ready.

Alphabet wall decor that I made for my nephew's birthday last weekend.

I love how they turned out... and I'm glad I'm not making a whole set again any time soon! Phew!

My creative space today involves paint, MDF and pieces of sandpaper... wish me luck!(Oh, and check back tomorrow - hopefully I will have finished!)

More creative goodness here.

Bulbs and Book Binding

Ok, so I'm still working on that tute. When I went back to look at the photos I had taken I realised that I didn't have as many as I thought, so now I'm at the point of a re-do.

I did find something worthy of a photo though. Two weeks ago I bought this pot of flowering Dutch Hyacinths. There were three massive spikes of flowers out when I got them, and the perfume was quite intense. You would think that I would have chose to take a photo of them in all their glory... but no. Those flowers have now dried off, but there are two more spikes that are beginning to bloom, so I thought I'd share a quick snapshot of them.

The first image was and "as-is" shot, and the second one was me having a fiddle with the aperture on the camera (didn't know my camera would even do that!... maybe I should see if I can find the manual?) If you don't have a fancy pants DSLR either (oh I wish!), and you have any suggestions - please feel free to enlighten me! :)