** Making **

Here is one of things I have been making in my 'spare' time lately. Yes, I know you are laughing at me - I don't really have spare time as such. Do you actually know anyone who has spare time? I guess it is more correct to say 'this is what I have chosen to make a priority with my time lately as part of my 'handmade presents' aim for this year.'

This is a bag I made for a very special friends birthday. I did some research when we went shopping together one day, checking which fabrics she liked and went back a week later to purchase them. Then I jumped into making this bag. It is a tutorial by Pink Penguin. This tutorial is so well written and everything is explained beautifully with heaps of photos. It came together really quickly and beautifully.

This is where I used iron on vinyl coating to protect the lining fabric, just in case something spills inside there. I love this product, so handy and easy to use. The bag has a drawstring cover inside so you can safely hide the contents of the bag. Great idea for keeping those kids fingers out.

My only disappointment is that the bag is smaller than I expected - the dimensions were listed on the tutorial but it looked like it would be bigger. Next time I will actually get out my measuring stick and see just how big the project will end up - before I start!

Anyway - Happy Birthday my dear friend!!

Loving the old things

This would have to be one of my favourite old things. This is a vintage bouncer. I have used it with all three of my boys and it always works when they need a little help to sleep or just calm down. The beautiful bouncing motion sends them off into a peaceful sleep - therefore I love it.

You can buy things that are similar now in the shops but this is the original thing (and cost me next to nothing because it isn't very pretty). The netting stuff didn't look overly comfortable to me so a quick sewing project by Gran gives us a wonderful vintage bouncer.

Eli loves it (just like the other two boys)

I wonder how many other babies have been bounced to sleep in this??

Garden Update

It's been a while since I've given you an update on our gardening process. I think planting the potatoes was the last thing we shared. Since then we have planted tomatoes, broccoli and rosella. All of which are going really well. We have picked some of the potatoes, the broccoli is all finished and the rosellas are going really well now (after laying down for a sleep for a week, which made me think they were dead). Anyway, the little garden we have is full. So time for a bigger garden.

Most people would be imagining digging up a new garden meaning hard work and sore backs.
But not here - this means get the boys to bring the tractor over so we can sit and watch them plough it for us!
There was some hand digging to find the pipe rather than dig it up with the plough. (SMART idea, it went straight through the middle of one of the proposed plots, so this one didn't get ploughed yet. We need to move the pipe first).

It was a lovely afternoon/evening to be out in the garden. So far we've planted zucchini, egg plant and beans.
I'm loving showing the kids growing things at home and making our own food.
They had great fun helping pull up some potatoes yesterday too.

This past week

Eli joined our family and is loved very much!

Sewing Fun

Today I have had great fun with a craft/sewing product that I've never used or even seen before. It is iron on vinyl that makes your fabric 'water proof'. I was making a bag with beautiful fabric and thought it would be good if you could wipe it out if there was a spill of some kind inside and the fabric didn't get stained. So after a little research I discovered this iron on vinyl at Autumn Threads. It is so simple to use, just peel off the paper, put the sticky side on the fabric, lay the paper back over the vinyl and iron. Then you can sew it just like normal fabric.

I can already think of so many wonderful things I could make with this product. Beautiful baby bibs, bags, fun kids aprons, placemats, the list just keeps going. I am looking forward to experimenting with it more, but so far I'm super impressed.

I also received my most recent fabric shopping parcel in the post today. I finally bought some fabric I've been drooling over from Funky Fabrics. I am super impressed with this shop. I put the order in on Monday and received it on Wednesday. Now that is quick!! And when one of the fabrics wasn't quite right, they emailed back within 2 hours of my enquiry offering new fabric and I get to keep the one that wasn't right. I would recommend Funky Fabrics to everyone. It is a family based Brisbane company and they are just wonderful to deal with. I'll be going back.

Now check out those funky fabrics. How cute are those owls!!
I can't wait to make some fun clothes for my boys with those.

Slowing Down

I am absolutely not good at slowing down. I always have projects, things I want to do or get done. Cooking, sewing, trying to get through my 'handmade' christmas list, scrapbooking, blogging etc. However, at present I am in a bit of conflict with my body. My body is very much telling me to slow down but my head still thinks I can do all these things.
As you can see, my body is going to win this one for a while.



So this space may become quiet for the next few weeks as we adjust to this little one joining us.
I'm sure there will be photo updates as soon as possible but I'm not making any promises for now.
I am going to try and rest a little!
(as much as possible with a 3 & 1 year old in the house)

** SLEEP IN **

It has worked - the boys both slept till 6:40 this morning. Now that is just unheard of in our house so I am very excited. After months of 5am or there abouts I finally decided to remove the daytime sleep for Isaiah and after a few days for his body clock to get sorted out it worked. I am truly amazed how 'not hard' it actually was. I had built it up in my head to a huge challenge to keep him awake during the day and how much hard work evening routines would be because he would be so tired - but you know what - that was all just in my head. He stayed awake no worries and the evenings were just the same as normal, no melt-downs or major issues. Hooray for my big boy. I guess that shows me just how ready he was.

That fact that Isaiah slept in also meant that Jai slept until 6:40 as well, instead of being woken up by his brother. (The main downside to sharing a bedroom). So today we start another transition - moving Jai to one daytime sleep instead of two. He did really well today and made it till 11:30 till he nearly fell asleep eating his lunch, very amusing for me to watch.

Somewhere under that wrap is Jai, sound asleep.


My boys are both growing up - yes, it does seem too fast
but it also means we can do so many more things that we used to.