Birthday Calendar

I've seen this all over Pinterest and so had to make one for myself. The top is a piece of MDF. The letters of 'Family' were purchased at Spotlight. I ended up using cork tiles for the birthday squares which took a bit of effort to cut but were easy to put the screws in to. I got 3 test pots of paint for the squares and added some white to get 3 varied shades of each. I used them to follow family lines...kinda.

Base coats done.

15mm screws were for between the main board and the month names. 10mm screws were for between each birthday square

I opened the top screws into hooks and left them open to add names as needed.

Finished. A piece of ribbon for it to hang from. I purchased a paint pen to write the names which worked really well.

Headband Holder

I was getting sick of finding headbands and heir clips everywhere so I decided to make a holder for all of Chloe's headbands. This decision was made about 2 months ago and this week I finally just made it. 

I had a strip of pink fabric left from when I made the binding for her cushions, and a nice long piece of pink ribbon which was really all I needed. I used a piece of rickrack so we could hang it on a hook, and the button at the top is purely decorative.

Full view - 3 sets of headband holders divided with some places for clips to sit

Side view

I just folded the ribbon and sewed across the top to make the loops

Rickrack for hanging (love my 3M hooks)

In use

Net Butterflies

I was busy getting netting for a tutu for my niece and didn't think about the weight/scratch factor properly so I ended up with some white and purple that I couldn't use. Inspiration hit and I am re-purposing the netting into little butterflies for the kids upcoming birthday party. Now I have grand ideas of making butterfly nets to 'catch' them in.

Finished Butterfly

First cut them into strips. These are approx 2.3" x 5"

Then round the corners with no precision at all

Lay on top of each other and concertina the middle - hold tight!

Wrap some cotton around the middle and knot it tight (may need some spare hands at this stage).

Grab the top piece in one hand and the bottom piece in the other hand and pull them away from each other firmly. The back pieces form the top wings and the front piece the bottom wings. If you pull hard enough they will stay like that.

Wrap a piece of pipe cleaner around the middle and twist. Curl the ends for antennae

Soft Tutu Skirt - kinda

When I was little my mum spent FOREVER making me proper tutu's for my ballet competitions. If Chloe ever gets into that then I'm sure I would do the same, but for now I have followed the pattern I have seen many places where you simply knot the fabric/tulle around either a ribbon or a piece of elastic. 

I opted for elastic as I thought Chloe could put it on easier. I got some white, pink and purple soft netting and cut myself some strips. This was all completed in an evening and I thought Chloe would enjoy playing in it....I was wrong. For some reason she didn't like how the colours striped at the top so it was given to a friend. I'm going to try this again sometime with stiffer tulle to try and get a more stand-out tutu.

Plunket Book Cover - Alex

I finally got around to making a cover for Alex's Plunket book. It was really just a matter of picking up some stiff felt for the cover as I had everything else at home. I went for a little train that I had used for a cake design as he likes trains. Doing his name in the cloud made it easier to get a better colour with the paints. Last step is to sew down the big cloud and it's done.

The border is a bit wiggly as Alex was sitting on my lap and kept trying to push the button to cut the thread.

WIP's

When I first saw the term 'WIP' I had no idea what people were on about. It took me a while but I worked it out - work in progress. I am a little depressed that I have accumulated a number of WIP's and also a couple of W-to-be-IP's. I thought if I listed them then I could work through them, hopefully one at a time. I have this bad habit of starting something and then seeing something else cool to make so starting that at the same time. I'm just glad the quilt is done! 


 *beanie for Beanies for Babies (to be given to hospitals and such for new babies and kiddies who need them. BFB Facebook page) 
*singlet for Beanies for Babies 
*soft toy for Chloe from some material she chose at Spotlight one day *PJ's for Alex for winter *PJ's for Chloe for winter 
*cover for second seat cushion so we have a spare 
*fluffy knitted bolero for Chloe 
*knitted dragon hats for friends having babies in the Year of the Dragon 
*quilt for Alex (in design phase, material purchased) 
*cushion to match Chloe's quilt (designed, won't be started until I get this list smaller)


 Hmmm, I thought of more as I went. I just don't seem to find the time at the moment to get them done, or the motivation after the kids are in bed. Maybe if I finish one then I'll be inspired to do the rest. Right, off to do some knitting!

Hobo bag birthday present

Chloe's friend Holly is having her 3rd birthday this weekend and I was trying to think of what I could get her. Then I realised 'why buy something when I can make something!!' I had seen this hobo bag which I thought was cool, so I adapted the decoration to add Holly's name and a butterfly which is the theme of the party. 

Little pocket inside for little treasures

Of course I had to put something in the bag so I got a couple of sheets of butterfly stickers and then put together this colouring book with a few 'H' pictures. I did each page on a separate piece of paper on purpose so that there were a few blank pages for creative drawing without having to keep between the lines. It took me a little while to come up with 'H' nouns but I ended up with horse, heart, hamburger, hat, hippo and holly (of course). The font on the book is the same font I used for the name on the bag (Hobo Std in Photoshop).

Rainbow T-shirts

This idea was from my awesome mum. I have a plan to make a rainbow skirt for Chloe for the Rainbow Birthday Party, but wasn't sure what to do for Alex. I was contemplating using the fabric from the skirt and some Heat n Bond To do a rainbow on a t-shirt for him when mum suggested I just paint one. Brilliant!! Especially as I already have fabric paint. All I needed was a couple of $5 t-shirts from Baby Factory.


I took a rainbow I had made in Photoshop and printed it in black and white. I cut around the outside and traced around it onto the t-shirt with pencil. I then cut off the top strip and traced along the top of the new top stripe. I kept doing this until I had traced each stripe.


Then came the fun part - painting in between the lines. I got the red, orange and yellow done, but couldn't mix a green I was happy with so had to go out and buy another pot, and I got some indigo at the same time cause I just knew I wouldn't be able to mix that either. 


The end result is so cute. (Yes, I did one for Chloe as well).

Plunket Book Cover

Someone once mentioned to me that they had made a cover for their grandson's Plunket Book which I thought was a great idea. They aren't the best looking book and would be so cute personalised. My mum then purchased one at a market and I thought - I can make that....so I have.

I started with some stiff felt. I cut a rectangle measuring 33.5cm (1 cm wider than the front and back cover + 1.5cm for the spine) x 23cm.

I also cut 2 strips measuring 5cm x 23cm that the front and back cover will slip into.

For the cover I traced around some letters with a fabric pencil for Chloe's name, which I then painted in.

I then sewed around the whole cover with a fancy stitch to attach the cover holders (for lack of a better name).

At the hospital we had been given a little pink heart with Chloe's details when she was born. This has been taped to the front of her book up til now and has been getting a bit tatty. I laminated it and have attached it to the cover with a ribbon coming out from under a little felt flower. This heart will sit tucked behind 3 other felt flowers.

The flowers cut out, and then stitched down with a running stitch around the yellow centre.

All done!

Flash Cards - sort of

When I knew that I was going to be laminating Chloe's birthday invites I decided to make up some extra cards for her to play with. She has been doing well at recognising the letters from her name so I did p some cards with the letters from her name on one side and an animal starting with that letter on the other side. Then, to fill up the page, I did an 'A', 'B', 'C' with some different pics on the back.

After laminating them I trimmed the edges and rounded the corners to make them kiddie safe.

So far we have had fun spreading them out and playing a game of 'where is the...?'.

Birthday Invites

My little girl is going to be 2 soon! Can't believe how fast it's gone. For her birthday we decided to do a zoo theme as she loves going to the zoo. We were going to have the party at the zoo but decided to stay at home in the end a)to keep costs down and b) so the 9mth pregnant mum has everything handy and doesn't have to carry everything there.

The invites are made and ready to go out and I'm rather happy with them. They are modeled on the 'Friends of the Zoo' passes that Auckland Zoo does.

Using Photoshop I put together a series of 5 animal pictures for one side, and the other has the skin/fur of that animal under the invite info. My lovely hubby made a family zoo logo for it and the whole lot got laminated and put on a lanyard.

Before cutting and laminating

Now the weather just has to behave on the day!

Mini paintings

I was at Warehouse Stationary in the craft section (very dangerous) when I saw some cute 4"x4" canvases quite cheap. I grabbed 3 and a pack of paint tubes thinking "surely I can make something with these".

I came home and spent a while searching the net for image to use. I initially thought about using cute cartoon animals, but it became apparent that, unless I magically gained skills to draw them myself, this was not going to work. I then decided on 3 basic images to use - a star, a heart and a flower. I made them the right size a printed them outMeanwhile I mixed up the colours I wanted for the backgrounds. As they are for my girls room I went for yellow, purple and pink. I mixed up enough purple and pink to use for the shapes as well so that I didn't have to try and make them again and try and match the colours. The yellow I used straight from the tube.

After letting the background dry I traced the images onto the backgrounds. To save on cutting out I just rubbed a pencil over the back of the image and drew around the shape while pressing onto the canvas. This transfers the image to the canvas easily.

Just a couple of coats for each of the images and done!

ABC border

We moved house a few weeks before Chloe was born (NOT recommended) and I wanted to add something to the room that I had made. I decided to make an alphabet border to go on the one blank wall.

I started by printing out the alphabet from the computer using a font I liked. These got traced onto 4 different coloured cards, then came the cutting out. I did this during the numerous naps a newborn has.

One of the cut out letters

I liked the idea of putting them on velum, and it was handy that I had a few sheets already. I used a white and a cream/gold colour and cut out squares a bit bigger than the letters.

Letters on alternating velum colours

From there I used a velum spray glue to attach the letters. This was so much easier then using a craft glue and I had them done in no time.

I found some cute, clear pegs which I used to attach the letters to a piece of string I had strung across the wall. I had to put an extra hook in the middle to prevent the whole lot sagging.

I would probably use a darker yellow if I did something like this again, but I am quite happy with how it turned out.

Finished product