Adele's party invites

Adele will be 1 (!) in less than a month!! Oh my goodness!! We are having a small party for her with our families in October. Her party also happens to fall on Tim's birthday so I will have to work out something special to do for him too. :)

Anyway, the theme for her party is pinwheels. I LOVE pinwheels and have been busily making them over the last few nights. So, here are her invites...

I wanted to make the invites really fresh and clean. The fabric is very busy so I didn't want much else on the invite. I've done 3 different colours.

I've also used some super cute flower buttons for the pinwheels centers.

Here's another party sneak peek...

These are teeny tiny! It's sitting on one of the crossbeams of my fence paling. It's about 8cm by 7cm. I'm only using the white one's in the pic below but LOVE this yellow one so had to add this pic too. :)

So, watch this space... I have plans for these absolutely gorgeous little tin buckets!! :)

In other news...

I can't keep Adele away from the CD's. Looks like it's time to move them to higher ground!! ;)

Am about to tackle mount 'Washmore'

I have the most handsome son in all the world... this is not up for debate... ;)

Ok... till next time,

Kerryn

A card, seed progress pic and a fail... ;)

A good friend of mine has just announced her first pregnancy. I am so thrilled for her and her husband. :) I think my voice rose about 2 octaves when she told me. I then proceeded to question her in quick, short bursts for the next 5 minutes...

Anyway, I wanted to be the first to send her a congratulations card... so I was able to get into my craft room for a few minutes a few days later and made her a card. Here it is...

Next order of business... a quick pic of the seedlings that Lachie and I are raising together.

After a fairly rocky start (thanks to some Lachie induced flooding) the are coming along quite nicely. I'm just getting the garden weeded and manured up so it is ready for it's new plants.

 Lastly, a fail... I have been making another pair of pj pants for my  Handmake Christmas 2011 challenge. I took the sizing off a  pair of board shorts and forgot that board shorts are quite tight fitting. Cotton pj pants are not! FAIL! So, my gorgeous overseas bought fabric is now sadly sitting in a pile of shame. It was my absolute favourite fabric and I don't have enough to make a second pair. I know I can add another section in to make them bigger but then they'll look dumb! Boo... that is all... Yes, taking a moment to have a whinge...

Ok,

Kerryn

Handmake Christmas 2011 - join me in the challenge

I LOVE giving gifts, I love thinking about giving gifts, I love it when you find the perfect gift for someone you love... for me, it's a thrill!! So, guess what... I LOVE Christmas! I love that we get to celebrate the birth of Jesus by... giving GIFTS!!! Hoorah!!

I am also passionate about hand making gifts. I think it says to the recipient that they are so important in your life that you have used some of your most valuable asset, your time, and created a masterpiece, just for them. What a joy!! :)

So, this year I am attempting to hand make all my Christmas gifts. There will be a few exceptions. We have already planned and booked professional photographers to photograph all of the Harwood side of our family (so that's all of my in-laws) and we will be doing the same thing for my side of the family Christmas 2012. I have also bought gifts for all 4 of my nephews... lets face it, they don't really appreciate it anyway. :) So, that leaves... Tim, Lachie, Adele, my parents, my parents-in-law (can't help it, already have ideas for them so will just have to give them 2 presents), my 2 sisters and sister-in-law, my brother and brother-in-law and my 3 nieces. Oh... and any friends that I end up adding in... :)

Ok... so that's.. 15!!!!!!!!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHH.... better get creating!!

One of my special crafting friends is joining me in the 'Handmake Christmas 2011' challenge. With her permission I might put up a few of her projects because I wont be able to put up many pics of my projects prior to Christmas as my family sometimes take a look.

So... want to join us??? Let me know... it'd be so fun to have a little group do the 'Handmake Christmas 2011' challenge. You can join in if you decide to make 1 or 50 gifts!  Just have a go!

Ok... here's a pic of the first gift I've made. It's for my brother. I'm pretty safe putting it up here as he is not into blog/facebook/etc. Have a look...

I found this pacman fabric and HAD to have it! My brother used to love pacman so it is perfect for a gift for him.

Here are the PJ pants I made for him. I got some of his current trackies to get the size and went from there. Please excuse my ripped jeans and other washing on the line behind the PJ's. No posh photo shoots on my blog!! :)

Ok... lets do it!! Christmas 2011!! It's going to be AWESOME!! :)

Kerryn

Trial dress for a little precious one...

My precious Adele is nearly 11months, which means that she is nearly 1!! Really?!? 1!?!?! How did that happen?!?! I decided to buy a few patterns from etsy to use as base patterns for dresses for her and some other little precious girls in our family (Christmas is coming after all!!). I bought this pattern from etsy The Saturday Morning Dress. I was really happy with the instructions and the general pattern. I added some gathering to the sleeves and will be altering the pattern in a few more ways next time as it is really hard to get off. Anyway... here's how it turned out...

I don't know why but the button is one of my fave features! I love that it's so perfect and white and round! It's so fresh with the aqua and white polka dot!

Speaking of Adele... while I was taking pics of her dress she got herself stuck in a drawer. It's a hard life being a baby! :)

I've been working on a fair bit of crafty stuff so will post some more stuff soon...

Happy crafting!

Kerryn

Lachie is...

Please excuse me if I take a few moments to talk about Mummy stuff... if kid related stuff bores you then now is your opportunity to sign out... ;)

My boy lachie is 3 and has been a 'challenge' in every area of his life since he was born. I have struggled with every aspect of being a Mum and am having a particularly rough time at the moment. Generally I am a very positive person but am feeling far from it at the moment. Kids are hard people!!! But before I go off into a child related rant I'd like to talk about everything that I love about my son.

Lachlan is...

Kind Hearted
Healthy
Vibrant
Gentle with animals
Loving
Generous spirited
Smart
Extremely cute
Lots of fun
Full of life
A bright jewel in my life
Full of Imagination
Focused
Logical
Vivacious
Thoughtful

I am thankful for the gift of such a boy! He is truly precious! I am completely committed to parenting him well so that he can grow into an amazing man. I am all too aware that I am only human and am not able to do that on my own. Thank you Jesus for your daily strength, a wonderful husband and your gift of friendship.

Thanks for listening!! :)

Kerryn xx

Wooden Box Makeover

Recently I was given a wooden storage box to put my sewing stuff in. I nearly threw it out because it was not my taste, but I decided to see if I could give it a new life... and a new purpose.

Here is the box in all it's ugliness...





Here's a quick step by step guide if you're keen to do something similar...

You will need;

ugly box

tools to remove metal findings

sandpaper

2 paint colours

paintbrush

Step 1 - Remove all hinges, screws, chains etc.

Step 2 - Give the whole box a bit of a sand to help the new paint stick.

Step 3 - Choose your 2 paint colours and paint two coats of the undercoat colour.

I chose a really light peachy pink as my undercoat

 Step 4 - paint two coats of the top colour.

Step 5 - Choose a fine sandpaper and get sanding. I started with the corners and edges. Go reasonably slowly so that you don't sand off more than you want.

240 Grit sandpaper

Step 6 - Once you are happy with the look of your box then give it a wipe with a damp cloth to get rid of the fine paint dust that builds up during sanding.
Step 7 - re-attach the hinges, screws, chain etc

And here's the finished project... :)

As mentioned before I will re-purposing my box. So... watch this space. I will be using it in a few months and will post pics of the final product.

Ok... that's all for now... :)

Kerryn

My very first home decor project

Tim and I completely overhauled our ugly, musk-stick pink bedroom last year. We put in carpet, built-in wardrobe and of course, we painted. We also bought a new quilt cover and have finally replaced the horrible blinds. We found some gorgeous striped fabric and got them made into curtains. The colours in the fabric match our quilt cover, wall and carpet perfectly but it is a very different pattern. I wanted to tie our quilt cover and curtains together in some way so decided to make a cushion cover. I finally got around to it last night and am so happy with the results. Now I know that cushion covers are not the most difficult thing to sew, but I am still super happy with my very first home decor sewing project. :)

So... here it is...

Here you can see quilt cover and curtains. Our room is a work in progress. We still need to decorate, get new bedside tables and lamps. I am going to attempt the lamp shades myself. :) So... watch this space...

Ok, that's all for now...

Massive hat fail. :)

Hi!

I made a hat for my precious lachie the other day and... well... it's a fail. :) But, I thought i'd share it with you all anyway. I used fabric from my favourite new range 'Children at play' by Sarah Jane. It is the most beautiful fabric! :) Here's the hat...

Looks good right?!?!?

Absolutely beautiful fabric!!!



It's hard to tell from the pic but it's MASSIVE!!!! I think you could fit two heads in there!!

So, it looks good. But it's HUGE! Hahaha... not to worry. There is a silver lining though. The pattern I made for his hat actually fits me, so with a few small amendments I will be making a hat for myself. :)

I will also be fixing his hat so that he can wear it. I'm not going to take the whole thing apart but I will cut some of the extra width out and sew it back up. It won't look as good but it will be functional enough. :)

So... have you had any fails? Post a link if you have and we can all have a laugh. :)

Hope you're having a good day,

Kerryn