I'm running seriously late for a playdate with Alison, Benjamin and Matthew so I don't really have time to go on about it, but I'm loving the Labor Party drama right now. Its like Days of our Caucus, and you, dear readers (all 5 of you, hi mum!) know how much I love a good soap opera.
Hmm, it appears I need a Politics tag. Will get on to that when I get home this afternoon.
Speaking of soap operas, my latest is watching old General Hospital eps on YouTube. I'm following Carly's babydaddy drama from 97 - back then Foxtel still had a soap opera channel and I used to watch it occasionally for this storyline. I only really know the characters in this and don't care about the rest so watching it on YouTube suits me perfectly. I set it up next to the sewing machine and watch while I'm sewing.
Right, more later.
Thursday, February 23. 2012
Caucus
Monday, February 20. 2012
Free Octonauts Party Printables
I'm sharing the love - below are the links to the PDF files for the Octonauts-theme prinatables I made for Oliver's party.
You are only limited by your imagination by what you do with them. The character circles can be used to decorate, as stickers, as cupcake toppers. The cupcake toppers can be used to decorate (I scattered them on the food table as we had cake, not cupcakes). The food tags can be used as name tags.
They are set for A4 paper size but I'm sure you can work out how to print them on US paper sizes using your printer settings. The circles are designed for a 2" circle punch because that's what I own, but you can cut them out by hand as circles or squares if you don't own one.
The bunting is 4 to a page, simply print, cut and either punch holes and thread on string or (my preference, because its easier) staple it to ribbon.
All I ask is that you credit me if you share these around, and if you use them please comment with a link so I can see what you've done!
The links:
Captain Barnacles 2" party circles
Dashi 2" party circles
Inkling 2" party circles
Kwazii 2" party circles
Peso 2" party circles
Tweak 2" party circles
Octoalert 2" party circles
Cupcake toppers
Party Bag Thank You tags
Tented Food Label cards
Happy Birthday Bunting - part 1
Happy Birthday Bunting - part 2
Happy Birthday Bunting - part 3
Happy Birthday Bunting - part 4
Enjoy!
You are only limited by your imagination by what you do with them. The character circles can be used to decorate, as stickers, as cupcake toppers. The cupcake toppers can be used to decorate (I scattered them on the food table as we had cake, not cupcakes). The food tags can be used as name tags.
They are set for A4 paper size but I'm sure you can work out how to print them on US paper sizes using your printer settings. The circles are designed for a 2" circle punch because that's what I own, but you can cut them out by hand as circles or squares if you don't own one.
The bunting is 4 to a page, simply print, cut and either punch holes and thread on string or (my preference, because its easier) staple it to ribbon.
All I ask is that you credit me if you share these around, and if you use them please comment with a link so I can see what you've done!
The links:
Captain Barnacles 2" party circles
Dashi 2" party circles
Inkling 2" party circles
Kwazii 2" party circles
Peso 2" party circles
Tweak 2" party circles
Octoalert 2" party circles
Cupcake toppers
Party Bag Thank You tags
Tented Food Label cards
Happy Birthday Bunting - part 1
Happy Birthday Bunting - part 2
Happy Birthday Bunting - part 3
Happy Birthday Bunting - part 4
Enjoy!
Four
Oliver is four! He tells me now he likes all sorts of foods he didn't like last week, because he is four now. I'm not going to argue with that logic if it means he eats more vegetables!
His party went very well. We were incredibly lucky that the weather was glorious - there had been storms and rain predicted which is why we hosted it at home rather than Pirate Park like we originally wanted. I was quite concerned that there would be 28 adults + 28 kids in my tiny house if it was pouring but figured as long as it wasn't they could spill onto the deck. But we got lucky and the sun was shining so we managed to get the kids outside to play.
Some photos of the day:
The birthday boy:
My Octonauts printables - there's bunting, character circles, party bag tags, and party circles. There's also tented food label cards but I didn't get around to having those printed. I'll post in a minute the links to download the files:
The food - cookie-cutter shark and decorator crab cookies; ocean zone jellies (3 layers - purple, dark blue, light blue with fish-shaped sprinkles); whale-shaped cheesy pastry thingies; Captain Barnacles mashmallow pops:
The watermelon shark:
The birthday cake - I'm very pleased with how this came out, I just wish I'd used yellow icing for the beak instead of the writing icing tubes because it ran:
In terms of decorating I had the bunting pinned up; I sewed together the 2" character circles to make stings of 'pearls' which I hung from the beams; I made some pompoms which I hope looked a bit like coral; and I put up some streamers I twisted to make look like seaweed. I wish I'd had time to make more of the seaweed as it looked really effective. We also had the bubble blower on which the kids all loved - such good value, the machine was a Christmas present for Henry and was only around $20. Big W have the big bottles of bubble solution for around $3 which is cheap too, I need to pick up a few more next time I'm there.
I had "Pin the Eyepatch on Kwazii" which I downloaded online (there's a link on my Pinterest) but we didn't end up doing it as the kids were happy just to run around and play. I also had planned "Captain Barnacles Says" and "Dashi Says Cheese!" (aka Statues) for if it rained as backup.
We did do "Kwazii's Treasure Hunt" - I bought some chocolate coins, freddo frogs, bouncy balls, little bubble blowers and some stickers and threw them all around the back yard then told the kids to go mad. It was a good way to get everyone outside and they loved it.
So all up a success, Oliver loved it and I think his little friends did too. Elliot and I were shattered though, absolutely exhausted. I'm definitely going back to having parties on Sundays, I spent most of the party in the kitchen because I didn't have the extra day to prepare and Elliot ran around like a madman doing the gardening before everyone go there, which is why we were so tired after.
His party went very well. We were incredibly lucky that the weather was glorious - there had been storms and rain predicted which is why we hosted it at home rather than Pirate Park like we originally wanted. I was quite concerned that there would be 28 adults + 28 kids in my tiny house if it was pouring but figured as long as it wasn't they could spill onto the deck. But we got lucky and the sun was shining so we managed to get the kids outside to play.
Some photos of the day:
The birthday boy:
My Octonauts printables - there's bunting, character circles, party bag tags, and party circles. There's also tented food label cards but I didn't get around to having those printed. I'll post in a minute the links to download the files:
The food - cookie-cutter shark and decorator crab cookies; ocean zone jellies (3 layers - purple, dark blue, light blue with fish-shaped sprinkles); whale-shaped cheesy pastry thingies; Captain Barnacles mashmallow pops:
The watermelon shark:
The birthday cake - I'm very pleased with how this came out, I just wish I'd used yellow icing for the beak instead of the writing icing tubes because it ran:
In terms of decorating I had the bunting pinned up; I sewed together the 2" character circles to make stings of 'pearls' which I hung from the beams; I made some pompoms which I hope looked a bit like coral; and I put up some streamers I twisted to make look like seaweed. I wish I'd had time to make more of the seaweed as it looked really effective. We also had the bubble blower on which the kids all loved - such good value, the machine was a Christmas present for Henry and was only around $20. Big W have the big bottles of bubble solution for around $3 which is cheap too, I need to pick up a few more next time I'm there.
I had "Pin the Eyepatch on Kwazii" which I downloaded online (there's a link on my Pinterest) but we didn't end up doing it as the kids were happy just to run around and play. I also had planned "Captain Barnacles Says" and "Dashi Says Cheese!" (aka Statues) for if it rained as backup.
We did do "Kwazii's Treasure Hunt" - I bought some chocolate coins, freddo frogs, bouncy balls, little bubble blowers and some stickers and threw them all around the back yard then told the kids to go mad. It was a good way to get everyone outside and they loved it.
So all up a success, Oliver loved it and I think his little friends did too. Elliot and I were shattered though, absolutely exhausted. I'm definitely going back to having parties on Sundays, I spent most of the party in the kitchen because I didn't have the extra day to prepare and Elliot ran around like a madman doing the gardening before everyone go there, which is why we were so tired after.
Tuesday, February 7. 2012
Octonauts
Finally am getting my rear into gear regarding Oliver's birthday party - invites went out yesterday by mail, the hand delivered ones will go out today and Thursday.
I've bought the decorations but they require assembly. I'll start baking cake this week to freeze, and I need to do some batches of sugar cookie dough too.
I've bought the decorations but they require assembly. I'll start baking cake this week to freeze, and I need to do some batches of sugar cookie dough too.
Tuesday, January 31. 2012
Sailing
I finally finished Oliver's quilt, aka Sail Away I. You'll recognise the fabric from Matthew's quilt - that was going to be for Henry initially which is why I cut two quilts from the same fabric, but then Henry's godmother Sam made him a gorgeous quilt for his birthday so I used the fabric for Matthhew instead.
I'm not totally convinced - I love the binding, but I think I preferred the coin layout on Matthew's. Oliver adores it though, so that's all that really matters. It was a complete pain in the bum to stipple, I planned to do irregularly spaced straight lines (like I did on 2d Zoo I the other week) but broke my walking foot when I went to start sewing it. Using the regular foot was not an option as its backed with cotton and the back would pucker like mad. So I had to stipple it. Its way too big for my little machine too, I ended up doing it in two halves, but it was a battle.
In retrospect I should have made it 5" wider and 5" shorter but it was my first single bed quilt and I was winging it. As I said, Oliver loves it, so that's all that really matters at the end of the day anyway.
I'm not totally convinced - I love the binding, but I think I preferred the coin layout on Matthew's. Oliver adores it though, so that's all that really matters. It was a complete pain in the bum to stipple, I planned to do irregularly spaced straight lines (like I did on 2d Zoo I the other week) but broke my walking foot when I went to start sewing it. Using the regular foot was not an option as its backed with cotton and the back would pucker like mad. So I had to stipple it. Its way too big for my little machine too, I ended up doing it in two halves, but it was a battle.
In retrospect I should have made it 5" wider and 5" shorter but it was my first single bed quilt and I was winging it. As I said, Oliver loves it, so that's all that really matters at the end of the day anyway.
Wednesday, January 25. 2012
Pear
So 3 odd years ago I blogged a recipe I was trying. I never bothered to come back and tell you how delicious it is! Its such an easy thing to make, its a little bit time consuming because its baked twice, but the actual time spend beating/mixing etc is short.
I've made a few changes since then - I've tried it with walnuts instead of pecans, which was nice but the walnuts were very strong. I'm not sure if I needed to reduce the quantity, or if my walnuts were a bit past their prime. I've since replaced the walnuts but I haven't tried making it again. I've also made it with almond meal which is delicious.
So here it is with my (subtle) modifications.
Pear Tart v2.
Base:
1/2 cup butter
1/3 cup sugar (I used white, caster would be nicer no doubt but don't have any)
3/4 cup flour
2/3 cup almond meal OR same amount chopped walnuts
Melt butter, mix everything together. Press into greased medium size tart tin. Prick with fork. Bake for 40min at 180c.
Filling:
250g cream cheese
1/2 cup sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon vanilla paste (or the seeds of 1 vanilla bean, halved and scraped)
1 egg
1 tin pear halves, drained and sliced
Cinnamon sugar, to dust
Beat cream cheese, sugar, vanillas and egg together until smooth. Spread evenly over cooked base. Arrange sliced pears on top and dust with cinnamon sugar. Bake for 60 min at 180c.
Allow to cool before serving.
Tastes so good, looks like you've spent hours in the kitchen cooking (as opposed to hours doing other things while you can smell it cooking!), its a winner IMO. I made one today for tomorrow as we are expecting visitors - poor Henry will have to have something else because there's egg in the filling.
I've made a few changes since then - I've tried it with walnuts instead of pecans, which was nice but the walnuts were very strong. I'm not sure if I needed to reduce the quantity, or if my walnuts were a bit past their prime. I've since replaced the walnuts but I haven't tried making it again. I've also made it with almond meal which is delicious.
So here it is with my (subtle) modifications.
Pear Tart v2.
Base:
1/2 cup butter
1/3 cup sugar (I used white, caster would be nicer no doubt but don't have any)
3/4 cup flour
2/3 cup almond meal OR same amount chopped walnuts
Melt butter, mix everything together. Press into greased medium size tart tin. Prick with fork. Bake for 40min at 180c.
Filling:
250g cream cheese
1/2 cup sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon vanilla paste (or the seeds of 1 vanilla bean, halved and scraped)
1 egg
1 tin pear halves, drained and sliced
Cinnamon sugar, to dust
Beat cream cheese, sugar, vanillas and egg together until smooth. Spread evenly over cooked base. Arrange sliced pears on top and dust with cinnamon sugar. Bake for 60 min at 180c.
Allow to cool before serving.
Tastes so good, looks like you've spent hours in the kitchen cooking (as opposed to hours doing other things while you can smell it cooking!), its a winner IMO. I made one today for tomorrow as we are expecting visitors - poor Henry will have to have something else because there's egg in the filling.
Tuesday, January 24. 2012
Spokesmodels
Meet the new Minkie Baby spokesmodels: from left to right we have Noah wearing Apple, Isabella in Pink and Henry in Turquoise.
Aren't they adorable? Squee!
Aren't they adorable? Squee!
Friday, January 20. 2012
(Another) Logo
It hasn't even been a month and I've changed the Sakurako logo already. I went to order the promotional and packaging material for it and decided I vastly preferred the ready-made options than my own attempt. Its not that my own was bad exactly, it was just a lot more cluttered than I'd have liked. Plus, the soft pink looks better than the reds I used, and I like the new font better.
I have postcards with washing instructions, business cards, and round stickers (for sealing up the tissue paper the quilts get wrapped in) on order. I also ordered Minkie Baby washing instruction cards, return address labels, fluffy mail stickers and promotional postcards with the new logo on them. And because it was only $2, I also got myself a Minkie Baby mug for my tea.
I have postcards with washing instructions, business cards, and round stickers (for sealing up the tissue paper the quilts get wrapped in) on order. I also ordered Minkie Baby washing instruction cards, return address labels, fluffy mail stickers and promotional postcards with the new logo on them. And because it was only $2, I also got myself a Minkie Baby mug for my tea.
Wednesday, January 18. 2012
(Another) Zoo
2D Zoo I is finally finished. After the amount of piecing involved with 2D Zoo II I was a bit sick of looking at the fabric so this one sat fully pieced and pinned to the batting on Elliot's desk for a while. Since its such a minimalist design I thought the meandering stipple might be too much and decided to do some irregularly spaced straight lines instead. I really like how that worked out and will definitely do it again.
No pillowcase because I didn't have enough fabric left of the zoo print or stripe to make one. Its priced accordingly and is on sale via the Sakurako FB page.
I definitely won't be doing a meandering stipple on a big quilt ever again - I broke my walking foot somehow when I put it on the machine to do Oliver's single bed quilt so didn't have much other choice but the stipple it and it was such a pain. My little machine isn't built to do it on something so big. Its done now though, it just needs binding then it'll be another thing off the UFO list.
I also finished my labour dress from Oliver finally, thank God that's done (almost 4 years later) and out of my cupboard where it was in pieces.
Other than clearing up UFOs I'm also trying to use up/get rid of random fabric. I'll have some ruffled lightweight scarves for sale in the Kat & Bee Ozhandmade store shortly made out of chiffon, organza and silk. I've got some PJ/lounge pants cut out of the leftover nappy flannel for the boys and some fabric dry to dip-dye them in for an ombre effect. Once I've cleared off those two projects I have a number of other quilts in the planning stages, in no particular order:
1. Cogsmo x 2 - Robots, rockets, and cogs (one for Sakurako, one for Felicity's baby)
2. Summer Picnic x 2 - ladybeetles and gingham, red/green/pink (one for Sakurako, one for Leanne's baby)
3. Something for Stephanie's baby (no idea what)
4. Sugar & Spice cot quilt - red/aqua/pink, flowers, dots, paisley, argyle
5. Peter Pan Kokka pram quilt - red/navy/cream, Peter Pan
6. Happier pram quilt - pink/green, trees and birds
7. Safari Tots unisex cot quilt - yellow, brown, blue, green, safari animals
8. 2D Zoo single bed strip quilt (last of this fabric!)
9. Grey & yellow single bed square/rectangle quilt
10. Grey & yellow cot strip quilt
11. Joel Dewberry Modern Meadow quilt for our bed
I'm itching to start them but need to finish the other things first and clear out some old fabric I'm never going to use which is taking up room.
In other news, I'm the guest blogger at The Sewing Sisterhood each Wednesday, managing the Photo Challenge. I'll probably also contribute some other posts during the year, not sure what yet.
Anyway, time to wind up, Oliver is bugging me for my (Andrew's) laptop so he can do Reading Eggs. He's obsessed with it at the moment.
No pillowcase because I didn't have enough fabric left of the zoo print or stripe to make one. Its priced accordingly and is on sale via the Sakurako FB page.
I definitely won't be doing a meandering stipple on a big quilt ever again - I broke my walking foot somehow when I put it on the machine to do Oliver's single bed quilt so didn't have much other choice but the stipple it and it was such a pain. My little machine isn't built to do it on something so big. Its done now though, it just needs binding then it'll be another thing off the UFO list.
I also finished my labour dress from Oliver finally, thank God that's done (almost 4 years later) and out of my cupboard where it was in pieces.
Other than clearing up UFOs I'm also trying to use up/get rid of random fabric. I'll have some ruffled lightweight scarves for sale in the Kat & Bee Ozhandmade store shortly made out of chiffon, organza and silk. I've got some PJ/lounge pants cut out of the leftover nappy flannel for the boys and some fabric dry to dip-dye them in for an ombre effect. Once I've cleared off those two projects I have a number of other quilts in the planning stages, in no particular order:
1. Cogsmo x 2 - Robots, rockets, and cogs (one for Sakurako, one for Felicity's baby)
2. Summer Picnic x 2 - ladybeetles and gingham, red/green/pink (one for Sakurako, one for Leanne's baby)
3. Something for Stephanie's baby (no idea what)
4. Sugar & Spice cot quilt - red/aqua/pink, flowers, dots, paisley, argyle
5. Peter Pan Kokka pram quilt - red/navy/cream, Peter Pan
6. Happier pram quilt - pink/green, trees and birds
7. Safari Tots unisex cot quilt - yellow, brown, blue, green, safari animals
8. 2D Zoo single bed strip quilt (last of this fabric!)
9. Grey & yellow single bed square/rectangle quilt
10. Grey & yellow cot strip quilt
11. Joel Dewberry Modern Meadow quilt for our bed
I'm itching to start them but need to finish the other things first and clear out some old fabric I'm never going to use which is taking up room.
In other news, I'm the guest blogger at The Sewing Sisterhood each Wednesday, managing the Photo Challenge. I'll probably also contribute some other posts during the year, not sure what yet.
Anyway, time to wind up, Oliver is bugging me for my (Andrew's) laptop so he can do Reading Eggs. He's obsessed with it at the moment.
Sunday, January 15. 2012
Logo
Since we are on the cusp of the Minkie Baby website going live, let me share with you our super cute, adorable, squee-worthy new logo:
Adobs right? <3 <3
The nappies are due in very soon now. O_O The website is in progress. Photos have been taken (though we need more). I've ordered the wetbags but they won't be here until mid to late Feb. Still trying to find a supplier for flushable liners who will do the quantity I want (ie not 20,000 rolls!). Bank account is sorted, AP is giving me the run around as usual. rolls eyes I've got to sort that out this week. Also need to find somewhere in our little house to store 2 pallets worth of nappies. But yes, its all happening now at Minkie Baby HQ.
Adobs right? <3 <3
The nappies are due in very soon now. O_O The website is in progress. Photos have been taken (though we need more). I've ordered the wetbags but they won't be here until mid to late Feb. Still trying to find a supplier for flushable liners who will do the quantity I want (ie not 20,000 rolls!). Bank account is sorted, AP is giving me the run around as usual. rolls eyes I've got to sort that out this week. Also need to find somewhere in our little house to store 2 pallets worth of nappies. But yes, its all happening now at Minkie Baby HQ.
Monday, January 9. 2012
Compocalypse
Happy New Year, etc, etc. Also, Merry Orthodox Christmas if you happen to be Orthodox.
I've been having a little bit of trouble with my beloved Mac laptop lately. Lots of Spinning Circles of Death happening, lots of script errors in Firefox. I'd upgraded Firefox and added a new tabbed browsing add-on which fixed a lot of the script error issues but not all of them. Lappy is almost 4 years old which lets face it, in the world of technology these days is getting long in the tooth, but I'm not in a position to go out and buy a new one right now so I was hoping to get through for another ~12 months.
Then I went looking for a simple collage-making app online (like PicFrame, which I have on my iPhone) and found out that a) there's an App Store for Mac computers/laptops (!!!) but it required a system upgrade to at least Snow Leopard; and that most of the apps on the App Store required Snow Leopard anyway. So I couldn't put off an upgrade any longer.
Elliot insisted on doing a backup of my laptop before doing anything as it'd been a goodly long time since I'd done one. Not the photos - they get backed up automatically - but everything else needed to be done. So he did that overnight on Tuesday then went to do the upgrade on Wednesday.
And that's when Compocalypse 2012 happened. Lappy threw a tantrum and flat out refused to boot. We'd get the Mac Noise (ding!) and the apple come up then nothing. We gave it time (I've had mac products do a Lazurus-like return from the dead before, alas not my poor iPhone 3GS which I dropped in the toilet though) but still no go. At this point I'm praising Jesus and thanking Elliot profusely for backing everything up. Because of the backup I took the prospect of being lappy-less very, very well.
Elliot decided we needed to call in the experts to try and get it going and got Andrew to come over. Saint Andrew of the Spare MacBook came over to work some hoodoo on Lappy and try to get it booting. He did in fact get some stuff to happen - I'm not sure exactly, I think maybe it was some sort of safe mode because some diagnostic stuff came up which confirmed Lappy was, indeed, b0rked. But never fear, audience, for the Spare MacBook referred to above is in fact a spare and Saint Andrew is happy to lend it to me indefinitely as he has a shiny work MacBook. He and Elliot set me up with my own login and copied everything from the backup over so its the same as before except shinier and SO MUCH faster than Lappy did.
In other news, I'm doing Project 366 this year, also known as Photo of the Day. My photos are all on FB here which should hopefully work as I've tried to set the album as public. I might set up a separate Project 366 blog and link to it yet.
First photo was taken at Athol Beach on NYD:
Its all iPhoneography via Instagram but I like Instagram'd iPhone photos, so there.
ETA: http://365project.org/leebee/365
I've been having a little bit of trouble with my beloved Mac laptop lately. Lots of Spinning Circles of Death happening, lots of script errors in Firefox. I'd upgraded Firefox and added a new tabbed browsing add-on which fixed a lot of the script error issues but not all of them. Lappy is almost 4 years old which lets face it, in the world of technology these days is getting long in the tooth, but I'm not in a position to go out and buy a new one right now so I was hoping to get through for another ~12 months.
Then I went looking for a simple collage-making app online (like PicFrame, which I have on my iPhone) and found out that a) there's an App Store for Mac computers/laptops (!!!) but it required a system upgrade to at least Snow Leopard; and that most of the apps on the App Store required Snow Leopard anyway. So I couldn't put off an upgrade any longer.
Elliot insisted on doing a backup of my laptop before doing anything as it'd been a goodly long time since I'd done one. Not the photos - they get backed up automatically - but everything else needed to be done. So he did that overnight on Tuesday then went to do the upgrade on Wednesday.
And that's when Compocalypse 2012 happened. Lappy threw a tantrum and flat out refused to boot. We'd get the Mac Noise (ding!) and the apple come up then nothing. We gave it time (I've had mac products do a Lazurus-like return from the dead before, alas not my poor iPhone 3GS which I dropped in the toilet though) but still no go. At this point I'm praising Jesus and thanking Elliot profusely for backing everything up. Because of the backup I took the prospect of being lappy-less very, very well.
Elliot decided we needed to call in the experts to try and get it going and got Andrew to come over. Saint Andrew of the Spare MacBook came over to work some hoodoo on Lappy and try to get it booting. He did in fact get some stuff to happen - I'm not sure exactly, I think maybe it was some sort of safe mode because some diagnostic stuff came up which confirmed Lappy was, indeed, b0rked. But never fear, audience, for the Spare MacBook referred to above is in fact a spare and Saint Andrew is happy to lend it to me indefinitely as he has a shiny work MacBook. He and Elliot set me up with my own login and copied everything from the backup over so its the same as before except shinier and SO MUCH faster than Lappy did.
In other news, I'm doing Project 366 this year, also known as Photo of the Day. My photos are all on FB here which should hopefully work as I've tried to set the album as public. I might set up a separate Project 366 blog and link to it yet.
First photo was taken at Athol Beach on NYD:
Its all iPhoneography via Instagram but I like Instagram'd iPhone photos, so there.
ETA: http://365project.org/leebee/365
Monday, January 2. 2012
2011
2011 - Year in review, quilting style.
Top Row: 2D Zoo II
Middle Row: Quite Contrary I aka Freya's quilt(gift), Baby Elephant Walk, Martha's quilt (charity)
Bottom Row: Happier, Quite Contrary II, Sail Away II aka Matthew's quilt (gift), Emery's quilt (gift)
Not bad all things considered.
Top Row: 2D Zoo II
Middle Row: Quite Contrary I aka Freya's quilt(gift), Baby Elephant Walk, Martha's quilt (charity)
Bottom Row: Happier, Quite Contrary II, Sail Away II aka Matthew's quilt (gift), Emery's quilt (gift)
Not bad all things considered.
Sunday, January 1. 2012
Christmas
Ok I'll do the last Christmas entry and then I can move on to 2012 already!
Christmas Eve was at mum and dad's as usual. Because I'm an idiot and managed to lose a gift, we had to go via Westfield to replace it on the way to Hinchinbrook. So we stopped and got a Santa photo before we left:
Of course, I found the misplaced gift on Boxing Day in the nappy bag. Its ok though, it was gold class vouchers, so Elliot & I have an excuse to go to the movies now.
The spread at mums - note the truffle platters on the bottom, made by yours truly:
The kids got spoiled rotten - lots of books which is great. They got some wooden Thomas train stuff from mum and dad which has gone down incredibly well - Henry likes to push the trains around (and break the track), Oliver likes to load and unload the cargo etc.
The whole photo-set is here: Christmas Eve 2011
Christmas Day started late here, Henry was up at sparrow fart but had a feed and went back to sleep so I did too. I woke at 9.45am and realised we needed to be out the door by 10.20am so it was then rush, rush, rush. Oliver was thrilled with his squishy red dalek and the Octonauts characters and took it quite well when we read the letter out to him explaining that Santa had got him a Octopod but the naughty elves (ie Aus Post) forgot to pack it on the sleigh and Mrs Claus would have to post it from the North Pole.
We got out the door on time but then spent 3 freaking hours in traffic getting to Austinmer, missing lunch (again). Once we got there it was all good though, we had something to eat, the kids exchanged presents then because it was hot (and not raining!! Hooray!) the kids all stripped down to undies and we got the hose out and they gave Lewis' new Slip & Slide a go.
The whole photo-set is here: Christmas Day
(I have no frigging idea why these images are different sizes. None whatsoever. They were all run through Instagram and saved before being uploaded to my laptop, from there to my website. Clearly something has happened, god knows what, but I'm over trying to work it out already, you'll all just have to deal with it).
Christmas Eve was at mum and dad's as usual. Because I'm an idiot and managed to lose a gift, we had to go via Westfield to replace it on the way to Hinchinbrook. So we stopped and got a Santa photo before we left:
Of course, I found the misplaced gift on Boxing Day in the nappy bag. Its ok though, it was gold class vouchers, so Elliot & I have an excuse to go to the movies now.
The spread at mums - note the truffle platters on the bottom, made by yours truly:
The kids got spoiled rotten - lots of books which is great. They got some wooden Thomas train stuff from mum and dad which has gone down incredibly well - Henry likes to push the trains around (and break the track), Oliver likes to load and unload the cargo etc.
The whole photo-set is here: Christmas Eve 2011
Christmas Day started late here, Henry was up at sparrow fart but had a feed and went back to sleep so I did too. I woke at 9.45am and realised we needed to be out the door by 10.20am so it was then rush, rush, rush. Oliver was thrilled with his squishy red dalek and the Octonauts characters and took it quite well when we read the letter out to him explaining that Santa had got him a Octopod but the naughty elves (ie Aus Post) forgot to pack it on the sleigh and Mrs Claus would have to post it from the North Pole.
We got out the door on time but then spent 3 freaking hours in traffic getting to Austinmer, missing lunch (again). Once we got there it was all good though, we had something to eat, the kids exchanged presents then because it was hot (and not raining!! Hooray!) the kids all stripped down to undies and we got the hose out and they gave Lewis' new Slip & Slide a go.
The whole photo-set is here: Christmas Day
(I have no frigging idea why these images are different sizes. None whatsoever. They were all run through Instagram and saved before being uploaded to my laptop, from there to my website. Clearly something has happened, god knows what, but I'm over trying to work it out already, you'll all just have to deal with it).
Saturday, December 31. 2011
Teacher
So this year I was NOT a bad parent, I did remember to organise the teacher gifts. It didn't twig last year that I was supposed to until I got to the Christmas concert and by then it was too late. In my defense, I did have a newborn last year - that's my excuse anyway.
This year I had 3 teachers at preschool who definitely needed gifts as they've been awesome to Oliver this year. He's loved every minute of preschool and learned heaps. Child care is a bit sketchy, they've done a good job looking after him but there's been a parade of staff this year, and almost everyone Oliver has bonded with has gone. There was only one teacher left who he really knows and who always makes a point to speak to us when we do drop off/pick up. So all up, 4 gifts were needed.
In the sewing group we all decided we'd have a crack at doing fabric-covered notebooks for teachers. There are about a thousand tutorials for them which are all pretty similar so just Google for one. I stupidly didn't read any instructions first and bought spiral-bound notebooks so they weren't perfect but they were still pretty cool I think. I also did red/white/green spiral cookies in little noodle boxes to go with them.
I ended up doing similar ones for Mum and Renee as part of their Christmas present, and Karah and Sean got a diary each. I have another diary sitting in the study for myself but I still haven't covered it yet.
This year I had 3 teachers at preschool who definitely needed gifts as they've been awesome to Oliver this year. He's loved every minute of preschool and learned heaps. Child care is a bit sketchy, they've done a good job looking after him but there's been a parade of staff this year, and almost everyone Oliver has bonded with has gone. There was only one teacher left who he really knows and who always makes a point to speak to us when we do drop off/pick up. So all up, 4 gifts were needed.
In the sewing group we all decided we'd have a crack at doing fabric-covered notebooks for teachers. There are about a thousand tutorials for them which are all pretty similar so just Google for one. I stupidly didn't read any instructions first and bought spiral-bound notebooks so they weren't perfect but they were still pretty cool I think. I also did red/white/green spiral cookies in little noodle boxes to go with them.
I ended up doing similar ones for Mum and Renee as part of their Christmas present, and Karah and Sean got a diary each. I have another diary sitting in the study for myself but I still haven't covered it yet.
Wednesday, December 28. 2011
Card
Ok last one for now, I'll cover actual Christmas Eve & Day another time. I've got a child-free session planned, as soon as Henry goes down for a nap I'm off to Westfield for a pedicure and a spot of sale shopping, so I need to stop blogging and go have a shower.
Shock, horror, we actually did a Christmas card this year. I know I said I wasn't going to but Elliot talked me into it. I left it too late to organise it via Blue Dog so did my own using a free template I found on Ucreate (not Pinterest, I know!). They were expensive to print though, so we only did 20 of em to overseas people, grandparents and close friends. No offense intended if you didn't get one, we just figured most of you had FB and saw it there anyway! Next year I'll try to be more organised and get them printed earlier so they are cheaper to do.
Merry Christmas!!
Shock, horror, we actually did a Christmas card this year. I know I said I wasn't going to but Elliot talked me into it. I left it too late to organise it via Blue Dog so did my own using a free template I found on Ucreate (not Pinterest, I know!). They were expensive to print though, so we only did 20 of em to overseas people, grandparents and close friends. No offense intended if you didn't get one, we just figured most of you had FB and saw it there anyway! Next year I'll try to be more organised and get them printed earlier so they are cheaper to do.
Merry Christmas!!
