A present for my niece

I've been bitten by the sewing bug in a big way lately. (I've borrowed my mum's overlocker which is helping!) One of my nieces is turning 3 in a couple of weeks, and the dress I had bought her turned out to be too short. So I decided that I could probably make one. I found this pattern from MADE and thought it looked easy enough to do quickly in the limited time I get for sewing. I'm so glad I did. The pattern explains shirring so well that I've become a little addicted to it because of its ease and how effective it looks. For the bodice I cheated and bought a girls t-shirt from Target ($4 on sale) and sewed the shirred dress onto it. Then added a couple of yo-yo's and buttons and a row of broderie anglaise to the hem. I'm so glad with the way it turned out. I hope my niece likes it too!

Teaching my kids to be crafty

I was reading a blog the other day (I really wish I could remember which blog it was) where they wrote about how they felt that they were creative as an adult because their parents were both creative and allowed them access to art and craft materials to do whatever they want. It made me think about whether I am raising my kids to be creative. Son #1 definitely has an active imagination - its amazing what he can imagine something as simple as a skirt hanger to be - today it was a trumpet, previously its been a pogo stick or a conductors baton. But I struggle to let him be crafty - mostly because I hate the idea of having to clean up after him... (painting is a very special treat) and because I am such a hoarder that its hard to let him use things that I've been collecting for "just in case". But inspired by the aforementioned post and by the Useful Box on Playschool I put together a box with some of my collected craft items (pipe cleaners, ribbon, wool and stickers), paper and other items from around the house (like cupcake papers and cotton balls) to be used as his Useful Box. It's been a hit so far - he loves playing with his useful box. Granted that mostly at the moment it involves a lot of glue and not much else - luckily I only let him use a glue stick! And I'm still struggling with the whole "mess" aspect. But hopefully it will help my kids develop their own crafty sides.

Check out Christy's blog

Christy from the blog "A Christy Production" is hosting a great giveaway. Christy makes all sorts of crafty things - she sews, beads and makes cards and all sorts of things. Head over there and check it out for your chance to win her giveaway

Fathers Day card

I was trying to tidy up my craft desk the other day (cleaning up lasts about 5 mins... then I start a new project and you can't see the desk again) when I came across some Stampin' Up! demonstrator newsletters from my time as a demonstrator. In one they had an article all about punch art and had an example of this little house. So I decided to use the little house on my father's day cards. The quote you may recognise as the chorus from the song "Fathers" from the Children's songbook. I wanted to have that verse typed, but we had major computer issues over the past week. So I had to stick with handwriting. I'm pretty happy with the way this turned out - I'm so grateful for the fathers in my life - my father, father-in-law and most of all for my husband and the amazing job he does as the father of our children :-)

Wardrobe update... part 1

I've reached the point following Baby No 2's birth that maternity clothes look far too big, but my poor stretched abdominals aren't holding my stomach in well enough to look nice in my "normal" clothes (Physiotherapy started yesterday...). So I decided it was time to make myself some new shirts. I found this pattern on sewingpatterns.com - a US website which sell paper patterns for so much cheaper than you can find them in Australia, and then on top of that they often have sales eg all Simplicity patterns for $US1.99. This was Butterick pattern B5356 - a really simple design - the latest one I made I was able to make over 2 days (borrowing mum's overlocker helped too!). The purple floral material was a remnant I found at Big W, and the light purple stripe was from Spotlight.

I'm really happy with the way these turned out, and how flattering they are for my body shape at the moment. I think this will become one of my favourite patterns :-)