Buntings and Rockets

We had a very relaxing weekend, on Saturday the two bigger "boys" were watching Wales play Argentina at rugby, Rachel was kept busy with her revision so that left me and Tomas with a pyjama day of creating and crafting.

Tomas wanted to make some "buntings"

 (I love the fact he calls them buntings instead of bunting.)

So we set about discussing what our buntings would be. 

They were to be Christmas buntings so we made Father Christmas and his elves, reindeer, snowmen, Christmas trees, presents, stockings, cakes, holly and wreaths.

 I did the folding and the cutting and Tomas did a fantastic job of colouring in. 

Although you can see that the colouring in novelty wore off after a little while.

 With our buntings complete it was time to create a rocket spaceship.

The masking tape came in very handy holding all the tubes and bottles together.

Tomas was very pleased with the result,

but it needed pine cone bombs and flames.

Much better!!!

Hope you all had a fun filled weekend too, I even managed a trip to the fabric shop but will save that for another post.

Easter Bonnet Parade

Today at Tomas' school they held an Easter Bonnet Parade. I made the actual hat and Tomas decorated it, cutting out all the flowers and animals and sticking everything on. The children paraded around the hall in their class groups and a boy and girl winner were picked from each class. Tomas was one of the winners and was very pleased with himself and also with the Easter egg that he one. Here is his creation.....




You can't see the back but there are lots of flowers and baby animals.




I don't know where he gets his creative streak from!!



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a BIG old round up......

 I really seem to be out of the habit of blogging at the moment, although I am still managing (only just) to keep up with all your posts. I think I just need to manage my time a little lot better! 

Oh and thank you for all my birthday wishes x

So what's been happening in my little corner of the world then...

Well the most important event was today as my baby turned 5, I can't quite believe that at lunchtime 5 years ago I was busy pushing a new life into the world whilst Paul was enjoying a cup of tea and chat with the midwife!!!

Tomas loved his chair and desk and has been happily writing away since coming home from school. It's his party on Sunday and we will have 30 odd 4 and 5 years bouncing up and down on a bouncy castle!! Wish me luck!

Right onto some crafty makes now.

Back at the beginning of February I finally got around to recovering our dining room chairs, they were originally cream but had recently become so mucky that it was a tad embarrassing when we had friends over. So armed with some bargain curtain fabric and a staple gun the chairs were recovered in no time, why I had put it off for so long I don't know!!! I did try to recover the grotty iron board too but for some reason it turned out a bit small so no photo of my epic fail!!!

Also back in February I took part in the Heart Swap and here is what I sent my swap partner Lisa over at NoodleBubble. Lisa likes owls so I tried to incorporate those into the heart theme too.

One of the reason for not blogging is that I have been really busy sewing here are some of my recent makes....

some drawstring bags for a party planner

notebook covers, a personalised horse racing one

and an oriental embellished one.

a football themed PE bag

personalised napkins (I found another great tutorial on how to get the best mitred corners)

 Some lovely Easter makes

 A couple of patchwork striped bags, one for knitting and one for crochet.

My first ever fully finished quilt. A gift for one of Tomas' friends.

A marvel comic fabric cushion.

Phew! that's a lot of makes!!!

It hasn't all be hard work though there have been some shopping trips along the way too and although I haven't got photos of everything I have picked up a bargain or too.

The bobbin lamp wasn't a bargain as such but I had my eye on it since before Christmas and thought that I had missed out because the new version in the Spring NEXT catalogue is a different colour so I was thrilled to see it still for sale on the website and snapped it up. Had to pay full price but it was worth it...

There has been some fabric shopping too some you can see in the makes above, the marvel comic fabric, the stars fabric and the wonderful horse racing fabric. Whilst I was shopping for the fabric to make the grey Easter basket some fabulous fox fabric fell in the my shopping cart as well, I'm not sure what I will make yet but it will be mine all mine!

There have been a couple of new charity shops open in our area recently but I haven't had time recently to pop in so on Tuesday Paul surprised me with a trip to the Boreham one and I picked up lots of goodies, a Next mid brown cord jacket, ideal for when the weather gets warmer, a pair of Per Una jeans, a rugby lover glass for Jack, a couple of t shirts for Tomas, a mini hot water bottle and the basket in the picture above all the just under £20. I do like a charity shop that is realistic with its prices and the staff are lovely too.

Well hopefully that is me up to date, one thing I wanted to mention was pen pals, I was paired with the lovely Millicent and a little while ago I wrote a rather long and rambling letter to her, today I received her reply in the post. I'm really looking forward to getting to know Millicent through our snail mail letters but she has been feeling a bit under the weather recently so pop over and say hello and brighten her day.

I still have a few more WIP's but will post about those once they are finished, thanks for reading this rather long post and I will be back soon xx

PS just click on any of my photos to make them bigger, if you want to that is....

Busy Bee...

I had one of those days on Sunday where I was able to crack on and achieve some finished projects!!!
They don't happen very often but when they do they are just fab!!!

Firstly, we have had these Ikea drawer units for ages, they have been used to store pens, pencils and crafting bits for the kids and had lots of pens marks etc on them, so I gave them a coat of cream paint (I just used whatever I had in the shed which happened to be some garden shades paint) and added some shabby chic decoupage papers that I had picked up when I bought a crafting magazine.
I always find it a bit daunting at first knowing where to place the papers as initially I had this idea that I would cover the front of the drawers completely but the papers had other ideas so there was lots of cutting and glueing!!

I'm quite pleased with how they came out and am hoping that they will look good in Rachel's room and that they keep the unruly pile of homework/school books tidy!!!

I also completed another make for Rachel on Sunday, she has been pestering me to make a short jumpsuit, I had an old pattern cover for one but couldn't find the pattern pieces anywhere, so using another shorts patterns as a guide I made a new pattern for the jumpsuit. I quickly made up a mock suit in some old fabric and I'm so glad I did as I needed to make the bust line wider and the legs shorter. Once I had the measurements about right I cut I the fabric that Rachel had chosen (I have had this fabric for about 10 years hand had initially bought it to make Rachel some summer dresses when she was small!!! at least it's being used now!!)
With no pattern as such and without any instructions for placing the waist elastic it was a case of putting the jumpsuit on and marking where it needed to go, this probably worked out better as Rachel has quite a high waistline. I used a length of bias binding as the casing for the elastic and since taking this photo I have added some elasticated straps too.
Rachel seems more than pleased with it as she wore it last night to a choir rehearsal with a cardigan over and a pair of flat pumps.
I'd forgotten how rewarding dressmaking is and how good it is to finish a project!!! must get cracking now on all those work in progresses!!!


I also thought I'd show you a picture of the plastic bag holder that I made and talked about here
I was thinking of putting these in my on-line shops - what do you think?? I also have this fabric in a pink and turquoise colourway.

Inspiration

Sue from Vintage from the Village mentioned that she was selling some books and patterns etc over on Ebay so I popped over to take a look and found this book on handbags, it has some great patterns and ideas so hopefully will give me a bit of inspiration to get creating...

Thanks Sue for a great book.

Finally I just wanted to show you what my friend Ruth and I are going to start tonight at our Tuesday Night Sew In, I know many of you have already found Pinterest but if you haven't then take a look it's full of lots of beautiful ideas, picture, themes etc. Ruth found this great little cushion over there

 and tonight we are making hexies!!! I can see sore fingers coming on...