Keep Calm, Craft On: Birthday Crown

Apologies (once again) for absence from these parts.  Just two weeks before her second birthday Ginger is busy cutting her two year old molars.  And, while we have not been having the night wakings that accompanied earlier teeth arrivals she has been one clingy bub during the day. 

Also, Mr Provincial is back at university and has the computer mornings and evenings, leaving me only Ginger's naptime to post.  Frankly, at 8 months pregnant I have been taking that time to nap too:) Oh, and lastly we are weaning Ginger from TV.  She has only ever really watched one playschool episode a weekday, but lately she has been asking to turn the TV on.  Mummy had a little freak out; so the TV is out of bounds for the moment.  We are a week into the new regime, and all is going well but there goes that useful half hour of tidying or blogging time.  I know as her imaginative play develops I will win back that time many times over, but the beginning stages are tough.

Anyway, I have found time to finish Ginger's birthday crown.  Finally.  Just a year late.  I have a reveal of her birthday presents, which are also homemade, coming later in the week.  I used Nicole's tutorial, which was really simple.  Did learn something too - did you know in Australia you can label something as wool felt even if it is not 100 per cent wool.  Not overly happy Jan (sorry, old yellow pages ad reference there) 

I used a card Ginger got from her Godmother at her baptism as inspiration.

Pom Pom asked for an update re baby boy.  He is doing well and has dropped down, currently on my right side (the midwife thinks he is actually pinching a nerve or something because I have cramps in that leg every night but none on my left).  He is a little on the small side.  At 35 weeks, I have a fundal measurement of 31 weeks.  But at least he has grown.  On my preceding two visits, a fortnight apart, he didn't grow at all - while the midwife was really calm about it and said he could just be tightly curled (and they would do a scan if he still hadn't grown this visit), I had an apprehensive couple of weeks. Heartbeat is strong as usual and he gives good kicks so I know pretty regularly that he is alright:)

February in Photos

I am sitting here on the couch trying to pinpoint exactly how February managed to pass me by with barely any posts.  It is not that there hasn't been a fair bit of crafting around these parts; blogging material for sure.  Or, was it the crafting that stopped the blogging?  It certainly didn't halt the blog reading; so perhaps that is the true answer.  Thoughts to ponder.

Anyway, I did quite a bit of crafting for Valentine's day.   Our actual celebration itself was relatively low key - just our planned dinner and The Pioneer Woman's Sheet Cake.  Oh my - you must make it.  I used the leftover icing as an icecream sauce; it was that good.  Sorry to tempt you during Lent:)

From The Children's Year

My garland cut from Ginger's artwork - this is my favourite heart.

A felt heart garland.  Again, from The Children's Year.

A love bird made for all my loves - this one is for baby boy!  Of course, he didn't join us. But I thought it best to be prepared.

Ginger and I made playdough and it got a lot of use through the month.  When she wants to play with it now Ginger says she wants to do "rolling" - obviously referring to the rolling pin with which she is very impressed.

And, what took me most of the month and the project afterwhich I am vowing never to again buy cheap synthetic batting.  The money you save is more than offset by the amount of time you spend digging fibres out of your sewing machine.

One of our friends is going on a mission trip to Thailand and has said she will go and visit our Compassion child.  So I made our little girl a quilt, and put together a bag of school supplies and clothing.  I also couldn't resist making a package up for her older brother - I didn't want him to feel left out. I had a little more difficulty in doing his as I am not entirely sure how old he is.  Bee, being our sponsor child, I know all the details for.  Boss, I just have to infer on from previous correspondence.

Calender Cards

I had a calender lying about which I had been unable to get rid of because I loved the pictures. It was an old Kew Gardens one Mum had passed on to me. Then on Angry Chicken's blog I saw instructions on how to make cards out of an old calender. So that's just what I did. 5 sheets of pictures (because that is all I had saved) made 10 cards.

It was a quick and easy project; less than 1/2 an hour's work start to finish and very little mess. My two criterias for undertaking any project! Though, as I say that, the kitchen table is covered in cut fabric and has been for the last two days:) I haven't wanted to disturb my arrangement of patchwork squares so we have been eating around it!

On weekend crafting

I finally got around to do some weekend sewing. You may remember this skirt. Well, it never looked any good on me, rather like a potato sack in fact, and so it had just hung in the wardrobe since I made it. So I decided to cut it up and turn it into these.

I don't actually have a baby to give it to, but I am sure one will turn up eventually! They are designed to fit a 6-12 month old. The pattern is from volume 1 of Sew Hip!, the new UK sewing magazine.

Since these only took me 15 minutes from wo to go I can see more going into the present cupboard in the near future.

On Bedding

I thought I would show you one of the projects I worked on in the weeks before DH came home. A new bedspread for our spare bed. Another one needs to be produced for the other spare bed. That would be the spare bed that still needs to be purchased!

The fabric is Amy Butler's Royal Garden in Turquoise.

On someone special coming home!

Well, it's hard for me to believe that DH has been home for just over a week now! He arrived late last Sunday. We have had a lovely time just getting used to him being around again. And, I have been having fun being thoroughly domestic....lots of bread baking, cake making and tea drinking going on here. Oh, and I managed to get almost instantly sick as DH brought home a Baghdad Fluey Bug. What a lovely present:) Just left with the hacking cough now! Fortunately I have the second half of this week off work so I should be able to give the bug the boot.

I made a welcome home sign to make DH feel at home! It is very simple bunting...almost no sewing required. You just need a bit of fusible interfacing and pinking shears.


This past weekend we went down to Bowral to check on our investment property and our tenants appear to be keeping the grounds in immaculate condition. I was very impressed. They are certainly better gardeners than we are.

Bowral has a well known secondhand book trail so we felt duty bound to have a look around the shops. DH had just cleared off his bookshelf so we traded in a whole lot of books for credits at our favourite secondhand bookstore - Bong Bong Books (it is the name of the main street in Bowral). As such, I got this massive stash for just a $6 outlay, oh and DH got one book (to be fair there were no others he wanted)....

On Skirting

I have been having a play with a couple of skirt patterns lately....very simple ones I have found on the internet.

The first I made the weekend before last. Because the skirt is designed for a child I used slightly more fabric. Actually, if I was to make it again I would use less - perhaps the amount for the largest child size. The end result is a very bunchy around the waist - an awful lot of excess material. But it is as twirly as it supposed to be and I love the colours. Perfect for Spring.

Then this weekend I made a cherry skirt, following this pattern. On this occasion I had the opposite problem, too little fabric. I was walking like I had my two legs tied together; perhaps because, again, the pattern is for a child. So I adapted it a little and added a split at the back. I wore it to church last night and am quite happy with it.

A Preppy Heat Pack

So this is what I have been up to the last couple of weekends. Sewing a quilted heat pack holder and said heat pack. It didn't turn out too shabbily. It is ideal for warmth when one is still waiting for their replacement heater!

Long Time No Post!

Apologies, I have been away for quite a while haven't I? Oh well, I should be around a bit more the next couple of weeks as my husband is away on a field exercise and so there are no distractions!

We had our church family camp on the weekend. It was held at a beautiful campsite, right on the river. It was a fun weekend with lots of games and, of course, teaching. We had some really good talks on real-ationships (and I didn't spell that wrong:)) - that is relationships with God, the church and our family.

Anyway I did a bit a craft a while back and I thought I would post a picture. I made this baby blanket for my cousin's new baby boy (he was born on Sunday morning). It was really simple to do, its just quilt material backed with polar fleece. I banket stitched round the edge for a bit of decoration.