Craft Schmaft

This nursery is just stunning, The colours are gorgeous, the furniture is beautiful and to top it all off Cassandra made the cuddliest owl mobile I’ve ever seen. Wow.

See more over on facebook here. Thanks so much for the photos Cassandra.

I had such plans for the Christening cake. There was a perfect picture in my head of two tiers with white frosting and a beautiful string of bunting. Simple – easy to bake, no complicated icing, couple of hours the night before and done.I made the bunting at Sew It Together…

Sadly cake making didn’t go quite so smoothly.

.

After a full day at Sew It Together I was whisked off to dinner with the visiting family from Melbourne. Not to worry, I’d do it when I got home. After a few champagnes I was still very ready to make the cake. Unfortunately the Mr had thought it would be a great idea to make a big scrambled egg breakfast with the boys… no eggs. Nowhere open for eggs at midnight. No cake making.

.

Cue mad rush the next morning to purchase already baked cake. Do you think I could find a cake without “Happy Birthday” on it on a Sunday morning? No. So ended up buying a cheesecake. Cheesecake smaller than intended baked cake so bunting couldn’t be arranged as I’d planned. None of this mattered anyway as no one really looked at the cake. No candles kinda equals no big cake moment. Still. I was pretty happy with my bunting efforts. Sigh. What a debacle.

Note to self: do not attempt Sew It Together and son’s Christening on same weekend. Do not attempt to bake own Christening cake, order white cake and simply embellish. Do not consume excessive amounts of champagne when out with in-laws (but that’s another blog post).

.

Saturday was the big day for Sew It Together – so much to write and show that it may take me a few blog posts to get through it all. I sat next to the gorgeous Marina of Wink Designs and Saffron Craig (who took some great photos – check them out)  along with a bevvy of lovely ladies from Melbourne. It was great to see old friends and make new “real” friends whose blogs I’ve followed for a long time (always love it when the virtual and real meet!). It’s so inspirational meeting other crafters and seeing what everyone is working on. There was stacks of beautiful embroidery happening and crochet that made me green with envy.  There was even some crafting done by moi amongst lots of chatting – I was creating baby bunting for the bubba’s Christening.

I have to say that the swap was a big highlight – love a good swap I do and when it’s a multi swap it’s a bit like Christmas. Cass of Snailblazer did a sensational job organising it and I have to say I was blown away by what I received. Full swap photos to come! But let me tell you that the loot from the goody bag and prizes was just amazing… check it out…

I am particularly taken with the Goodies and Baddies pattern from Jodie at Ric Rac and the Far Far Away FQ from Retro Mummy.These will be put to very good use, thanks ladies!

The only thing I wish is that I’d taken more photos but you can see all the happenings over on Flickr.

Now that Kirsty has her name badge I can do the full reveal… ta dah…!!

The name part of the badge can be removed so that Kirsty can just use it as a brooch after SIT. Oh, I hope she likes it.

I’m working on some teeny tiny bunting this week for Franklin’s christening decorations/cake. You might remember the bunting from the balloon mobile.

Well I thought I’d just make a big stack of it to string up around the place and to go around his cake. I found these cute little adhesive letters that I  might put his name in too. This is the perfect project for sew it together next weekend – once I have the little triangles cut out expect to see me threading away all day (that is if I stop talking long enough to manage any actual crafting!). I’m thinking of going with white and natural colours although I may just be tempted to put in a little blue as well.

After a little hiccup in delivery of my bamboo birdies, they’ve finally arrived. I have to tell you that it’s such a thrill to open something that you designed on the computer (see the design back here) and see it in all it’s physical world glory! The cutest thing is that they just pop right out of the bamboo sheet, all perfectly lasered.

There’s a few things I’d change for next time but overall I’m loving the birdies.

So my SIT badge will be finished and posted to it’s owner today and I’ll post pics of the final version on the weekend.I also did a few other little shapes for brooches that I’m thinking of putting in the SIT swap. Is it cheating to swap brooches rather than something you’ve stitched? Perhaps a few little owls will have to be whipped up instead.

It looks like we’re going to stay in our lovely rented house for a while – no sign of anything we want to buy and the thought of moving house again so soon fills me with dread. So I’ve decided that my boys need their rooms decorated. There’s a million other things I should be doing, like tax and the next load of washing, but room decorating is so much more fun, isn’t it? Starting with the big kid I’ve been thinking about a space room. His obsession with Buzz Lightyear continues so off I went in search of star and space fabric for a doona/duvet cover. I had planned to applique a rocket ship and maybe get some planets going in there too. Then I stumbled on what I have to say is the coolest boy fabric I’ve seen in a long time. Check out this superhero goodness!!!

It really is hard to find cool boy fabric so this is an absolute find. It’s by a German designer Susanne Firmenich. Not only do I love it but the big kid is even more obsessed with superheros than he is buzz. My morning kindy bag packing consists of water bottle, spare clothes. comfort toy and cape. You don’t even want to know about the tears if I forget the cape! So I can’t believe I didn’t think of a superhero bedroom before.

To go with the new bed I’m thinking of getting some hooks up on the wall to hold capes above his new super hero shoes (black trainers) and the new range of masks I’m making him. Another great find and all thanks to my new favourite fabric store, Spoonflower. Spoonflower lets you create designs and upload them to be printed onto fabric. You can create your own or buy other people’s designs and it’s all just printed on demand. Genius. It’s the democratisation of textile design. God I love the internet, but you already knew that.

Ok I’m babbling – here’s the mask fat quarter by Jenimp that you can buy ready to be whipped up into masks.

Have to go, the big kid is yelling at me to come play with him.

Look what arrived in the post, so cute! Hand crafted by Sara of Willow and Moo. The detailing in the embroidery is amazing, thanks so much Sara, I love it.

I’m still waiting for my bamboo birdie brooch to arrive from ponoko. They tell me it’s on it’s way and as soon as it’s here I’ll be popping the cross stitched name on and sending it off to it’s rightful owner.

Not long to go now before Sew It Together, it’s been quite a while since I’ve seen all the crafty laydeez and I struggle at the moment to read everyone’s blog. Seriously, where does the time go? So I can’t wait for a big old gossip session with you all and please forgive me if I’m way behind on what everyone has been up to!

I gave Frankie his first owl this week. Here’s what he thought of it…

This morning I snuck in a little cross stitch for the Sew It Together name badge swap. I found a whole world of fancy free cross stitch alphabets on the interweb but went with a very simple block alphabet.I haven’t cross stitched in such a long time, it was really quite medatative… at least it was until the sick 3 yr old hadn’t started screaming about which bit of Toy Story he wanted to watch next.  Still I managed to multi task remote duty and crewel needle and finish off the name. Result! Next I just have to get my badge design through ponoko’s upload checker but that, my friends, is a task for a time when little ones are in bed.