Boris

Hello.

This is Boris.

Handmade by me yesterday, and I'm very pleased with him. My first attempt at needle felting.
I seem to spend hours browsing around Flickr looking at things I could make, but always feeling like I'll never have the time.... I've been obsessing over needle felting for the longest time, ever since buying this book for a friend. So on a whim I popped into Spotlight yesterday and bought a few supplies, quickly looked at a youtube tutorial and started making.


I have ideas for many more things, and with Little m's birthday coming up, I can feel my craft fire re-igniting....

Paper dolls

Over a decade ago, I saw this idea in an English magazine, way before I had children, or even knew any. I tore it out and somehow managed to keep it for all this time, despite now living on the other side of the world. I don't think I've seen it or thought about it in all that time in between, but I came across it a few weeks ago whilst tidying some drawers out. Just in time for my niece's birthday.
Paper dolls, joined together with paper clips, with moveable arms and legs. The original idea used tissue paper skirts, but I thought using some of my collection of cupcake cases would be cuter. The bodies, arms and legs were all painted with watercolour on watercolour paper,



cut out, pieced together using tiny paper fasteners and then the cupcake paper skirts attached. A pretty little paper doll garland for my neice's bedroom. I think I may add some wings to turn them into fairies before I send them off to her tomorrow...



Looking at this one, I think you can tell that I've been obsessively watching all 3 seasons of Mad Men in the last few weeks....

Easter Holiday

My husband celebrated a very special birthday at the weekend, so we decided to head down to the beach for a relaxing long weekend away.

I made little m a special t-shirt to wear for the occasion, just using t-shirt transfer paper. He loved the t-shirt, maybe because of the drawing of his beloved toy lion Gaw-Gaw, or maybe because of all the attention he got whilst wearing it...

And I made an Easter nest table decoration to go with the painted eggs, out of paper mache, cut out news print and raffia.



It was a really relaxing and lazy weekend. Just lovely.
Hope you all had a great Easter too.

Painting eggs

Its been a while......
I have managed to do a only a tiny bit of crafting these last few months ( its six months since I last blogged, I can't believe it!!) I did manage to give a hand made gift to everybody in my family,(thogh it completely exhausted me!) but sadly I didn't manage to photograph any of these lovely things, and now they are all on the other side of the world...
Since I've been back here in Melbourne, there hasn't been a whole lot of time for crafting. Looking after a toddler is so demanding, and he won't leave me alone for a second.

But late in the evenings, I have forced myself to paint some eggs for Easter, I'm scared that if I don't do something creative, I'll start losing my creativity (as well as my mind...)

Christmas present making

I'm in a frenzy of Christmas present making.
I'm already starting to panic about it. It's still early, I know, but I'm definitely panicking. I leave for the UK 8 weeks from today, and I have decided to make something for everyone in my family (....what was I thinking?) So I'm not going to be able to talk much about what I'm going to be making, I'm not sure which members of my family lurk around my blog...but here are some little snippets of some of the projects, that are mostly just little piles of fabric at this stage.

The party is over

The party was a success! But thank god it is over. I had no idea how stressful a party for a 1 year old could be. It almost felt like Christmas, there were so many decorations, so much food, and so much organising to be done. And once there are four babies in a room all getting up to mischief at the same time, it feels completely hectic.
But I was really happy with my cake, it all went according to plan despite my nerves...


And the red velvet cupcakes I made, from this recipe, were delicious! (With cream cheese icing from my Mum's recipe)I would definitely make them again, so light and velvety, just as they are supposed to be...

We decorated the room like a big top, with red and white streamers, and big bunches of red and white balloons. I made paper flags and paper party hats (which all the babies refused to wear, not even for long enough to take a photo!) But poor little m was not to happy with his party. Everything seemed to make him cry that day, including opening his presents. Poor little thing, I think the attention was too much for him.

Cake decorating...

The sugar decorations for the top of the cake are complete....phew!


But there is still so much to do!