Noddy!

I have been so busy crafting that I forgot about blogging... Opps! Let's start catching up!

Way back at Easter time, we went to stay with my in-laws. My Mother-in-law (MIL) was creating a new Noddy quilt for her shop. She wasn't entirely sure if kiddies knew who Noddy was these days. Back when Nathan and I were little, we used to watch Noddy all the time... not together of course. Would be years before we would meet  ;-)

Anyway, my MIL soon learned that indeed little ones do know who it is, when Emily seen the quilt and shouted 'Noddy!!!!'. Noddy has been revamped & modernised. Emily loves watching it... (and so does Nathan sometimes!).

Anyway, so even though the quilt was for Nanna's shop... Emily had to have at least one sleep under it. And of course... being her oragnising (bossy) self that she is, everyone had to sit down on the quilt and have a bit of a play: Poppy Taylor, Emily, Nanna Taylor, Sophie, Daddy and Lexi.

x

Bunting for Little Ones!

Okay... so I LOVE bunting! You might remember when I made some for Emily's room. I was amazed at how  something so simple could make such a difference! We wanted to 'girl up' Emily's room... but didn't want to go to the trouble of painting it, as I was expecting at the time, and we didn't want to re-paint if it was a boy. Turns out it would have been okay  ;-)

I have made some more bunting here & there, but kept cutting bits off my cardboard template each time, so I treated myself to a real template!!! I just love it. And so I set to work making some new products for Taylored4Baby!

I wanted to make something for boys and something for girls. When selecting the fabric for the boys bunting, I couldn't go past the Noddy range! It's just so... BOY! The fabrics I chose are classic blues, greens, reds and yellow.

And for the girls... it's got to be Melly & Me's Little Menagerie range! I just love the warm gentleness of the colours, but they are still quite bright at the same time. LOVE them!!!

Really pleased with how these turned out. You can get your own set of boys or girls bunting here & here if you wish! It really does transform a room, and it looks glorious strung up outside in spring or summer!

A Melly & Me baby gift!

Recently... (okay, a few months ago...) a dear friend of mine had a beautiful baby boy: Lachlan. I wanted to make something special for him. Something he could use, and keep for a long time. So I made a cot quilt!

It's made from the Melly & Me Little Menagerie range and I paired it with a simple white cotton so that the fabrics could really pop! The design of the quilt is modelled quite closely on one that's featured in the Melly & Me book Kaleidoscope. There are some very cool ideas in this book!

I happen to know that this little boys room was decorated 'gender neutral', so I wanted to help make it a baby boy space without making drastic changes, hence the most popular thing since sliced bread (at least in my head) BUNTING! 

Of course I forgot to take a pic of the bunting before I sent the package off... but here are some leftover bits! I figure if someone has a little boy... and they happen to name him a 3 letter name, I can make some cute bunting to go over the cot  :-)

Welcome to the world Lachlan!

x

The Warhol Dress x 2

Recently I have discovered the blog Made. I just love it! There are so many gorgeous, simple tutorials that I know I can do! I think I am going to end up making every single thing on there!!!

Anyway, it's getting colder here in Oz, so of course, my first 'made' project should be the Warhol Dress! What can I say... I just got too excited, and there's nothing wrong with being ready for Summer early right??

So I went shopping, and given that it's the end of Summer, I got these 2 tops for $10 instead of $40!

And then I followed the simple pattern and instructions and came up with these! The first one is for Lexi, who is currently 7 months. I hope that she grows into the length! If not, it's easy enough to adjust!

And this one is for Emily. Looks kind of short you say? Doh! I think it is. We'll see when summer comes around. I tried it on Emily, but she kind of had a freak out because of the bow (?), so I quickly had to decide where the hem should be. As you can see in the 'before' picture of the shirt, there was more to the print below where I have made the hem, so I ran the risk of it being too long, or too short. Maybe Emily can wear it as a top? (If she gets over the bow issue...)

Overall, super easy to make! The only problem I had it that when I was ironing the yoke for the first dress (Emily's - DYN-O) it kept rolling, and drove me absolutely nuts! So for the second yoke I ended up overlocking the edges. I think the yoke is better if you don't do this, but for my sanity... it had to be done!

I think next time I will get some plain shirts from Kmart or something. I think if you go with one that already has a print, you just need to be careful about the hem line. I also need to play with putting my own prints on them  :-)

Go buy some shirts!! Give it a go!

x

More Melly & Me...

First came Phoebe, and my next Melly & Me creation has been Dee Dee and... Dee Dee I guess, seeing as yet again I made two! This time one goes to my MIL for Just Patchwork, and the other goes to my girls... Yay Emily & Lexi!!

Lexi (7 months) just loves having a bit of a chomp on poor Dee Dee, and Emily loves helping her 'swim' through the air. When I finished Dee Dee no. 1, Emily had been napping. She woke and came into the family room to say hello and was so excited to see Dee Dee! 'WOW!' Imagine waking up and magically there is a new toy! It gave me such a lovely warm fuzzy feeling to know I could make it for her.

So what did I think of the pattern? LOVED IT!!!  Really did. It was quite simple and straight forward, and was realitively quick to make. Just my kind of project  ;-)

If you want to get your hands on a pattern, you can get it here. As I said in a previous post, the link is to my in-laws store. You can't get the patterns directly from Melly & Me however there are loads of stockists listed on their blog. This is just the one I know  :-)

Mother's Day 2011

Happy Mother's Day to all! A little late, but blogger decided not to like my pictures for a few days! I hope everyone had a wonderful day. Thought I would share a little bit of ours.

Firstly, it started with a sleep in, and a beautiful breakfast prepared by Nathy! It was SO yummy!! The sauce was from a packet though, and we are in negotiations for Nath trying to make it from scratch for my birthday... which is the next time I will have something so exciting for breakfast at home! 

                                      

My first gift was one that I had requested... some black picture frames from IKEA! Ask and you shall receive  :-)

And I wanted them because the picture on this wall keeps asking me for some friends!

And then I got these... were they for Mother's Day? Let's say yes! Truth be told I got them because I needed them. My last pair have lasted about 10 years. Look out Lexi's mothers group. As discussed today... you will be seeing these soon!



And then came the most precious gifts. This one came home with Emily last week from daycare. It's just so sweet! A cup of tea for mumma. Okay... so this mumma doesn't drink tea. But we sure have had a lot of fun pouring pretend cups of tea, doing a little 'cheers' and then drinking it down. Thanks Emily!! x

And here is it. The best card I have ever received! Nathan helped Emily with this (and I am sure Lexi was the supervisor or something...). The very first pic in this post is the front, and inside is a little snapshot of Emily right now! She is very into drawing faces. We draw them, but she tells us exactly what we need to include. She also likes stars, flowers, and has learnt the letters O, B & E. Random? Yes... but I love that this is everything that's special to her right now.

We also spent lots of time playing outside, having tickle time, and then watched Daddy badly lose at soccer  ;-) And of course that picture that I had to get of me & the girls on Mother's Day didn't happen. I must get better about that! All in all, a wonderful day. So happy and proud to be a mumma!

x

6AM... How does she know??

Image via here

My 2 year old recently (okay, a few months ago...) went into a toddler bed. She was kicked out of her cot by her little sister... who was kicked out of her room because her parents wanted it back!

So in the beginning, Emily screamed if we tried to put her in bed and then leave (as we had previously done with the cot). So given that it was a new bed, in a new room, and she was now sleeping downstairs alone, we decided to cut her some slack! And then began laying with her (on the floor... not in the toddler bed!) and pretending we were going to sleep. 'We'll just do it for a few days' I said to my husband.... It went of for two months. And here's the problem: sometimes it would take about 40 minutes. 40 minutes of laying there thinking about all the things you could/should be doing. Also, half the time us 'pretending' to be asleep led to us actually being asleep! So there goes the night! 

Anyway, once we returned from Easter Break, we decided that was it. No more. So we started putting Emily in bed, having a little chat about the day just been, and what was coming up tomorrow, a kiss and a cuddle, then goodnight! She actually has gone so well! We had a couple of protests and escapes the first few times, but after about 3 days she was fine!

So now she is climbing into bed with me at some random stage through the night. I know I should stop this but we are taking it one thing at a time. And truth be told... I don't mind it too much. Who doesn't like a cuddle?

What I do not like, is that her internal clock seems to be set to 6AM!!! Every morning, give or take 5 minutes she asks mummy to hop up, so we can 'eat', 'drink' and watch 'tv'. I know it could be worse... but it's SO early! How do I survive? Every Sunday is Mummy's Sleep-in Sunday!!! 

One more sleep... just one more sleep...

x