We resume normal programming...

Well that was an unwelcome pause in proceedings wasn't it!

I'm back - and there's lots to share.

But let's start with the 'quick break' pics since I alluded to it a while back.

Brianna was right, the photo of the girls riding the big artificial wave was taken at Phillip Island, not far from Melbourne but it feels like you are a million miles away - and I mean that in a good way, a very good way.

We got acquainted with the locals, real and

Not so real!

We had time to run...

To look...

To learn... 

And to just be 'five'.

Which, after multiple interstate trips, weddings, funerals, illness and injury in the weeks preceding the weekend away, was something we really needed.

Sometimes it's hard to make the decision to say 'sorry, but I won't be able to make it' to things, when the prospect of disappointing others looms.

But an overnight trip away like this reminds me that there can never be enough time to indulge in enjoying the company of the four people I love most in the world.

Proliferation

It started innocently enough...

a sweet felt chick as per Ms Myrtle and Eunice's instructions.



And then another, and another.



And each new chick was given a name in the morning when the children found them.

We all know you can't give away a 'pet' once it's been named...





Introducing, from left to right: Ella, Sam, Poppy, Sunny, Alan, Emily, Rose, Oliver and Lily.

So I'm checking into "felty animals anonymous" over Easter.

You have a lot to answer for Ms Myrtle and Eunice!

PS thanks for this sweet little pattern Tania, can you tell I've been enjoying it!

PPS The Bad News - my computer has officially died, this was blogged from my iPhone. The Good News - There's a new Apple on it's way to me - hooray!

Brianna was right the wave pic was Philip Island. I'll share our little escape later, once I can access all my photos again!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Hunt this bag down!!!

More on our getaway later.

For now, more importantly, can you help in the hunt for the lowdown, dirty, stinking theiving person who stole this bag today from Nicole Mallalieu's stand at the Australian Quilt Convention in Melbourne.

Apart from being a show-stopping piece from her new book it has a huge amount of sentimental value as the button used on the bag belonged to Nikki's late Grandmother.

People who create hand made items and run small businesses that service the craft industry work incredibly hard to make their living, and do it from a sense of love for creating, sharing and teaching which Nikki does so well.

To blatantly steal like this is shameful, and I only hope that this gorgeous bag brings whoever did it, nothing but bad karma.

If you see it in the street, stop them, or cry 'thief!' - it's one of a kind - they didn't buy it.

Feel free to repost this - or link to it - or link to Nikki's post and let's see if we can get this bag back.

Time out

Anyone want to guess where we went??

Crafty fun

There's nothing we like better than getting into some craft - maybe it's hereditary!

I grabbed these two books when they were for sale recently at kinder and they have some great projects in them.

We'd previously borrowed the fairy one from the library.

The girls decided they wanted to start with this project.



I think I have mentioned before that Miss L's philosophy on decorating is "more is more!"
It took me some time to clean up the glitter.

They were pretty happy with the results and they are now hanging in their rooms.

The holidays are flying past, too quickly for my liking, but apparently these projects are on our 'to do' list as well.

Wish me luck!

The (belated) wrap up

It's taken me a while to get to this, but still - better late than never!

Post-party wrap up coming up.
I'll stick to the facts - there's a lot to cover.
If I forget anything - feel free to ask in the comments.

THE BEGINNING - FUN AND GAMES

When the kids arrived we had the table set up for craft.

They all coloured in and decorated a fish cut out, they came from Riot art and craft which are in lots of suburban shopping centres.

On the tables there were foam stick on shapes, pencils, textas, glue sticks galore, sparkly paper, kinder squares and bowls of sequins and bead - all from Officeworks.

I'm not into competitive games for under fives as it always ends in tears and I am a bit old-fashioned about making everyone a winner - really, how does that prepare you for life!

The kids warmed-up with some under the sea musical statues - they had to dance like snapping sharks, octopuses, fish and crabs.

Next up - parachute games!

We got a parachute off eBay ($26 delivered to our door - seriously).

I left the guy who lives here in charge of the parachute games and he really delivered, they had a ball. There are a bunch of games on the web - just use Mr Google.

We also had a treasure hunt - two groups with five clues each - the last clue was to find the guy who lives here.
Once both teams found him he opened a treasure box and shared out gold coin treasure to them all.

We also did old-style balloon-between-the-knees relays and egg and spoon races (I hard boiled the eggs).


THE MIDDLE - FEEDING THE STARVING HORDES

With this many kids to feed I truly recommend sitting them all down.
We hired tables and chairs from Party Squad - they are great to deal with and it's worth the money - I think it is anyway!

We served the following:

• Treasure swords - fruit on skewers
• Octodogs - Sorry I didn't get a pic of these, they went so quickly - hot dogs shaped like octopi - see them here.
• Mermaid Cakes - cupcakes with mermaid/fish/crab toppers (shown below in some playdough).
• Sausage boats - Sausage rolls with a sail made of a triangle of paper glued to a toothpick
• King Neptune Pies - party pies
• Starfish sparkles - fairy bread cut like starfish
• Octopus smiles - jelly in oranges - see here for how to make them - also a biiiig hit!
• Sugar periwinkles - My mother-in-law made meringues shaped like periwinkle shells!
• Ariel's cheesy bacon tarts - made by my mum - delicious.
  
  

  

  Make these using scrap booking paper cutters, toothpicks and a glue gun.

  

THE END - CAKES AND FAREWELLS

Two mermaid birthday cakes of course!

The cakes were standard round butter cakes with the centre filled with a jelly sea, surrounded by a wall of Clinker lollies to stop it slipping off the cake.

The mermaids were a gift to the girls and came from The Friendship Tree.
They sat on a 'rock' made of icing so they didn't get ruined in the jelly.

Then we took a photo of each of the kids either being a hula girl or a surfer kid (their choice) in these funny cardboard cut outs from Lombards, which is also where we got the hanging fish, paper plates and cups, streamers and lei's from.

  

Phew !! I'm exhausted!

And here are the wonderful Grandparents who helped out in so many ways on the day and in the lead up - my heartfelt thanks to them.

 

That's entertainment

We're trying to encourage a love of live theatre in our children.

That and a healthy level of imaginative play.

Which is why I love nothing better than having to write, exactly as instructed, a sign like this to hang on our front door.

This is what then greeted the guy who lives here when he walked through that door.

He was provided with a ticket (as seen on the left of the pic in front of Miss A) featuring mermaids and instructions on entering the show through 'four door centre'.

He was also asked what his phone number was and this information was plugged into the cash register, probably for future market research or telemarketing!

He was then escorted through the house and seated on the deck ready for the show to begin once the puppeteers introduced themselves.

There was a cast of thousands (well not quite, but you get the idea)

Characters from near and far

And some very funny voices and storylines.

And after every great performance you front your audience to take your bow.

What's something fun that's been happening at your place?

Anticipation...

I seriously can not wait for this book to be released.

Photo credit Nikki M

It is of course, the much anticipated first publication from the lovely Nicole Mallalieu, handbag, purse, wrap skirt and pattern-free top maker extraordinaire!

Now that the date is getting closer (May 1st, unless you pop down to the Australasian Quilt Convention in Melb next week), I can show you something I made from it.

I was lucky enough to be able to test out a pattern last year and so decided to test it three times over by doing the toiletry bag as a Christmas gift for each of our three girls.

What else to make small children's toiletry bags in other than Red Riding Hood with spots (Little Red was a gift from Cass - thanks Cass!), everyone's favourite quirky pig Olivia and some red gingham, and very sweet mini-babushkas on pink with Michael Miller Ta Dot.

The thing I love about all of Nikki's patterns is that she provides so many cool tips and techniques in everything she does, so you go away feeling like you have learned something and developed skills.

In this one, there is the most amazing method for turning corners on the ends of the bag - you have to try it to believe it, it works so well.

It creates a beautifully finished, professional looking item and these were in fact the smash-hit of Christmas. Even now the smallest child tries to carry hers around the house with her - much like it's a handbag.

If probably didn't hurt that I filled it with 'cool' stuff like a fold-away travel toothbrush.

Miss A cleaned her teeth five times on Christmas Day!

This book is a must for any seamstress/sewing loving gal so add it to your wish list today.

If you'd like to win yourself a copy, head on over to Cam's blog and enter before May 1st - or go on down to the AQC and you can get one signed by the clever author herself.

In case you can't get there visit Nikki's blog for details on how to pre-order yourself a copy and to see some more sneak peeks of what's inside.

What are you waiting for, go on!

Wonderful Wonderland

There's a lot I haven't shown you of late. Here's one little project I completed before I headed off to SIT, a test pattern for Toni at Make It Perfect.

This is the newly released 'Wonderland' dress and it's very, very pretty!

It has this lovely detail where the pleated skirt is actually attached on the outside of the bodice - you can see it better below.

It has ribbon trim on the sleeve and bottoms hems so no need to turn under hems and press at the end which is nice.
It buttons up the back, and for once I had just the right buttons in my stash.

I actually bought this fabric a loooong time ago from Spotlight intending to make an Ottobre dress with it and just knew it would work great for this little dress, and I am really happy with the result.

In case you are wondering the hairclip flower is froma tutorial by Make It and Love It.

Ashley has some great tutorials, and this is made in the lovely Heather Bailey felt I bought at Calico and Ivy.

It's one of three I made at SIT, in the whole day. Don't let that mislead you - they are very quick to make!

Enjoying the year

If like me, living in the southern hemisphere, you find it frustrating to pick up a children's book and find it filled with references to 'Fall', 'Thanksgiving' and 'Halloween' as major events in a calendar year, then you will love this new book written by Jane Goodwin and illustrated by the super-talented Anna Walker.

All Through The Year follows one little family through the course of a year showing the children doing everything that seasonally matches the Aussie year.

Playing at the beach in January, starting school in February, making breakfast for Mother's Day in May and through a series of other fun days such as going to the snow in July, splashing in September puddles wearing footy scarves and preparing for the school concert and end of year packing up at school in November.

Ideal to read to children of all ages they will delight in finding the little details in each of the pictures.

And at the end of the year you see how much the baby, the puppy, the children and the garden have grown.

Grab yourself a copy and settle down for a good betime read.

Goodies galore!

What would a craft party be without a goody bag!

Sheridan got together an amazing list of sponsors and they provided us with all sorts of great things in a bag made from corn - by Inner Green - how cool is that.

A full list of 'clickable' links is at the bottom of this post.

There were a bunch of great patterns some for quilts, pencil rolls and one that Clare wrote especialy for us, a cute puppet.

And then there was fabric from Retromummy, Hawthorne Threads and Saffron Craig and a very cute key fob from Earth Girl Fabrics.

Patterns, fabric, key fob and more patterns - bliss!

I also made the most of the market stalls and got some very sweet Sweetie Petite dolls from The Red Thread.

The swap, arranged by Cass was awesome again.

I forgot to take a pic of the flex frame felt iPhone pouches I made - so I might have to make one more so I can show you! Inside I put a Kitkat which had a print out of an iPhone on the front of it - just for fun.

Here's what I got from some very clever ladies:

Fabric patched notepad and pencils from Cass - mine has Heather Ross on it - *swoon*

A casserole carrier from Donna - serious amount of work in each one of these - wow!

My very own doll quilt by Helen - her work is amazing.

One of Sara's gorgeous embroidered cuffs - I had to fight my daughters to keep this.

And a fabulous calico appliqed bag with lovely fabric 'scraps' inside from Anna.

Yep - lucky me!

Also I never showed you the very clever badge that Cass made for me - she put a zip in it!! (She said that it was thanks to Cam who helped her with the technical side of it).

Not only did it look great but it was very practical - the perfect place to keep my room key for the YHA we stayed at. Thanks Cass.

I also bought a special treat for myself - a new Polly Pratt dress! Made from gorgeous Amy Butler fabric - here it is on a model with a better figure than mine!

It's such a gorgeous summery, fun dress - makes me feel very girly - and my girls adore it - I was truly in the door for about 10 seconds when one of them declared "I love your new dress mummy!"

Photo credit - Polly Pratt

So there you have it - what a weekend!

PS - there was also post-dinner karaoke and dancing - but what happens on SIT, stays on SIT!!

Here are all the sponsors - go on, visit a few and let them know the SIT girls sent you.

Ric-Rac

Posie Patchwork

Innergreen

Hawthorne Threads

Pink Chalk Fabrics

Chasing Cottons

Saffron Craig

Clare’s Craftroom

The Red Thread

Clare’s Place

Earthgirl Fabrics

The Remnant Warehouse

Material Obesssion

Kelani Fabric Obsession

Sew Vintage

Plushka’s Craft

The Oz Material Girls

Retromummy
Polly Pratt

Craft Schmaft

Prints Charming

Nicole Mallalieu Design

Wink Designs

Crafty Mamas