Day 159 Finger Puppet

Birdie finger puppet hand sewn over a coffee in Brunswick st.

Day 158 - Designer Bibs

I am heading away today on a girls' weekend and from there I will be going directly to Thailand with my family. So I won't be back here sitting at my computer for about 3 and a half weeks. Not sure how often I'll be able to blog, or how, but I will still be crafting and attempting to document and blog as I can. And we are taking the ipad with us. I am so excited to be going on this adventure and taking time out to just be with my family.

Whilst away we will also be updating a travel blog where we can over here http://tumblingthroughthailand.blogspot.com.au/, for those who are interested.

Today's project designer bibs. With these very, very cute iron on transfers from a book I recently stumbled upon. I stuffed up the first one a bit when the paper got stuck, but practice makes perfect.

And here is my portable craft cupboard, about to go into the backpack. Yay!!!

Day 157 - Book Week - The Saucepan Man Costume

Liam is heading off to school dressed as the Saucepan Man from the Faraway tree series. His costume involved making a saucepan hat with some cardboard and foil, and pinning lots of other metal things to another one of his Dad's old shirts. Pretty cute! I actually went to school dressed as the Saucepan Man for book week when I was at school so I loved it when he choose him.

Day 156 - Book Week - Giant Peach Costume

Yes it's book week again and the kids chose what they wanted to dress as. Today's costume is Juliet's. Originally she was going to go as a pencil but then she decided on the giant peach from 'James and the Giant Peach'. Always willing to create a challenge for her mother.

Here's what we did.

I decided to use cardboard for the costume so I purchased a sheet of orange cardboard but it needed to be a bit stiffer so I used this old box and glued it onto the front. Then I cut out the peach shapes and the other characters from the book.

 And lastly, used some fabric glue to glue the peach onto the front of one of Dad's old shirts so that the costume is easy to take on and off.

She's very happy with it.

Someone else wanted a try.

Day 155 - Giant collage

I hardly ever get my little Mr 3 yo to do craft with me, so today was a win for me. I actually got him drawing, pasting and cutting to make this giant collage. We have a big roll of white paper that seems to go on forever so I just rolled some our and stuck it to the floor for us to work on. At one point he was getting some stickers out and managed to start up his own imaginary story using the stickers as characters and it was lovely watching his imagination at work and how kids can turn just about anything into a toy.

Later, I put it up on the wall in out hallway and when Aidan saw it there he proclaimed it to be 'Awesome!'.

Day 154 - Max bag

This is the second one of these Max from 'Where the wild things are' bags I have made from a free pattern by the lovely Pip over at Meet me at mikes.

Pretty cute hey! He's made mostly from felt and a wine bottle fits quite nicely inside him if you are that way inclined. Otherwise he's very cute for kids.

Day 153 - Coat spruce

Ok, so I'm doing a bit of midnight blogging and crafting. I'm leaving for Melbourne early tomorrow so won't have much time, and anyway, sleep is for the weak isn't it?

Have I mentioned how much I dislike winter? Blah! I try to be positive in life but winter is something I cannot find a lot to love about. There's jumping in puddles, listening to frost melt, and my fire, but those are just temporary distractions.

I have had this winter coat for so many years. Before kids (BC). It needed a brighten up. We are heading to Melbourne tomorrow for a wedding in the evening and since it's so cold I thought I may need the coat to get to and from the wedding so I needed to give it some colour. Here's how it went down.

Ingredients - coat, fabric, self cover buttons, little stuffed Russian dolls I got at a market a couple of months ago.

New look. Better! I'm feeling a bit camera shy in these wee hours of the morning.

I love checking on my kids before I go to bed at night. This is what Mr Divine looks like in the wee hours of this morning.

Day 152 - Repurposed quilt cover - Where's Wally

I'm still using this quilt cover that has been used for quite a lot of projects and I think you can never have too many of these tote/library bags. With this bag you can even look for the things on the list - Wally is definitely there. I think he's called Where's Waldo in the US for some reason....I'm unspeakably tired now, please get well soon kids.

Day 151 - Fabric Covered Shoes

This possibly falls under the category of ruining a good pair of shoes, but I really wanted to try this so here it is. If my personality was different I would have tried it out on another (cheaper, older) pair, but I'm more of a dive straight in and sink or swim kind of person.

Shoes (the only pair of heels I own)

Some of my favourite fabric by Amy Butler.

Glue

Still gluing.

I put a layer of polyurethane on these but one shoe came out perfectly, and on the other one the polyurethane went a little bit bubbly in one spot. I added some buttons to disguise that a little and sprayed them with a clear lacquer to waterproof. Not perfect, but not bad for a first effort. I'll be wearing them to the wedding with my vintage dress, if only because I don't have any other shoes.

Stop raining!!! Please.

And as requested, here is a photo of little Dylan in tie dye. Complete with red nose, snot and dribble. Bless his little heart.

Day 150 - Yarn Bombing

I have a couple of new people who have joined my blog. Thankyou, thankyou! The support really keeps me going and I actually can't believe I've managed to make something for 150 days straight now. Soon I'll be up to half a year and it's been a pretty awesome time.

As for today's craft, yarn bombing has taken over the city of Bendigo where I live this winter. Here are some of the examples to be found around town that I adore.

So I decided to do some yarn bombing of my own.

I made some pom poms (this took me a few evenings).

And this is my driveway with my lovely blossoming pear trees. It made me smile, and I needed a boost today. The kids are still sick and it's getting me down a bit.

Day 149 - Vintage dress revamped.

I am going to a wedding on the weekend and although I had originally planned to splurge on a new dress for myself, I found that everything in the shops at the moment is just too short. Perhaps if I were 15 years younger....From here an idea sprung.

I bought this vintage dress many years ago when I was at university, for a fancy dress party where my flatmate and I went dressed as 1950's housewives. It's been worn a couple of times since for other fancy dress parties but has otherwise sat in my cupboard. I don't like to get rid of my vintage items and this one was handmade and fabric of this quality is hard to find these days.

I love the shape of the dress but the leaves were very bold and the sleeves and neckline a bit frumpy. The belt wasn't really me either.

 

Closer look at the neckline. It's high and bulky.

I wanted to decrease the boldness of the leaves, so I dyed the dress green first. Although the colour didn't come out anything like the one on the dye packet I am happy with the result and extremely happy with the new neckline and sleeves. I cut off the collar and turned the neck under to lower the neckline, and cut a few inches from the sleeves. Just minor alterations really, but what was relegated to the dress-up box is now something I can wear out.

 It fits like a glove and I feel very much like a character out of 'Mad Men' when I put it on.

Day 148 - Photography Lens Prop

A friend of mine recently started up her own photography business specialising in natural kids and family photographs. She sent me a picture of one of these and I made one for her based on the photo she sent.

First, I made a scrunchy.

Then I stiffened up some felt using a mix of glue and water to soak the felt in.

Then I put it all together with a hot glue gun. This sits over the camera lens. I don't have a camera to model it on, wish I did though.

Day 147 - Tie dyed baby singlets.

It's one of those beautiful warm, sunny, winter's days that give me hope and joy, reminding my that winter doesn't last forever and spring will soon be here. YAY!!!

I have made some tie dyed baby singlets using hair ties and some string and a sink die bath. They actually get to dry in the glorious sunshine instead of in front of the fire which is just awesome.

Oh and it's a really good way to hide little stains that creep onto baby clothes.

Hope you are enjoying your day too, whatever the weather is where you live.

Day 146 - Hair Beads

Not sure if this counts as craft but the beads did come from my craft cupboard and with a weekend pretty much devoted to the writers festival my craft opportunities were limited. Not being one for a lot of fancy hairdo's, and with my own hair being about an inch long all over, I thought I did ok. :-)

Too tired to say any more. Early night for me, but going to bed with a smile on my face and new ideas floating around my head.

Goodnight, goodmorning, or g'day, wherever you may be.

Day 145 - Hanging with the kids.

I was out most of the day today volunteering at the first ever writers festival to be held in Bendigo. I had a fantastic time helping people find their way around the festival and hearing some fantastic and inspirational people speak.

I was fortunate enough to hear both David Marr and Ita Buttrose speak and feel very proud of the way my new home has organised and run the festival so far. I'm on a bit of a high really and looking forward to going back again in the morning for more festival fun.

As absences from my family are so rare I was of course bombarded with hugs, kisses and requests upon my return, and so we sat down for an hour or so and played around with crafts. Here is a glimpse what we got up to.

Mixing plaster, moulds and then painting.

Sticker Pictures

Painting with water - did you love these as a kid?