Day 278 - Doggie Pjs

This is my second last pair of Christmas pjs. How cute are these dogs? I found this fabric in an op shop a few months ago. I love them. These are for Dylan.

And here is a photo of a very cool visitor who came right up to our front door and snuggled up to our door mat this week. It was very exciting!

Day 276 - Note book.

Tomorrow is the last day of school before our 6 week break, and I have everyone home today with a couple of sick kids. A lot of Christmas movies have been watched and now we have Chrissy songs blaring too.

The gorgeous bath bombs I made last week for Juliet's teacher did not fare well in the 42 degree heat so they ended up going a bit warped and look a bit sad. I couldn't bring myself to make the same thing twice so today I made her something else.

A notebook and fabric cover with green patchwork.

Front.

Inside.

 Back.

She is also getting some of this delicious Christmas bark (melted white chocolate and crushed candy canes).

I also re-did mum's family tree and I'm much happier with it. The leaves were too dominant in the last one.

Hope you are all well and not as exhausted as I feel.

Day 270 - Paper gift bags using old magazine pages

Life is pretty crazy in this house at the moment, hence my very short post yesterday. It was a very hot day again, and the Prep students put on their super cute nativity play and we had a picnic dinner at school. We had to cobble together an angel's outfit for Juliet at short notice, and our electricity supply has been problematic due to mice getting in the wall and chewing the wires.

Anyway I will just share a couple of photos of how gorgeous my little angel looked yesterday. The top part of her outfit is made out of a piece of fabric cut from the bottom of my wedding dress before I wore it (a small train that practical me didn't want) and you will recognise the head piece from my Christmas cards with rosettes from my deb dress attached to a gold sequined garter made for a joke many years ago.

I was up and making these at 7 this morning for a party at school for Liam and a playgroup party for the littlies.

And finally, today I have used some old magazines with lovely prints on them to make some paper gift bags which are going to be used as treat bags for Juliet's birthday party tomorrow.

Here are the pages.

And the bags, which came out looking quite lovely. I made them by pulling apart a gift bag we had at home and simplifying the design a little.

Day 264 - Christmas cards - part 2

I made lots of cards today. This is the first time I've ever used my sewing machine to make my cards. It was fun and I got to try out a few new stitches on my machine. I'm happy with how they turned out.

Day 263 - Nativity Christmas Cards - part 1

Every year I make my own Christmas cards starting with a photo as a base. It all began when I got my dog Ernie back in 2000, and it's always been a lot of fun (for me). But now that we have 2 dogs and 4 kids it's ridiculously difficult to get a photo of them all looking in the one direction. I just have to take what I can get.

This year I decided to do a bit of a nativity scene. I'm not at all religious so it's more of a traditional thing for me and I thought it would be fun.

Costumes were prepared.

Aidan is my angel. One of my old shirts got taken in at the sides and some wings sewn onto the back.

Then a halo was made.

 Joseph was created with a hat I bought many years ago on Zanzibar, and a table napkin.

Mary was created with a doily, an old sheet and a tie from a pair of cut off jeans.

Sheep were made using stuffing from an old pillow which I glued to some old dog costumes.

It's impossible to get Dylan to stay still for more than 30 seconds at a time, so the bed idea quickly went out the window when he tried to launch himself from the bassinet.

See what I mean. Never work with animals or children!!! How about both. Yikes. Cards will be made tomorrow.

Day 258 - Christmas card tree.

I apologise for the frenzy of Christmas related posts, but once I get on a theme the ideas keep coming, so today I made a Christmas card holder using old twigs from the bush around our house. I added a couple of book page paper lanterns and a few other bits and pieces for colour.

And here is Ms J opening the first treasure on the advent calendar this morning.

Day 257 - Advent Calendar - Wall

I have had a totally amazing day today for the first official day of summer and the first day of September. Took the whole family to see Hotel Transylvania at the movies this morning which was a big success, then got kicked out of the house for a few hours while Mr Crafty and the kids worked on a surprise for me (for my birthday which is next month). Spent my 'me time' wisely with a massage and facial (feeling very lucky), then a visit to a pop up vintage clothes shop. I really was walking around on a cloud. Then returned home for a lovely evening with my family, followed by some late night crafting.

Here it is, my take on the advent calendar, ready to surprise the kids in the morning.

Workshop.

Finished calendar.  Inside are mini candy canes, lollies and chocolates.

Day 255 - Paper string of pretty.

Well summer doesn't officially begin for another 2 days but we are heading for a 40 degree (google tells me that's 104 degrees for the Celsius challenged) day here today and it's already very hot at 11am. I shall be lying low for the day.

I got a head start last night on cutting out the pieces for today's craft. I loved my decorations from yesterday so much I decided to make some others.

I still had one book page left from the meg and mog book used in Day-230-meg-and-mog-love , and I love the colours of the illustrations. So began an idea. I combined this with a coffee bag and some shape cut outs left over from a birthday party pack.

I cut circles from the book page and stars from the coffee packet.

Used a long straight stitch on my sewing machine to sew them all together. (You could glue if you don't sew).

And here is my string of pretty.

 I would hang it on the tree but we don't have one yet, so here it is.

I think these would also look great hanging from the roof.

Day 254 - Recycled book page Christmas decorations.

This year I've decided to make all of our Christmas decorations using recycled materials. Today is my first effort, using recycled book pages to make these onion shaped hanging decorations.

First I cut strips in three different lengths.

Then I glued the strips at the top and bottom so that they looked like this, with the shortest strip in the middle.

Finished! I punched a hole in the top to hang them.

 My little golden book paper was a little too thin so I glued two layers together to give each strip a bit more body, and hung them up using some metallic thread.

They are hard to photograph properly, but they do look quite good.