Getting to know the newest member of the family

Lazing in front of the heater

A pretty little bag for pretty little things

Two quirky cats made by my big girls for two precious little girls

Rainbows all over my living room walls from my sun catcher made last week

A groovy new sewing box

Making a gift for a friend

Stitching funny faces

A few months ago I was following some blog comment trails…… as you do and came across this blog and read this post about testing out her home made soap.

I did a soap making class YEARS ago (like 13 years ago) and made a few batches soon after, but hadn’t made my own soap again since.

I was inspired. And decided that if I did a batch straight away that it just might be ready to include in Christmas presents for family members.

Not knowing where my old recipes might be packed away, I used this one.

It took AGES for me to get the first batch to trace – I definitely recommend the stick blender for hurrying the whole process up.

I made two batches – one blue with peppermint scenting and one pink with vanilla scenting.

I added oatmeal to both batches for texture.

My mould was a clean, empty 1 L UHT milk container. I was careful to cut a section out of the top instead of just cutting the top clean off so that the corners remained to help keep the container in shape.

Once the mould had set, I turned them out and sliced them into nice sized bars. I ended up with around eight from each batch.

They weren’t quite hard enough by Christmas, but I did pop them in the presents anyway with an explanation not to use them for a couple more weeks.

Now that couple of weeks is up and they seem hard enough so we have been using them and they are lovely!

A bit softer than bought soap, but not drying.

I’ve found some of my old recipes and books and we are going to soon be making some more.

First up a Stinging Nettle Shampoo Bar to see if we can get rid of Miss Lou’s dandruff.

Yes Stinging Nettles……….. now which one of the kids should I con into picking them for me? LOL

It’s been pretty busy here of late.

Saturday was spent changing our junk room study and Miss Lou’s room over. Now that she’ll be spending more time at home leading up to her moving back home, we thought she should have the bigger of the two rooms.

There were boxes in the study from our move into this house 18 months ago. Books drifting everywhere, tonnes of craft supplies and stuff that I have no idea what the hell it was for.

Sunday was spent freezing my ass off watching TJ compete in the local swimming carnival.

And today I’m meeting a lady at the kids school to see if there is anything in the clothing pool that would fit her kids for next year before I make the 2 hour drive to meet Miss Lou’s train to pick her up for the holidays.

We are going to do a little shopping on the way home – how could we drive past a Spotlight store and not stop for a stickybeak? lol

We do need a few things though – material for new curtains for one and Miss Lou has a few projects in mind that she’d like to have a go at over the holidays.

Hopefully we’ll be back to our regularly scheduled blogging by Tuesday!

When going out wearing earrings made by self, take spare pairs.

Why?

What a good question.

Because I was wearing these pretties

CJ was wearing a pair too and a few peeps commented about them, wanting to know where I got them………..

So I explained that I’d made them, sold the ones I was wearing and came home with orders for two more pairs!

Not bad going at all

Who knows what might happen if I have spare pairs on me next time someone asks about my pretty earrings!

CJ has a ‘Welcome Year 6 to Year 7/Farewell Year 10′ social in a couple of weeks. It’s all rather exciting. For me as well as her.

I might have one already in high school, but I didn’t get to do all the ‘getting-ready-for-high-school-stuff with Lou because she was living at her dad’s so this is a milestone moment for me.

Anyhow, the theme for the social is ‘Pink’ so CJ decided she wanted a pink dress to wear. After much umming and ahhing and twiddling of thumbs deliberation, she settled on a pattern, found herself swathe of bright PINK! material and I got to work on running her PINK! dress up.

It’s nearly finished. I have to add a few more bows – one to the other ribbon around the waist and one each where the shoulder straps meet the bodice.

And I have some threads to sew in at the back to finish it off neatly. Probably about half an hours work because these finishing details are done by hand.

The hardest bit was the damn zipper in the back. I’ve not done many of them before and had to unpick my first attempt at putting it in, but it doesn’t look half bad now.

I’m rather pleased with it because it only took a few hours to put together and has turned out quite well.

She’s rather pleased with it too.

You’ll have to forgive my crappy photo’s this morning. I find it a little hard to take good pics when still half asleep and being harassed by two different children about two different things (one in front of me and one on the phone) while still trying to get one out of bed.

The girls and I spent a good whack of last Friday making some Christmas presents for our very green thinking aunties and grandmothers.

Miss Lou was a little reluctant at first. She was great with the measuring and the folding and the cutting, but when she realised that she would also be sewing she got a little less confident. CJ on the other hand was eager to have a crack at the sewing machine!

So we had an interesting afternoon of me showing them how to use the sewing machine and them thinking that they had stuffed up with crooked seams much worse than they had.

And the result?

Well we made these – OneStringBags.

Hmmm, the pic doesn’t quite do it justice – you’d better go HERE and have a look.

Oh hold on, I’ll pinch their pic.

I saw them ages ago on Sarcastic Mom’s blog. Such a simple idea and just perfect for environmentally conscious rellies.

The idea is that you use them instead of the little plastic bags when you go shopping for your fruits and veges. They are made from brightly coloured tulle netting so weigh stuff all, take up hardly any room to cart around with you and are reusable, just like your calico shopping bags.

Possible uses -

Fruit – apples, oranges, pears, grapes…
Veggies – carrots, potatoes, onions, beans…
Dried food – chickpeas, nuts, beans, lentils…

We made four sets of 5 bags to give as Christmas presents and I have another 2 sets to giveaway.

TADA!! Free Stuff!

To enter the draw simply leave a comment to tell me your best ‘home-made’ stuff up story.

Draw will be held on Friday 17th October (when I’ll get one of the kids to write your names of bits of paper and draw them out of a mixing bowl or fire helmet or something) and is open to anyone (am happy to post overseas).

And if you don’t have a story……….. make one up! I KNOW some of you have vivid imaginations lol

CJ is!

She wanted a simple black skirt to wear for a special ‘dress up’ day at school today. She used to have a nice black peasant style skirt, but out grew it.

Using this pattern I was able to knock one up in a few hours last night.

She requested that I not show her face this morning as she hasn’t done her hair yet lol

I’m rather pleased with the result. She’s more than pleased with the result and has already decided that she needs more of them, in other colours.And pyjama’s. And tops. And dresses. And. And………

I guess I’d better get to work on cleaning out our junk room so I can set my sewing gear up properly on the big table in there.

I found an idea in Handmade magazine last month for a card kit as a children’s gift. I quite liked the tins they used and wanted to make one for myself to store my handmade cards in and another for Miss Lou to fill with cards for her use through the year. She isn’t terribly great at remembering other people’s special days. I’m hoping that if she has a tin of ready made cards at hand that she’ll use them.

When I was out of town shopping last week, I managed to squeeze in 15 minutes at my favourite craft supply store and found the tins used in the project so purchased two.

Today I decorated them.

This is what I started with -

This is my finished card tin -

This is Miss Lou’s finished card tin (I did it in her favourite colours – blue!) -

I’m quite pleased with how they have turned out. I should have got one for Miss Moo too. I’ll have to give the store a call and get them to put one away for me. I should be able to get a friend to pick it up in the next week or two.

Now to just fill Miss Lou’s with cards and send it down to her.

I had my stitches out today. Stung a bit. I was wondering what was going on “down there”. It felt (and hubby reckoned it looked) like I just had a loop of fishing line hanging out my belly. The nurse who took the stitches out explained that a loop of fishing line hanging out was pretty much what I had. They had stitched on the inside and left a loop hanging out to enable the stitches to be removed. Interesting. Everything is healing nicely. But my guts feel like they want to fall through my pelvis tonight.

Speaking of stitching, that’s what I’ve been doing today.

I’ll be making cushions with the stitchery. I’m doing four small panels for each cushion. TJ decided that he wanted to help me “knit” (time to do some more vocab expansion) and is helping do the Rudolph panel. CJ wants to do the bell panel…….. but also wants to make her own cushion to give to Granma so we’ll see how far she gets.

Will post more pics as the project continues.