dresses for a doll/ christmas shortbread

Jumeirahs very special Christmas present.. yesterday she got her ears pierced :) After thinking that it would be too painful to do it until she was 6 ( her words) Daddy made a passing comment " how cool would it be to go to big school with your ears done?" and that was it. And so we did, and she was brave and is now quite proud of her new pink ears :)

ITS ALL DONE :)


Finally tonight I have finished all the projects I had to do, which gives me tomorrow night to enjoy the wrapping and creating christmas magic for my three beautiful children. We are also hoping to go and look at some christmas lights in the neighbourhood so its going to be a fun night!
Needless to say, this day has been one of absolute sewing disasters as I had saved the thing I was most dreading doing till last.... Amahlis dolls dress. I CANNOT MAKE THEM, I WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO MAKE THEM. On the fourth and final last ditch attempt I have constructed something that will pass in my one year olds eyes... just. These damn dresses have caused me more grief and hair loss than the whole christmas craft craziness put together, I kid you not.
These are todays disasters which I flew through whilst trying to not have my kids notice I kept disappearing from the room...

This one was from a pattern that looked great but somehow I had two pieces left over (?) and she looks like some straight choir girl... too old for my little Poppy.





This one was just hilarious as I tried to gather it in the middle... I so cannot gather.

(Yes the hip does stick out about 2 foot from the doll :) I dont know why .)

This one had potential but at the last step was missing an armhole all together ( I made this one up) so it sat too low and wouldnt stay on.



And finally one that sort of looks ok, but was too short so I had to hunt through the scraps to find two pieces that would work. Funnily enough, I used the two left over sleeve pieces from the first dress :)





This pattern I made up myself too.
I have searched and searched the internet for a simple pattern but cannot find anything. I had found one girl dress I was going to shrink but couldnt work out how to do that on the stupid printer...
SO ANYWAY! Poppy is dressed and ready to be loved :)

And so this afternoon, between dresses two and three, I realised my kids needed something fun to do and so we made shortbread christmas trees. ALL OF US :)

This is such a simple recipe of flour, vanilla, butter, and sugar that we found on the internet. Jumeirah helped to read and follow the recipe steps and put in the ingredients.


Jared helped in getting the ingredients and pouring the flour and butter.

Amahli helped with pouring and then making sure each and every available surface was covered in left over flour. She did a good job :)



Once cooked and cooled, Jumeirah iced them and couldnt even wait until they had set before eating them.





Her priceless comment that made all this christmas craziness worthwhile:

"No one has the most credible mum! You have amazing ideas, I just cant ever believe it!"

And its all worth it :)

Happy Christmas Eve eve!!

fabric house FINISHED second waldorf doll FINISHED

The most beautiful wall art :)

ACK! Its 11.37pm..Its a short one for you tonight... still hard at it but have had a small but significant breakthrough..

Look at whats happened here :)

Poppy




Jumeirahs fabric underwater doll house

Not even an early morning Spastic O' Clock could dampen me today :)

These two were nailing each other with huge bouncing things, screaming with laughter, until of course, the inevitable tears came. I quickly gave them some outdoor paint and they happily created this on the fence.

Jared absolutely loved this painting today :) Probably because Jumeirahs enthusiastic encouragement would get anyone doing anything, but possibly also because its outside and they were alreayd wrapped up in hanging out with each other :)

Love em :)


And so I have finally repaired and finished Jumeirahs house AND Amahlis doll is done AND Jareds mat is done too!!!!! Ok yes the doll is still naked BUT today I found an awesome hidden website with the most perfect ( I hope!) pattern so fingers crossed it works!! Will hopefully show you tomorrow. And then I am done :)


For now :)

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

creative brain breakdown/ reversible car mat/ doll house disaster

Jumeirahs gorgeous picture drawn from the book "Cherry loving Leila"

I have become very close with this lovely quick unpick...

I knew this moment would hit.. its been coming for days, actually weeks now.... and tonight it hit, HARD.
All my crafty abilities have come to an shattering halt. I am done. And somehow I still have to finish 3 half started projects in less than a week.
When Jumeirah and Amahlis parties were over, I felt a huge sense of achievement and relief. I had done alot for both girls ( especially the fairy party Jumeirah had) and felt as though I well and truly deserved a well earned break. Except that Christmas was three weeks away and I had already begun making things for the kids for Christmas... and so I kept going.. and going... and going. And now with a week before Christmas, not one of the projects are finished ( although all are well and truly underway) and its all not going right. Amahlis Waldorf doll is actually looking good, shes nearly done, but with all the dramas of Jumeirahs dolls clothing I am dreading what I am going to do with this ones clothes. Jumeirahs doll house was also looking good ( in my head) but once I started it I couldnt work out the pattern and so I have left it until tonight when I am at my crafty worst, and so its turned out to be the most comical of errors thing I have ever made.

This was actually nearly finished at this point and apparently these corners should meet... they are about 15cms apart and I have no idea what to do... grrr

I have had to walk away from it tonight and hopefully it will repair itself magically over night....
Last night, in procrastination of doing the doll house I did manage to almost finish Jareds car mat. The work isnt great because it was the start of me shutting down but the fabric makes up for it :)

To make it, I used a car panel ( I got it from a friend who owns a Quilting shop
and its just a single panel)and the backing fabric is awesome (its called "Tot Town" by michael miller and its here on Ebay) and really detailed, it has a repeated pattern and I got it from Spotlight. I have put quilt wadding in the middle to make it thicker and a more hardier car mat.


Back of car mat

Panel

I just need to do the border now....shouldnt take more than a night to do. JUST. NEED. TO. DO.IT.

I just want to take a break. Watch mindless night time tv. Go to bed before midnight. STOP.

One in a couple of days time, I will be able to. My kids will (hopefully) be playing happily with the things I have put so much into for them. ( Actually they will probably be playing with the plastic stuff I didnt make them.. but anyway).

Anybody have a fast remedy for my mental creative flat lining??? QUICK!?

painting for little ones/ what if? game/ pastel and paint swirl paintings

Dressing up in daddys hat... such fun :)

Today, I felt flat for most of the day.. too much to do, not enough time, not enough energy, not enough ME to do it all. But my kids were all for a chillout day and so it was.


Amahli and I did some Christmas painting... well red and green painting although she seemed to turn rather Vampirish after eating the paint brush. Still she is loving paint activities and "ohh!" the whole way through this every time her brush touched the paper with vibrant colour :)

I always use food colouring when painting with under twos. You just can never tell when something is going to look too good to resist a chew on. And for Amahli at the moment, pretty much everything is getting taste tested to some degree. Its a great way for them to learn about things if they are able to do that safely.

Jumeirah and I did some swirls paintings which are incredibly relaxing and just pain fun to do!

Draw on a piece of paper with a pastel lots of swirls and loops. Then carefully paint in each section of the loops. We used food colouring and the colours are really vibrant.

How cool is that!
Jared and I played a matching "what if?" game, using his city blocks.


I set it up for him with all the vehicles matching the right buildings they belong to e.g. police car in front of the police station, ambulance at the hospital, school bus at the school... then I took the vehicles away and got him to match it up again. He did it and so I began to play the "What if?" game. This game involves getting the child to think about what would happen in certain situations. I use to play it with Jumeirah all the time in the car... "what would happen if I dont use the brake?" "what will happen if we drive straight instead of turning?" "what would we do if we didnt have a car?" and she loved it. With the city blocks I asked Jared " what would happen if the ambulance went to the shops?" "what would happen if the school bus went to the police station?" I could see him thinking about it, but Jumeirah answered for him mostly saying " if the school kids went to the police station, they could try all the sirens and play dress ups!"



Its a fun and limitless game that can be played in lost of places but it was fun doing it with blocks today. Great for imagination, cause and effect and "thinking outside the square".

simple outdoor play spaces

Today was another hot day,but another fun and cruisy day :) ( I am mildly panicking about what lies around the cruisy corner but trying very hard not to think about it too much).

I set up last night a great little outdoor play spaces for this morning, trying to encourage them to be outside when its cooler rather than in the heat of the day.
And so they came out to this :)

a little house with a garden



a shop/resturant




I didnt use many props except for the flower garden next to the house and a semi set table with a few things to put in the shop. I was surprised that Jared was the first one to find this and yelled for Jumeirah to come and look.
They were totally involved in this for ages and came back to it again in the afternoon.



Amahli was more than happy to pick and replant all the flowers :)



Outdoor play spaces dont need to have many things for kids to be engaged in it. I often just put out blocks and some cars and Jared makes roads and cities, or I put a sand tray with a few dinosaurs and Jumeirah is transported back in time where dinosaurs couldnt find the shops (?) or drowned in lava... Just being outside is often what triggers more involved play, being in the fresh air and having toys that dont normally come outside out. ( I must admit, i am a bit anal with keeping toys clean when they are outside but mostly my kids know and are careful not to rock my obsessive boat :) )

Jumeirah also started on her christmas present for Gran today. We got the idea from Deep Space Sparkle and it looks fantastic! Hopefully will get finished this week... last day of preschool tomorrow!!!




Tonight I started on a project I am doing for Jumeirah for Christmas. I found it at this blog and was amazed at how many people have made them and how great they have turned out. Actually I am wondering when it will start to go wrong as I totally cant see how its going to work, but for right now, its really cute :)
Will keep you posted.


how cute is this fabric!





Has anyone made one of these??

playdough for babies/ the joy of jelly AGAIN

Oh yes she looks sweet... but shes planning to take over the world :)

Tuesday... a fairly ordinary day mostly but it had moments that I will save and store for when the tricky days hit :) A day when I realise how lucky I am that I can be home with my kids while they learn all they can from me and our daily life.

It started out with a great set out the night before and I had set the table up with a few activities to start the day with. Setting these activities on the dining room table is a new trick I have found works so much better as Amahli cant destroy anything they start, nor can she reach to ruin it before they get to it!

Today we had a simple painting, playdough, drawing, and dinosaurs. All things they can do themselves, giving me a tiny window of time to gather and prepare myself for a day.

One was playdough which we have had out for a while. Playdough and me, well, we have a love/hate relationship. I love playdough when it comes out the right colour, doesnt smell burnt, and when played with, stays on the table. I hate the stuff when it travels to every possible corner of my house, and ends up in the carpet/down the lounge/across the tv screen. I hate it when it hides itself until my husband enters the room and then attaches itself to the bottom of his shoe so it can travel faster around the house and cause yet more havoc.
Today is was a nice, good playdough. And better yet, all three kids were totally engrossed in it.

Amahli at 13 months old, has never really had much experience with playdough. She is the worst culprit at playdough transporting so I havent really given her much of a go. But having planned this last night, I was able to work out a better idea and I strapped her into a higher chair so she couldnt escape with it. Worked a treat plus she was up next to the other two kids and she was thrilled. These are this mornings creations.









They chatted non stop to each other about cakes. Amahli yabbling about something dramatic (we think), Jared singing "happy birthday" at full throttle, and Jumeirah planning her NEXT birthday cake :)

Jareds request for today was jelly. This kid cannot get enough of the stuff. And recently, hes been wanting to be more involved in making it. So whilst Jumeirah was at preschool, I let him do this, just him and me. And I was surprised at how many of the steps he remembered without me prompting ( ok, I know its only jelly, but there are about 5 steps, two different types of water, two lots of pouring, stirring...its pretty involved for a two year old!) and was more than happy to do it himself. He was able to open the packet, tip it into a bowl he found in the cupboard, of course taste testing, stirring, adding water, and finally did his first jelly pour into the cups he also found in the cupboard.

He was so proud of himself, he went and found my phone to call daddy :)

Time to try him on a stir fry, yes??? :)