Cushions... a skirt... and a little girl's dress!

Remember this post where I showed you my birthday gift of a handmade skirt and set of matching cushions using some gorgeous Kokka fabric? The inside of my reversible skirt is the same vibrant purple polka dots as the waistband.

Here's a reminder:

the skirt

the cushions

Well, Lesley my MIL thought... why not add a little matching dress for Fern to the mix?!




Well, why not indeed? I really love the little ruffled crossover at the back -- might have to steal that idea for bm3! I wonder if there is enough material left to make a little pair of shorts for Elliott?!!?

wordless wednesday : slow & steady


welcome to WW a time to celebrate images that don't need words, to enter please add your wordless blog post to the link below, link back to here & enjoy visiting some of the other entries. happy wednesday.

Needle felted roses

Needle felted roses by Torie Jayne

A few weeks back I showed you my Winter Wonderland craft supplies, including my pretty wool tops for needle felting. Needle felting is a craft that uses special barbed needles, where the barbs on the needles catch the scales on the fibre and push them through the layers of wool, tangling and binding them together to create a felt. It is a great technique for creating 2D and 3D felt shapes.

Today I share with you the needle felted roses I have been making to adorn my Christmas yarn wreath and decorate my Christmas tree with. I made them in various sizes by altering the number of felted hearts I used in the roses. I also made some leaves with green merino tops.

I used a pen-style needle felting tool with a guard on it, which prevents punching the needles too far into the mat. You can find the equipment you will need to make the roses for purchase in my Amazon store.

Needle felt roses
What you will need:

Equipment

Glittery needle felt roses, How-to step by step
Needle felting roses steps 1-4
  • Cut the wool tops so they are about 2-3 inches long and pull apart so you have tiny bits of fluff that look like cotton wool
  • Place paper and mould on mat, fill mold with fluff
  • Start by repeatedly punching needles into wool starting at edges


Needle felting roses steps 5-8
  • Continue needle punching the felt until all loose strands are no longer visible.
  • Remove mould and peel felted heart away from paper.
  • Place paper and mould back onto the mat and place felted heart upside down in mould
  • Needle punch the felt until all loose strands are no longer visible


Needle felting roses steps 9-12
  • Repeat steps 1-8 until you have felted 2 small hearts, 4 medium hearts and 5 large hearts
  • Place two small hearts on mat as picture above and push needles into felted hearts until they are felted together
  • Fold outside heart in half and push needles into felt until they are felted together


Needle felting roses steps 13-16
  • Fold second heart in half and push needles into felt until they are felted together
  • Place inner rose to one side
  • Now place four medium hearts on to mat, laid out as above
  • Push needles into felt until they are felted together and place to one side


Needle felting roses steps 17-20
  • Now place five of the large felted hearts on to mat, laid out as above
  • Push needles into felt until they are felted together
  • Place felted medium hearts onto large hearts, push needles into felt until they are felted together
  • Place inner rose in centre of felted hearts, push needles into felt until they are felted together


Needle felting roses steps 21-24
  • To make the leaves, use same technique as rose petals
  • Place leaf in place and push needles into felt until leaf is secured
  • Paint PVA glue to outer edges of petals on rose
  • Sprinkle glued areas with glitter, turn rose upside down and tap lightly to remove any excess glitter


Have a sweet day!

The Glitz & Glamour of Motherhood... pt 674

Today was Melbourne Cup day! I was invited to a fancy charity afternoon tea complete with fancy frocks, stilettos, champagne, strawberries... you know, all that stuff.

I didn't make it.

No folks, I had something far far more glamorous to attend.

I've talked previously about how glitzy and glamorous motherhood is.

Well it is, isn't it?

This afternoon was no exception. I picked up Fern from preschool and headed home, for once organised enough to have rice precooked and in the fridge ready for making fried rice for dinner (normally I consider dinner about 12 minutes before it needs to be served) and was feeling rather good about making it to the gym for a 6.30pm class.

We arrived home and I asked Fern if she needed to go to the toilet. Strangely, my daughter seems to have stage fright, and will not do - ahem - number two's at school. No - despite the fact I am paying someone else to deal with toileting angst once a week, Fern prefers to wait until she is in the sanctum of her own bathroom to do her business. And whatevs.

But no, Fern didn't need to go.

Except I knew better.

And - over dinner - my mother's intuition and expert nose caught a bouquet of something untoward. I looked toward Elliott, because he is renowned for the ole dinner sneaky-poo.

But it wasn't him.

Suspiciously, I pulled the back of Fern's skirt back to have a look, and as I did something frightful came away in my hand.

O.M.G

O.M.G

Elliott was completely covered in food as usual. I grabbed both children and made way for the bathroom. As I peeled clothes off, the catastrophe went from bad to worse.  I mean, without being too graphical about this I have never. ever. seen so much you-know-what in my entire life. It was so bad, all three of us had to jump in the shower together.

It was so bad, it spread all over the shower.

So bad, there were bits on Fern's shoulders.

So bad, it was in Elliott's hair.

So bad, I used an entire container of Body Shop strawberry scrub to get rid of the smell.

So bad, I had to wait in the shower for half an hour with both kids until Dan came home to carry the kids out.

Half a bottle of disinfectant, three quarters of a spray-bottle of BAM, three cloth nappies and a pair of rubber-gloves later I emerged from the bathroom.

It was 7pm.

Needless to say, I did not make it to the gym.

Glitz. Glamour. You have not experienced either until you are naked and wet from the shower, down on your hands and knees with an old cloth nappy, scubbing poo from the floor while your childless friends are at parties, sipping champagne from crystal flutes...

Little Miss innocent.......

How bout you? Did you frock up and watch the gg's? Hopefully your afternoon was somewhat more 'glam' than mine!!


What does happiness look like?


Bet you're striving to be happy. Bet it's on your list for things you wish for your children too.

Are you happy? Am I? Does happiness even exist?

I think it's just an adjective used to describe a simplistic state of being. Life is much too complicated to allow us to be happy. I mean, are you happy if you have a wonderful family life but at the expense of your career? Are you happy if you've got a great career but can't seem to find the right man? Are you happy if you've had a rough childhood that you can't let go of? If you're poor? If you're fat? If you're overlooked? Are you happy if your child isn't happy?

Worse than that, happiness is a whole industry these days. Take The Happiness Institute, whose catchphrase is 'life is too short not to be happy' (you can open your own franchise, if you're interested). And just take a look at all the books available to help you get happy - titles include Being Happy; Happier, Stumbling upon Happiness; Happy for no Reason; What Happy Women Know; and, of course, 100 Simple Secrets of Happy People.

Happiness is kinda sad when you think about it.

That's why I'm not going for it. It's not on my list. I don't think happiness is the be all and end all and I actually think that thinking we should be happy is making us all very, very sad.

It seems to me that if we're preoccupied with our own state of happiness, we need to get preoccupied with doing something else altogether. What other generation every thought about this 'am I happy?' bollocks? Getting on with the difficult business of living - with joy, with emptiness, with kindness, with contentment, with fear, with loneliness, with stoicism, with ecstacy - probably kept them far too busy to give their happiness or lack thereof a second thought. A life was filled with purpose and the rest just took care of itself.

Happiness is like the old man told me
Look for it, but you'll never find it all
Let it go, live your life and leave it
Then one day, wake up and she'll be home
Home, home, home
- The Fray, Happiness

Purpose. Yep, boring old purpose. That's the dream. That's what 'happiness' looks like to me.

Do you believe in happiness?
What does it look like to you?

[Image via weheartit]

7 New Things (That are Christmas Related)

It has been a while since I have received a blogging award but last week the lovely Mel from Georgica Pond has awarded me a Versatile Bloggers Award.  Mel and I recently caught up in real life at the ABCD Bloggers meet-up - both of us knew there was something familiar about each other and when we started asking questions it turned out we went to high school together! How funny is that!  (It has been 25 years so we were excused for not being able to pin point exactly how we knew each other).

Anyway do pop over and see Mel's lovely blog - she is nearing the end of a major reno and has done the most amazing job!

The rules of the award are that you must tell 7 things about yourself and then pay it forward to some blogs I love and read.  So as I have in the past listed 7 things about me I had better come up with 7 new and random things that I haven't mentioned before - I have added a twist and today they will be Christmas related - what better way to kick of the season.



1.  My favourite Christmas present ever from my husband was the one I received last year - my beautiful Ubercircles by Uberkate.  I have four medium circles - one for each of our girls with the name and birthday beautiful stamped on their own circle - I wear it every day.

2. Before kids I was very big into my running and used to meet my running group every Christmas morning for a run and breakfast by the beach - meant I could eat twice as much for the rest of the day!

3.  Growing up when the milkman used to deliver milk my dad would always order each of us a mini bottle of Chocolate milk to drink with breakfast as a special treat.

4. I spent the Christmas of 1990 on top of a mountain in Switzerland at a ski resort with my best friend - we wanted a white Christmas and this seemed to be a guaranteed way to get it.  We had no other family with us as we were travelling for a year so it was actually pretty lonely!

5. My uncle sat me down on christmas day when I was 12 and said that seeing as I was about to start high school it was time I was told that Santa wasn't real (my parents were not impressed and yes I was naive).  My first question after the shock and disbelief was "does that mean the easter bunny does not exist as well"!

6. Growing up my Grandfather was a Santa's helper in the department stores.  One year my mum and dad left Pops "Santa pants" at the bottom of our fireplace and pretended that Santa's pants fell off when he was going back up the chimney!

7. Christmas is my favourite time of the year - I know that is not random but I just had to say it - I love the fact that we are in the middle of summer and spending time with our favourite people - I just love it. 

So now to tag some other blogs that I love and read around the globe - lets see if we can find out 7 random Christmas things about them.

Katena - Taylor Made Baking
Sharnel - My Life My Loves
Lou - Loo's Boo's and Shoes
Jess - Oscar and Ruby
Jaclyn - Little Paper Trees
Nina - Stylizmo
Meredith - Count it All Joy
Melissa - Miss Sew and So

I look forward to continuing some fun Christmas posts in the coming weeks - bring on the festive season.


Leanne