Jikana Damaru

baby makes four

a beautiful friend of mine gave me a call a few months ago to organise a photo session with me as a gift for her friend who was about to welcome her second child. Last week I met this gorgeous family of four. I spent some time with them & captured some images I hope they will cherish for many years to come.

Hand made felt tea bags

For Molly's birthday I made her some felt iced gems after seeing the pattern and instructions in Mollie Makes Magazine. I loved how cute they were and they looked adorable on her mini tea set. But something was missing... tea bags of course! What Brit eats biscuits without a cup of tea! So, I came up with my own pattern for mini felt tea bags. I have made some more to hide in my handmade Christmas crackers and advent house for Molly this Christmas.

Hand made felt tea bags
What you will need:

White felt
Brown felt
White embroidery thread
Pink spot ribbon
Double sided fabric tape
Pattern printed off on paper

Equipment

Instructions
Start by printing out patterns and cutting them out. Then pin two pieces of white felt together and place bag pattern on top, and carefully draw around outside edge of pattern using a water soluble pen. Using pinking shears, cut around outside edge of rectangle. Then lightly dampen the pen marks on the felt with water so ink disappears and leave to one side. Place tea pattern on brown felt and draw around outside edge of pattern using a water soluble pen. With a sharp pair of scissors, cut out tea piece from brown felt.

Unpin white felt bags and place brown tea felt piece in between the two pieces of white felt, pinning to secure. Using a needle threaded with white embroidery thread, hand stitch a rectangle around outside edge of teabag, starting at the centre of the short side. Finish by back stitching a couple of times at the end and then cut thread leaving a 7cm long tail.

Next, cut a piece of ribbon 2cm long and back half of it with a strip of iron-on double sided tape. Peel off backing tape from ribbon and place end of embroidery thread tail over backing strip. Fold ribbon in half and lightly iron to seal together.

Have a sweet day!

Hopeful new year

I'm off for the hols, lovelies. I'm heading down the coast for a couple of weeks of family loving. I won't be able to resist reading your blogs, but I think I'll keep mine post-free for the duration. We all need a bit of a break from my... opinions, I think.

Before I go, let me say thank you for a wonderful year on Maxabella loves.... This community is pure delight to me. Every 'me too', every 'how could you?', every 'but have you thought of this...' and especially every 'thank you for introducing me to...' you write, means so much to me. I hope you feel comfy here to just be yourself and shine a little bit each visit.

Be part of things whenever you can. Please join me on Sunday, 8 January for a very special linky. It's the HAPPY ONE WORD linky... actually, I'm not sure that's what I'm calling it, but I want you to choose one word (just one) that you'll be focusing on in 2012. Blog about (or just leave a comment about) why you chose that word, what it means to you and how you're going to bring it to life throughout the year. How will focusing on your word help you or change you? What will be different?

In 2010 my word was 'zen' and then in 2011 my word was 'health'. Let's just say that the zen word slowed me down beautifully but the health word was pretty much dead on arrival. I'm not sure what my 2012 word will be yet, but I'll let you know on the 8th!

Until then, enjoy Christmas and greet the new year with a wave and a smile. A big, cheery smile and maybe even an even bigger smiley, cheer. Man, it's going to be a good one. Can't you feel it?

♥

I'm back on Saturday, 7 January with a little 'Grateful' surprise... it's Grateful, but not as you know it... stay tuned!

What are you doing for Christmas?

Do you celebrate New Year or clean your house like I do?
Will you join me on the 8th?

good to WOW: Christmas shot

This is my first 'good to Wow' link up! The SOOC shot was pretty bad. I didn't think I managed to get any good ones after my short session with Addison this morning. Why is it always harder with your own kid? She didn't have much patience with me! But after just a little tweaking I think it came out pretty nice!

SOOC shot:

bubbly tongue smile- seems to be her new thing :)

what I did...

opened in LR

adjusted WB, brightened it a bit +40 and added a little contrast +10, +20 fill light, and +3 saturation

cropped- I did not want herout of focus/blurry arm in the picture!

opened in PSE

cloned a couple bokeh lights to add more

ran Florida action from Everyday Elements

sharpened her eyes just a touch using PW's action

used a high pass filter with overlay at 30% opacity

saved

my result:

& here are two others I liked..

this one was a quick attempt, baby girl was starting to get fussy :)

I may try one more shoot before the Christmas lights are done and over with! momma still has some ideas up her sleeve ;)

also linking up to:

see her little hands...

They're so small, aren't they? She knows it's a one-way conversation but is quietly confident there will be a full-blown discussion any day now.

Happy weekend, friends!

Three Month Update

Where did the time go? She is no longer an infant, but a baby. A cute one I might add.

She has become a smiley little girl and loves to talk to you. And had her first big laugh when her Aunt Jenn was tickling her- cutest.sound.ever. Her daddy just happened to be on the phone with me so he was able to hear it too! She is starting to love her toys. She swats and kicks them and then smiles. She love love loves her blankets- she will light up with excitement when you give her it and grab onto it with both hands. Rarely will she take a bink -kind of makes me sad because I love a bink face :)

I would guess her weight to be around 12lbs. She is in 3 months clothes and is just getting into size 2 diapers. She still has her pretty blue eyes and ~~out of place~~ super cute dimples. She can hold her head up very well. She hates tummy time, but will sometimes nap on her belly. Speaking of naps-twenty minute cat naps here and there are her thing- no long daytime naps for her *hoping that changes soon.* She won't take a good nap during the day unless were out! She is usually a great 'on the go' baby. She loves her car seat and the white noise.

SLEEP. She falls asleep around 9pm. A few nights ago she did her first sleep through the night- 9 whole hours. I can not tell you have excited I was. Though that seems to have been a big tease. Since then she has been getting up 2-3 times a night again to eat :/ Looking forward to her sleeping through the night more often... come on Addison, you can do it! Right now she spends half the night in her boppy on the couch (while hub is awake) and then by my bedside in her bassinet. Once she drops a feeding for good I will put her solely in the bassinet. But right now hubby can feed her if she gets up to eat before 2am.

She loves that rain forest vibrating/play chair. She smiles at the monkey that moves back and forth every day :)

I think that sums her up right now. Oh and she loves her mommy (&& daddy) for sure ;)

I love her so much and feel so lucky to be her mommy.

her lovely wall canvas came in, so excited to start decorating her walls.

if you can't tell I'm addicted to instagram: jeskapug

Snowflake hair clips

I loved making the snowflake hair bobbles to put in my advent house for cute Molly: they were so quick and easy to do! I had quite a few snowflakes left and thought they would look sweet on pretty hair clips so I bought a bunch of glittery pastel hair clips to stick them to.

Snowflake hair clips
Tools and Materials

Snowflake hair clips, How-to step by step

Using a hot glue gun, place a small dab of glue on the end of the clip, immediately stick a felt snowflake to the glue and leave to dry. Cut out a small rectangle of pretty card and, using a ribblet punch, punch holes in centre. Clip hair clips to card by threading through holes in card.

Have a sweet day!