My beautiful nephew

Meet my little nephew, Patrick Isaac

Those eyes get me every time!

It's so beautiful watching this little life get used to the surroundings around him. Trying to take this crazy world in.

I am absolutely loving spending time watching little Patrick get bigger and brighter. Even if it's just a few weeks between visits his little personality is becoming more and more apparent each time.

I get to spend this whole weekend getting cuddles! SO EXCITED!

It's really getting Lyndon and I thinking more and more about having our own little family, especially since I celebrated my 27th birthday on Monday; time is ticking!

Oh what a whole new world of blogs and information to keep me busy!

Have a great weekend

xx

Tentative steps into sewing gifts

With the expectation of the first baby in our family a few months away sisters, girlfriends, mums and sister-in-laws gathered to shower the mum-to-be with the cutest of cute gifts - baby gifts!

Not the cutest present
but very practical, a baby
car seat from my
my mum and sis to the mum
to be

My little sister was organising the baby shower for our sister, so I didn't find out when the shower was going to be until 2 weeks out. Argh, this is why MY profession is event planning, I'm a touch more organised than the rebellious little sister. ANYWAY... as I was planning to sew some gifts for this occasion I jumped in straight away looking at patterns and ideas online. I'll let you in on a little secret.. there is SO MANY CUTE baby things to sew!

I had to narrow my search down to BEGINNER projects. If you have been following my tentative steps into the world of sewing you will know I was still baffled by patterns, sewing jargon and all those buttons on my sewing machine!

I decided on some simple nappy covers with singlets that had matching cutouts on them and some baby shoes. I just couldn't go past the baby shoes, even though they looked pretty difficult. 

The horsey and matching nappy cover. You can't really tell in this picture (thank goodness) that my sewing on the singlet is dreadful! It's ok but there were just way too many turns and with this tiny singlet it was very hard to turn it on the sewing machine without sewing the front to the back, which I did twice!

Take 2 - much easier shape this one!

Take 3 - (Almost) PERFECT! Except I should have used pinking shears or a zig zag stitch around the edge, but there was no way I was doing these EVER again! By the way - can you tell my family is a farming one, with the horses, chickens and dogs! Also we didn't know the sex of the baby so I tried to go as gender neutral as possible by I was also being frugal and only using what was in my stash!

Next up was the baby shoes. They were actually a lot easier than I thought! The worst part is sewing the sole and 2 top pieces (front and back) together without a) snapping the needle or some other sewing machine malfunction or b) not having all pieces together under the needle and having to resew to make sure they are all secured together. Once that part is down though its just a matter of threading the elastic and bingo, you have a pair of these little beauties!

I was pretty happy with how they turned out, they do look a little odd shaped though, oh well!

Here are the links to the patterns/instructions I used:

Nappy (diaper) covers

Baby shoes

Kim xx

Long bloggy absence

Goodness me does time fly when you're having fun!


Haven't I been a bit of a bum to not keep this blog updated though. My goal was to use this blog as an online journal to look back on in years to come and it so happens I have become apart of this great blogging community. It's for this reason that I have really missed hearing everyone's stories and being a part of this online group. 


This is just a short post to say hello and that I am still around and will be updating my blog in the next week or so with ALL of the fabulous things I have been up to so please keep an eye out for my posts shortly. 


Also, just so you know, my family and I have not been affected by these devastating floods in my home town. I am certainly affected by what is happening to my fellow Brisbanites but have no personal property damage. I feel so lucky to be spared this heartache. I have been awed at the velocity, destruction and loss of life of the 'inland tsunami' that hit Toowoomba and Grantham then to see the iconic Bremer and Brisbane River inundate so many houses in Ipswich and Brisbane. It's hard to believe this is all happening 15 minutes down the road, especially with the sun shining and the sound of lawn mowers in our suburb, just surreal! I went to school in Ipswich and my sister currently lives there - there were some very nervous text messaging between my sisters and I on the night the floods were peaking! But thankfully no damage or injuries, just a lot of disbelief and the occasional tears at the horrible stories that are coming out of the flood areas. I will be heading to Northey St City Farm tomorrow to help them with the clean up before this weekends organic markets that they are still putting on - troopers!

The Northey St City Farm chickens are high and dry thanks
to some ingenious volunteers (photo from Northey St
Facebook page)

I will finish off this post with some sneak previews of what I have been up to in the past two month. I will post about these in detail shortly, stay tuned!

Campervan facelift and MUD....

Tiny clothes for tiny bodies...

A handmade holiday...

A tutorial...

In the kitchen....

A whole new world...

AND.... most exciting of all.... A WHOLE NEW LIFE!


Stay tuned. I'm back


xx

Busy, busy, busy

I have been so busy productive this last week, it feels fabulous! You've probably noticed from all my posts! I know Hazel has :)

I have now been on my 'home holiday' for 2 weeks now.

In the first week it was a very different story, I barely got anything done.

You see I'm a list person. And when I started these holidays, I thought relaxing menat doing without my lists, becuase they mean work don't they, things to do. So I had all these great ideas for the things I'd like to enjoy, learn and make on my holidays, but because there were so many things I was like a deer in spotlights! I had no idea where to start and I was quite overwhelmed.

So out came the lists again.

I have a list for the christmas presents I'd like to make
I have a list for what odd-jobs need doing around the house
I have a list for what personal things I need to do, e.g. dr appt, dentist, optometrist, etc (those things you put off when you're working!)
I have a list for what things I'd like to cook/bake
I have a list for what blog posts I will write about
I have a list for day trips/places I'd like to visit
I have a list of things I want to Freecycle/declutter

That looks a little daunting doesn't it? Well there isn't a whole lot on each list and I absolutely love that feeling of crossing each line of lists. Yes I'm a little weird! This is what I am enjoying doing on my holiday, when I could be doing ANYTHING! Well that's how I work and it took me about of fluffing about to work that out.

Now that I have these lists I am on average half way through them all - see how productive I am with my lists!

Now don't worry I'm not overdoing it and not enjoying my time off. I'm just not a person that can sit around all day. I love doing things, especially things I enjoy - gardening, sewing, baking, visiting.

So now I'm off to check on the scones in the oven, see if my berries have defrosted for some jam making for gifts, quickly sew up a pillow insert for a pillow cover I made for my grandparents who I'm driving 4 hours to visit on Friday, create a tag for another gift for a friend I'm meeting for lunch tomorrow and check out campers for sale on line, all before going out for dinner tonight with some people I've worked with in my short term job these past 2 weeks.


I'm so happy!

Starting to think about Christmas gifts

I try to stay away from the shopping centres as much as possible, but grocery shopping once every fortnight/3 weeks means I am witness to the onslaught of plastic christmas-themed stuff popping up already.

At least it gets me thinking early about what I can sew, bake and make for this years frugal and meaningful gifts.

At the moment I am thinking a hamper type thing as a gift for my family with:

• homemade jams & cordials
• a sewn gift (apron, baby things for my 7-month pregnant sister - baby shoes look very cute, other ideas appreciated!)
• homemade crackers and dip (my partner made some fabulous crackers the other day but now we are having trouble finding the recipe, don't you hate that!?) and maybe cheese if I can get all the stuff in time
• a seedling or plant of some sort

Another idea would be putting everything in a reuseable sewn draw string bag also, might be a bit hard with the goodies though at least it will look like a Santa sack!

I'd love to hear if you make you gifts and what you create.

x
Kim