Day to Day

Cabin Fever

We woke up to the rain this morning and not just a sprinkle, lots of it in buckets.  By 11am there was a cranky pants girl wondering what she could possibly do inside all day. 

Bella is desperately wanting a wooden farm set for Christmas with wooden animals to boot, so after a bit of a discussion we dragged out the toddler farm duplo from her younger years.  According to Bella, Duplo is for little kids like her cousins Oscar and Bonnie - but two seconds in she forgot about that and quickly built a farm.

 

Over the last few years I've become a big fan of good quality wooden toys or handmade items.  Plastic has taken a major back shelf, but I'm still a VERY big lego fan!

 

We bought the Lego farm set for James when he was 2 (hooly dooly that's nearly 11 years ago).  He was animal obsessed and would spend hours lining the animals up behind each other - careful placement was everything and there was big devastation if one of the animals was accidently bumped the wrong way.  Bella played with it a little when she was small and now their cousins Oscar and Bonnie use it.  One day I'm hoping that our grandchildren will also get to play with it.

 

Another sweet Duplo set we discovered hidden away in the cupboard today are the dolls and cooking set above.  Do they still make these?  Does anybody know?  I'd love to purchase another from the range to go with this one if they do.

 

We also had a bit of brother bashing inbetween when he threatened to take over the farm with Star Wars toys.

 

Then Dad came home from work and the farm set became the world's  biggest tower, all the way up to the ceiling and way back down to the floor when they knocked it over (man oh man Duplo is LOUD when it hits the floor).

Stampin' Up! Giveaway Winner :)

Hooly dooly, so many comments for the Stampin' Up! Prize giveaway.  I'm sorry I can't give a prize to everyone :(

This time to draw the winner I used the Random.org generator - fast, easy and saves writing out all the names to put in a hat.  I also received two entries via email that couldn't seem to comment (I added two extra numbers to the random generator at the end for you both).

So - we had lucky commenter 58!

Random Integer Generator

Here are your random numbers:

58

Timestamp: 2008-12-13 03:15:34 UTC

Which is this comment below from Jaki.  Jaki if you can email me through your address please (goodsellmx@internode.on.net) I will get your prize in the post first thing Monday :)

ooh! my favs would have to be the inks, especially seeing they are 3 colours I don't have already *wink* I LOVE Stampin Up!

Congrats on the 1/2 mill hits Mel, no surprise really, you are so good to us!!

Posted by: Jaki | December 11, 2008 at 09:52 PM

Stampin' Up! prize pack for you :)

**Thankyou, comments for this prize are now closed**

In a couple of days my little old blog counter is going to tick over to 500 000 and to celebrate Stampin' Up! are sponsoring a give away just for you :)

 

The prize pack is valued at AU $135.50.  It includes:

-Baroque Motifs stamp set

-Designer Label punch

-Neutrals 12" x 12" cardstock (not pictured)

-Urban West Rub On

-3 Stampin' Pads in Sage Shadow, Really Rust & Basic Grey

-Stampin' Mist

-Stampin' Up! Linen Thread

 

 

 

 

It's a really awesome pack!  Entry is open to anyone, just leave a comment here by Saturday night and I'll draw a winner on Sunday (Christmas posts will begin again once I close off the comments).

Tell me what your favourite item is in the pack!  I think I'm in love with the stamps and ink pads (okay, that's two but I couldn't decide).

Handmade Christmas - Day 24

Salt dough decorations are a great gift idea for your little ones to give family and friends at Christmas time.  They're super easy too and once baked will keep pretty much forever.

 

Bella is wrapping these up individually in cellophane bags, tying with a ribbon and adding a handmade tag to give out as her Christmas gifts to our close family. 

 

To make up a batch of salt dough you will need:

2 cups of plain flour, once cup of table salt, one cup of water, one tablespoon of lemon juice (this helps the dough dry nice and hard), and one tablespoon of olive oil.

You will also need a cookie cutter in the shape of your choice, a straw (to punch out the hole in the top) and some food colouring if you wish to colour your dough.  Another option is to paint the decorations once they are dry.

Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl as shown in the above photo.

 

Seperate the mix and add add a few drops of food colouring to each salt dough ball - you'll need to work the colour through the dough with your hands.

 

On a floured surface roll or push the dough out flat and use a cookie cutter to cut out the desired shape.  Our trees were about 1cm thick.  Decorate with more salt dough and use a straw to poke a hole in the top of the decoration for hanging.

 

Transfer the decorations onto a cooking tray (we lined this with baking paper first to prevent sticking).

Bake on a very slow oven for a couple of hours until dry/hard.  Our oven temperature was 120 degrees. 

 

Once they are dry add a layer of varnish or mod podge - we added some glitter to ours as well. Tie a ribbon or twine through the hole at the top and you're all done :)

 

Candy Land

The Tarisota gallery is up and it's huge + awesome! You can take a look here.  The December collection (Candyland) is all sold out, except there are still a few Inspiration packs available if you're quick.

Such a beautiful collection to work with.  Here are a few of my layouts:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   

Handmade Christmas - Day 23

Free Patterns!  There are oodles of free patterns ready for download on Amy Butler's site.  Here are just a few of them that I love:

 

 

 

 

To download these patterns (plus heaps more including quilts, business card keeper, fabric necklace, yoga bag, pillows, napkin rings and napkins) go here to the Amy Butler home page, scroll down until you see the category 'free patterns' and select which sub category you would like.  All the patterns will then open in a new screen for you to download and print.

Handmade Christmas - Day 22

   

This idea came from a comment that Jacqui left here on my blog - a felted ball garland for the tree, only we made a mini one to string above the Christmas books in Bella's room.

 

The felted balls are an easy activity that you can even do with your little ones.  You can find a fabulous You Tube video which gives great step by step instructions on how to wet felt a ball here.  It's a simple process using just water and detergent to felt the ball.

 

Once our balls were dry we threaded them onto some pretty silver twine (I bought mine from Ribbons Galore).  You will need a thick needle for this (I used a darning needle). It's quite hard on the hands to pull the needle and twine through the ball, so work it through slowly twisting the needle from side to side as you go.  Tie a knot either side of the felted ball to hold it in position on the twine and string it up to look pretty :)

1 fine day, home & recipes.

   

A layout that I scrapbooked for the Aussie Scrap Source blog.  I used Hero Arts flower stamps to create the embossed flowers.

 

This one I scrapped for the Tarisota gallery this month:

Plus I also keep forgetting to mention the awesome Christmas recipes that Tamar is blogging.  There is a new recipe being posted every day for 25 days and they're all downloadable for printing in a pdf file.  Seriously such good recipes, you'll love them!  Go here to see.  I'm going to print each one and pop them into a mini album.  Here's my first contribution to the recipes:

 

Before I go, some random pics taken over the last couple of weeks:

 

James under the tree (only 9 more school days left before he's a high school boy).

 

Bella snuggling with her Elf.  It wasn't cold so I'm not sure why she's wearing the hat.

 

Relaxing with Trooper.

 

Trying out the new camping equipment ready for the holiday period.  Always fun to do!

 

With their bikes :)

I'm WAY behind on emails again.  If you've sent me one, I will get to it soon :)

Handmade Christmas - Day 21

This post isn't technically a handmade Christmas idea, but I wanted to share some photos of some of our favourite festive decorations that we pop up every year.

 

The beautiful nativity set that my mother-in-law knitted for us last year.

 

Our stockings and wall embroidery that I stitched over a few years.

 

My Mum knitted these teeny weeny stocking decorations - I'd love a whole tree full of them to hang.

 

A favourite tree decoration - it's quite big (compared to the other decorations) and heavy and I'm not sure why I love it so much, but I do.

 

Some of the handmade decorations that James and Bella have made at school over the years, I love seeing them hanging on the tree.

 

Last photo - some of the hanging decorations I made last year for Tarisota.

Lucky Elf winner :)

Sorry for the late draw of the giveaway.  We've had a busy few days and also had some family staying over.  The handmade Christmas posts will start again in the morning and sometime within the next week I have another give away :)

We've also been busy with this new addition to the family - a little dirt bike for Bella that her Dad brought home on Thursday.  There was excitement, jumping up and down on the spot, yelling of 'thankyou Dad, I love it Dad, it's awesome Dad' and plenty of riding around behind James (on his bike).  There has also been a lot of 'be careful, not too fast, don't hurt yourself' kinda talk from her Mama - but I'm feeling more confident about it now and not holding my breath as much. 

 

We now have a pink helmet, body armour and gloves :)

Anyhow - just a quick post....Thankyou for all the lovely comments about the giveaway Elf, I know Kathleen and I have enjoyed reading them all.  The lucky elf winner is:

WOW - how generous, well I love him, thanks Kathleen for sharing a true christmas gift of giving.

Mel, keep up the goodwork, love the blog and your sharing ideas.

Hugs and Merry christmas to all!!!

Posted by: Sonia Bowers | December 05, 2008 at 01:50 PM