Teacher Gifts

We leave in twelve days to spend 5 weeks overseas. Which means I am a little frantic! The kids will finish the school year 3 weeks early, so our teacher gifts need to be ready earlier than usual. We usually have two kinds of gifts - 'major' and 'regular'. Part time teachers or sporting coaches fall into the 'regular' category, while class teachers receive a 'major' gift.

This year we have made personalized liquid soaps (thanks to Pinterest where we saw the idea!). Ask Design Mom made these that we loved, so we came up with our own version. We ended up making about 16; some for school teachers, teachers at church, family members and close family friends.

I tried to use Ask Design Mom's template, but was unable to add my own text. I ended up making up my own templates. If you'd like a copy of mine send me an email and I'll send you one!

Just a couple of tips:

• Peel off the labels and then wipe off the residual stickiness with a goo remover product (ours was an orange oil based product from the supermarket).

• I had our 'labels' printed on acetate at a copy place (Officeworks here in Australia!). Save your file as a pdf so that you don't lose your formatting and then have it printed. It cost me 6o cents per acetate sheet in black and white (I put four labels on each sheet - though you can actually squeeze more on!).
• The first lot I had printed were black, while the second batch were more of a dark grey. I think this had something to do with the machine at the copier place. The black definitely looks better, so it might be worth mentioning that you'd like it as black as possible!
• When you are putting the acetate label inside the soap dispenser, make sure that the expiry date that is stamped on the bottle is at the back!
• Take off the dispenser lid, roll up the acetate label and place inside. Make sure it is facing the right way before putting it in! Use the dispenser 'straw' to move the acetate into place.

We will add a ribbon bow around the neck of the bottle before popping into a cute paper Christmas gift bag (I just couldn't wait to take photos!).

 I'm hoping that we have counted incorrectly and there is actually one left over for us!

Topsy Turvy Winter

We had such a warm winter this year that I think our fruit trees got a bit confused. They started flowering at the beginning of winter! We now have apricots, peaches and nectarines the size of golf balls and something seems to be happening with the mango tree (fingers crossed, though it is still very small and skinny and a growing mango would probably snap the trunk with its weight!). How cute are those donut peaches! I'm thinking that if they make it into the house they would be the perfect size for school lunchboxes.

Last year our stone fruits were attacked by fruit fly, so this year I think I will have to resort to spraying. We have a bit of leaf curl at the moment, as I was only able to get in one copper based spray in between all the topsy turvy winter weather. Leaf curl is a virus that doesn't affect the quality of the fruit, but can lead to premature fruit drop. And we don't want that!I simply remove the affected leaves and put them in the bin.

Do you grow any fruit? I would love a couple of plum trees. Any suggestions as to the variety?

Banana Bites

I had a surplus of bananas last week. This is the first time this has ever happened that I remember; fruit disappears very quickly in our home. Even when I buy it by the box! I debated as to whether to allow the bananas to mature into cooking bananas or use them for something else. I chose the 'something else' and made these bite sized treats.

I cut up each (large) banana into 5 pieces and stuck a toothpick into each banana piece. I then tossed them all into a freezer bag, tied a knot at the top of the bag and put it in the freezer overnight. The night morning I melted some chocolate chips (30 second bursts in the microwave, stirring the chocolate each time it came out of the microwave) , dipped each banana piece in the chocolate and then into hundreds and thousands. I laid them out onto a tray lined with baking paper and put them back into the freezer until I deemed it treat time!

My children loved these! I must point out that I used very robust bamboo toothpicks; they were more like small, two pronged forks. I must get some more of them before I run out, only to find that they are no longer being made!

These would be fantastic at a birthday party, provided bananas are in season!

DIY Children's Art Display Frame

A couple of years ago I was asked to review a personalised art display board from Noah's Art. Noah's Art is an online Australian store specializing in custom made canvas children's art display boards. You choose the design and colour scheme; Nichola makes every board to suit you and your preferences. As it was to be for Eli, I chose a dinosaur theme. It has certainly been very useful (and it is so cute!) in helping to declutter the fridge and reduce the amount of art work given to friends and relatives out of sheer necessity (my kids seem to have a you've-put-something-in-the-recycling-bin-while-I-wasn't-looking radar!)!

After a while I noticed that we were also using Eli's board for Lily's artwork. When I saw this frame at an op shop for $5 I decided it was time to provide Lily with her own art display board. The picture was damaged and was painted straight onto board - perfect for what I had in mind!

After a few coats of white paint I cut some heavy duty wrapping paper to size and glued it inside the frame. Note: thinner paper will bubble from the moisture in the glue.

I then attached two screw eyes to each side. I was able to screw these into the inside of the frame using a pair of pliers to hold each screw eye. I then attached some jute twine for some homeliness and a bit of a natural look.

I picked up these cute little ladybug pegs at the $2 store - perfect!

Here are the pegs in action - holding up some fabric letters!

The finished board hanging in Lily's room; this photo was taken just after it was hung on the wall (I used a wire hanging kit to attach some wire - unfortunately the original picture didn't have one on it when I bought it from the op shop. Probably one of the reasons why it was only $5!). It doesn't look like this right now though - every one of those pegs has a responsibility to hold up a treasured piece of art work (from 3D princess crowns to animal masks and drawings of Star Wars characters!).

This is one very easy and very functional DIY craft. I love that it is functional for all ages; art work for younger children and then as a bulletin board for older children/teens. Let me know if you make one of your own!

Beep! Beep!

Beep! Beep! stitchery from Wendi at Shiny Happy World

This is the second stitchery that the very talented Wendi at Shiny Happy World sent me to make into something. Like the first, this is part of Wendi's Finished Stitches Embroidery Challenge. This one was bigger than Rainbow Girl so I stuck with the 'bag' theme but turned it into a drawstring bag. I loosely followed the tutorial found at In Color Order. After I finished it I asked Eli if we knew any boys that would like to have it as their own and he promptly volunteered himself. Yay! I love it when my children are happy to own the things I make!

A big thank you to Wendi for providing the stitchery!

Scrap Bag Challenge - Quilt Reveal!

Well, this is it! It's such a great feeling to have this WiP finished. It started at the beginning of the year and I fully intended to have it finished well before now, but other things kept popping up! I can't say it turned out exactly how I envisaged, but it's pretty close to what I had in my head. The process was an interesting one, as I had originally intended to use this method as shown by Kati from 'from the blue chair'. Kati uses Pellon® 542 Stick-N-Washaway™which is not available in Australia (well, now that I've finished this quilt it probably is!). If I was thinking ahead I would have checked the product availability before cutting out all those 1 3/4" squares!! I thought about using a lightweight fusible interfacing as seen here, but I thought it might make the quilt a bit too stiff, particularly as it is, hang on - I forgot to measure it! It is now with Christine from Once Upon A Quilt, but it was roughly 40" (100cm)  x 30" (75cm).

So, I decided to do it the difficult, tedious way and piece all the little squares together one at a time. I started with my original sketch:

After a few late colour changes and some voluntary colouring by Zoe I labelled each row to make sure that I didn't get all mixed up.

As I added a square to each row I put a dot in the relevant square so that I knew where I was up to. This worked well until I was about two thirds of the way finished. The rows were getting so long that it taking longer to check that I wasn't putting the same fabric next to consecutive rows. Up until now I wasn't bothered with sewing the rows in numerical order, but the time had come when it was much easier to!

As I began sewing up the complete rows (it's quite tricky sewing with your fingers crossed!) I thought I'd pulled it off until I noticed that row 17 was missing a square. In order for the butterfly's 'body' to align it had to be pushed to the right. A bit of unpicking to rectify it and I was back on track.

I opted for some dense shadow quilting in the background and some softer curves for the wings. A friend kindly donated the backing fabric - the perfect colour for the butterfly and the pink polka dot binding.

I think my favourite part of this quilt is the curly proboscis! As the quilt is small I added pocket corners for the option of hanging it.

Throw it in the washing machine (with a couple of colour catchers!) and then in the dryer (for that lovely crinkliness!) and there it is!

Editor's Note: If you decide to bid on this cutie please note that the quilting and the points are not perfect!

Linking up with Quokka Quilts


         

And Sew On - September Block

I'm a bit behind with the And Sew On Block of the Month, but I did manage to squeeze in September's block. Just!

I love how it turned out, but this one included some unpicking! I was doing well until I started sewing the pieces together. The middle section ended up looking like a dismantled sewing machine!!

When I was deciding whether to 'copy' my actually sewing space I decided that my sewing space is not colourful enough (that means that it has a lot of brown, beige or grey!). I don't really have pink carpet or polka dot walls (though I'd be happy with polka dot walls!!). I do love my sewing space though - it brings me a lot of joy.