Wine Caddy!

A pressie for a friend!

It is a wooden piece painted up with christmas wishes put together with two wine glasses and a bottle of wine. Ok, that is Mums tonic bottle but you get the idea lol!

This would be a great handmade present for a man too!

This raw wooden piece can be purchased from most shops specialising in folk art.

Frangipani table setting!

I LOVE THIS MATERIAL!!!!!

I am madly thinking of other things to make with this fabric.

This is a table setting I made for a lovely friend who kindly looked after our dog for a few days. She has a large square table so it is a tablecloth, 8 placemats and 8 matching serviettes.

What fun it was to make!

Finshed sizes -

Table cloth - 220cm x 220cm

Placemats - 34cm x 40cm - using interfacing to make them firm.

Serviettes - 38cm x38cm

Useful links

French seams - joining two lengths together

http://www.sewneau.com/how.to/french.seam.html

How avoid the seam / join down the mddle of the tablecloth

http://www.using-sewing-machines.com/tablecloth_plan.html

Colourful Unicorn

I finally finished it - thanks to Mum!

I was really really confused with this pattern and Mum kindly worked it out for me.

I will add it to Mollies fairyland set I am slowly making.

I used a knitted horse pattern and changed it a little for a unicorn.

It is made using my hand dyed pure knitting wool and filled with wool fleece.

Sunbird Nest!

Built in ONE day!!!!!

A nest our local sunbirds have built in the carport out the back of the house.

These nests are very common in the tropics and the birds seem to like to build them close to houses.

If you would like to read more about Sunbirds follow the link below.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunbird

Needless the say, the children loved watching this process happening and are eagerly waiting for the eggs to be laid. A very special experience for us all!

Heaps of patterns

I was just on the craft mamas website and someone posted these excellent websites. They have heaps and heaps of tutorials for sewing just about everything.

http://www.sewmamasew.com/blog2/
http://thedomesticdiva.wordpress.com/

More hand dyed felt.

Mollie and I had fun mixing up all these colour with those little bottles of food colouring you can buy from the local supermarket.

I little scary that you can use these in cooking I think!

Neighbour Presents

I thought I would share with you all my idea for neighbour presents this year.

It is a cake of my homemade coconut and olive oil soap, a loofah and a little christmas gnome. Pattern for the gnome came from 'Feltcraft', and I used my hand dyed 100% wool felt.

Also a handmade card.

Excellent toy sites - fair trading and wooden

http://www.fairgotrading.com.au/ cute bags, dollies, money boxes, instruments and fair trade soccer balls.
http://www.oxfamshop.org.au/ cute toys and stuff
http://www.tribesandnations.com.au/store more fair trade stuff
http://www.spiralgarden.com.au/ of course! great toys here
http://www.windmill.net.au/ good educational stuff, huge range
http://www.peanutgallery.com.au/ nice timber toys
http://www.honeybeetoys.com.au/ steiner stuff
http://www.dragonflytoys.com.au/ more steiner stuff

This list came from www.nurturedfolk.com.
I hope this is ok Melissa!

November that was!

Ok I am late - sorry everyone!!!
I have been busy organising christmas, finshing off dolls and cloths for Bel at http://www.spiralgarden.com.au/. and spring (late too) cleaning before the holidays.

Our Home:
Well, with the weather warmer up and we are preparing for Christmas, lots of maintenance and cleaning is underway. I am in the middle of cleaning and Dave is installing watering systems, gardening and planning next year’s projects. Also training the dog to keep off the gardens lol. The kids and I are on mulching palm fronds, which is going to keep us busy for many more days. It is a good just before dinner job – in the shade and then the mulch straight on the gardens.

Learning at Home:
We are still doing workbooks of a morning for about 30 minutes. Not every morning but a couple mornings a week. Mollie LOVES it and she rips straight through it. She ends up drawing till Lucas finishes. We are busy with Christmas cards, craft and decorating too. I am working on our curriculum for next year. A little more formal ‘sit down’ work but still light and fun. I am currently working on our literacy curriculum, which is presenting the alphabet in a creative and practical format.
They both have been busy building with Lego and duplo, setting up role playing opportunities is restaurants, camping trips and dress ups – we made swords and shields last night ummmm!

Gardening
The mango trees are full of fruit, we got heaps of lychees from the big tree and the small ones are producing now too. The vegy gardens are slowing down due to the heat but I need to get them prepared for the new year planting. A friend sent me some ‘Rosella’ seeds, which is a lovely fruit to grow – they make the yummiest jam. I will post a photo when I have them up and running.

My Craft
I have been busy designing and making toys for Spiral Garden and the kids Christmas presents. With the holidays coming, I will slow down and have a rest as I have plans and designs running wound my head for next year toys.

Welcome to Summer!

Here is my Summer Doll!

She is a lovely addition to our summer nature table.

Designed and made by me.