Turning Two!

Yesterday my gorgeous little nephew turned two so we spent the first day of school holidays lazing around at my Sister's place.

I bought him a Chunky Chooky softie (thanks Cath!) which we wrapped in about four boxes just like a pass the parcel.

His Mum and Sister made him a cute cake which we had after dinner.

All in all a lovely start to the school holidays. I hope you've all had a nice week. xx

Darth Maul

During the school holidays Joe got invited to a spooky party and since he's really into Star Wars at the moment he was desperate to go as Darth Vader...do you think I could find a cheap Darth Vader mask anywhere???

No, so he ended up going as Darth Maul instead which worked pretty well. I just had to buy red and black face paint and a couple of $2.50 lightsabers.

I found a couple of meters of black fabric in an op shop and made the cloak.

He's wearing my pants and my top (which looks like a tunic on him...clever huh), his wellies and some black fabric strips as a belt and around his wrists. I couldn't figure out a better way to make all the strips stay on so I made him stand there while I stitched him into his costume (then I had to unpick him when he got home). I also had to take in the pants and stitch a sort of V neck in the top to make it fit.

The lightsaber is made from two stuck together with black electrical tape and covered in red tissue paper and glue. Luckily it fitted into the car...just. It would have looked pretty funny if I had to stick it on the roof.

I had about 10 minutes left to paint his face so it's a pretty dodgy job, but he was impressed and that's all that matters. He said the party was brilliant and his lightsaber was a hit with all the other kids.

Hope you're all well. xx

Fairyland

Today we went to Fairyland for a party. Ella got dressed in her hand-me-down/handmade/gifted fairy costume...

I think she needs new stockings though...

Then off to Fairyland we went. Into the fairy grotto, which was beautifully decorated. The fairy's did some dancing and games and eating.

There's a shop underneath the fairy grotto with lots of gorgeous fairy supplies in it...

You sure need a lot of money to be  a fairy these days!

They had some fairy cupcakes and they all got sparkles on their faces.

Then home. Possibly having had too much sugar?

She opened her party bag in the car and was very quiet for a while...obviously enjoying her chocolate and testing out her new sparkly pen.

I did try to explain that it was a fairy grotto...not a fairy grotty.

Fairy birthday party....done

We had Ella's fourth birthday party yesterday. Invitations went out, then I didn't do much at all until about 3pm the day before...oops. Never mind, I'm a pro at the last minute rush.

Party bags...I got the bag idea from Martha Stewart (I only had white bags so painted another bag green for each one), then made some origami boxes for the lollies, some hair ties and some notebooks, added some bubbles and a crayon and a little thank you note and they were done.

Ella wore her fairy wings that I made. I did have to convince her to put on the rest of the outfit, she came out of her bedroom with just the wings on, but once I told her that we didn't actually invite any nudey rudey fairys she put her skirt and top on.

We played stick the horn on the unicorn.

And all the fairies jumped on the trampoline which, as Shane put it, looked a lot like the butterfly enclosure at Coffs Harbour what with all the fairies in their wings and pink tule...very cute.

There was lots of fairy food.

And what would a fairy party be without lots of pink.

All I can say is I'm glad its over, phew!

Typical...

...that Ella hasn't been invited to a birthday party for months and when I went in to drop in her invitations in the pre-school pockets this morning, what was waiting in hers? an invite to another girls party...same day, same time! All the people we were inviting already had another invite in their pocket, so they either had to choose between parties or I needed to change the date of ours. I went home, printed out some little slips of paper with the change of date on them and when I picked up Ella I put one with each of our invitations (which were luckily all still there). Problem solved...oh and I had to make one more invite, because the girl whose party Ella had been invited to hadn't been invited to Ella's, whoops. All good now so onto some sewing.

Here's another pin cushion, not sure I like it as much as my first one, I used white thread and am sure that wasn't the best move.

I recently discovered this wonderful blog written by Mai. She just does the most amazing things and all by hand, so last night I thought I'd give it a go and made this pouch all by hand while watching TV. I followed Mai's tutorial, but obviously did mine a bit larger and I top stitched on the zipper, which I'm not sure turned out that well. Never mind, it was fun and I love this fabric.

We all love Ella...

Yes, I've been listening to that CD a lot lately, but I'm talking about my Ella. I'm planning a fairy party for Ella's 4th birthday, so far I've done the invites and am consulting with an old school friend who lives in the UK to plan the day's activities (thanks Jacks!) which will include lots of glitter, lots of pink and lots of squealy little girls.

I wanted to use fabric so I just just out small shapes and sewed them the onto card with the sewing machine, then stuck them onto another bit of card to hide all the thread ends.

Oh, and don't look too closely at the photos...my camera desperately needs a clean!! There's so many dust spots. I'll have to just avoid taking photos with white in them until it's clean.

I also got this fabric the other day, not sure what I'll use it for yet...maybe this or this...who knows.