Lior’s Very Hungry Caterpillar Quilt

February 23rd, 2012, in Quilting
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I have finally finished Lior’s very hungry caterpillar quilt! I’m pretty happy with how it’s turned out! I did all the quilting myself- some more practice of the free motion quilting. There are three different quilting sections- The border, the dots, and the pictures. Each one I chose to quilt differently, in order to match the style of the area. For example: I quilt traced around the pictures, and then outlined the white area. I outlined random circles in the circle area, and I did a swirly pattern in the border.

So there it is- all finished!

Very Hungry Caterpillar Quilt

Very Hungry Caterpillar Quilt

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Free Journalling Tags (Download)

February 17th, 2012, in Digital Creativity, Papercraft
journallingtags

Just wanted to give you all a heads up that you can dowload these rad journalling tags from Two Peas In A Bucket for FREE at the moment!

They’re great tags for birthday layouts, thought you could get creative and use them for invitations!

Free download here.

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Accent Vlog

February 17th, 2012, in Digital Creativity

So a few people around the place have been doing these accent vlogs. I know they’ve been around for a while, but I’m just jumping on the bandwagon now.

I have been working on Lior’s Hungry Caterpillar quilt (STILL!!), & will show you a preview of how it’s going soon hopefully! Well, hopefully I’ll be able to show you the finished thing soon!!

Here is a copy of the words and a questions:
The instructions are to say these words:
Aunt, Route, Wash, Oil, Theatre, Iron, Salmon, Caramel, Fire, Water,
Sure, Data, Ruin, Crayon, Toilet, New Orleans, Pecan, Both, Again,
Probably, Spitting image, Alabama, Lawyer, Coupon, Mayonnaise, Syrup,
Pajamas, Caught

And answer these questions:
What is it called when you throw toilet paper on a house?
What is the bug that when you touch it, it curls into a ball?
What is the bubbly carbonated drink called?
What do you call gym shoes?
What do you say to address a group of people?
What do you call the kind of spider that has an oval-shaped body and  extremely long legs?
What do you call your grandparents?
What do you call the wheeled contraption in which you carry groceries at the supermarket?
What do you call it when rain falls while the sun is shining?
What is the thing you use to change the TV channel?

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Hey Baby!

February 5th, 2012, in Inspiration
40weekspregnant

 

So I’m only THREE weeks late it letting you know that I’ve had my baby BOY! He is beautiful. Needless to say my hands have been rather full, and sadly, not with craft projecst (happily, they’ve been full with baby boy though!).

His name is Lior Picard Carbis. He was 3775 grams, and 54cm long. It took 2 days and 4 hours from when my waters broke for him to be born. 10 hours 1st stage labour, 6 hours second stage. It was a bit of a marathon, but he eventually got here on the 13th January!

Hopefully in a few weeks I’ll have be back into crafting properly, in the mean time, here are some photos of the little man!

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Progress: Hungry Caterpillar Quilt

January 5th, 2012, in Maternity, Quilting
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Tomorrow I’m officially 38 weeks pregnant, so I thought I should probably get a wriggle on with bub’s Very Hungry Caterpillar cot quilt. Not that it’s a huge rush I guess, it is Summer here after all, but if I don’t give myself some sort of deadline then I’m unlikely to ever finish it!

Since my last update I spent a morning at my friend Debbie’s and put together the front, wadding and backing. So. Much. Pinning (and not the fun kind)!

I’ve used a really light wadding because a) If I ever put this on the baby in the cot I don’t want it to be super heavy and b) If I put this up on the wall I don’t want it to be super heavy so it falls down. We’re renting (boo!) and have to use those awful sticky wall hooks instead of nailing books into the wall. We could probably ask to put one or two nail hooks up, but seriously, we have quite a few things up already, and that’s without my putting up even a 10th of what we had in our old house.

But back to the quilt… I’m still not 100% sure how I will do all the quilting, so I have just started on the parts I DO know about- some straight lines to ‘steady’ the quilt. I find with the free motion quilting that it’s easy to get gathers etc. so having a few solid lines in key places on the quilt will reduce the likelihood of that happening. I’ve gone around the panel, just inside the striped/spotted border (outside quilt line on diagram below), and also gone around the top and bottom images, in the white part (inside quilt line on diagram below).

Very Hungry Caterpillar Quilt Progress

My plan is to quilt an outline around the shapes in the three images, and continue this pattern out until I get to that inside quilt line, or the dots. I’m not sure if I should quilt it out like a spiral, or quilt out in complete outlines, just getting about a 1/8 bigger each time. Either way the idea is that the images will ‘puff’ out a bit, and the white around them will be really tight from all the stitching.

I’m still undecided what quilting I will do in the dots, and in the border. Perhaps it will look complete with just the images done? I’ll show another update once this has been done, and we might do a little vote on what I should do next! In the mean time, don’t be shy to tell me what you think!
Very Hungry Caterpillar Quilt Progress

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Salt Dough Tag for Gifts

December 29th, 2011, in Christmas, Tutorial
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Before we wrap 2011 up completely, I wanted to show you my Christmas tags for this year. They can double as ornaments for next year’s Christmas, which is great, because it means my family will have one less Christmas tag or card to either throw out, or try to do something with!

The actual tags themselves are really simple to make. They’re salt dough, and then I used some Kaisercraft letter stamps to imprint into the wet dough.

salt dough name tags

Salt Dough Recipe:

1/2 cup Salt

1/2 cup flour

1 cup warm water

Mix it all together. Roll the dough out, then use cookie cutters to cute the shapes you want. Cook on in a very low oven (the lowest it can go) for as long as it needs. The dough shouldn’t change colour at all, but will get to the point where it is definitely hard. If you’re unsure if it’s ready, leave it in for longer. it will probably take 4 or 5 hours.

To get mine looking like this, I painted them with white paint twice, and then used a spray varnish to give it shine, and seal it. Once it’s properly sealed they can last for ages, sometimes up to 50 years!
salt dough name tags

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2012: The Plan

December 28th, 2011, in Inspiration
2012

A lot of people talk about how much they love this week between Christmas and New Years, because it’s relaxing, and they can induldge themselves a little, and spend a bit of time doing things like they like, instead of the everyday things they have to. I’m so much this way inclined. In fact, I kinda don’t like this week much at all. One of the funny things I’ve learnt about myself this year is how much I love routine, and planned things. When I reflect, now, on past years, I can see how this is so, but usually people characterise me as more of a ‘creative’, ‘messy’, ‘unstructured’ type person, and I guess I’ve taken that to heart, not reaching deep down to see who I really am.

So this year I’m embracing the structured part of myself, while remaining as flexible as possible (I will have a new baby, and you know how unpredicatable they can be). To set me off on the right track I wrote a post over at And Sew We Craft about crafty new years resolutions. To be honest, they’re not really ‘resolutions’ as much as goals, and things I would like to achieve in the year. I’ve created this little infographic (above) that I can print out to remind me of the things I want to do this year.

So, now’s the perfect time to think about some crafty-related things you might like to do, start, learn about, or finish in 2012. :-)

And Sew We Craft Header

 

Apologies if you read my blog via RSS and you’ve been bombarded over the last few days with posts relating to the 12 Months of Christmas ebook. They’ve been pulled over from my old blog to consolidate it all here.

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Candle Stamp for Hanukkah

December 21st, 2011, in Shop News
candlestamp-hanukkah

Yesterday I posted over at And Sew We Craft with a video on how to make this candle stamp for Hanukkah (which started yesterday).

I’m stamping it once for the first day’s gift, twice for the second day’s gift, and so on until we get to day 8! Go on over and check it out!

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Pregnancy Scrapbook: Weeks 24-27

December 20th, 2011, in Maternity, Papercraft
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Week 24:

This page above might be familiar. It’s almost the same as week 21. I’m going to say that therefore it doesn’t need too much explanation!

pregnancy scrapbook week 21

Week 25:

This week was our wedding anniversary, so I just wanted to show a picture of Luke and I on that day. I used a few random bits and pieces, but used the Simple Stories Baby Steps letters which I’ve used a few times now.

pregnancy scrapbook week 22

Week 26:

This week was also a little different. I had this weird shaped photo, and I had to rack my brain a bit trying to think of a nice way to display it. I had originally cropped it so thin because everything else is really quite pointless and distracting, and I was a little sick of 4×6 photos I’d had for the last few weeks. PLUS I knew the next photo would be a belly shot as well…

So I used the same colour schemes as I had been using, but used a few different embellishments. I’d found that beauty rest accent card when I was rumaging around for some other things, and thought it would be perfect for this week with the body pillow!

pregnancy scrapbook week 23

Week 27:

Ah, another belly shot! This one is a significant page because it’s the beginning of the third trimester. The title for the page is on the photo. If I did this again, I would consider photoshopping all the photos I used so that the title was always on the photo. It’s a REALLY easy way of recording what week it is.

I thought that the ‘You & Me’ accent tag was appropriate here seeing as I was feeling baby so much more now, and really feeling quite pregnant.

 

Notes:

This will be the last pregnancy scrapbook progress post for the year. I’m spreading them out now so that we hopefully finish these posts around the time bubs comes. I’ve been thinking of how I should finish the scrapbook, and I think I want to finish with a photo on the next week, of me holding the baby in the same position that my tummy has been in. And then maybe share a few thoughts on how the first few days/week has been with him/her. What do you think? I’d love some suggestions!

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A Christmas Tour

December 18th, 2011, in Christmas, Papercraft
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Well, it’s only a week until Christmas, and I thought I’d show you around the Christmas decorations around our house! So lets begin the tour…

We’ll start with the photo above. It’s pretty self explanatory- the nativity. I love it because it’s a bit different. I particuarly love the flowers, stars etc. that crawl up the sides of the characters. :-)

Christmas Decorations

Behind: In the vase are a bunch of long thin stuffed stockings with decorations out the top. They are REALLY easy to make, so hit me up if you want a quick tutorial on how to make ‘em!

Front: In the front is some wooden letters spelling Noel, which I dry-brushed with white paint.
Christmas Decorations

Top: On the other side of the TV I’ve put Tin candle holders from my Nana, and a tin star in a big jar.

Bottom: I’ve used thick paper mache letters painted red, and then dry-brushed with white paint. There’s also an assortment of ornaments in front of the TV including our Hanukiah Menora.
Christmas Decorations

Left: We have two Christmas quilts up this year. The one of the left is one I made my first year at craft group. You can’t see down the bottom it says “Merry Christmas”, which I embroidered in a pretty font. The snowflake and star sections of the panel are all stars and scrapbooking embellishments. Each of the other sections are applique. This is probably one of my favourite quilts I’ve made, and something I am super proud of.

Right: My nana made this for me for Christmas one year. The middle is a panel with the a-z of Christmas, with a border around the edge.
Christmas Decorations

Our Christmas bunting! So simple to make.
Christmas Decorations

Front: This side board has turned into Christmas central. There are the Christmas elves, and a bunch of other decorations. Our nativity sits up behind the pine cones.

Behind: We don’t have a Christmas tree, and so this is something I’ve done this year to still ‘hang’ out decorations. I have a lot of ornaments that need to be hung to be displayed, and so created this ‘anti-christmas tree’. I’m basically just hanging them from the fly screen. There are a few reasons why we don’t have the tree, which I won’t go into here, to be honest, I don’t really like talking about it, because if I had it my way, we would have one. But I guess that’s part of being married, right?! Compromise and all that stuff..
Christmas Decorations

A close of up of some of the ornaments on the anti-christmas tree.
Christmas Decorations

Our advent calendar is strung above the TV, between the two Christmas quilts. Here is the tutorial for the paper advent calendar.
Christmas Decorations

Table centerpiece One: Every year my Nana makes these fabric cones for each member of our extended family. As you can see, it’s been a few years! The girls ones have an ornamnet inside, and the boys ones have some money.

Notes: Luke has actually strung all these up to the swag we have above one of our windows, so they’re not on the table anymore!
Christmas Decorations

Table centerpice two: Some berries etc. in a vase. Really simple and lovely, though the berries have got a bit mouldy and they are quite difficult to clean!
Christmas Decorations

This is one of the swags that hang in front of the window. This one has some fabric stars and hearts strung from it. You can make some stars and hearts if you follow the directions in my ebook.

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