Baby shower gift

 One of J's kindy teachers has just gone on Maternity Leave with a (very unexpected) baby.  She is an amazing teacher and the entire community will miss her while she is away.  J's kindy - and our neighbourhood  - is in a very rough area, and she manages to be well respected, and well connected across the community here, which is no mean feat.

So as a little gift for her, I made a little baby doll.  The pattern is from Rhythm and Rhyme, and I've made it several times before.  They are such soft, squishy dolls, and really easy to make up.

Artistic shot from P - in which you can see my terrible sewing up of the bottom of the doll.  We were out at an appointment and I didn't have any red thread.

Christmas crafting

 This year Father Christmas is going with a tried and tested winner.  Felt food.

Some chocolate chip cookies.  For time and effort, these are definitely a winner.  Quick to make and large enough to seem like some proper presents.

And some blueberries (unfortunately garishly blue since I didn't have any really dark blue felt in my stash).  I'm still pretty happy with them.

Admittedly I would be much happier about my Christmas efforts if this wasn't the only thing I had made and its already November, but its a start.

What Christmas gifts are you making this year? And have you started?

Flower Press giveaway winner!

Is Amy from Amy's Crafty Shenanigans.

Congratulations and the parcel will be winging its way to you soon.

Sorry for the delay in finishing this up - real life got away on me a bit.

Flower Press Giveaway

This giveaway is now closed.

Sharp eyed readers of my blog will have noticed that I made two flower presses last week.  And I'm giving one away!

They are covered in pictures of flowers, and are sealed with PVA glue.  The prize is for the covered placemats - which you can use as placemats rather than a flower press if you want, but I'm not including the bull clips to join it all together.

How to enter:

• Leave a comment on this post, telling me your favourite flower
• If you're a follower, please leave a second comment letting me know.
• The winner will be chosen using my trusty 'scrolling up and down the list of comments with my eyes closed' random method.
• I'm happy to ship internationally
• This giveaway is open until 18 October 2013, and a winner will be emailed by 21 October - so please make sure I have some way to contact you if your comment wins!

Flower Press

P and J spent last week with my parents as it was school holidays here.  And it was the perfect time to make J's flower press for her birthday.

I cut up the rose pictures from the book I bought, and then glued them onto the placemats with PVA glue.  I then covered them with another layer of PVA to seal them.  The original tutorial called for modge podge, but PVA is what I had, so that is what I used.

I am pretty happy with how they turned out.

However, you can see that there is a little bit of bubbling under the paper.  I suspect its because I didn't put enough glue on the bottom.  I'm still really happy with them, and I really hope that J will like them.

Hop over to Blackbird has spoken to find more Op Shop finds.

Serendipity and the Hospice Shop

 After my epiphany about J's birthday presents I decided to hit the Hospice Shop for some bits and pieces.  Unfortunately it was a Saturday, so I had to let P and J come with me.  Well, I didn't have to, but when they get so excited to buy 50c worth of pencils and a pencil case to go with them, I don't mind indulging them.  While we were shopping for childrens books, pencils and a strange plastic rose originally from the Body Shop, I found some things to use for J's birthday presents.

A treasure tin

 Complete with floral motif! J did ask what the tin was for, and I just said for some stuff.  She'll still be very excited to see it on her birthday.

And some placemats to make into a flower press.  The original tutorial uses coasters, but I thought they might be a bit small for the flowers J likes to collect.  So I was on the look out for something a bit bigger, and there they were.  Its hard to tell from the picture, but they aren't full size placemats, more like something in between a coaster and a placemat.  In fact exactly the size I was looking for.  So I snapped them up as well.

 And finally a book about roses.  Since I'm going with the floral theme I thought these pictures would look fabulous pasted onto the top of the placemats.

 So $3 well spent on my birthday present bits, and once again when I have needed something, the Hospice Shop has come through for me.

Joining up with the Op Shop show off with Blackbird has spoken today.

Gifts

My project this week is to make some gifts.  I suspect I put it in this week because it is my niece's birthday, so that works out well, but the word gifts implies that I had something broader in mind.  What was it though? I'm not really sure exactly what I thought I was going to do this week.  Maybe I'm supposed to make some gifts in the hopes that I will be more prepared next time I need to give something to someone?

Anyway, I thought I would knit my niece a headband for her birthday - something along the same lines as the one I made for C.