Somewhere over the rainbow

Well..........what a fun filled weekend we've just had in the little sweetpeas household.  Miss A is turning six next week, and months ago announced she wanted a "rainbow birthday party" - at home, with twelve of her favourite school friends to help celebrate.

Now I am far from being a party planner extraordinaire and generally do not "entertain" but, BUT as this little girl is in her first year of school, and par-tays seem to be the thing to do, I decided I could put my fear of being the hostess with the leastest aside for a day and throw her the best darn rainbow party I knew how.

I let my fingers do the walking so to speak and began perusing blogland for tips and how-to's on putting together all things rainbow.

The first gold I discovered came from a blog I follow and thoroughly enjoy, Red Gingham. 

Inspiration on two fronts here, rainbow jelly and rainbow marble cake.................................

I followed Julie's link to this blog and found what I thought would be a life saving recipe for a mother (ie. ME) of a child who is allergic to both egg and dairy.

 

Eager as a beaver I gave the recipe a go. 

Unfortunately I made the mistake of using the only can of softdrink in the house, which was a lemon Lift, therefore giving the cake a distinct lemony softdrinky taste. 

Hmmmmmmmmmm.  Might try the recipe again though, using just soda water. 

I do hold hopes that it may yet turn out to be a winner.

But for the sake of not looking like a complete fool to all our esteemed guests I opted to use a standard Butter Cake recipe, and then baked a batch of allergy friendly Chocolate cupcakes for Miss B to chow down on.

In my search for the perfect rainbow cake, one evening I Googled "rainbow cake" and found this. 

Now I knew I had hit the mother load.  It became my mission to make not a marbled rainbow cake

but a

L

A

Y

E

R

E

D

 rainbow cake!

Of course what would a rainbow party be without some sort of rainbow decorations.  With only afew nights to go before Miss A's birthday party I was browsing around blogland, hopping from one link to another then another as you do, when I came across this fabo tutorial for crochet butterflies.

 

Then and there I started up my rainbow butterfly collection and a few nights later had these to hang as decorations. 

I had to have a bit of handmade in there somewhere amongst the crepe paper streamers and coloured balloons!

Pretty, no?

Overall the party went smashingly;

my only compaint would be that I, in true slack blogger fashion, failed to take photo's of my rainbow masterpieces until after all was said and done and I was clearing up.

As I was about to disgard the only remaining, half eaten piece of six tier rainbow layer cake, it dawned on me that my hard work could not be proven in all it's glory as I had failed to capture it's beauty in digital format (which hardly does it justice anyway).

Same too goes for my fifteen cups of rainbow jelly.  Slaved over for a whole day, as two pairs of desperate eyes watched layer upon layer make their way back and forwards in and out of our fridge six times.

We did face painting, played musical statues, pin the bowtie on Cat in a Hat, we had a rainbow pinata, we blew bubbles and the favourite activity of the day would have to have been the "make your own party crown", which went over extremely well with both children and adults alike. 

Deep down I think we all enjoy a good bit of crafting, don't you?

So I hope you enjoyed it Miss A because it won't be repeated for a very. long. time.....................

A big thank you has to go out to all the wonderful, creative and inspirational bloggers, who freely share their ideas and knowledge.

CHEERS!

Milestones

So this is not the subject matter I was planning for my 100th blog post, but I just could not leave off posting about this.  Tonight after dinner Miss A lost her first tooth.  It totally amazed me how many emotions she (and I) went through in the space of about five minutes!

How it happened:

Miss A was, for some reason, biting on her pajama sleeve and the tooth just popped out.  It has been loose for over a month, but on close inspection earlier today I though it still had a little while left in her head............

What happened next:

Wailing, sobbing and quite abit of bleeding.  It took me a few moments to make out what exactly had happened.  But when she opened her mouth and I realised I just grabbed her and held her close.  She kept repeating, "I'm not comfortable, I'm not comfortable.  It was an accident".  After I stemmed the bleeding and she settled down she asked if she could go straight to bed!  The tooth fairy is Highly anticipated.  It was only after about five minutes that she wanted to go and look in the mirror.

What a roller coaster of emotions Miss A went through.  Freaked out, excited, sad (I miss my tooth, sob, sob) and proud. 

I was not expecting it, but there you have it.

On a crafty note, following on from my last post, here are some piccies of the pinny I made for a little two year old friend last week.  Exactly the same as Miss A's but with a couple of yo-yo flowers attached to the front instead of pockets.

I forgot to mention in my last post details of the fabric I used.  The solid colour fabric is the most gorgeous cerise pinwhale cord I picked up on the fabric expedition I had to Cabramatta over a year ago. 

It has been quietly sitting there on the shelf waiting to be turned in to something pretty and I knew it was just perfect for this project. 

The floral print fabric is a poly/cotton my sister gifted to me two christmas' ago, just when I was getting into the sewing thing. 

Again it has been sitting on my shelf waiting, waiting for the right project. 

What a lovely combination they make.

I have made a point of late to use up the fabrics in my stash. 

 Although I can oohhh and aahhhh with the best of them over all the gorgeous fabrics I drool over on the internet I just cannot justify (to myself or my husband) buying any more fabric when I have shelves full sitting there untouched.

Stay tuned for the planned 100th post, post.  A tutorial and a give away.................

My Creative Space

Last week while visiting a friend I admired the cute little reversible pinafore one of her children was wearing. 

I was very pleasantly surprised when she told me she had made it herself, and that it was super quick and easy to do. 

She dissapeared into another room and returned with another pinny for me to take home to use as a template so I could make some for my girls.

So yesterday I traced off a pattern, made some adjustments to upsize from a size 2 to a size 6, pulled some fabric from my stash and made Miss A's favourite new piece of clothing!

Miss A has been a little sick for over a week and pleaded with me this morning to let her stay home.  I caved in and agreed she needed a day off to try and finally shake off Mr Sniffles.  I found out later in the day the real reason she wanted to stay home was because she couldn't bare to be apart from her new pinny! 

 Last night I finished off Miss A's granny shrug, which she also loves. 

I left it on the end of her bed and this morning when she came into my bed for her daily snuggle she was wearing it. 

And she did not take it off all day. 

This from the girl who doesn't like wearing a jumper - like ever.

Today I spent about half an hour wipping up an On-the-Go Art Satchel for a pirate mad boy celebrating his 6th birthday tommorrow.

The photos aren't so great.  The light was fading fast by the time a snapped these shots, but as I'm giving it away tommorrow they will have to do.

I spent quite some time the other day scouring all the fabric in Spotlight, looking for something pirate themed.  I finally gave up and decided to look elsewhere, when on my way out of the store something caught my eye.  Amongst the rolls of plastic and vinyl (like for tableclothes) there was this fantastic pirate print.  I was a little skeptical but as it was this or nothing I bought some and thought I'd give it a go.

It actually turned out really well and because the vinyl is already stiff and padded I didn't bother using any lining or interfacing which helped make an already quick and easy(if I do say so myself) project even quicker. 

I used Mel's idea of adding a strip of fabric to the front cover of the VA diary just to add to the pirate theme. 

Tonight I sewed together a second pinny in a size 2 that I cut out yesterday.  I'm gifting to my friend who lent me the original pinny.

I do find my creativity definately comes in waves. 

Or rather it's always there, but I can only push it to the side for so long before it explodes and I have to act! 

How about you, what's going on in your creative space?

I'd love to know...........

For more creative spaces head on over to Kootoyoo

One per Month - July (a.k.a. the case of the missing month)

What a month July was, it just totally flew by.  The past few weeks have just been jam packed full of outings and entertainment, with a quick family holiday to Canberra thrown in followed by a very lovely weekend away to Melbourne for just Mr lls and I - bliss!!!  Hence posts have been few and far between round these here parts.

What a fantastic place Canberra is for family fun.  In the couple of days we were there we visited

Cockington Green,

Questacon, 

Black Mountain Tower,

Parliment House

 and the National Gallery of Australia 

and the list goes on.

The trip to Melbourne was a last minute thing (for me anyway).  Mr lls had been planning on going down to Melbourne to attend a convention for quite some time.  A couple of days before he was due to fly down he asked if I'd like to go with him.  A quick call to the in-laws to arrange a 'holiday' at Nanna and Pappa's for Miss A and Miss B and the answer was a definate Y.E.S.

I have no photo's to show as the camera somehow slipped out of my bag and was left behind on the floor of the car..........................

We arrived in Melbourne late on Saturday evening. 

Mr llp was attending the convention on Sunday so I had the day all to myself.

What a fabulous day I had. 

I caught the train and then tram to East Malvern, especially to visit the wonderful experience that is Patchwork on Central Park.

I spent a fair amount of time there just browsing and lusting after the wonderful fabrics on offer.  I couldn't bare to come away empty handed but as my airline ticket stipulated hand luggage only I restrained myself to purchasing just some beautiful Liberty fat quarter's which will oneday become a quilt. 

Oneday.

I had a scrumptious and leisurely lunch, uninterrupted by squabbling, attention seeking children. 

I then enjoyed travelling back to the city - just me, my thoughts and my mp3 player.

I spent the next few hours at the National Gallery of Victoria, wandering around as I used to do regularly pre-children, just enjoying the freedom to take. my. time.; until the nagging need for a good cup of tea got the better of me!

The next morning we spent alittle time in the city before heading out to the airport for our return flight home.

We arrived home on Monday afternoon, back to reality but oh so happy to be with my two little sweetpeas again.......................

and to the realisation I still had not completed my July One per Month challenge (shock horror).

The book I chose for July was Alicia Paulson's Stitched In Time. 

The project, Silhouette Stack.

After completing seven projects now from seven different craft books, I have noticed a common theme running through all my projects. 

That is my complete inability to follow instructions and adhere to the particular ins and outs of individual projects. 

I always seem to need to adapt the project for some reason or other.

In this particular case it was because I wanted to use fabric to match the quilts (last mention way back here)I have slowly and quietly been plugging away at for Miss A and Miss B.

Yes, Miss B still dresses up as a cat on an almost daily basis - cardboard cat ears and stuffed stocking tail is an absolute must as far as she is concerned!  Who am I to thwart her inner cat.

 

My plans for these quilts have morphed alittle since then, but today I finished the last block - that's 48 blocks done.  I've only attached the sashing to half of these but I'm getting there.

Anyway, I've gone alittle off track here, back to the Silhouette Stack.

I didn't have enough of the fabrics I wanted to use to make it the same way Alicia did by just stacking half a dozen different fabrics one on top of the other.

So how did I do it?

Well I did follow Alicia's instructions for stencilling the girls silhouettes onto the chosen fabrics. 

But then I just made wonky patchwork blocks. 

I then essentially made a teeny little quilt but instead of binding it I laid the right sides together, stitched around it leaving a 3 inch opening to turn it right side out through and slip stitched the opening closed.  I also sewed in a length of ribbon to hang them by.

Voila!

I truly love this project.  Simple, sweet and definately something I will keep for many years to come.

They now take pride of place hanging on the girl's bedroom door. 

A vast improvement on the piece of black cardboard with some Disney princess stickers that was hanging there yesterday...............

More crafty goings on over the next few days including an On-the-Go Art Satchel waiting in the wings to be stitched up for a little boy turning 6 this weekend. 

We have quite the social calendar at the moment.  It seems half the children in Miss A's class were born in August - including Miss A. 

Her birthday party plans are well under way...........more on that later!