Leaving presents

The main carer for Elise has her last day today and of course, I left making her present till the very last minute!

I made her a messenger satchel and some cookies so I hope she likes both! (I'm going to let her know that if she doesn't think she'll use the bag that I'll happily keep it hehe)

I'm really happy with how it turned out, especially given that I didn't use a pattern and made it up as I went hehe. I got the denim as a remnant for $1 and Taylor picked the paisley-ish print from TT a while ago (hope she doesn't get angry that I used it!
Front:

Open:

Pen Slot:

Phone pocket (elasticated):

Closed showing the strap:

Cookies with the card:

Showing the cookies:

Will be dropping them off in half an hour :)

$5 later....

I went to SL today as some fabric I got yesterday had a fault in it and I also needed more black thread. I was doing REALLY well and only got what I needed until I noticed that their lucky dip bags had been reduced to $5 each!!! What's a girl to do right? So, I got one! Yes, only ONE!!!

Here is what was in it!
Part one:

2x Papier paper and wood paints
2x 200 silver photo corners
slick writer (permanent marker for slick surfaces)
memory system texta (thick one end, thin the other)
10pk silver heart charms
6pk scrappy christmas tiles
love theme brads
5pk pirate ship die cut outs
2x puffy stickers packs
Hannah Montana Applique label
2x Hannah Montana iron on transfers
10pk square cards
10pk punch out cards
3pk paper mache luggage tags

Part two:

2x Halloween reusable decals pages
blade storage tray
scrappy tile embellishments

And there was also some scrapping paper and a few (5) trick or treat bags too... oh and a plastic chair cover lol

How awesome is that for $5!!??

A black cheery bag

Ellie's main carer at daycare is finishing up at the end of the week to go on holidays and then going back to uni in the new year. I want to make her a leaving gift and originally thought a little basket bag with some chocolates in it would be lovely but then I found this fabric in my stash that I had forgotten about and just had to use  and I ended up making a little tote with an external pocket and internal phone pocket (which I forgot to stitch down the sides!)

I love that its black but just that bit cheeky as well!!

Bag:

Inside:

Close up of phone pocket:

Not sure Hilda will actually get this! I might tax it for myself hehe

Fishy pants

Ok, so here is the evidence of the only sewing I did today :)

I bought both fabrics from Spotlight yesterday. The grey is some sort of light weight suiting from the remnant box for $2 and the fish is just a poplin print that jumped out at me as I walked past.

I wanted to make James some long shorts so I altered what I normally do for lounge pants and went from there. Oh except that I did all of my topstitching in zigzag which I really like the look of. I'm happy with how they turned out EXCEPT I twisted the elastic!!!!! of course, I noticed AFTER I stitched the gap closed and I am a most reluctant unpicker at the best of times so at almost 12:30am it's truly not looking likely to happen tonight! I hope James likes them! It's the first time I've done applique with vlisofix and it is definitely the start of a new addiction hehehe I think I'm going to have to start making shirts so that I can applique them to match!

So, here they are!

Front:

Back:

Close up pocket and trim:

Close up applique:

The name tag:

I have zigzagged everywhere as my overlocker needs to go to the doctor!

Advent Blog -A-Long

I've decided to join the Advent Blog-A-Long. I will be endeavouring to post daily until Christmas with something that I've created each day.

We had some cream in the fridge that needed to be used today and the kids had icy poles this afternoon (made with cordial) which was apparently a big let down lol. So, today's effort was ice cream!

'Recipe'
600ml cream
1 tin condensed milk
1cup chocolate melts chopped up
4 scotch finger biscuits crumbled

I mixed the cream and milk until thick before adding the chocolate and biscuits. I then put some in icy pole molds and some in other containers for me and Richard!

Adding the chocolate:

Adding the biscuits:

In the icy pole molds:

The end result:

It's yummy but oh so very sweet :P I plan on doing some sewing tonight but not sure what yet! I'm still yet to start on Tom's backpack so I really should get onto that but realistically I know that won't be tonight!

So, what am I going to make?? Off to browse blogs and craftster for inspiration!

I like box purses!

Similar to the LPS 'home', I've made both Taylor and James a box purse each to put little nicknacks in for their Advent Calendar today.

Here they are (the Mickey one is actually square lol):

Mickey:

Dragons:

Ribbons - the ribbons were an after thought and as such, I put it on the wrong end of the Mickey one but I'm sure James won't mind! Other than that, I'm pleased with how they turned out! :)

A little something for a santa sack!

So, even though I haven't made the santa sacks as yet, I've made something to go in Taylor's lol.

She has numerous Littlest Petshop figurines and will be getting more for Christmas so I've made somewhere for them all to live!!! I was at TT this morning and saw that their cotton prints were marked down from $12 to $6.50 so I snapped up half a metre of this LPS print as well as 1/2m each of Dr Seuss and Mickey Mouse.

I'm thinking a little dress for Ellie from the Dr Seuss print but I'm not sure what I'm going to do with Mickey yet for James.

Taylor's hmmmm 'thing':

Open:

Side View:

Years ago...

My Mum had a boob tube dress made out of green satin with some cream flowers scattered on it. She got rid of the dress a long time ago however has hung on to the remaining fabric all these years - till recently!

You see, Mum stopped sewing a long time ago and as such, passed on her sewing machine, overlocker and horn sewing cabinet to little old me (how lucky am I!!) she also passed on most of her fabric that she was still holding on to. One of the pieces of fabric she gave me, was indeed the leftovers from said dress!!

Since Mum gave it to me, I have been waiting for inspiration to hit as I want to turn it into something for her. I saw a tute a long time ago for lined zippered purses and then forgot about it. Donni made some for the hafla yesterday which reminded me and so I dug out Mum's satin and made her a little zippered purse lined with some nice floral print that I got from Spotlight.

It didn't turn out anywhere near as good as I had hoped but as it was my first I'm not too worried and Mum will still love it! I'll keep my thinking cap on and see if I can come up with something else matching to go with it - maybe an eye mask and something else.

Outside:

Inside:

I love the fabric combo that I used and will definitely use the same combo for anything else I make to go with it :)

Sunday baking.....

So, last week, I found a great recipe for making a bulk load of cookies and seeing as though I'm a 'bake-once-in-a-blue-moon' kind of baker I thought it would suit me to a 'T'. Well, I was right! I made a batch Tuesday morning for playgroup which were well received and I baked the rest of the mix throughout the week in batches.

So, here are the pics....

All 3 batches:


Original recipe:


Choc chip:


Almond and white choc chip:


I made one third the original recipe which includes dessicated coconut, sultanas and milk chocolate chips. The second third I ommited those and added slithered almonds and white choc chips instead. The third batch I added milk and white choc chips.

The finished products:

Outfits for the Christmas Hafla

Ok here I am yet again!

I've made Ellie a dress and James some pants for the Hafla tonight. James saw the dress and insisted that he needs a dress too and not pants this was however when I was half way through his pants and upon seeing them, he was quite pleased lol.

The dress is a peasant style top that I found a tute for here I extended it a little to make it a dress and added a band of elastic mid torso and some back ties :)

Dress:

The pants I followed the same tute as before from here but added some pockets in the same Christmas print as Ellie's dress.

Front:


Back:

The outfits both ready!

Pretty pleased with how they both turned out :) The dress I will definitely make again but shrink the width a bit first :P The pants I just need to work on pocket location I think. Richard saw them on James just after I finished them and I got "oh they are REAL pants" lol I don't think he thinks lounge pants are real pants hehee