Sunday 27 January 2013

Surprises





How awesome is this?!!!  This has to be the finest piece of yarn bombing I have ever seen.  Check out Sarah Rudder's blog for more fabulous yarn bombs.

Just as well there's a nice R2-D2 to cheer me up this morning.  Last night we had a massive storm and got something like 67mm of rain in less than an hour.  Sadly, the Teapot & Snail studio flooded and the whole family mucked in to pump water out.  Seriously, it was coming in faster than we could get rid of it.  It seems the storm drains just couldn't handle such a huge dump of water in one hit.  Luckily we were home for the long weekend as the weather put us off going to the beach.  If we hadn't been here, a lot of fabric, yarn, and the expensive stuff like the overlocker and cupboards would have gone.  Thankfully no current stock was damaged but my mum's antique Singer sewing table nearly copped it.  Today we are off to buy some sturdy shelving units to get more things up high and then it's back downstairs to dry things out some more.

Cheerio!




Thursday 24 January 2013

DIY Chewbacca!

Chewbacca Sock Puppet
I love this!  It's a whole bunch of Star Wars related craft including how to make your very own sock wookie.  My daughter is going to go nuts when she sees this.  Not only does she have the SW bug but also the craft bug - the perfect set of activities for the last week of holidays.

Saturday 19 January 2013

An afternoon sew


I whipped up this cute little bag today.  My little daughter is off to preschool in just a couple of weeks. She's very excited so I've made her a special library bag to bring her books home in.

I had to fiddle around with the size for a while so it would be big enough for picture books without dragging on the ground.  The answer - quite large in the body of the bag but teeny handles in comparison.

Just a simple little tote with a gusset but what I love (and she loves) is the layers of applique in the corner.  All it takes is a few scraps from the stash and a bit of extra stitching.  It's so easy and cheap to make something special.



Tuesday 8 January 2013

Being a resourceful mama

There are times when a mama's gotta do what a mama's gotta do.  We make do with what we have, we fix what we can't afford to replace, and when little dramas pop up we cobble up some kind of creative solution to get us by.

Today in the Bush Capital it is 38 degrees Celsius   That's just over 100 Fahrenheit for you Imperial folk.  We have had a run of nasty temps like this for days and it's wearing us down.  With school holidays on, the focus has been on getting us out of the house and looking for things to do, but with the heat even the swimming pools are only a short trip as the UV levels are in the extreme.  Today in particular we have had all sorts of bushfire warnings - I think the warning rating has been downgraded from catastrophic to extreme but it still sets a person on edge.

So we've headed out to I think possibly the coldest place in Canberra barring the ice rink - a shopping centre near the industrial outskirts of town.  A bit of a drive out in the heat, and it seems, just enough of a drive to put Miss Three-Nearly-Four to sleep.  But what do you do with a sleeping preschooler in a roasting open air carpark when a pram hasn't been a regular part of your arsenal for several months?

Why, you just call Resourceful Mama of course!  And what would her solution be?  A supermarket shopping trolley and a pile of whatever blankets, shopping bags, and towels you could find in the car.  Voila, a teeny bed on wheels:



And now time for a coffee in the air con - phew.  To everyone who's in a bushfire area, I hope you and your family are all safe, together, and OK  Stay out of the heat guys.  Cheerio.