All Things Mum

I am so badly wanting to make these Charm Bags. As soon as I saw them from Melissa Corry's web blog - Happy Quilting  I said, oh my, I have a few charm squares that could be used to make these for nieces (and myself!). The tutorial is from Moda Bake Shop, which I use to frequent quite often but I've forgotten about it. But my sister has asked me to make some baby bibs for a friend who just had a baby girl. As luck (providence) would have it, I happened to have a baby bib in the kitchen (for some unknown reason) so I made up a template. I went to sort out some fabric and little miss 5 came up to me with her new drawing and custom made tongue for her picture person. Hubby said" Was that your template?" and we laughed. I'm loving these bibs though from Amy of Nana Company Nana Company - Pretty Little Bibs Let's just say things are going to be pretty busy the next few weeks leading up to Christmas. Don't forget about my book giveawa...

Hello everyone. I am absolutely blessed to be sent books by Scholastic to review and isn't it just the best thing ever to be able to give some away! Sharing is, of course, caring. Scholastic have released some really beautiful Christmas books this year. Some are more traditional than others so everyone gets a lovely chance to pick a favourite. Here are my kids with the books that come with a cd. They really enjoy the music and being able to sing along with the story. I recommend if you can get a hold of one with a cd it is well worth it. They just keep playing the cd and even with the instrumental music they can read it themselves. Jay Laga'aia does a wonderful job singing the story in a way that keeps the kids involved. I'm going to give away these two books. The one above is "One Night" by Penny Matthews and Illustrated by Stephen Michael King. It tells the story of the birth of baby Jesus through the way of the animals. It's very sweet and very ...

Elastic Skirts from Make It and Love It! It's that time of the year. The weather is definately warming up. We have been getting strange weather though. One day hot, the next cold and rainy. Last week it reached a fiery 41 degrees (105.8 F) so we went to the pools most of the day. That was the day I found out my washing machine had a hole in it and leaked all the water out. Not fun. I was about to kill someone that morning. Thankfully, it turns out a day at the pools works wonders and I ended up getting a new one on Saturday. I really like it. It has a clear lid so the littlest boy can see the laundry slushing around. Yay for that. I even set a delay wash for this morning so I only had to hang out the washing this morning before heading out to work. Double winner! I likes to be a bit more organised. Feels so so good. Oh, the picture above I stole from Make it and Love it! It's for elastic skirts. The eldest has a school concert and needs a red skirt so I am thi...

Today I laid my eldest sister to rest.  She sadly passed away on Wednesday morning after a battle with leukaemia and graft vs host disease. We'll miss her everyday but we entrust her to God. May she rest in peace.

Winter is finally over! Yay. We celebrated the eldest turning 8 with a big mud cake. I sent the rest of the cake to work which was very much welcomed. My waistline thanks me very much although I think I had too much cake this Winter. Anyway, moving forward.... I have been busying myself with the smallest bits of sewing. I had to line a flower girl dress for this upcoming family wedding. My youngest daughter is one of the flower girls and the dress requires a lining. Actually, I had to line all three dresses so it's been a fun project. My challenge was that the dress bodice is very stretchy so there was no way I could put in a zipper. The lovely lady at Spotlight helped me and I bought spandex for the bodice and some Italian lining for the skirt part. The top picture is the finished bodice and skirt. The one jsut above is the skirt only. My tip for gathering here is to sew two rows and then you get a really nice gather that stays in place. Then it will also reduce the ...

If you were like me, Book Week comes around when you don't expect it. I mean, once you see other school kids walking to school in their costumes you start wondering if you're going to get that letter about it in the school bag. We somehow recieve our letters with little notice or it's just that I really would like, say, a month in advance notice! Because, every single shop gets sold out of costumes very quickly and there are no sizes to be found for said Miss Almost 8. She wanted me to buy something for her and she wanted to be Little Red Riding Hood in particular. Red Riding Hood Cape - Little Things to Sew As luck and persistence (from said child) would have it, I recall having a pattern for a cape. It even happened so that it was called Red Riding Hood in Oliver and Ss' book - Little Things to Sew by Liesl Gibson. I was actually just thinking I would cut out a circle from some fabric and copy a hood pattern from another pattern but somehow roped myself int...

I spent this week making this girls shirt from my favourite Japanese pattern book (Sassy Girls - see right pane).  I wasn't sure of the sizing as they base their pattern size on the child's height. This is  size 110cms and it is perfect for my almost 5yr old. It reminds me of the Tova Top but for little girls. The book even includes ladies size in small, medium and large. I'll definately have to give that a go soon.  The cotton I bought from a local store and I love the soft yet smooth and perfect thickness of it. It's perfect to wear as we are still shivering down here and she has a singlet underneath for extra warmth. She likes it too and although the collar isn't as tall as pictured I kept it like a mandarin collar. Somehow the collar is a rectangle sized 2.5cm by 30cms. When you sew it up it ends up smaller and not as tall. It's even meant to be the same for the ladies shirt pattern? I couldn't figure if that was wrong or not and not bothered ...

These are the latest release from the Australian made products by Kez's Kitchen called Taking Cafe Home. I tried really hard to make these last in my house but they were too yummy and didn't last long. That is precisely why I have a lack of pictures of us devouring them. The kids took off with the biscuits as soon as I opened up the pack. We have to have some sort of biscuit in the house because I am a tea and coffee addict. In their own words, Kez’s Taking Cafe Home range allows biscuit-lovers to enjoy the luxury cafe experience in their own homes. The five new products add a creative twist to family favourites. Mini Mixed Moments is a new take on Melting Moments, a packet of nine bite-size melting moments in heavenly chocolate, red velvet and passionfruit flavours which were inspired by the French macaron.   This is Jacquie eating her mini red velvet melting moment. The other little boy ran off with the passionfruit ones and ate them all! I only got to eat one ...

It's second week of school holidays and it's been very uneventful. The first week I had a nephew come by and he decided to put up a trampoline that we were gifted. The second week (right now) we've been sick and hanging out at home. Well, said nephew had done trampolines before and said it would be a breeze. Then after we assembled the ring we looked at each other with our eyes opened wide. This thing is gunna be HUGE! It's a 14ft thing which could house our family! It was done in two hours which was rather impressive, I must say. It was great that he knew what to do even though one of the pole legs was missing a hole. Arggh, hate when that happens. Regardless, the kids love, love it. The kids were jumping up and down with excitement after it was done (pun intended!). We were lucky enough to visit Saunders and Co last week as well to preview the Big W Toy Sale. Today is the last day that Big W is offering a no deposit lay-by until X-mas with great sales an...

I feel so awesome! I'm on holidays (albeit at home) so I don't need to wake up so early and deal with getting kids ready for school and all that busy-ness. Last month it was full of birthdays! Like crazy. Above are my famous Mars Bar Slice which are totally delicious. I had to give most of this huge tray away otherwise I'd be going to the gym every day. The little man turned three. I made him two cakes. So yummy. I highly recommend White Wings Irresistable Chocolate Mousse cake. Soooooo goood and easy to make. The new neighbour is constructing so half our fence is gone. He's a very nice guy and he's also gotten rid of this tree on his side which was over our garage and there is so much less tree crap on our side now. Yippeee. I've re-discovered love of my little Breville 5 bar coffee machine. It's small and it makes me a nice Vitorria coffee with frothy milk. I'm going to need the caffeine hit for these holidays. Our first adventure will ...

I think just about all mums say that they are Time Poor. I certainly don't have to explain myself here. So, on the occasion where there's lots of glass and porcelain things to be washed I like to dump it all in the dishwasher. I've tried the cheap brands and expensive brands of washing tablets and powders. Since my dishwasher is very cheap, ahem, sensitive (it's a Cona brand or something hubby picked up with his dad a long, long, time ago) it doesn't do a good job unless I use a quality dishwashing detergent. Seriously. I am not kidding. It doesn't dry my dishes and it can leave even dirty dishes (I just can't go back to the Aldi powder anymore. Sad memories). I don't even think about how much chemicals are being used to wash my dishes. Do you? That is until Woolworths had this amazing half price sale on all the Finish dishwasher tablets! Aaaahhh-le-lu- ya!!! I popped in one Finish Quantum tablet one day and everything came out sparkling and clea...

I hope you all had a lovely Easter and holiday. I got up before the kids on Easter Sunday and finished off the zipper so she could wear the dress. I am so totally against zippers! Urghh. Anyway, it worked out well and I finished the dress off with a pink ribbon which really made the dress shine. The best decision was to re-do the skirt by gathering it instead of having those pleats. This is a size 8 so she will be able to wear it for a while, at least til end of summer (Feb) over here. Next time I make up this dress I will use a lighter fabric. It's a nice pattern which also includes a plain bodice which is fully lined. If I do use a ribbon tie again it's a good idea to make those ribbon belts or sew a part of the ribbon to the dress so it doesn't ride up. It seems that during Easter the retail sector like to have sales so I popped into Lincraft and they were having a 30% off sale storewide. I hadn't planned on buying anything more than a dress zipper (f...