anzac day crafts

after seeing an incredible idea from another ward in our stake, we as a primary presidency extended a challenge to our primary children, asking them to create poppies and decorate their mail boxes with them for this unexpected anzac day. 

there has been a driveway at dawn movement created, asking for those who would have attended a dawn service, to instead go to the end of their driveway with a candle and listen to the last post, which was broadcast over multiple stations.

after seeing this amazing egg carton wreath idea on my friend kate's early childhood activity page, i decided we needed to make one of our own to hang on our letterbox, so we got to work! it was so easy to make (did the old use what you have trick haha) and looked super cute when it was done. 

i also had the kids painting poppies and decorated out the front of our house with them ready for tomorrow.

anzac day is going to be different, but the reason we commemorate remains the same. to remember those who gave their tomorrows, for our today.

the shall grow not old, as we who are left grow old

age shall not weary them, or the years condemn

at the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember them

lest we forget.

foil temple pics with the young women

for our young womens activity recently we made these foil prints of the temple for the girls to take home and put in their rooms. as president spencer w. kimball said, “it seems to me it would be a fine thing if every set of parents would have in every bedroom in their house a picture of the temple so the child from the time he is an infant could look at the picture every day and it becomes a part of his life. when he reaches the age that he needs to make this very important decision, it will already have been made.” i love this quote so much and while i think it's really important to have temple pictures on display, i think it's even better when it's something that the girls have made themselves and put effort into so they have pride in displaying it.

i have made these prints many times since the first ones i did (you can find a tutorial here!) including at a ward relief society activity and i love that they are so effective and look amazing, but they are so, so easy to do! the girls seemed super keen to do them and got to work quickly... then were thrilled when i brought out frames for them. I find personally that if the girls make something and have to buy anything for themselves to complete it, it just doesn't happen, so we are very careful to provide e v e r y t h i n g. that way they go home and get used! 

i love our girls and love that they are finally starting to chat with me. yay! 

twas a good night. 

blackout crafts

the weather here on friday was crazy! considering it is now spring, we were all shocked to say the least that the weather turned sour and it was blowing a gale and pouring most of the day... then most inconveniently, our power went out at lunchtime. of course when i picked madeline up from school she wanted to watch tv and listen to music - whilst i wanted to cook and vacuum and do multiple things that involved power... but today it wasn't an option.

so we improvised. joseph sat next to us and played with his cars... and we made a dreamcatcher together, from a kit she got as a birthday gift. (when i say together, i had to do most of it because the threading holes were teeny tiny) but she decorated it and supervised and generally had the time of her life. who knew a black out could produce so much fun? ♥

party prep

today i got to work prepping things for miss madeline's princess party this saturday. twelve little girls have been invited, so i am a little nervous that i won't be able to keep them entertained and that they'll run riot, for this reason i am trying to be ultra prepared and have everything sorted wayyyyyy ahead of time.

 the pass the parcel has already been wrapped, with some fabulous prizes (for the inbetween layers and the middle!) care of my beautiful friend keryn from bella blooms who also made the custom hairclips for the goodie bags. you can see some more of her goodies here!

i decided upon visiting spotlight last week and seeing their amazing gold glitter paper that the little ladies needed a placecard each at their table, so i then spent the next hour tracing off my laptop screen onto baking paper to get the letters i wanted (you then press the other side of the baking paper with the pencil to transfer your (back to front letter) on to the back of the paper you're cutting from.) super easy and the letters looked awesome! even cooler once they were stuck down on the pink card. (side note, the font if you are wondering is cooper std black at size 150)

i am so in love with this glitter paper, i just want to use it for everything!

placecards all ready to go

i also had to prep the "crown making kits". i am always so proud of myself when i manage to think of a good idea myself and haven't stolen it from pinterest... so this one i am showcasing for sure. i had this idea to get gold paper crowns (i was totally going to cut them from card, but then we found them precut in a pack of 10 from riot art and craft) winner. they also had the stickers i wanted, so we got some cool felt, shiny, glow in the dark and crystals in different shapes and sizes, then divided them up between the bags. we'll let them decorate and then pop a few staples in the back to secure them.

the only issue was, the crowns weren't gold, so i then had to make them so. a can of spraypaint later - easy done, dried in the garage over night. and they looked much better gold too. good choice. i am really hoping that making a crown keeps the kids entertained for more than 5 minutes.

pale pink goodie bags from the discount store at the local shopping centre... with a gold sparkly crown i bought from an etsy store here in the u.s. i could not find them anywhere else, but let's be honest - there was no way i was cutting each one of those out and staying sane, so it was worth the postage to get them here.

and the contents, because lets be honest, everyone's favourite part of a party is the goodie bag...

a mini stamper pen (discount store - came in a packet of 10)

stick on earrings and plastic ring (as above, packet of 7)

2 gold balloons (big w - they were nice gold metallic ones)

princess stickers (reject shop, 12 pages to a sticker book)

custom hair clips (bella blooms)

turkish delight (totally matched the pink and gold theme)

metal and crystal ring (best ebay purchase! i bought them here and thought meh, they'll be okay for the goodie bags, but they were such good quality and i was shocked more than i can explain as the pictures made them look so cheap and tacky and they were actually pretty decent quality, $6 including delivery for 20! storing that away for future reference...)

baby quilt

 

yesterday maddie got her baby quilt from nanna. mum makes each of her grandchildren a quilt when they are born... (although some take longer than others) :) - and madeline was waiting patiently for hers. it was totally worth the wait! every second square has a star in it and the embroidery covering the quilt has stars and swirls in the pattern... and to top it off, there is a blue bird stitched in the bottom corner patch. i am so in love with it, and can never quite get over just how talented she is. thank you nanna. we both love you so much!

 

can I buy a vowel?

my brother aaron used to make jokes about our parents and say "why buy it when you can make it?" and i really took it to heart... so when i saw this amazing idea of scrabble tile rings sweeping about, i got right on that - and made myself one. flipping love it. i'm taking orders if you're interested! x

happy hookers (& chocolate slice!)

my friend pippa is the shiz when it comes to crocheting. like really... the shiz. i swear she barely even has to look at what she is doing, and everything she makes always comes out perfect. every time. she's my beautiful friend that made maddie's star shaped blanket that i love, and which maddie still sleeps under each and every night. adorbs.

my grandma was an avid "hooker" (haha i love it!) and made all of us granchildren a blanket - and yes - of course i still have mine. i couldn't ever part with anything sentimental. you all should know that by now. i kind of feel like i got ripped off though, she died just six weeks before my seventh birthday :( and so i never got to learn the craft - although my oldest cousin dion told me the other day that grandma taught her, so at least one of us has it!

anyway - to the point of this post - pippa has finally decided to share this talent with a bunch of her girlfriends - and i was one of the lucky chosen ones. on monday last week (yes i am well aware that this post has been a long time coming...) we went to pippa's house for "crochet club" - or the happy hookers as pip and i are now affectionately calling it... where pip taught us some of her moves. okay - so the orange "thing" (granny square - yes i know...) above - pip started off for me and then showed me how to continue it, but i am pretty sure with a little more practice (and by little, i mean years and years... har har harrr) i might one day be able to complete a blanket.

maybe.

it was great fun though - and i can't wait for the next one!!

anyway - my contribution to the crochet club is here:

chocolate slice

250g butter

1 cup caster sugar

3 tablespoons cocoa

2 cups desiccated coconut (i used shredded - it was fine!)

2 cups cornflakes

2 cups plain flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

preheat oven to 180 deg celcius

grease a 20x30cm baking tin

melt butter in a saucepan (make sure it's big - there's a lot of stuff going in here!)

take off heat and stir in sugar and cocoa

when sugar is dissolved, stir in coconut and cornflakes

stir in flour, baking powder and vanilla

stir well until completely mixed

press all firmly into a tin and then bake for 20mins

when cool ice with chocolate icing

(1 cup icing sugar, 1 1/2 tablespoons cocoa, 1 tablespoon butter, add water and mix until smooth)

yummmmm!

pinterest obsessed

oh my gosh... i am obsessed!!! lisa introduced me to pinterest a few weeks ago and sent me an invite to sign up - so i tried to - and discovered that i already had an account! i don't know how on earth i didn't use it when i made it, cause i have been seriously missing out! so freaking awesome...

pinterest is a virtual pin -up board, when you can made categorized boards and pin-the-things-you-love! i have boards such as: make it, baby, kids clothes, organising, recipes, photo ideas and lots more. it is so flipping awesome, you can just scroll through pages and pages of other peoples pin and ideas to see what you like and pin away. i could spend hours and hours doing it...

and the best bit - is there is an i-phone app... so when maddie is up in the middle of the night, i can pin away.

can't wait to start trying some of the ideas - it's amazing!!!!

to see my page - click here!

supermum

it has come to my attention that my mother is basically supermum... i show her something i like, and next minute she presents me with an awesome copy of it. exhibit a... i am reading em falconbridges blog and see her particulary cool circle scarf, now i'm no fan of pink (rather inconvenient being that i just gave birth to a girl) but i found this awesome as piece of green stretchy material at the op-shop in singleton a few months ago and could see it becoming one of these scarves one day. so i show mum the fabric and the picture here and voila! one cool as circle scarf, which has barely left my neck since!

oh - and did i mention the awesome bag i found on etsy - that she also copied. honestly - my mum is awesome, can copy anything and saves me bulk cash when i have my heart set on something. what a legend. love you mumsie! xx

a labour of love

miss madeline received a pretty fancy gift today... from aunty jen. a cross stitch done and personalised just for her. jen has spent months stitching this for madeline, and all i can say is wow! i certainly don't know if i would have the patience to sit and stitch this masterpiece. thanks jen! we love it! xx