I'm in LUUUuuuuurrrveeee!!!

I have been looking for a camera for a looong time now and after seeing Dana's post on her FAQ's section I was adamant that I wanted a Canon Rebel.

Yesterday it arrived and I can't leave it alone. I just love it. No longer do I have to use my iphone to take my photos..I have a lens that I can move myself and a proper flash and everything!!!

I love the detail in this picture. It was such a tiny shell too.

And...look at Sophie! This is how I see her and now the camera does her a little justice. I know we all think our kids are gorgeous, but how great is it when the picture actually captures the sparkle in the eyes.

I'm a happy chicken :D

Sunshine Award

Thank you to the Screamstress who passed on the Sunshine Award to me... I'm not sure what I did to deserve it, but it's a sun-shiny addition to my day :-D

I now have to tell you 7 things about you that you don't know, OK I'll be honest, but it might not be pretty.

1. I play netball, and I'm pretty rough too. I once (accidentally) punched a guy in the face, and was secretly pleased with myself (don't hate me for that one)

2. I'm vegetarian

3. I can't crochet and it annoys me that I can't

4. I swear more than I should

5. I used to be a copper...(don't hate me for that one either)

6. I want to be a teacher and I believe that it will happen one day (not based on my responses here though)

7. I love Harry Potter, and Twilight!!! I really love them...

I pass this award on to..

Bethany at Craftopia

Erin at LuckandBliss

Julee at Greenishmama

I look forward to your responses...

I'm not here today...

You won't believe me when I tell you... TRUDY from SEWING WITH TRUDY (Sorry for shouting, I know it's early in the morning for some of you) is featuring me on her blog today. I know, I can't believe it either. I'm so thrilled that she's having me over there...

OK, I'm tempted to delete the above and write something not so gushy, but hey ho, that's just me and it's honest if nothing else.

OK, I'm rambling again. If you haven't already visited Trudy then you HAVE to go. You will love her blog. She's a fellow refashionista of the highest calibre and manages to sew and blog and home school four beautiful children....I know, pretty impressive huh!

Trudy offers advice on what to wear and how to wear it, and I often have her pop in my head when I'm about to put a flouncy top on with a flouncy skirt...oops!

Be prepared though, have a cuppa in hand...you might get lost as you spend a hunka chunka time cruising around her blog and please do...it's cool as!

Oh and say hi to me when you hop over :) http://sewingwithtrudy.blogspot.com/ I'm making a cowl neck tee shirt dress...hope you likeee

Soooooo excited!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Copy cat...

I love this skirt, it's like my track pants. You don't have to shave your legs and it's quick and easy...of course I always shave my legs though....erm, OK not all the time.

The above skirt was bought from Target aggggesss ago (before my pledge not to buy new clothes) I still have not bought anything new. Except running shoes, but they are exempt anyway :P

This skirt is an exact copy of the above one. It looks different because the original was made with all the same fabric, but I couldn't resist buying all sorts of fabric.

I literally measured all the panels of the original, then I sewed each panel together so that I had four rings of fabric. I then set my machine on the longest stitch and gathered the tops of the 2nd, 3rd and 4th tiers.

I gathered the top of the second panel to the length of the first panel. Then, with the bottom of the top tier and the gathered/top of the second tier (right sides together) I sewed them together, making sure that the seams down the side matched up.

I did the same with the third and fourth tiers, then hemmed the bottom of the skirt and made a casing for the elastic waist and using a safety pin I threaded the elastic through and sewed the gap closed.

As a rough idea, you make the top panel a few inches wider than your hips, then each subsequent tier gets wider and wider. You can make this as gradual or wide as you like, depending how much fullness you'd like.

The first garment I ever made was a mini version of this for kids. I plan on making them again. Keep and eye out for it...I'll be selling them in my etsy shop soon too.

I used my lovely new fabric...and I LOVE IT!!!

Using the Sienna dress pattern, which I just adore, I made Sophie another dress. This pattern is so versatile and the instructions are fantastic. It's so easy to make a simple dress, or to change it around and do a little of your own thing with it too.  

Little monkey WOULD NOT sit still for a shot. She's such a busy bee. I sat her on Adam's little chair to try and contain her but she thought it would be great fun to slide on and off, so apologies for a rubbish picture :)

I made this tee-shirt for Adam using one of his old ones as a template and thanks to the above pattern I can now make very pretty tee-shirt neck lines...I wish I had been smart enough to work it out by myself

I used a stencil from lilblueblue and freezer paper stencilled the design onto the front. Adam loves this tee, he didn't take it off for four days straight. I know...that's really gross, but it was the school holidays and erm that's all I've got.

He looks so sad in the picture, and that's because he is. He was watching Free Willy with his Dad and took the whole thing very seriously. So sweet!

Glass painting with acrylic paint

I love the painted windows at Kindergartens, they're so cheery and fun.

Adam and I washed up some empty coffee jars and peeled off the labels. I used Tea Tree Oil on a cloth to get rid of the sticky bits (that's an adult job)

We just used acrylic paint and had a heap of fun. He loved his little jar and had fun deciding on which treasures would be lucky enough to live in it.

We dropped blobs of paint on the lids and used a pencil to make swirls and pattern

I had a lot of fun doing mine...maybe too much fun :D

Rice coloured with food colouring for kids...

Hey, I just thought I'd share with you a little project that Adam and I did over the holidays (it's end of term 2 holidays here in Australia). Adam loves crafts and couldn't wait to get his hands on this stuff...I always tell him what we're up to, you'd think I'd learn to wait until we were actually going to do it, but no! I open my big mouth and then have to suffer through the four million 'are we going to dye the rice now?', 'when are we dying the rice?', 'you promised we could do it, when are we doing it?'...you get the idea. But we had to wait for Sophie free time...Anyway, I'm rambling...

I used the whitest rice that I had in the cupboard, which happened to be Arborio (risotto) rice, which happens to be the most expensive but mine was at the bottom of the pantry so we were never going to eat it anyway.

We put about 2-3 cm of water in each container. I used metal pots and tins so that the food colouring wouldn't stain.

We then put a few drops of food colouring in each and stirred until the rice was the colour we wanted (we wanted it to look like nerds)

We then drained off the coloured water (carefully), and laid it out on the newspaper overnight. At this point I had to endure more whinging from Adam who was pretty peeved that he would have to wait until the morning to play with it.

But is was worth the wait, and I figure that since both rice and food colouring are 'food' that Sophie would be safe to play in it too.

They played for over an hour with it and yup, it went everywhere. But vacuumed up pretty easily too, so no harm done. I don't think I would let them play on a carpeted area though, you'd be finding it for months