Happy 1st Birthday - Devonport Craft Market!

The Devonport Craft Market is turning 1 this Sunday!! If you still have Mother's Day presents to buy come along and do a spot of shopping.

10am - 3pm

The Devonport Community House

32 Clarence Street, Devonport. 

See you on Sunday!

quiet...

I feel like I have been away from this blog for an age, but in reality it is only a few days. I have had a busy week in the real world with work commitments, kids, school... you know, real life stuff! But I have missed you :-)

I have also had a wee problem with my back up camera - I dropped my good one a while back and have been using the old one, but that has now decided to go into retirement, so looks like i will have to finally buy a new one. So that means no pretty pictures to show you until I find out how to get them off the camera that has died!

Now I must dash. Kraftbomb is on this Sunday, and I need to get myself organised!

working

I haven't managed to get much 'real' work done whilst the school holidays have been on, nor much crafting! So I literally pushed the girls out the door this morning when their dad came to collect them so I could get stuck in to my 'to do' list!

First was a quick trip to the local Sunday markets for a fresh sour dough loaf, some veges and of course a muffin and coffee.

I then chopped all my vege and got a lovely casserole in the oven for dinner - striped the beds, sorted the washing, and hung some more out, vacuumed, made the beds with fresh linen, finally cut, ironed and sorted the fabric for the Sew, Mama, Sew! fabric swap that I am doing, and now I am finally seated at my desk ready to get on to the 'real' work that I have been putting off! I have a big job that is due tomorrow morning that I have been procrastinating over, so better bite the bullet and get started!

 Wish I could sleep my day away like Miss Lazybones here! Hope your Sunday is a bit more relaxing :-)

lucky me!

I was lucky enough to win this lovely blog giveaway from Stacey over at Polka Dot Daze a while ago and the peggy apron arrived in the post today!

It is lovely and just the thing for making the task of hanging out the washing fun - actually, I have to admit I quite like hanging out the washing, I have my little routine with the way I hang things...

How do you hang your washing out? Do you use only blue pegs? Do you make sure all your underwear is on the inside? Do you hang all your tea towels together? Do you hang your pants from the leg bottoms, or the waist?...

grey day

It was a bit of a grey old day today, hinting at rain... Not overly inspiring weather.

We mixed up some pizza dough this morning and left it to rise, then Isabella and I went to a movie whilst Miss Lucy spent a couple of hours with Nana. We got ourselves a lovely big box of popcorn and curled up to enjoy Nanny McPhee. I hardly ever get to the movies these days so love it when I do - even if it does happen to be a kids movie, sometimes they are the best!

This afternoon we sorted out some art/craft supplies, and as we were sorting out the old crayons I remembered this post from Make and Takes. The kids really enjoyed the monotonous task of peeling off the old crayon paper and sorting the colours into the  moulds, and they sat there diligently watching whilst the crayons melted in the oven (only about 5 minutes). They cooled down really quickly and have already been used for some great master pieces!

The end result is great - next time I think I will do it in heart shaped moulds - great little gift for a small girl.

Next was operation pizza and grissini sticks (the girls one is photographed, half 'plain' and half ham and pineapple. Why are kids so boring with their toppings!?). Bella decided she would make some little bread 'snails' too, but sadly these were eaten before a photo was taken! Apparently they were that good :-)

Baking

It was a baking kind of morning this morning - with 5 kids in the house we needed something yummy for morning tea. I made this gorgeous sticky lemon slice again, and these scrummy treacle biscuits (adapted from the honey snaps in Edmonds Cookbook).

Treacle snaps

Melt together:
50g butter
2 Tbsp sugar
2 Tbsp golden syrup
1 Tbsp treacle

Once melted, remove from heat and mix in:
3/4 - 1 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp ginger

Once mixture is smooth, drop teaspoons full on to baking tray. Leave room as they will double in size. Bake at 180C for around 10 minutes.

needle cases

I have been working my way through a pile of gorgeous japanese craft books lately, and have been so inspired by the delicate hand stitching and delicious fabrics. I have always been a sucker for all things Japanese, but am currently addicted to hand stitching.

Here are a couple of needle cases that I made last night, these will be on my table at the Devonport Craft Market tomorrow.

Hope your weekend is going well. The girls and I had a bit of a girly afternoon painting toe and fingers nails... even the little one sat still for 10 minutes for them to dry!!

C xx

hand stitching

It has been a little tricky finding time for machine sewing this week with the kids on holidays. But I have been enjoying some relaxing hand stitching in front of the tv in the evenings.

I have just finished a pile of fabric coasters - all a little unique. I have really enjoyed the randomness of these and the ability to use up a mixture of lovely new and vintage fabric scraps. I will have these for sale at the Devonport Craft Market this Sunday, and in my shop (once I get some time to list them!).

If you happen to be around on Sunday, pop in and say hi:

The Devonport Craft Market

Devonport Community House

32 Clarence Street

Devonport

Sunday 11th April 10am - 3pm
 

Pop over to Kootoyoo for more creative spaces.

xx C

old curtains

I found the most amazing old kitchen curtains a while back, and not wanting to be greedy(!), I just purchased one drop. I knew I would repurpose them into something, but as my studio is only small, and my fabric stash seems to have taken on a mind of it's own, I just couldn't justify the space to a stack of old kitchen curtains.... 

After many hours of soaking, washing and hanging in the sun, this morning I managed to finally cut in to them. I made the folklore bag, by Lauren Booth from this book. I even managed to re-use the curtain lining as the bag lining, and a magnetic closure from another old bag I found and cut up (for the lining fabric) a while back. I am really pleased with how it turned out - considering how terrible I am at following patterns/instructions!

It is a little bit smaller than I had imagined, so I have popped it in my shop here. Luckily I still have plenty more of this fabric to make a larger version for me!

This morning I had a wander through the Takapuna markets. I was on a mission to get some fresh ciabatta and salad greens for dinner, determined not to stop and buy anything else... but these gorgeous Black Peter cards called me over and ended up coming home with me.

Aren't they divine?

Weeks end

It's been a tough week, one that I am glad to see the back off. My gorgeous wee two year old has not been at all well, and after 3 doctors visits and a day at starship she finally turned the corner and started eating again today.

She is normally such a mischievous little monkey. Highly spirited, into everything, tough as leather and always has a smile on her face, so it has been hard to see her so quiet and withdrawn, and Ooo the crying has just about driven me (and Isabella) mad!

Tonight as I put Lucy to bed she sat and rubbed my head, smoothing the hair off my face as I always do to her and Bella - she hasn't done it to me all week so I had sort of forgotten about it, but my it felt so good. Those gorgeous, clumsy, chubby little hands still finding their rhythm, but at the same time feeling so loving and special to me - I hope I always remember the feeling, it is sad that these little ones grow up so quickly!

Hopefully you are all enjoying a relaxing and enjoyable Easter with your families. I am certainly looking forward to two whole weeks of holidays and some fun family times.

C xx