Tea Towels

Now in store, Chevron Tea Towels in a range of colours: Chartreuse, Yellow, Red, Hot Pink, Black, Ash, Coral.

 

gifts

This week has involved a lot of gift making... friends with new babies, a few birthdays, a gift for a little girl in hospital, and a couple of 'thank you's' sprinkled in for good measure.

I managed to make a few of the 'easier' ones yesterday, with some home baked chewy raisin cookies (recipe below), and a super-sized, plastic covered pencil case filled with crafty bits and pieces for a beautifully crafty little girl....
 

 

Chewy Raisin Cookies

Cream together:
300 grams butter
1 cup of sugar
2 tablespoon golden syrup

Mix together with creamed mixture:
2 cup flour
2 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup coconut
1 cup rolled oats
1 cup raisins

Roll into balls, flatten and bake in at 180C for around 10-15 minutes, or until golden. This batch will make more than enough to fill your biscuit tin, and share some with a friend.

Enjoy!

 

 

 

make your own...

Another little girls 7 year old birthday party today... I have to say, it is such a fun age to make gifts for, as they are at such a super crafty age!

Bella and I had a lot of fun sitting up late last night putting together a couple of little make your own kits for her friends birthday present. We cheated and stole the sewing ideas from this book.

We made two kits. One for making your own felt tiara, and the other for making a felt butterfly brooch. I made it a little simpler by actually pre-cutting the felt to the right shapes, and then included all the other necessary bits (including large tapestry needles to make the job a little easier for young hands).

Bella sat and sorted all the beads, sequins and ribbons whilst I cut the felt and lengths of embroidery floss, then this morning I quickly typed up the instructions with large print and printed them onto tough kraft card so as to withstand sticky fingers. I also included a little sheet of how to for the necessary stitches.

weekend fun

I forfeited my 'child free day' today and instead took Isabella to Disney on Ice.

Wow - it was amazing! I have to say I was skeptical..., everyone kept telling me how great it was and how much we'd love it, but I thought it might be a little too Disney for me and wasn't convinced. I was wrong. I am a total convert and will be taking both girls next year. It was 2 hours long, but really fast moving. The songs were really catchy too, and Bella and I were still singing/humming them tonight :-)

Tomorrow we have a birthday party to go to. One of Bella's friends is turning 7. I always like the idea of making thoughtful gifts where we can, and the girls and I are suckers for books, so tend to add these to our gifts.

We found this cute box of kids recipe cards at our local bookshop. These are aimed at 7+ so they look ideal. I also had a piece of bright floral cotton drill left over from the art smock I made a couple of weeks ago, so I whipped up a little chef's apron this afternoon to go with it. Great fabric for hiding messy stains, both food and paint :-)

Hopefully the birthday girl will enjoy her gift as much as we have enjoyed putting it together!

Birthday Gifts

Sorry for the delay - here are the pics of my sisters birthday present... I made her the patchwork bordered apron from this book. And with the scraps I also made her a kitchen towel and pot holder.

The hardest part (as always with patchwork) was choosing 7 fabrics to use... but I am really happy with how it turned out. I wrapped with up with this divine cookbook so hopefully she'll get a bit of use from it.

Hope you have all enjoyed your Mother's Day... mine was full of bike riding (well, the kids, not me!)

secret sewing

My sister turns 40 tomorrow! Wow, it is scary writing that down... seems like only yesterday that we were dossing together in London, no kids, no responsibilities etc, and now she has 3 lovely boys, 2 cats, partner, big house, and is turning 40 - when did that all happen?

I have been secretly sewing her present this week, and finally finished it last night around midnight. I am really pleased with how it turned out and looking forward to giving it to her. But until then you will have to be content with just a snippet - just in case she reads this.. 

Hope you are all having a lovely week, thank goodness it is Friday tomorrow!

sunday making

After reading this post on Melissa's blog on Friday I couldn't get that sticky lemon slice out of my head! It is such a favourite of mine, so yesterday we baked some for dessert. I also used this recipe by Julie Biuso which was super simple to follow, and the result was divine!

We had another birthday party yesterday, but this one was for a friend of Isabella's that was turning 6, but also returning to the UK to live. Her family have sold their house and popped all the goodies on a ship, so asked for no gifts, or just something small for the plane...  I made up a little passport cover for her, and a super girly pencil case which we filled with some sweet double ended Smiggle pencils. Nice and simple!

Now I better get on with finishing off the other gifts I need to make. First in the pile, another baby girl.

Enjoy your Sunday!