Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to everybody!

I hope to see you in the New Year.

Just before I go and share this time with my family I thought I would share with you the result of arming Hanna and Amelie with a bowl of smarties and marshmallows. Hanna ate 9 out of 10 of her smarties and then hit on the bright idea of grabbing a cardboard tube and whacking the house to knock off the remaining smarties to eat! You can tell she is feeling better.

Last week was a bit sparse on both blogging and crafting fronts. Poor little Hanna spent the majority of the week battling 40 degree temperatures. We are now (touch wood) doing much better but are still using the inhalation machine every day. Better last week than Christmas week. Last year we were all sick over Christmas and it was a real battle to have the traditional Christmas lunch and celebrations. So fingers crossed for a better day this year.

Anyway all this rambling is to say I did not have time last week to tell you to check out Lollychops. Lolly has been having the 12 days of Christmas pattern giveaway. You can download any of the patterns in 2 different formats (12" x 12" or 8.5" x 11"). She has some great pear patterns which she is going to get printed on Spoonflower.



I printed out alleyway and tarts onto t-shirt transfer paper and then ironed it onto some plain canvas totes. I love how they came out. Very quick and easy and very effective.

My brain is like a sieve these days. I can't seem to retain the same amount of information as I used to be able to, so I decided to make some To Do pads since I have oodles of Blockleim.

This is hopefully going to make it easier to keep track of my WIPs so none get left by the wayside. I keep discovering old projects abandoned for no real reason except I forgot about them!

I created a form so I have space for 10 things to do, a separate list for people I have to phone or email and another space at the bottom for ideas for blogging or web sites I want to visit! I copied the form at the copy shop and had them cut it to size for me - saved so much time and made lining up the pages sooooo much easier.



For the frontcover I printed out a design I had made and then laminated it. So far it is holding well in the pad with the blockleim but I think it might fall off with frequent use. So I am considering either removing it completely or reinforcing it by giving the pad a paper spine.



If you would like to use this form you can download the pdf file here.

What to do with partial robot prints? I have a whole pile of robot prints that didn't quite make the grade for a quilt I have in mind. So I dug out my box of buttons and spent the weekend making robot buttons. Now what to do with the buttons. Any ideas?

I also whipped up an oven glove and apron for Amelie. Amelie and Hanna are getting a play kitchen for Christmas and I thought Amelie would have fun with these. Hanna is not quite ready for her own - although I will probably make her an apron and oven glove so as to avoid arguments!



It's a bit difficult to stuff an apron into a lightbox but I am sure you get the idea. I found the pattern to make the apron here.



The pattern for the oven glove here.

Both are quick and easy to make.

It might not look as cute as the horses in the book, but I think Hanna will be pretty pleased with it! I decided in the end to ignore all the lines on the pattern pieces and just sew where I thought it needed to be sewn. It worked, but the horse definitely has a few problems. Still now I actually have a completed horse I feel much better and will probably go back over the "instructions" or lack of them to see if I understand what the heck it was that they wanted me to do!

My little Amelie also caught onto what I was doing and recognised the monkeys as I was cutting the pieces out. She immediately started to draw monkey faces, which were much better than mine. So I cut out a piece of fabric for her monkey's face and armed her with a fabric marker and this is what she came up with. Very cute, I think but then I am somewhat biased!


This is Hanna's.



I think I will get Amelie to do all the faces from now on.

Jumping on Shel's bandwagon I have decided to show a WIP each Wednesday.



I have been selling lots of Memory Games this Christmas which came as rather a lovely surprise as I have not really let anybody know that I have a Dawanda or etsy shop! I have even got a custom order for a game! Yippee!

So um, perhaps I got a little too over-enthusiastic about finding lamps for my lightbox! I couldn't find any clip on lamps that would take higher wattage bulbs and these monstrosities were the same price as the clip on lamps that would be able to bend around to light the box from the side. Plus they came with energy saving bulbs. So I thought what the hell!

My photography is never great at the best of times but is passable when the sun is shining brightly! Since that is not going to happen here until roughly March, I am going to have to take matters into my own hands.

Although this is no solution for my quilt - I am still working on that - I decided to make a lightbox to photograph small things. I followed the tutorial here, which Tina posted about.



This is what I came up with. Please excuse the mess in the background! The curtains were closed when I took the photo.



It is still quite dark. Unfortunately the lamps I bought from IKEA don't bend around far enough to light the box from the sides. I think this would make a huge difference to the outcome. Perhaps I need stronger wattage bulbs?

Still it's a lot better than natural light or a flash at the moment.

My Little Snail quilt is finally finished. I have to say I love this quilt.

I used bits of yellow, red and pink fabrics and some white that I had stamped with little snails and flowers.

Somehow or another Christmas has crept up on me again this year. I'm not sure how this happened since Christmas things have been in the shops here for absolutely yonks and we have been enjoying the odd illicit Christmas biscuit or two!

So anyway it is high time I begin making some things for my two little girls for their stockings.



So I have dug out two of my favourite books. You can find them in Amazon Japan here and here. Just after Amelie was born I made this monkey - not for Amelie or for anybody in particular just because... Amelie pretty much ignored it until Hanna decided that it was pretty cute. Since then it has been war of the monkey. So it is high time that I make another monkey.



Just before Hanna was born I attempted to make the pig from the Animal Mascots book. I will blame my pregnancy brain but I could not make head or tail of the pattern. So I abandoned ship. This time I am determined to make these horses and the giraffe. They are just too cute. But I might need some help!