Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Winners

I have finally gotten around to drawing some winners for the Eczema cream. Sooooo who are our winners you are wondering....

Well they are
Aimee
Tanz
and
Jess
I will Email you all now - I really hope this makes some difference for you.

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Eczema remedies - and a giveaway!!

Now some of you that know me may have heard me talk about the amazing Eczema creams that I have been trialling with Jack. Well I can now tell you a bit more about them. For those of you that know Jack IRL - will know that his legs were totally covered in Eczema, so bad that he used to scratch till he bleed most nights. I had tried everything in the way of creams - most offered some relief for a short time and then stopped working. I tried double rinsing all our washes, i tried not having baths everyday, tried oils etc in the bath. but nothing worked... til now.
BEFORE

After a week of using the cream his legs were pretty much healed up. There was a bit of scarring that took a bit longer to deal with. BUT his skin felt smooth - not bumpy, red, scaly and dry. We now only use this when he gets a bit itchy.
AFTER:

Check out the website
I have 3 tubs of this cream to give out to 3 lucky people.
For 1 entry - follow my blog and leave a message saying you are following
for another entry leave me a message telling me why you would like to try this cream and check out www.sodeenaturals.com and tell me what other product you would like to try

They are currently doing a great shipping deal of $15 to NZ no matter how much you buy - so gather all your friends together and try them out.

Friday, November 11, 2011

Last day at Kindy

Last weekend we celebrated the 5th birthday of the big sproglet. He had a few rough days leading up to it with nerves about going to school but once the birthday was here he was very excited. He woke up with a spring in his step for his last day at Kindy. We had a very special party at kindy with a playdoh cake that they make specially for their last day at Kindy and we made a rainbow cake to take to kindy to share with his friends.
I used this tutorial The teachers at kindy had put together a slide show of photos of his time at kindy which was lovely to see.Stay tuned for the pirate party post

Friday, October 21, 2011

Been a while

I have been AWOL. What have i been doing you ask? Well there has been alot of visits to here.
My Mum had a brain haemorrhage 5 weeks ago. She was transferred to Auckland Hospital to have surgery and ended up having 5 surgeries over 4 weeks. My brother and Sister and I have been doing shifts travelling up to Auckland to be with her. She is now back in Dunedin she has had another surgery since and is now up in a rehabilitation ward to get her back to eating and walking and all those normal things. She will be there for at least 3 months.
It's going to be a long hard road for her and us and we would appreciate any thoughts or prayers.

On a crafting note, I have a new toy.

It is awesome and I LOVE IT!!! It was an early birthday pressie. A friend was travelling to America for work and he brought it back for me.
I have been doing lots of cool things on it. Will try and update with projects at some stage.
In the meantime here are some dresses i have been making for orders and markets that are coming up. The owl ones are a owl quilting cotton. The Aqua coloured ones are made from a gorgeous Linen with vintage doilies appliqued onto them.

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Busy, busy busy.

Is how I feel like I've been lately. Although I am coming to the end of a run of sewing that has needed to be done so feeling slightly less stressed about that. I recently finished 20 wet weather ponchos for Jack's Kindy.

I trialled this one with a placket and snaps but I am not sure that it is strong enough to stand up to the constant pulling from kids. So have only made the 1 at the moment.
Now i just have dress ups to go which will be fun and not quite so monotonous and mojo killing.
I am working on a new spring and summer range for my kids label - Two little Taniwha, which is fun. I am trialing a clothes party to release my new range on the 15th September. If this party goes well it might be the first of many.
Stay tuned for some sneak peeks.

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Mackenzie frock stars

I really enjoyed this years Frock stars. for those of you who don't know what it is. It is a competition where you take an ugly dress and give it new life by turning it into something amazing. I shared with you a couple of months ago about the UGLY dress I had chosen. I mainly chose it for the gorgeous orange Linen that it was made from.
So here is what i did. I turned this
into this
front

Back

I used the sew serendipity book and made the skirt from one of the patterns but alternated the panels between the Joel dewberry Aviary 2 fabric and the orange linen as i didn't have enough of the orange linen to do all of the skirt.
Here are some highlights from the show - Photos stolen from my friend Kirsty (well technically not stolen as they are of me- hehe)
Me strutting my stuff

my accessory fabric flower brooch

From left - Me, Sarah, and Kirsty.
Kirsty entered too. She made the amazing creation that Sarah was modelling for her. A floaty Tunic with a Obi style Belt and matching fabric knot necklace. Ladies hope you don't mind being famous on my blog.

It was a great event - shared with awesome friends.

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Once upon a time swap

On a forum I am on we recently did a Once upon a time swap. The guidelines were something for your child that had something to do with their favourite books. I got given 2 wee girls to do swaps for - one that was 15months so wasn't totally into books yet but loved Ladybugs - so I googled ladybug books and came up with Ladybug girl so i took my inspiration from this picture and I made a merino top and attached some satin ladybird wings and made a pair of undies and attached a tutu. SIMPLE... hmm well the tutu was an interesting experience. I used my friends tutorial and that made it very easy to do. I would have struggled without it i think.

The other wee girl is 4 and she liked books about princesses. I wanted to make something that was practical to wear out but also a bit princess looking. So I went with a drop waisted peasant dress, and made a princess hat to match.



Then it was time for my boys to receive their swaps.
I had put down the Jack liked "Harry and the bucketful of dinosaurs" books. So Jack received a Bagfull of dinosaurs and a dinosaur costume, all beautifully made. He absolutely loved all of it. He wore the Dinosaur mittens for most of the day every now and again he would "Rawwrrrrr" at us pretending to be a dinosaur.
Thanks to Louise for his awesome swap.

Charlie received an awesome swap too. I had put down that he loved reading books with diggers, trains, planes, helicopters, buses etc in them. So my swapper Viv made the most gorgeous wee quilt for Charlie with transport vehicles on it. he loves it so much. Thanks Viv.


I was so impressed with the level of workmanship of this swap - it was awesome!!!
Thanks guys for a great swap

Thursday, June 30, 2011

Latest creations

I have been meaning to post about some creations that I have made lately. And I know that I STILL haven't posted pics from the fashion parade. Well today is the day. Although I still only have 1 picture so i can't show you the models in their second outfit - but you get to see the first one.
Jasper is wearing a merino hoodie with a helicopter print, it also has a green and black striped cotton knit for binding on the arms and around the hood and as the inside lining of the hood.
His twin Kitty is wearing a pink merino top with an apple print a double layered skirt and red merino leggings. Aimee is wearing a red merino hoodie with a rainbow cotton knit for binding on the arms and around the hood and also as a lining inside the hood.

Know I have also been doing some custom orders. Here are two tops for someone in size 8 one with a T rex and one with a ballerina (both very popular prints)

I have also been making some ponchos and dress ups for Kindy - I must remember to take pics next time I am there.
I do have a post saved about another wee project but it needs to wait till the recipients have received their items - don't want to spoil the surprise.

Thursday, June 16, 2011

Flea Market Finds

A wee while ago while a friend and I were on our way to a girls crafty weekend. We just happened to stop at this little shop which had always caught my eye as we drove past. It was a goldmine of gorgeous vintage/retro finds and we had a field day in the fabric section of this shop. I couldn't buy it all though so i chose carefully. I eventually chose a piece of linen and a piece of thick printed knit, well it's actually more like a sweatshirting with the terry back rather than the fleece. I also couldn't pass up some gorgeous trims and a couple of wooden car display shelves which I am going to do a wee project with very soon (which i actually didn't take a photo of either - you'll just have to wait for the before and after pics ;-) )

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Goodies from Ireland

Look what arrived in my mailbox this week. I won a giveaway on Sew Mama Sew Giveaway Day from Cindy over at fluffy sheep quilting.


It is the most gorgeous bag and so well made. I have been taking it out and receiving lots of lovely comments about it.
And Cindy included a few wee treats for the boys too - which went down very well.

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Guess what time it is...

Frockstars time!!!! For those of you who don't know frockstars is an event run by some locals girls from Fairlie where you get an old frock and turn it into something beautiful. You can see my entry from last year here .
This year I am going to be far more organised and not do it the night before they are due - oops.
This is the dress I have chosen. My husband refers to it as Mrs Clause's nightie. It is a reddy orangy linen. It's actually lovely fabric and the whole reason why i chose the dress.

I have great plans for it. But sorry you'll just have to wait to see what i do with it. I will give you one clue though - this year it's going to be something that I will ACTUALLY wear, probably to school. AND even funnier - I am hoping to model it myself this year - ARRGGHHHH.
You can check out some of the other entries from last year here

Tuesday, May 31, 2011

New books

With the book depository 10% off this month, i took the opportunity to purchase myself a new book. This one from Kay Whitt.
I am hoping it will arrive tomorrow as one of the kids books arrived today. Then I can get started making some clothes for myself.

Thursday, May 26, 2011

Helicopter Party



Well Charlie has turned 2, and apparently he can get up to more mischief now that he is 2. Well actually technically he wasn't quite 2 when he got up to the most mischief. The night before his birthday party he decided to play with the bike chain and get his finger jammed/crushed in the chain - well mainly because his brother was pedalling it backwards while it was leaned against the wall. I honestly thought he was going to lose his finger - of course Steve and Mum had gone to get Fish and chips hadn't they - so I frantically rang our neighbour who whipped down and demanded a wrench which is actually easy to find in our house thank goodness, and he managed to get the finger out. So a trip to the doctor and a bit of strapping and he's all ready for a second birthday party the next day. So this is actually where the real post begins. He is mad about Helicopters - or "choppers" as he calls them. It just so happened that one flew over head on the morning of his party and his little ears prick up and off he runs yelling "chopper, chopper, chopper " you get the picture. So a helicopter party was in order
I made a rather lame cake - just a square turned helipad with Steve's remote control helicopter on top. - I know lame eh....

Anyway I made some cute cupcakes and some chopper pops (need to do a tutorial on those - super cute eh) and of course all the other cute party food.
We hired a Quad bike - simply because hiring a helicopter proved to be a bit harder than a Quad.

Sunday, May 22, 2011

KCWC day 4 and 5

Got lost in transit... I got so busy and ran out of time to post.
But here are some pics for you - a Merino hoodie that I made Charlie. Isn't he just so darn cute.

I also made Mum a set for her kitchen for mothers day and couldn't blog about it till she had it - which happened while she was up for Charlie's birthday - something else I need to blog about - oops
so here it is - a double ended pot holder copied from the one I have here - but changed slightly to a round end rather than a hand shaped one - easier to do the bias binding on. I even quilted the pot holder. I also made her a matching tea towel. I used a layer of insul-bright as the batting on the pot holder.