A place to call one's own

one from the archives of forgotten blog content.... at the beginning of the year lexi finally moved into her own room!
(we pretty much follow classic attachment parenting theory, and hey, if you've got a bad sleeper it's much easier to resettle them if they are in a bed next to yours!)

so i decided to make her a sign for the door, using some craft jigsaw pieces (cos she loves jigsaws!) and various scrapbooking bits & pieces!
they're rather *eclectic* for my taste (i'm not a natural scrapbooker - i struggle to put anything much on the page lol) but suffice to say it was very well received by its recipient!

and unrelatedly, apart from the paper bit, check out the basket of window stars that we made at playgroup so each of the children could take one home for the winter holidays! there are at least 40-50 in there i reckon!

life's not black & white

if you use blue cardstock anyway...
after seeing the kid silhouettes here (via Simple Mom) i thought i would give it a go just for fun :-)

these are the pics i used-
(and yes, eli had just smeared his lunch on the wall. truly charming my kids.)
one day if i ever get round to it i'll get a couple of small square canvases, paint them & mount these on them. one day. maybe.

the breeders

not us, my friends!

it started with needing to make the 2nd pair of booties for a friend who had just had twin girls-
then another had a gorgeous baby boy-
and paul's sister was having a baby girl, so for the baby shower i made a couple of pocket nappies-
and some bamboo & baby pink hemp inserts-
but then she came *before* the baby shower, 7 weeks early, so i had to whip up something fast!
thus, the tiny pink hat-
see, just for scale, here it is on top of the size small nappies!!
and another friend of mine had once mentioned that with prem babies it can be nice to have a pretty sign of their name for their incubator/bassinet, so lexi did a little watercolour painting and punched & glued some butterflies onto a picture for her-and then yet another friend, a passionate knitter, had a baby boy, so i knit him a fun little woven ball-

now i've just got a tiny bit of down time before i need to make something for four more babies on their way!

papery stuff

*don't look at the end dad!! contains spoilers!!*

some scrapbooking (still getting the hang of this!) -

a birth day page for eli...
probably doesn't show up, but there are little 'wet' footprints going across the page ;-)

and my butterfly girl...(the colours aren't very true in this pic - it's more of a marshmallow pink)

some little origami xmas stars -

and xmas calendars -with a new pic of the kids for every month :-)

scrapbooking with alexis!

a challenge was issued to keep the computer off and do something with the kids this morning, specifically, make a book with/for them..

so i decided to have a go at scrapbooking with alexis! :-D
eek..
for one thing, i'm terribly inexperienced at it..
secondly, i don't have all the bits that scrapbookers usually have, i just have a few stamps & ink pads, and a few papers..
thirdly, trying to create something serious using glue & ink & photos etc with a toddler?! what was i thinking?!

actually it turned out pretty well! we're both pretty proud of our finished products...

alexis' effort- and mine-(first one i've been happy with!)

meanwhile eli was busy learning how to bat stuff with his hands :-)so a pretty productive & fun morning!

please excuse the nasty reflective photos..

Fathers Day Book 07

This year i decided to revamp last years effort, with my new knowledge about scrapbooking (which was completely lacking last year!)

I found this paper in melbourne, and had to use it, given our history, for our wee star!

And because i had taken hand & footprints of alexis, i decided to use it as a bit of a theme, using a wee stamp i found.. and used tiny star brads, just cos i like stars ;-)

And then added this years effort!

Not having a printer made it a bit harder (my handwriting is *not* flash), its a bit more cramped than last years too, but i think they're pretty alright for a first effort! and of course trying to do them in secret with a toddler helping! ;-)

The little tags have the year & alexis' age at the time of fathers day on the front, and the dates & locations of the photos on the back :-)

Year so far - Fathers Day book

I wasn't sure what would make a good present for Paul for fathers day, but I saw something on a website that inspired me to have a go at scrapbooking! Now, i've never actually seen a 'proper' scrapbook, but i get what the intention is, so i just made it up... my idea is that each year for fathers day Alexis (with my help at first) can fill in a couple of pages, with photos & things that she has been doing with her dad.. So hopefully over time it will become a real keepsake!For the first one, i put in their favourite games & books, a little painting that she did, photos & her footprints..