Lots of little things going on behind the scenes here lately…
Lilsy has been asking for a mermaid costume for about a year. I had this shiny fabric last year to make her one but it took a church Disney themed activity for me to actually do it! She loooved it and it was really quick. I had enough fabric left over to make her a pair of little green leggings to wear so that her legs blended in with the tail. She was super happy!
There hasn’t been a lot of fabric that has wooed me for awhile, until Erin McMorris worked her magic again with her new line “La Dee Da” – looooove it, love her style and I even managed to make Lil a new dress over the weekend out of it.
The Pernilla Dress was blocked and finished! It’s very cute, but there were some minor finishing set-backs…I’ll take some proper pics and share soon. Plus a bit of jumbo cross-stitch and playing with polymer clay just for fun!
We’ve had a few farm days this month – one at a friend’s beautiful farm (I call it The Secret Garden) for the Serendipity photo shoot. Gumboots were absolutely necessary after a full night and morning of heavy rain – I’m loving my gummies this winter!
Then we visited Hagley Farm School with Oscar’s class for a school excursion. So cool to be going with him to the places that I went on school excursions as a kid!
And my knitting obsession continues to grow – I’m working on a Milo vest now. Beautiful pattern, I’m about half way through and only started 2 days ago! Knitting comes in handy as we’ve got MAJOR MasterChef fever this year. Ben (now in the top 5!) is my buddy from school and we are cheering him along every night! He is doing an awesome job and is as kind, loving and gracious as ever. Can you believe we used to have muffin-making competitions in lunch breaks and free periods at school during year 12! Fun stuff! Go Benny – we’re so proud of you!
Our special Aunty and sister, Ashleigh came for a visit last week. She is a gem to have around and we all adore her. Check out Tommy with her and Uncle Cade below – so glad my kids have family around to love them. I’ve been catching spare snippets of time here and there, reading Bloom by Kelle Hampton. It’s a lovely read, reminding me to stop taking all of my blessings for granted.
(P.S. I Instagram under make_it_perfect.) Hope you’ve had a great weekend! x
My baby sister is having her first baby any day now. I know how icky that last week or two of pregnancy can be – you feel big and tired and uncomfortable and just want to get the baby out, but at the same time are not quite sure that you are actually ready for a baby just yet!
So as a little “pick-me-up” to send my happy, positive labour vibes, I posted her a Little Box of Sunshine in the mail…
The idea behind it came from some pins on Pinterest (of course). There is a heap of awesome inspiration for gifts “in a box” – some of them on my Gifts board.
Flake and Chomp bars, yellow nail polish, lolly pop
Yellow m&ms, lollies
Post-it notes, sunny earrings
Lolly bananas
Sunshine framed print
And here it is, all packaged up – ready for express posting:
A box fully of sunny goodness to brighten up her day and give her something to munch while the waiting game begins- and I reckon she should paint her toe nails bright yellow ready for the big day 🙂
So excited to meet my beautiful little niece! I know she will be a perfect little ray of sunshine in Fil and Chris’ family.
P.S. Got other “gift in a box” ideas? Share them here – I love the concept!
When I started knitting Lil’s dress, I was hunting through my knitting supplies for some needles and found a few balls of yarn I’ve had for ages that I thought I should use up (in an effort to make sure that my yarn stash doesn’t end up as big as my fabric stash!)
A quick hunt on Ravelry brought me to this Earflap Hat for Kids pattern and I proceeded to get crocheting. With very unfortunate results…
No matter what I did, the beanie looked like a volcano instead of having a nice flat, rounded top! Lucky a helping hand was nearby and Tayla popped in for a quick lesson – I’m still not sure what I was doing wrong because I swear I did the same as she did, but obviously not because hers worked and mine didn’t!!
Anyway, the beanie was completed in a couple of evenings and is now fit for wearing!
It is far from perfect – I didn’t follow the pattern exactly and just kind of eyeballed the size and how much to increase/decrease my rounds. And it ended up a little looong…
But whatever, it still looks cute and I’ll be guaranteed it will still fits when she is 25! The yarn is nothing special, just some basic from Spotlight and isn’t really lovely at all, but will work fine for an everyday beanie that I don’t really care what happens to! It was a fun, quick project anyway that put a small dent into my craft supply stash, so that makes me happy 🙂
P.S. Pop over to Syzy Hausfrau’s blog to read an interview I took with her for World Wide Knit in Public day – did you even know there was such a day? I didn’t!!
I knew you guys would love the MillaMia knitting pattern books as much as I do! It was great to hear that I’m not the only one in a knitting mood at the moment.
Well, today I want to introduce you to a super cool yarn store, Suzy Hausfrau.
I really love coming across an easy to navigate, clearly set out and inspiring online store and Suzy Hausfrau has mastered all of that! Suzy Hausfrau is based in Canberra, but ships worldwide and stocks a sensational range of yarn, knitting and crochet supplies and patterns.
To entice you even more, Suzy Hausfrau offers FREE postage on all Australian orders and a very generous 10% discount on all orders over $60!!
I was generously sent some gorgeous MillaMia 100% Extrafine Merino yarn to knit up a dress for Lil. I chose Storm colourway for the dress. Not like me to go with a neutral colour, is it? I’m envisioning this looking cool with some really bright stockings and long-sleeved top underneath so thought it would be good to have a basic base-colour for the dress.
This yarn is gorgeous. It really is super-soft and high quality. I’ve always been one to encourage others to use the best quality products that you can afford when hand-making clothing. If you are going to spend hours pouring so much time and effort into the making, you definitley want to use quality products. I’ve already been scouring through knitting patterns to decide what I’m going to knit with this yarn next!!
MillaMia yarn comes in a great range of colours. You can see all of them here.
Suzy Hausfrau specialises in selling exquisite yarn sourced around the globe – many of the products in their range have not been stocked in Australia before. You’ve got to and check out their gorgeous range of BC Garn, Debbie Bliss, Holst Garn and Kalinka Lingarn. And keep an eye out for new Amy Butler and Kaffe Fassett yarns arriving any day now!
Make It Perfect readers are very lucky today – Suzy Hausfrau are giving away $100 gift voucher to spend in their store!!
All you have to do to enter is one or all of the following things…there are four ways to enter and each way is worth a new entry point! Giveaway closes next Wednesday, 16th May and winner will be drawn randomly. a Rafflecopter giveaway
We have two baby girls joining our family over the next few months and we celebrated the anticipated arrival of the first with a baby shower for Sam.
We decided to go with a “picture book” theme as Sam is a complete book worm. Leanne made us some prints using some of Sam’s favourite quotes from picture books. We used them to decorate around the room and I printed them out and stuck them to brown paper bags which we used to hold all the bits and pieces the guests would need for games and activities during the night.
As a thankyou for each of the guests, I also printed them out and mod-podged them to little squares of chipboard with a magnet on the back (and some chocolates of course!)
Sam made some cute Charlie & Lola signs for the food and drinks table. We served strawberry and chocolate milk in some of the jars saved from Sam and Ty’s wedding.
There were lots of games – including this wacky baby face prediction collage…some of the combinations of Sam and Ty’s features were very scary (including a little baby that looked just like Ian Thorpe!)
It was a lovely night, fun to be with the girls and help Sam get ready for her little. Just a couple of weeks to go and we will get to meet her!
