Q: Can you still eat a cupcake if a skink has run across it?

Or perhaps it ought to be should you still eat the cupcake...

The girls did a bit of make-up-our-own-recipe-as-we-go-along. Imogen’s version turned into ‘crumble slice’ [messy but yummy] and Alannah produced vanilla cupcakes.

A small member of the lizard family visited our warm kitchen on that rainy afternoon as they were cooling on the bench and I guess he thought a nice warm cupcake made a tolerable alternative to a sunwarmed pebble...

And so back to the original question - we did anyway and they were delicious!

p.s. That’s Ed’s hand in the back ground behind Alannah’s head threatening the classic dingo-family-patented ‘smell-the-cream-and-I’ll-push-your-head-into-it’ move... he didn't though - good daddy!

We are loving knitting at our house...

From the smalls to mama [maybe not daddy... ;) ]

look at what landed on my lap on sunday morning...

delicious blueberry pancakes

heart shaped shortbreads

lots of lovely handmade pressies and cards from my darlings

alannah and imogen both wanted to "do stitching" for mother's day crafting - the results: a bag and embroidered rabbit picture from alannah and a pink and purple stitches embroidery from imogen [who at 3 can already thread her own needle!]

what darling girls they are x

hope you all had a lovely mother's day too xx

Making Stuff For Eamon

There's a new little cutie around these parts. Eamon Thomas is my darling nephew - a gorgeous son for Katie and Ben (my little brother) born three weeks ago now.
We had to get busy crafting as soon as we heard the exciting news. As all my fabric is in storage at the moment we had to get creative with what I had floating around in the studio scrap box. A boyish bib for dribbling on and an Alannah-designed teddy made their appearance by the end of the day. Just right for numerous drools and chewings-on.

Birthday Girl!

Our little darling Imogen had her third birthday a few weeks ago - my goodness that's gone quick! All of a sudden she's gotten all big and grown up!

I wanted to make her something special to play with, so Alannah and I decided on a princess and the pea playset - idea totally stolen from SouleMama. (we also gave her the princess and the pea book by Lauren Child - of Charlie and Lola fame)

Lannah was my helper - choosing fabrics, deciding which ones looked good together, colouring the paper princesses, sewing the felt pea [with a little help from mama], turning the mattresses and snipping threads.

Immy loved it! They've been playing princess and the pea all over the house. "MUM WHERE'S MY PEA?" is a common utterance around these parts nowadays.

I also whipped up a little tutu and she got real ballet shoes!

And a washing line to help mummy with the house work ;)

We had a yummy hedgehog cake created by aunty Liesey, dressing ups with little friends and treasure hunting - what fun!

TOO. BUSY. CRAFTING. CAN'T. STOP. NOW.

Bit crazy round here right now. Making piles of skirts, hundreds of yums tags and gypsy-skirt-seller-peddler's-parade-outfit for school fair in 2 days. AAAARGH! [+ possible button hair ties and felt birdy ornaments if time allows - who am I kidding?]

Oh and kid no.2 has third birthday coming up in a week and a half - potentially not as quality celebration as first child's birthday parties - and I NEED (i.e. would like) to make her SOMETHING handmade [who knows what?]- eeeek! - control freak is freaking out!

See what happens when mama's not looking?

I think I love you Mr Postman...

LOOK what just arrived at our house!

I have been watching and waiting for this parcel for what seems like eternity. Every time we hear the post van in our street there is a little-peek-out-of-window, hold-your-breath, is-he-stopping-here? and YAY-today-it's-for-us!

I can't wait to sit down and gobble these up! Especially SouleMama's new one. YUMMY! There's nothing more delicious than a new book!

Crafty Girlies

Alannah loves crafting [just like her mama]. Every time I go out to our monthly playgroup mums craft night she wants to come too. So she came up with the idea of having her own craft night. We have been doing lots of embroidery* in this household lately so naturally that was the activity decided on.

We had lot of fun making invitations, choosing hessian and different colours of yarn and setting up a cosy crafting spot in the lounge.

Lots of stitching, chatting, giggling, tea/babychino drinking, and choccy-nibbling went on [and that was just the mamas :) ]

* this amazing book is where we got the kid's embroidery idea from - SouleMama is such an inspiration to me - heaps of wonderful ideas and activities to do with children and crafting and living