Turning 3

This week, this little baby....

became 3 years old!

Joshua's actual birthday was Tuesday, so we had a little family lunch on Sunday complete with a birthday cake made by me -

As I said in my previous post, Joshua loves anything pink, so I hid a little surprise under the icing on this cake....-

A stripey pink cake!! 

Joshua was at nursery on his actual birthday but he had a big pile of presents to open when he got home.  I managed to make Joshua one of my bags, but this time it was giant! 

 

The perfect size for storing toys, and fitting in here.....

On his IKEA toy storage unit! 

I thought it was also about time Joshua got one of my little handmade aprons, he loves to help cook so he'll get plenty of wear from it. 

Speaking of cooking, one of Joshua's presents was a cute little cooking set from ELC complete with electric whisk, scales, muffins etc, it's his favourite present by far! 

As if it isn't all happening at once this week, moving to a bed, turning 3, he also started 'proper' nursery too.  New friends and fun for him and an extra 2.5 hours to myself Wed, Thur and Fri for me, win-win :)

A quick pillow

We've been back from our holidays for just over a week now....and oh boy, what a week it's been! 

Not only did I have a pile of orders to catch up on, but Joshua (who's actually 3 *today*!) suddenly decided he no longer wanted to sleep in a cot.  (Cue lots of jumping out of his cot...head first...!)

Cue a quick, unscheduled visit to the big blue and yellow Mecca that is IKEA to buy his bed!

Ever since I made my first quilt, (and caught the quilting bug!) I always said I'd make one for Joshua when he got his big boy bed.  I was actually hoping that time wouldn't come til Christmas at least, but it's all happened so quickly. 

I haven't yet had time to make a start on his quilt, however, I did pull out all of the fabrics I have ready and waiting specifically for it, and let Joshua choose some so that I could make him a pillowcase. The fabrics are from the Ann Kelle line 'Ready, Set, Go!' and features trains, cars, aeroplanes and helicopters all in lovely bright colours.  Joshua immediately chose the helicopters and a bright orange solid for his pillow.

While he had his nap that afternoon, I quickly sewed up a pillowcase using this tutorial (obviously I added a bit of patchwork to mine).

Here's the finished pillow -

And I'm very pleased to say that Joshua was delighted with it! 

In order to prepare him for the transition to his big boy bed, I took him shopping to allow him to choose the sheets himself, there were so many lovely colours to choose from, all of which would go amazingly with the Ready, Set, Go! fabric line.....but no, my boy who is obsessed with pink chose a fuchsia bed sheet!

I really don't mind what colour he chose, however, secretly I know that once I make his quilt it will cover the pink sheet anyway!  (It will clash terribly!!)

Post holiday catch up

Hello!

We are back from our lovely holiday.  We stayed at a Haven park on the beautiful west coast of Scotland.  We were incredibly lucky with the weather and had glorious sunshine every day.  This was our luxury caravan -

And this was the amazing view from our decking -

The island in the distance is the Isle of Arran.  The sun set behind the island each night and the sky turned the most amazing colours - unfortunately my photography skills weren't enough to capture it in it's true beauty!

I showed you in my last post some of the cross stitch I was planning to do while I was away.  The seat above became my seat for the week and I sewed here some afternoons and also in the evenings (we had full sun out here until sunset around 8.20pm). 

I had started a cross stitch project before we left for our holiday so I decided to take that along too and finish it.  Be warned though - it's a Christmas project!  Here it is finished - and in need of a good iron!

This is a little Christmas tree sampler, the pattern is from last year's Christmas Cross Stitcher Magazine.  I plan to frame this in a hoop and hang it up over Christmas.  I will be sad to have to take it down each year though!

As soon as I finished this one I was keen to start on another.  So I started stitching the sunshine chart -

A little stitching here and there, stolen moments enjoying the view....

And within a couple of days I was finished! 

This one will be going on Joshua's bedroom wall. 

Unfortunately I didn't get round to starting the other cross stitch that I'd taken with me but I'll work on that in the evenings now we're home.

Here are a couple of my favourite photos (in addition to the ones above) from our holiday

Fun filled days

Sunshine days

Beach days

We enjoyed our holiday so much we are even looking at going back to the same park AND to different ones next year.  We were really impressed with our caravan, it felt more like an apartment. 



Can you believe this is a caravan?!

This was our cosy sitting room.

So now we're home, I've tackled all the washing and ironing.  Lots of lovely new fabric has been ordered from the UK and USA....and I visited a couple of fabric shops this morning....I'll share some pics of my lovely new fabrics soon ;)

Holiday Treats

As I mentioned in my last post, we are off on our hols tomorrow! Woohoo!!

But that also means a whole week away from the sewing machine...boohoo!!

Luckily my love for hand sewing has returned lately so I've been busy keeping an eye out for projects to work on while I'm away.

I love the idea of filling our home with beautiful handmade pictures for the walls, and with that in mind, I found some patterns that I really liked over at Sewingseed.  I wouldn't normally pay for a single pattern, but I've been trawling the internet (for free patterns) and magazines lately and nothing jumped out at me as much as some of the lovely charts available from Sewingseed.  Luckily I also found a discount code! 

As soon as I saw this pattern I knew it'd be perfect for Joshua's bedroom wall.  I've also bought some pale blue aida to stitch it on. 

I also saw this flower pattern which I instantly loved.  I've been choosing the threads to use for both of these charts and I'm going to do these flowers in pinks rather than the suggested yellow and orange as pink is just more 'me'. 

As an extra little treat, I've also bought myself the Tilda Homemade Ideas 'magazine'.  It comes with fabric to make the purse on the front...however, with no sewing machine for a week this could be torture!  I hope this magazine is good because it wasn't cheap! I'm a big Tilda fan and already have most of the books....so I'll report back after my hols...believe it or not the mag is still sealed and I haven't peeked at all! 

And of course, it's only right that I made myself one of my little bags to store my cross stitch in.  I chose a gorgeous Cath Kidston floral print for the outside and a pink and white stripe for the lining. 

It's the perfect size for a 6" hoop, aida and threads.

I 'll be taking all of my craft goodies in the big sewing bag I made a little while ago.  It's the perfect size for magazines, books and crafting bits and pieces (holding them all together so I don't loose anything).

See you in a week folks! 







A different kind of bunting

A while ago (in this blog post) I showed you a cross stitch I was working on from the gorgeous Cross Stitcher Homestyle bookazine. 

When I started this particular pattern, I whizzed through it, averaging at a flag a day...until I came to the last flag....where I sat stalemate for a good few weeks before mustering up a burst of enthusiasm to finish the final flag!

 Well, *finally* it has been finished and framed, and hung up!

I chose slightly more pastel shades than the book suggested and I think it has turned out beautifully!  I particularly love the floral flags, - very Cath K!

Since I was in a framing mood, I also filled a collage photo frame I'd bought a while ago and got the OH to hang both at the same time.  This wall also has a doorway which leads to the dining room - as you can just see, there is fabric bunting over this doorway - I think it looks great next to my new pictures!

Since my cross stitching mojo has returned I also stitched this cute little card up for a friend last week -

I used my sewing machine (and an old needle) to sew the aida onto a green card blank.  I love this effect! 

We're off on our hols at the end of next week so I've been buys collating some hand sewing and some little treats for myself while we're away, but I'll save those for another blog post :)