[long weekend]

Well, it's not along weekend for everyone, nope, not a public holiday, but as my parents took G along with them for 3 days up to KL, we had a self-imposed long weekend here with just the 1 child. It was a great weekend, even though K missed G and i think G missed K too, it was very fun to be able to plan activities around only 1 child. When K fell asleep, it was just the 2 of us again. Verdict - life with only 1 child is definately alot easier, quieter and less tiring! :P
here's what we did :
Sent my big little girl off with my parents at the airport. She looks sooo grownup here!Big hug for her big sister
Playing with "e-go" in the car. She loves stacking anything....
Getting all sweaty and yucky runnin around the house
playing with toys all by herself
going shoe shopping with mummy early on saturday morning! This one is as crazy about shoes and bags and me! hah....
spending lots of time on my lap doing scrapbooking. I'm reminded of how G used to do that when she was this age. She really liked doing all the rubons, the stickers, looking at the pictures and basically just enjoying herself.Love using Kraft cs as the background!
Close up detail
this is my DT LO for my LSS. LOVE love love the hambly onesies transparencies. And that little pop up bubble from Prima :) Pps are from SEI - aren't they the most darling little girl type of papers - with glitter too!Also did lots of embroidery while the little one was napping :i love the colours. And i've got clouds in my head!
here's one of K trying to pull out the buttons!
i'm not much of a card maker, but surprisingly, these came together pretty quickly!
long ago papers from SEI, circle edge trimmer from LSS.
Hambly onesies - so cute!!! AC stickers for alphas. Brad is MM
POP dots from Prima. Hambly frame with OA alpha rubons. Paper is SEI lovebirds range.

[handstitched albums]

Been working on a few commissions lately. The latest one that i'm so happy doing is this embroidered guestbook / wedding album.


I just need to add a scented Lavender heart bookmark and i'm done! It's off to the bride-to-be just in time for her May wedding :)

This is still up for sale....

Sorry for the colours being a little bit washed out. I will replace them as soon as i can get proper sunlight to take nicer pics! :)

[dressmaking]

So happy to have finally gotten over my dressmaking phobia and made dress #2 for G! Here she is modelling the dress. (she chose the fabrics herself, but would actually have liked the skirt portion to be the amy butler's lotuses)
this photo is too funny! i have no idea what she was doing! She's actually holding playdoh in her hands, i was so worried she'll be leaving some behind on the dress! hah.
Chickened out of making the back with a zipper like the pattern called for. Instead, did 2 loops and buttons. The dress looks better with an inner t-shirt layer anyhow :)
This is the '100cm' pattern. I think i'll make one longer next time.
Going to tackle pants next! :) And who knows, i might even be brave enough to attempt a pattern for myself.... heh.

[CROP!]

It was a really enjoyable 'serious' meeting at the LSS to finally meet up with the rest of the DTs (some of them for the 1st time!), to brainstorm about new ideas, to discuss about scrap-related goodness (read = more shopping!) and to mull through lots and lots of hilarious suggestions! Thanks girls for being such a fun bunch, i really enjoyed myself. Faced with such a cool crop, how not to crop? heh. I went totally empty handed, with just my photos. Which was great as it was a Friday and most of the new arrivals from Thursday were still around. Fell in love with the flocked Prima papers (i just love the colours - teal and burgundy) Here's proof that you can definately complete a few scrap pages with just a few products!
The other essentials i bought were the "pop" dots Bazzill, the Lily Bee Design tags (the big scallops), MM glitter alphas and of course thanks to IG, AM and L for the embellies - prima flowers, die cut felt flower and Maya road pearl pins :)Came home to embellish further and complete the LO with some rubons from Hambly and AC, plus title stickers from JB.
The 2nd LO that i did during the crop, this was a super quick one! used the lily Bee tags again, this time both the negative and positives (money saving tip!) and then embellished with stickers - JB, HS, MM.
Then, i got home and had to scrap even more as i had all these new stuff and just had to justify them! haha.... so, head over here for a fun scraplift. I did 2 interpretations of it.
Papers are a mix of GCD, SEI and again the lily bee tags (a really nice size to use) The top circles (also my previous post - the princess crown) are stickers from the HS large sticker collection. Lots and lots of October Afternoon rubons - they are the best!A commissioned piece (Guestbook) for a wedding in May. Just piecing together the various fabrics, it's still half-way done, i've made a lot more progress on it today. :)this little one was all snotty and runny this morning, but i think it's cleared up since.
this makes my heart smile. The 2 of them really enjoying each other's company. They played for quite awhile with each other this afternoon. G will pretend to be Mummy while K is the lil baby daughter. G kept going - "ok, mummy needs to work now, go and sleep by yourself ok!" haha! maybe i've been doing that too often? But it was seriously cute to see her mock feeding her sister with the toy spoon and bowl, patting her to pretend sleep, waking her up with a hug and kiss, and then reading a little book to her! Of course, after about 20min (a record!) there's the usual snatching and all the crying and tantrums appear.... :P Owell, it was good while it lasted....
These 2 pics show the dynamics of the 2. G will pull the book towards herself and read out all the words, while K sits quietly next to her looking at the page. Then K gets her turn to touch the letters and pictures in the book. All under the watchful eye of big sis. :)Finally finished up the dress! pretty poor lighting but i'm quite happy that i managed to complete the whole pattern... heh. Will take more pics tomorrow with G in the dress :) Now i'm off to make another one!

[sewing is HARD!]

Heh, so, i've started sewing G a dress from this book. It looked simple enough, but i didn't know how hard bias sewing is!!! I've just frogged all my handsewn bias around the sleeves and collar. Sigh, it's all furled up and yucky. (any advise?) I'm going to try 1 more time, if it doesn't work, it's off to mum's for a rescue! heh. It's good to have a perfectionist mum.. :)

to cheer myself up that i'm not all THAT bad, have started on these other 2 sewing projects :) happy happy colours!
I love the mixing and matching of colours the most. It's got all that excitement and anticipation of a dessert not eaten. :P
This one is reading lots and lots....
this one is all about stacking and playing with dollies.
I started clearing my comp's harddisk (cos it ran out of space AGAIN! i really need to get that server system all figured out... *reminder*) and came across these pics. These are my 2 closest girlfriends, we've known each other forever and are lucky enough to have kiddies all about the same time. These are pix of us BEFORE the kiddies happened! It was (and still is) always so great to meet up, chit chat, giggle at silly jokes, talk about nothing or anything, leave off and finish each other's sentences. I don't really know why we had so much to talk about, but i always leave each lunch / tea / dinner in a state of happiness, that we are so lucky to have each other :)

So, S & P, do we share more wrinkles than calories now that we've added 6 little ones to the 'entourage'? heh......

[happy]

baby announcement cards to be added to the "baby2go" etsy shop. :)
I'll do another mini-tutorial again on 'how-to' make these cards.... watch out for it!