September Round Up

Well, he's gone back to work at last!  Much as I love him, it is so peaceful to have the house back to myself!

I think we are at the end of all the birthdays at last.  Mother-in-law's birthday is today and now it is just our anniversary on Saturday.  No money left, so I reckon it will have to be a lemon meringue pie again, like Valentines Day last year!

After the marathon bag making session for Scary, I also managed to make a bag for Starfish for her birthday.

The bag was made from a wonderful tutorial found here on Sew4Home which is a site I have found recently and am really impressed with.  Of course, I couldn't follow it exactly, I always have to tweak it a little bit (just like with recipes)!

I was so impressed with it, that I made another one for mother-in-law,

but as you can see, I didn't get around to taking a picture of it finished and The Runner had whipped it away and posted it before I thought about it!  I hope you can see the general gist of it though.  I made the handle out of the floral material on the bottom of the bag and had two more grey buttons and two blue beads for the closing at the top.  The material on the right is the lining, with an internal pocket made out of the floral fabric and a little bit of ribbon along the seam line (mainly because I messed up sewing a straight line!  I've always said that creativity is mainly about hiding your mistakes!)

Poor Marathon Runner didn't get anything handmade (except his cake!).  Well, I did make him a new pair of pants recently!  What more does he want?

Well, he is Irish (he eats a lot of potatoes)!!

Happy Birthday Starfish and Runner

It's definitely birthday season here!

Review of Birthday Goodies

Just a few lovelies to show you from Scary's birthday presents.

Shall I start with the boring card?

A couple of little tea light holders.

I did try and get her a decorative bird cage but they were all too expensive for my pocket!

A pretty photo frame in her favourite colours.  Cheap and cheerful from Store 21.

A cutie umbrella, cos you know what English weather is like!

Scary loves peacocks so she had several things along those lines; including a notebook and a hair clip.

A hair band and tie that I crocheted in her current fave colour.

A cute little box and necklace from a charity shop.

Another little sweet box from another charity shop (good job she doesn't mind) to fit in with existing pots.

And I managed to fill it with charity shop and boot sale finds, running with the butterfly theme.

Yes, she did get a bit of money as well!  Along with a guitar; no picture, sorry.

And The Runner gets in on the making act as well.  He made this necklace for her.

Many other bits and pieces, too numerous to photograph, but these were my favourites, along with The Bag, of course, which seemed to take so long to make.

No, not that one!  The real sized one!

Oh, I almost forgot the slippers I bought for her (she suffers with cold feet, poor baby).

And Starfish gave her something she's been wanting with a passion for some time.

Shame he's not real!  Starfish and I went into the shop and said "we want Matt Smith please".  "Oh yes", the lady said.  "We've got one out the back."  Imagine our surprise if she'd come back with a real one! 

Well, if you've made it this far, I think you deserve a slice of cake!

Happy Birthday Scary

Here is The Bag, finished at last!

Miniature

In between making ready for the students today, I have been trying to carry on with my present for Scary.  It is a bag that consists of eight panels and each panel is different.  I am using old sheets, clothes and any odd bits and pieces that I have lying around.

It's coming on but it's taking rather longer than I anticipated.

I have tried some free embroidery (I think this is what you call it) for the first time and I'm reasonably pleased with the result.

I wasn't sure how the bag went together.  I kept reading the instructions and I couldn't visualise it.

So I thought perhaps I needed to make a little practice one before I started putting the big one together.

Does anyone have a Barbie that needs a handbag?

Start of Birthday Celebrations

We started the birthday celebrations today (after I'd tidied up from yesterday of course).  A bit early as the first birthday isn't until 3rd September but we do like to spread it out.

It started with Pizza Hut (the girls' favourite, but not necessarily mine).  I got into trouble because I had pasta!  I don't think men understand why you would go somewhere you don't especially like, just because everyone else likes it!  As usual, we couldn't get through the meal without Scary and the Runner having a highbrow scientific discussion/argument/heated debate.  Tonight it was the possibility of travelling at the speed of light and some newly discovered planet and it's composition.  May I remind you that this is in Pizza Hut.  Not sure what the next table thought about our conversation but they were remarkably quiet!  At least I managed to surreptitiously tip the waitress whilst Scary distracted the Runner by asking him about thermo dynamics.

Then we went to see the Rise of the Planet of the Apes.  Again, not what I would have chosen, but it's only me that fancies Daniel Craig in this house.  It wasn't too bad, actually.  I thought it was going to be dreadful and took my MP3 just in case I couldn't stand it, but it was very well made and a reasonable story.  Scary spent most of the time crying about how they treated the chimps though.

Oh well, back to the grindstone tomorrow.  More students arriving tomorrow night and not a bathroom cleaned, nor any beds ready!

For Tea Lovers

OK, I'm a Coffee Person really but Scary and Weird God-Daughter love their tea and quite often try some of the fruit ones.  I saw a lovely idea on Pinterest a while ago and saved the link.  Well, by the time I got to actually doing it, something had gone wrong with the link so I made up my own version of a 'tea wreath'.

In the meantime, I have found it again and it can be found here on Kojo Designs, which at first sight seems to contain some brilliant inspiration and links.  Just on the first page, I think I have found three things that I want to have a go at!

So I hope that I have made it clear that this is really just my 'take' on Kojo Designs' fabulous idea.  I have done a couple of things slightly differently, simply because I couldn't find their tutorial when I was doing it, making use of the things that I had to hand and using my own ideas.

It all started with a pizza!  Surely that silly plastic base is useful for something, I thought; so I washed it and tucked it away for further cogitation.  It seemed to me that it was about the right size for the wreath so I used that instead of cutting out cardboard.

I also used some spotty paper, plastic pegs, bit of ribbon, glue and of course, the tea bags.

I cut out the centre of the pizza base thingy, making the diameter of the doughnut roughly the same as the length of the pegs (does that make sense?).  The small circle I marked into 18 (because I was using 18 pegs) which means a line every 20° - easy enough to mark out as long as one of your children hasn't stolen your protractor!  Hmmm.  I used this later.  The marked circle, that is, not the protractor.  (I wasted half an hour looking for said protractor.)  I also cut out the paper, making it approximately 1cm larger than the doughnut.

Using a glue stick I stuck the paper to the pizza plastic,

overlapping and snipping it on the back.

Adding to the original design, I decided to put a little teapot in the centre.  I found a picture of a pretty teapot
on the internet and, with some swearing, managed to print it out along with a mirror image and then stuck them together with a small length of invisible thread between them.  They were a bit of a pain to cut out but in the end I found a craft knife that was vaguely sharp.  I glued the other end of the invisible thread to the back of the doughnut, along with the two ends of the ribbon to be used for hanging it.

Then I cut out another ring which was exactly the same size as the doughnut (we are talking ring doughnut here, by the way, not cream ones!) and used it to sandwich the ribbon and thread, and cover the back of the wreath.

Now I used the middle bit with the lines on to position the pegs.  I think, on reflection, that the pegs fitted quite well and I could have judged it by eye but I didn't know that in the beginning and it certainly helped me with lining up the angle of the pegs.

I did use a glue gun (for the first time ever) to stick the pegs onto the paper.

Ta-da!  One birthday present for Weird God-Daughter made!

I think it would probably look really nice with more colourful tea packaging but I had to go with the finest Tesco could offer.

Phew, can I go to bed now?

Pinch, Punch.

OK, I think I'm back.  Sort of.  Maybe.  Well, I'll try!  Family traumas and Prozac allowing!

Pinch, punch, first of the month and all that.  Where did the summer go?  I've looked through my photos and have tried to pick out all the good memories from the last few months but have been hampered by the fact that my laptop died on me and, isn't it always the way, there were two months worth of photos on there that I didn't back up!!!  Grrrrr!

Wey hey, Mad One's favourite band came to play locally:

Mad One is now to be known as Starfish because she's not quite as mad as she was!

There have been quite a few of these:

and a little bit of this:

(well, I watched and took the photos and swatted wasps with my crochet magazine!)

After many years of trying, I have eventually managed to grow a hollyhock that flowered, even if it was red when it was supposed to be purple!

 And my sunflowers were the best I've ever grown.

We have had birthday season (September); Scary on 3rd, Starfish on 9th (that's what comes from getting drunk at Christmas) and the Runner on 13th. 

Starfish is now 13 and (scarily) Scary is 15.  The tall boyfriend is still hanging on but only just.  One day it's on, the next off.  You know how it is.  There are others lining up, just in case! 

Do you like the new dress?

Marathon Runner is not coping very well with daughter in grown-up mode.  You've only got to wave a thong at him and he's running for cover!  The other day I was moaning about how long she was taking in the shower.  I casually mentioned that there are only so many things you can shave, and he had his fingers in his ears going 'la la la'.

Well, the weather is miserable here today; wind and rain blowing all my beautiful autumn leaves off my trees and plants before I've had chance to photograph them!  I shall be lighting the fire tonight and I think we will be eating our homity pie in front of it.  I lit my first candle last night and I've stocked up on drinking chocolate and suet.  Autumn is here, the year's growing older.

Soon it will be Halloween.  Shall we have a party just for the children or maybe include some adults this year?  Decisions, decisions.

I think Scary has bought what she wants to wear:-