Archive for the ‘xmas’ Category

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craft time

Friday, August 13th, 2010

kidspot-xmas-crafts

Wondered when on earth I’m going to post something crafty or house-related? I would be… I have been crafty though – up to my elbows in craftiness. I just can’t show you – yet. Because they’re Christmas crafts. Yes, in August (in fact, I started in July). I’ve been commissioned to do some Christmassy projects – decorations, gift ideas and kids craft for Kidspot.com.au and it’s safe to say I was quite chuffed about it too. I’ve always wanted to be paid for playing around with glue guns, paper and scalpels and now I am! Yay! I’m about to send the first lot off (yes, at 11.30pm) and fingers crossed the editor likes them. I won’t show you until Kidspot start rolling them out, but I’ll let you know when that is. Until then, here is a little sneak peek and a chance to show off my latest stampy friend: Mr Mushroom. Isn’t he cute? I picked him up in kikki.K while looking for something completely unrelated, which is always the way! But he’s red and white and in my books, that means Christmas so he joined the Christmas Craft Box. So, sorry to slightly rush your year forward by talking about CHRISTMAS, but that’s where my head is right now.

In other news…
- Baby appears to be growing pretty darn well. At 11 weeks I’ve managed to totally skip the “is she pregnant or fat” stage and am just looking pregnant. Especially after my second dinner. It’s also zapping some serious energy and patience out of me. I’ve never been so tired!
- I had quite a “mother of the year” moment last week when I dragged poor Zakky to IKEA for the day. He was a bit sniffly and whingey but begged me to go to “play with the buttons” (the touchscreen kids stations) and I obliged.  I should never have ignored my gut instinct to stay home because he was sooo not himself the whole time. And then spent the long drive home struggling to breathe and by the time I finally got in to the see the doctor at 6pm, the doctor told me quite panicky “this child needs to go to the hospital” then proceeded to RUN down the corridor to hook up the nebuliser to see if that helped before he called 000. Turned out he’d had a really bad asthma attack – all day, probably – unbeknownst to me. The guilt hit instantly and I nearly had to share the nebuliser’s “super special spaceman mask” with poor Zak. Luckily, that fixed it and after one sleepless night with Zak in our room (he had the best night’s sleep EVER), life got back to normal, albiet with yet another thing to add to the growing list of Things I Need To Take Everywhere With Zak which now includes: Epi-Pen, antihistamine and syringe, puffer and spacer. Poor pumpkin.
- I am determined to paint the hallway and finally do my lampshade makeover this weekend. I PROMISE to post it by mid next week. And as I say to Zak, “You can’t break a promise”…
- Layla’s bedroom tour is apparently one of the top 10 posts of all time on Ohdeedoh, according to their stats. That was happy news to receive on a really crappy sick Tuesday. You can check it out here.
- You have another week to enter the giveaway for the Better Homes and Gardens LIVE event in Sydney in October. All the details are here.

Have a fantabulous weekend. Thanks for popping in and I’ll see you next week!

x

Posted in all about me, craft, xmas | 11 Comments »

xmas giveaway: dandi fabric ornaments – CLOSED!

Tuesday, December 15th, 2009

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While you’re busy grabbing and wrapping gifts for everyone in your life, I have been wrapping for you! Do you feel special? I’m not sure who “you” is yet, but there are three of you. The lovely Dandi girls have given me three boxes of their gorgeous Dandi fabric ornaments to give away to Happy Home readers just in time for Christmas. You can hang on the tree, dangle in the window or lay about in a bowl – all is good, and they’re the kind of ornament you can leave out all year (and wrestle your children for as they play shops with them. Or that might just be me). Each set features an apple and a pear made from pretty Dandi fabrics and is valued at $19.90.

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All you have to do is leave me a comment on this post before 4pm on Thursday, December 17, and I’ll have Zak & Layla choose three winners. Make sure you check back after 8pm on Thursday to find out if you’re the winner and email me your address so I can get to the post office Friday. Good luck!
PS: apologies in advance to winners – there is no sticky tape in the house for wrapping, so masking tape it was…
PPS: Due to inability to beam things overseas in a nanosecond, I have to keep this one open to Australian residents only. Sorry!
PPS: Check out Dandi’s blog for great inspiration, projects, downloads and ideas for Christmas and beyond.

***COMMENTS NOW CLOSED***

Posted in giveaway, xmas | 106 Comments »

xmas project: personalised crockery + chrissy buys

Tuesday, December 8th, 2009

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I’m not big on Christmassy crockery. Oh, you’re not shocked are you? Well, I’m not. So normally I wouldn’t go near it, but then I discovered Porcelaine: a range of paints you can use on porcelain, ceramic and metal and thought I’d give subtle and stylish a go. You draw (or paint – there are various applications) on a dish, a plate, a cup, a platter, leave to dry for 24 hours, then pop it in the oven for 35 minutes and you have a brand new decorative piece with your own stamp on it.

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All you need is an oven-proof piece plate/bowl etc (this was a dollar from Woollies), the paint (around $8 from Spotlight/Lincraft or online here at Art Materials) and a motif. I just made mine up and painted it freehand, but I’m sure you could use a stencil. And so, the big (!) reveal…

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choc peanuts are going, going

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gone!

It’s meant to be a folkish snowflake. Or something. I practiced on the larger platter first, but it looks best on a round dish. And so, here is my token Christmas crockery! Perfect for nuts and lollies.

And in the top picture are all the pretty Christmassy things I bought from kikki.K today. I went in to get a binder in an attempt to organise my tax stuff and left with wrapping paper, cards, a stamp set and pencil cases for my school-bound neices. And no binder. But look how purdy it all is. Add to it kraft paper, red ribbon and some gift tags and that’s my Christmas wrap wrapped up! kikki-k’s online store has free shipping until Sunday for Australian customers who spend $100 or more – enter the code AUSHIP at the checkout. But if you fall in love with all the Swedish stationery goodies and live in, say, Sweden, no worries! They ship internationally.

How are you wrapping your pressies this year?

Posted in craft, project, xmas | 18 Comments »

yesterday…

Monday, December 7th, 2009

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…was Saint Nicholas’ Birthday, so in our household it was the day we could put up our tree and write our wish lists. And so Zak and Layla helped me decorate (and undecorate) the Christmas tree… 

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…Steve placed the angel on the top, which was cause for cheers and celebration…

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…Layla ate a LOT of candy canes – plastic and all…

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…we decided to allow Santa’s reindeer to come to our house – not Santa (Zak doesn’t like him) – but they have to land in our yard and phone Steve and I to go out and collect the presents and put them under the tree because “animals are not allowed inside”. So Zak and I wrote out his Christmas list and Layla scribbled something on hers and I had to write (with some prompting from Zak) what she wanted for Christmas…

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…then they put them in Zak’s tiny ugh boot under the tree and crossed their fingers they were good enough to be left some goodies and not a piece of coal or tree branch…

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…and they opened the number six box on our advent calendar and hung the little ornament on the tree…

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…and turns out the reindeers thought they’d been alright cause sure enough, we got a phone call to come and pick up some goodies to stick in their boots. was quite the job stuffing such a tiny shoe…

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…and then this morning they discovered their loot: Cotton On glow-in-the-dark pyjamas (awesome), a wii remote lolly dispenser (so they can stop playing with our real wii remote, but I don’t think it’ll work as the buttons don’t work) and some little figurines (because they have no little people to play with in their block buildings and use little cars as people!)

All round, a lovely St Nick’s Day! Looking forward to Christmas – you can read a little more about my christmas at lovely Shelley’s blog and check out what other bloggers did yesterday at Fat Mum Slim who set this Point & Shoot photo challenge.

Posted in family, kids, xmas | 16 Comments »

mini me buys

Sunday, December 6th, 2009

I was going to do a little Christmas gift guide, but, well I am still recovering from compiling the 100 kids things in the November Real Living so instead, I had to share all these cool pieces and their mini-mes  I think they’d make fun parent/child combo gifts. Well, I’d certainly be happy to receive any of them. Or spend money to buy them myself… which I just may have done/be planning to do with a fair few of them!

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Bus scrolls: Love, love a good bus scroll and aside from the original vintage ones, Printdolls do them best – and some with tongue planted in cheek, like with this All Stops to… international version, $880 - clearly not based on a real bus scroll. Unless it was a magical flying bus. So how much do I love this mini version for kids by My Sweet Prints based on their bedtime routine? Oh, that’d be a lot. Black, white and cool all over – you can purchase as-is or have it shuffled around to fit your child’s routine. Check out the Bedtime Bus Roll Poster, $US18, here.

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Zaishu stools: I’ve written about the baby Zaishu stool before – isn’t it gorgeous? It’s made with offcuts from its mumma (Baw Baw Daisy, $360, left), is a stool, a table, an eco-friendly piece of art. It’s also sold out on the Zaishu site, but the Baby Kimono (right) is available here from Biome for $160.

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Melamine spoons: Fun, bright and cheery melamine spoons will bring a rainbow of colour to the dining table. Get the French Bull adult-sized salad servers, $24.95 from Mummy’s Favourite, or the cute baby versions by Oobi Baby, $16.95 for four (also available in blue/green version), from Baby’s Got Style. 

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Beach towels: I went crazy in Country Road the other day. I tend to do that when they have one of their member promotions: spend $150, get $50 off. Or, in my case, go in planning to spend $150 and get $50 off, but actually spend $220 because you found some baby versions of their beautiful beach towels and then spend another $80 when the sales assistant tells you “if you spend another $80, you can get $100 off”. And so in went the sandals I’d been eyeing. Anyway, they have baby beach towels (well, not baby, but kids-sized). Mummy and daddy towels for $59.95; babies (Zak is getting this one, right, for Chrissy) are $39.95.

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Lunch bags: Cool kids carry cool lunch boxes/drink carriers – and that means not a beer logo in sight! Love these ones – Isoki do large ones for mums for baby bottles and snacks – this one is the Mali Munch Bag, $39.95 - while Oopsie have a few different styles for kids (although I’m craving the bird and scooter prints for myself) that hold up to six cans, for $29.95.

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Deck chairs: I’m banned from buying any more mini-sized chairs so my deck chair will remain childless, but if you’re not banned and you love the Cape Cod chairs as much as I do, check out the practically-free versions at Ezibuy: at the moment, the mini ones come in pink or blue and are on sale for just $39.50 (normally $79.94), while the adult-sized are $139.95.

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Sparkle shoes: But what I really, really want is a sparkly pair of Converse – for me and Layla. Not sure if the grown-up sequinned all-stars are available here in Oz, but know the teeny tiny glittery ones are. Am sure I can find on eBay! Seeing as I already dress us all alike (unintentionally!), doing it on purpose once in a while should be ok!

Posted in buys, xmas | 11 Comments »

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