Simple Lemon Cordial Labels

I decided my Lemon Cordial needed pretty labels (ok ok, I just wasn't tired and felt like doing something creative) I'm super happy with how these turned out especially since I haven't hauled out the craft supplies in longer than I can remember... It was as easy as printing labels in a cool font onto brown cardboard and then tearing them to size. Punched a hole in the top right corner and threaded a bit of raffia through to attach to the bottles. Viola! 

Simple Knitting Project

Ever since I can remember (and my mom can rememebr, in fact!), my Ouma has been busy with either a knitting or crochet project (or ten!)... Since she lives with us and is quite an influence in all of our lives, a little bit of her rubs off every once in a while! I have shared a few projects which she's had something to do with and this one was no excpetion. Wonderful as she is, my dear Ouma feels it necessary to forcefully offer advice when it comes to my handiwork... Nothing major this time around and I managed to gently get her to understand that I needed my own personal twist on this one!  

My inspiration came from a trip to the yarn shop to buy supplies for Ouma to make blankets - she makes about 40 knee rugs for retirement homes every year which means a few trips to various wool shops! :-)

I think it turned out quite gorgeous!

I found the most divine cotton knitting yarn and couldn't resist buying enough for a few projects! My motivation for making a baby jersey is nothing exciting I'm afraid... It's just that making a jersey for a big person takes so darn long and I'm prone to making mistakes along the way - I figured a baby was less likely to notice the errors than an adult would and they certainly wouldn't be in a position to put my jersey in the back of a cupboard to be forgotten! I searched online for a pattern I liked and this was the second one I tackled... The first one is about 50% complete but I decided I didn't really like the shape of the jersey so I started on option 2. I will finish the other one now that this one is done and post pictures shortly! This jersey is called the "bellflower baby hoodie" and is available free on Lion Yarn's website which you need to sign up to gain access. I didn't use Lion yarn but the cotton is double knitting. I used size 3.5 needles for the ribbing and size 4mm for the rest.    

How cute is this hood?! I'm in love!

The buttons came from billabong pants and shorts I've bought through the years - I thought they added a little character!

Fun at School

Mom and little boet volunteer at a little school on a Friday (which means I get roped in to do cutting, designing, shopping, etc on a Thursday afternoon! and taken along whenever I'm free). It has been great fun coming up with educational art or craft projects for the kids. We're dealing with kids who come from severely disadvantaged backgrounds most of whom have alcohol foetal syndrome to contend with which makes most of the crafty stuff we've done at home way too difficult.

We've made pompoms which they loved but unfortunately there is no real use for a pompom other than the skills learned making it... The kids also get distracted really quickly which means getting them to finish anything is a real challenge!

We wracked our brains for days wondering what we could make with these precious little people that would be both beautiful and functional this is the project we came up with:

Mosaic Mirrors:


We had a piece of supawood cut into pieces 30cm X 20cm and bought ready cut mirror tiles which we stuck onto the boards using double sided tape. Next we went to Pudlo Tiles in Salt River and dug around in the scratch patch (which we've decided we'll take the kids along to do themselves as an outing). The kids were given carte blanche to choose their colours, designs and tile sizes - some of them were very systematic and others were just interested in filling the available space with little tiles :-)

We helped them stick the tiles down using a quick set tile adhesive (we finished the ones that they struggled with at home so everyone was on the same page by the next lesson...). The final touch was by far the most messy and the most fun: grouting! The pictures below are of the children's faces in their completed mirrors... Some of them have never seen themselves in a mirror before which was heart breaking. Some reacted with joy and smiles whilst others were absolutely terrified... it took much coaxing to get them to look at themselves. Some of them were brave enough to pull faces and identify their noses, teeth, etc... I think the mirrors are quite stunning! We're adding hanging paraphernalia and sending them home next week :-) We've cleaned off the excess grout so they can see their faces clearly in their pretty mirrors...

 

Something Pretty

 

Even though the weather was summery and warm, I felt the need to make something beautiful inside today... I collected a bunch of tins, found some remnants of gorgeous fabric and set about making pencil holders / desk organisers.

Simple enough - I tried double sided tape and contact adhesive to stick the fabric strips onto the tins but neither worked all that well: the double sided tape came undone within a couple of hours whilst the contact adhesive went straight through the fabric and didn't look all that great. Time to take out the big guns! Enter the amazing glue gun... I'm sure it's already saved lives! Word of caution though is that the glue is HOT, very hot and if you get it on your fingers it sticks and continues to burn... but once I got that out of the way it was great fun!

Here are the results:

The makings of a fun afternoon

I covered all of the tins in fabric first

Then added embellishments and ribbons for a little sparkle!

So chuffed with the lovely results :-)

Quilting Project

Growing up going to a Waldorf School and having a grandmother who owned a boutique and made everything beautiful you can imagine has inevitably resulted in my becoming infected with the hand-work bug! I remember tackling a hexagonal quilting project with Ouma a a little girl but I don't remember much about it and never saw a finished project (I think Ouma was protecting me against major disappointment!!!)

I recently saw the most divine quilt in a home magazine... I've seen a few in some stores too but lets just say that my credit card would melt beyond recognition even after a great month :-) Got me thinking and inspired though... I headed out the next morning into retail bliss - a fabric shop in Salt River and bought the most gorgeous coloured Taffeta, some crushed and some normal.

Here's where I'm at so far:

Each piece of fabric was ironed and pinned to a paper template before being hand stitches into rows. You'll never believe how many pins it took to make a king sized quilt! (I headed back to the haberdashery store at least 4 times to restock and I was never stingy!)

Once the blocks were all sewn together I cut a piece of backing (lining) and batting (the stuffing part). Next task is to sew the three layers together and then sew around each block. The outside edges can be done on my machine but the quilt is too big to all fit through the machine... I guess it'll stay truly hand-made :-)