Oh My God Japanese Kids Must Be Sooo Funky

If only I could read Japanese, I'd be spending a small fortune at this online store!!! Absolutely!!! I cannot get over at how utterly cute and quirky these clothes are. And the salt and pepper shakers at the end would of course be just for myself. Cute!!! CUTE!!! I swear, I could start crying that I can't own this stuff. How is it possible that this kind of stuff exists? I just want to squeal with cuteness.. EEEeeeeEEeeeeeeeeeEEeEEEee!!!!!!! Ok, it's out of my system now. Ah. But you see what I mean, don't you?

Crafting For Baby

I have been busy with lots of ideas, but not so busy with actually making things happen! I am generally busy everyday, lord knows where the time goes.

Mum has just gone home from staying with me for a couple of days. It's been fun as she is crafty and creative too like me, so we sometimes get together and do some girly sewing and stuff.
We went to a fabric shop and I chose some fabrics out so she can make squiggle nugget some clothes. It's so much fun choosing fabrics. There's so much cute stuff out there...


I chose the fabric for this little dress that Mum has already made up too. Cute, eh?


She's also been busy making some bibs with some cute little designs on them:


Her partner is now worried that all mending is going to be put aside because of all the sewing to do for the new grandkid! Well, one must get their priorities right!

So while Mum was up, she did a bit of crocheting (she always crochets in white cotton usually, I keep telling her I'm going to buy a stack of multi coloured threads for her to crochet up) & I embellished a little all-in-one suit for my future bubby. It's just a plain white organic cotton suit, and I hand stitched all the elements onto it.


Here's a close-up to show you some more detail:



So that's what I have been up to for the last few days. Entertaining my Mum, cooking food, (including banana cake, eggplant lasagne, and yummy mini sausage rolls- I'm crazy for pastry lately) & crafting.

Plus feeling quite tired. Seven extra kilos I discovered I am carrying around! I am 33 weeks preggers now. Getting bigger!

Mixed nuts Project

A little while ago I partook, along with a bunch of other talented artists, in an exhibition organised by Kirsty from Lollibchie. Our task was to take a blank nut shape and basically do whatever the heck we wanted to with it!
So I came up with a piece that I called "Forest Memories". There's a couple more pics of him (and his accompanying mini 2d artwork) that you can find through this link. You can also see all of the other contributing artists through that link too. There are some familiar names in there that you'd probably want to check out!
The idea of my character I made was that he had gone for a walk through the forest and brought some things back with him. He literally brought things back with him, but usually you bring something special back with you from visits to nature such as peacefulness, a refreshed feeling... you know, that sort of thing. And if you let these things travel back with you it can make you a happier person. His horse however was already his mate and was just accompanying him on his little expedition :)

I had fun making him. Makes me want to make some more softies!

Creative Weekend

First up, before I tell you about my weekend, I'd like to thank Ellen for nominating me for the "You like me, you really like me!" award. Awesome. I am so thrilled when people tell me that they love my blog, coz I'm such a sensitive person and wonder if my blog is really that interesting to others, so it really does make me happy when someone tells me they like it.

Thank you, Ellen :)

The rules are that I'm supposed to nominate 7 blogs that I love, but I'm going to wuss out on this bit. At the moment, the blog I really love reading is Sally's from Georgie Love coz she is such a good writer and makes life sound interesting and funny. I like her sense of humour and bits and pieces of herself remind me of myself. Is that ok? Can I just nominate one!?

Of course there are others that I really like and you can see a selection of those in my bloggy links section.

So, on to the weekend.

Saturday was gloriously sunny. Thank you Spring for finally coming, I have missed you. I have not however, missed the hay fever that goes along with it! Time to start using the netti pot!? Gross but it's worth a try. It's either that or carry around a semi trailer load of tissues with me everywhere. (Tell me supermarkets, why do you not stock recycled tissues anymore? Maybe time to venture back to hankies?)

Anywayz, I'm continuously being inspired by decorating efforts of others and am forever going to get around to decorating (in the limited way I can in a rental property) but am finally starting to do it. I had a busy creative weekend.


This first piccy is of our bedroom. Sorry for the blurriness of the picture, I am still trying to suss out the best ways of taking photos with our digital camera sometimes. The prints on the wall are of course Camilla's. The lamps were two daggy Ikea lamps that looked oh-so display home-ish, so I decided to paint them brown. An improvement, although I'm still not 100% sure I'm happy with them. I made the two big fluffy retro cushions on the bed, as Jimmy and I are getting old (30 going on 80) and like to sit up in bed and read, so we needed more pillows. The patchwork cushion & throw at the end of the bed were op shop finds, and the cute lil owl stuffie was made for me by one of my friends.


Here's a cushion I revamped. It used to be a skirt, with the embellishment on the front and the fur around the bottom hem. I have since grown out of the skirt but could never bring myself to get rid of it, so now it lives in the form of a cushion that I can see everyday, instead of tucked away in my wardrobe. I am fussy when it comes to making cushions too, they must have removable covers so as the covers can be washed easily. Unless, of course it's a baby cushion :) (The other two cushions were op shop finds.)



So sewing & decorating finished off with some knitting at night. Being pregnant and laying off the booze on weekends makes my weekends slightly nerdy as I'm knitting on Saturday night instead of partying it up. Healthier, and a different kind of fun.

We also hung a stack of pictures using these nifty little 3M removable tabs so we don't leave marks on the walls when we leave. I haven't taken a photo yet of the cluster of pics, as there's still more I want to do to that wall and area, so I will show you in due time. There's some stuff though in rental homes that are hard to cover up without major renovations, such a faux marble floor tiles (urgh). There's also floral curtains and daggy wall freezes to deal with (double urgh)! Though I'll try to do something about those things...

Hope you had as good a weekend as me (even if you were taking it easy- time needs to be put aside for that also!) See you soon :)

Feel Like Painting

This statement needs to be sung to the tune of "I feel like dancing" by The Scissor Sisters. Coz that's how it's repeating in my head right now.

So I have been feeling like painting. I started this one a couple of weeks ago and just finished it today. It's called "Thinking Space". It's mixed media on paper- pencil, paint, collage and hand stitched cotton thread.


Both her and her cat are just thinking. Isn't it nice to have some spare time to just sit and think? I think that's why I am enjoying knitting lately- coz I just get to sit there and my brain can drift onto other thoughts and arty inspirations. It's like driving. I used to get lots of ideas whilst driving. Caffeine is another one of those things that gives me ideas, but considering I'm pregnant at the moment and it messes with my head and sleep and gives me the jitters, I think it's best to avoid that drug at the moment.

And although I'm getting lots of ideas lately it's taking a lot of self discipline to refrain from starting new projects. I really MUST finish off some already started ones first. I have a goal to become one of those organised neat people (especially when it comes to my art). I'm aiming high, coz if you've seen my crafty areas, you know that they take over the whole house. If there's an empty table, I'll fill it with crap.

Well, it's time for me to go and make some polenta so that it can cool before I make something out of it for dinner. Mmmmmm polenta. We have been consuming lots less meat in this house which is good for the ol' environment, which is a bonus, but mainly because I have completely gone off mince meat and certain dry textures of meat.

See ya's soon :)