Kerry....

I stumbled upon a blog tonight - I was reading some archived posts and adding the blog to my reading list when I realised something terrible had happened to the blogger.  On reading further into it I saw her husband was posting on her behalf while she recovers in hospital.  His most recent post was heartbreaking with photos of his wife before she suffered a brain haemorrhage with "I can't help falling in love with you" by Elvis playing along.  It made me cry it was beautiful.

Liska organised this blog hop to show Kerry how much we are all hoping she gets better soon and thinking about her family.  I don't know Kerry and had never heard of her until tonight but I can't stop thinking about her and her family now.  I wish you all the very best for the future Kerry and everyone who knows her.

(the blog hop does not work on this post so please go to Liska's page to see the complete blog hop list)

Please get better soon

xxx


Update 24/12/12 Tragically I am updating this after learning today that multiple mummy Kerry died on the 14th December.  Such terrible awful news my heart breaks for her family.  xxx

Baby present

This week my friend from work had her teeny tiny little baby boy.  He was born really quickly almost in the car park of the hospital 3 weeks early and he is tiny!!!  I made the new baby a little taggie I found here.

His name is Charlie and I did aim for a letter C but as usual me and sewing don't always do well.

I cut out my letter C from a pillowcase I found on sale in the summer and knew I could do something with the funky fabric.   The guide I pinned above was brilliant but I just can't seem to follow instructions - my first attempt I had the ribbons pinned the wrong way and when I sewed it all together only the ends of the ribbons were on show and they were all frayed! :o What a dork.  I picked out all the ribbons and started again with two new pieces of fabric....  This time I pinned the ribbon on the right way and then used my sewing machine to sew the right sides together before turning inside out.  I had a huge selection of ribbon to choose from - I think I have a ribbon obsession!!!  This isn't even all of it and I ordered more today!!  What is wrong with me??? :D

This time my letter C was squint...but I was much happier with it.  It didn't seem very thick - the first time I stitched it I made the back with thicker fabric but I didn't have enough the second time round so I just stuck with the same pillowcase fabric for the back.  It was really floppy once I sewed it so I decided it needed some stuffing.  I did this then attempted to top-stitch   with my sewing machine.  Yet again my sewing machine failed me in my time of need - or was it my lack of knowledge of sewing once again???  Either way I could not get my machine to sew this together and some of the ribbons were slightly loose as well as the hole I had left for turning it inside out being open still so I had to hand sew round the edges as neatly as I could.  I don't think it is too bad and I made sure each ribbon was secure for giving to a little baby.  I love the soft white and red ribbons the best because they feel like velour.  Finlay loves labels even now and he would have loved something like this when he was little.  It may be more moon shaped than C shaped but who needs to know? :)

I also gave Charlie a decorative  letter C for his room 

    And wrapped them both together in brown paper.

    And sewed on a little blue teddy button on the ribbon

    And of course his big brother needed a letter too

                                    B for Brendan

Which I also wrapped up in brown paper with a book for big bro to read when his mummy and daddy are busy with their new arrival

      For Brendan I attached a little fudge sweety for him - I didn't think he would appreciate a button :)


Then I made some labels for the boys from luggage labels and I stenciled their names on

                                           So simple but I loved how their presents turned out :)

I got to go and see baby Charlie and give his mummy his gift and I got a lovely cuddle from him.  He is so small - my babies were never that small and my nephews certainly weren't!  We have big babies in our family so 6lb 3oz was positively minute.  My girl was 9lb for goodness sake!!  And record breaker Roman was 10lb 10oz!!  Jeez-oh...He was ginormous compared to all the other little babies - what a star my sister is pushing that hunk of chunk out all by herself!   A natural birth for such a big boy - she should surely be in a record book somewhere?!?!  I love a good birth story and natural births are my favourite kind of story - do any of you have any good birth stories for me??

Like this?  More decorating with brown paper here :)

Eliza's Quiet Book/Busy Book

I finished my quiet book for Eliza!!

After the palaver of learning to use a sewing machine I was on my way to making my quiet book pages:)

The "E" pops on and off

Little pocket on the inside cover for keeping bits and pieces

I will show you in the same order as the book but this was not the way I actually made the pages.  I did the simple ones first because I was scared of my more complicated ideas:) 

Little house on a hill with a tiny bell to ring

Open the door and take your shoes off

Inside the house are Finlay and Eliza 

I did mean to go back and give the little people faces but I only finished the book the NIGHT before leaving for our holiday to Florida so some things had to be missed out :)  The figures are attached with velcro and
                                             can be taken out of the house and moved around.  

Eliza's bedroom 

The cupboard doors open and the chest of drawers is a pocket for storing clothes.  The little curtains can also be opened and the little doll Eliza can go for a sleep under the covers.  There is also space under the
                                                   bed for any secrets she wants to hide there.

Next is the weather chart and flowers page (from this pin and this pin)

The bee button moves up and down to feed from the flower

The flowers can all be unbuttoned and colour matched to their button.

I hand sewed this page with the little felt pockets for
all the weather symbols to go into

 The weather can then be velcro-ed to the flowers page

Next page is the kitchen.  

Lots of this is machine sewn on.  All the cupboards open as storage for cups and plates and the drawers under the mixer is a little pocket to keep more little items.

The bowl from the mixer can be removed as inspired by this pin and Eliza can mix cookies and cupcakes for going into her oven

The toast comes out of the toaster and the washing machine opens so all the little outfits can be washed.  The oven opens for trays of cookies and cakes to be baked.

  

The fruit in the bowl can also be removed for the little dolls to get their 5-a-day

The fridge opens and there are little pockets inside and the milk velcroes to the door.  There are also little magnets inside and I plan to make fridge magnets to stick on the door but I don't want to make these too little that they could be swallowed.  I also need to make more food for the fridge - so far mummy needs to do a big shop she only has milk and tomatoes!


Next we head outside to the garden

 The shed door opens and the tools stay in here - a spade and a fork.  The wheelbarrow comes off and fits some vegetables inside..  There is 1 corn on the cob, 2 tatties, 3 leeks, 4 onions and 5 carrots to help Eliza learn to count when she is planting them or pulling them

Now it's time to hang that wet washing out...

  In the spring with new green leaves on the trees...

In the summer with flowers on the trees...








In autumn with orange leaves falling from the trees...












And in the winter with the snow on the trees.

All of the little flowers and leaves stay in the clouds

These ideas came from this pin and this pin

Next comes the alphabet page..

 Under each letter is a button beginning with that letter.
Some dodgy ones like "N" for numbers???  I couldn't find an N :(

Or a U/V/X/Y or Z :(:( Still on the hunt...

And finally the numbers page...

 Under each number are buttons corresponding to the number...

 8 little mice, 9 teddies and 10 flowers...

5 happy faces, 6 doggies and 7 pairs of shoes...

I did make a few little outfits for the little Eliza and here are some for her big brother Finlay...

 Spiderman

 Superman - his FAVOURITE  hero

 Batman

 Iron Man

 Captain America

Super Mario

So I finished this the night before we flew to Florida - it took a good few months and lots of patience mainly with my sewing machine.  Eliza loves the book but I was not ready for her to lose all the tiny pieces on the plane!  I was panicked every time she played with it.  Really the bits are too small for her she is only 2 and she can't do all the parts but she will grow into it.  Now we are home I let her play with it without supervising as closely as I did on holiday!  

Here she is putting little Eliza to bed before she gets put to her own bed

Finlay is jealous of his little sister's book but it is far too babyish for my big boy so I have some plans in the making for a big boy busy book.  I don't think I would do it the same way though.  This book is really thick with the batting in between each page and my sewing machine skills were really not up to that!  Don't look too closely at the pages they are really dodgy.  My thread broke every 5 minutes and now my machine is not working at all so a lot of the book was finished by hand after all.  So Finlay's book is going to have felt pages with no batting in between.  Hopefully that should mean it will be less work and much less stress!  I will keep you posted if I ever finish it but I have now got a blog to write as well as pins to pin and Christmas crafts to complete so that could be a while yet :) 

Thanks for reading...anyone else made a quiet book or busy book?  Mine doesn't really keep Eliza quiet but it does keep her busy!  And it keeps me busy collecting all the tiny pieces once she has finished with it :)