Massive giveway

In case you haven't seen it Sew, Mama Sew are hosting the biggest collection of give-aways you have ever seen, seriously there's 3 list of lovely bloggers who are giving stuff away.  There's loads of fabric, patterns, wool, clothes, quilts, mug rugs, even a donation to charity!  Most of them are willing to ship internationally so us Brits don't miss out.

Check it out and see what lovely things people are willing to give away!

Crafting B4 breakfast!

This morning Miss C woke up and said she wanted to wear her Christmas top, ok no problem there, except it was too small for her as it was not even last years top but the one bought for her 2 years ago!  Luckily for her she has a crafty mother.......

....out came the scissors and I cut out the appliques used on her old t-shirt....

 .....take a red top that fits ......

.... some Bondaweb and an iron and you have a new Christmas Top!

And she loves it!

btw she's standing in front of my Advent Calender.  

All done b4 breakfast, she wore it the rest of the day.  What do you think? Cute or what?

Advent Calender Sew Along #3 - Still going!

So I finished my Advent Calender with 3 ornaments on Nov 30 so I've been sewing like mad every evening to get the rest finished.  Here's what I've done so far........

One for each of the family, I was doing Matts while he was watching his football team Liverpool play and when I asked what colours he wanted it came out in their team colours, so I put a little LFC on it for him!!

It's both my girls birthdays in Dec so I made a parcel for Miss C for her birthday, still got Miss Ms to make but she's already told me to colours she wants!

This is my favourite bunch so far, I made the snowman last night and he is too cute.  I also like the holly as I feel it was well made.  Not so keen on the colours of the stocking, but it will do.  I've still got 8 left to do, one of them will be another parcel for Miss M and we all want a star on 24 so I need 6 more ideas.....  Think I'll have a trawl through the Homemade By You Flikr group.  I'm having trouble uploading my pictures to Flikr so I haven't been able to add mine, will try again!

Its Chriiiiiiiiiiiiiisssssssstttttttmmmmmmmaaaaaaasssssss!

The best Christmas song eva.... released the year I was born and I'v loved it every year!  It you weren't feeling Christmassy before you will once you hear this!

What's your favourite Christmas Song, what song do you love to hear this time of year, what song says Christmas to you!

Snakey Cakey

It was Miss C's 5th birthday this weekend and she had a large party at a play area with 25 friends and an animal theme so the cake had to reflect that and she chose a snake.  I Googled it (as any 21st Century mum does!) and found loads of cakes using bundt cakes as a basis but as I don't have one and didn't fancy buying one just for one party we had to come up with another plan.  Swiss Roll!  I bought 3 large chocolate swiss rolls (3ft of cake in case your're interested!) and husband and I proceeded to model with cake!  He cut the cake and laid it out to make a snake shape.  

(looks a bit like a t*rd!)

then we took about a ton of green buttercream icing

and covered, and covered, and covered

and smoothed and smoothed and smoothed

and then deoorated the back with Tooty Frooties and edible glitter, marshmallows for eyes and fangs and a fruit string cut to make a forked tongue.  

Not so scary snake!

The kids loved it and it went down a storm at the party. 

 Miss C did very well out of the party, here's her birthday haul wearing her birthday t-shirt!!!!

Iron On Transfers Extravaganza

So last Christmas my girls were lucky enough to have a visit from Father Christmas who was very generous and left lots of presents, so many in fact that they wouldn't fit into their stockings.  So I thought I would help the old guy out as I'm sure he will be equally generous this year! :)  I bought a pack of white pillowcases from Tesco for £2.50 and the using clip art and iron-on transfer paper I made personalised decorated santa sacks!

(please ignore my slipper, we're snowed in, slippers are compulsory!)

Here are some close-ups of some of the pictures......

My favourite!

Its also Miss C's 5th birthday this weekend and she is having a party at an indoor playcentre, (you know one of those hellish places with plastic balls!) for ALL her friends.  As she'll be running, climbing, sliding (screaming, hyperventilating) a pretty party dress isn't appropriate so I decided to make her something special.  Again using iron-on transfer paper, this time I designed the image myself (the butterfly fabric is by Ann Kelles Remix range).  Its pretty cool and really cheap, the t-shirt was from Amazon and only cost £3-4, much cheaper than the personalised t-shirt I bought a couple of year ago for £20 which faded on the first wash!!

She loves it!

I've been had a bit of an evening with iron-on transfer paper as I also made some robes for Miss M Harry Potter party in 2 weeks (yes I had both my kids in December, no that wasn't very good planning and no I wouldn't recommend it anyone.......) but I'll show you all that soon.  Keeping lots of it secret from her so can't take pictures at the moment but we made a Sorting Hat last night!!!!!  Dunno who's more excited her or me?!

Skin of my teeth!

So on the evening before 1 December I finished my Advent Calender!  Maybe I should have started it a bit earlier but now its done.  I only have 3 ornament so I shall be doing them as we carry on, both the girls birthdays are in December so I think I will make a present with their initial on for their respective birthdays.  We already have a calender which we put little chocolates and they alternate days so they get the chocolate on their birthday so this will run alongside that one and they can alternate the ornaments.  

Neat blanket stitch 

Lovely tree shape

sparkly!

My first set of ornaments!  Need to get moving!

I'm really pleased with how its come out and the kids love it.  I hope that it will give them great joy over the coming years and even to their own children.....  I've embroidered my name and date on the back so my girls can't pass it off as theirs!!!!

I shall be linking up with all these lovely link parties this week