One Day Monday

Hope you all had a great weekend. Mine was filled with a date night, a girly night and a hen party! 


I know, I know I'm a social butterfly. But seriously my social life is more like buses. Nothing, and then three come along at once! Needless to say I'm pretty tired, not used to partying like a teenager! And for some reason Ethan and Izzy don't seem to want to wake up any later than 6am...so I have found myself on the sofa surrounded by all the contents of my living room and two happy kids wondering how 'resting my eyes' has turned into twenty minutes knocked out. 


Managed to get a lot of projects finished earlier this week though, more on them later...

I found this simple but beautiful dress tutorial over at Sweet Verbena. Plus the tutorial shows how to do it with or without trim on the bottom (which makes it even simpler for me!). 

I have actually already started this necklace for my sister-in-law. I love that it's peas in a pod, and you can do however many 'peas' there are in the person's family. Positively splendid does a fantastic tutorial on how to make your own with craft wire and beads. 

And for fun, I found these gorgeous ways to wrap presents with brown paper and scraps. Found here. I love how unique you can make everyone's gifts.

Feel free to grab me button if you were featured.

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New Tutorials Page

I've tried to make the Tutorials page as user friendly as possible, and have finally finished! 


I have quite limited IT knowledge so it has taken me a while to figure out how to do this! But I'd love you to go check it out and tell me what you think. (If you're interested in a post on how to do it let me know that too, maybe I can do a tutorial... ;) )


Here's a preview:

Getting my organise on!

So I decided to address the issue that has become 'the craft desk'. Note that I didn't say 'my'. I am jealous of those of you that can say that. Although it does mean I have someone else I can blame for this:

Yes it may be a real health and safety issue...

I just thought I'd start with the drawer and then it just spiraled from there.

So i started by clearing out the drawer.

And you can't say housewives don't get compensated for their work...

Yes that's five whole pence!

Then I got a cutlery organiser from Ikea (is there any other way to organise?!), and popped it in nice and clean.

And while I was filling it discovered that I have more foam pads than anyone humanly needs.

I may have found a sale where they were 10p each! Booyah!

Then took some plain file boxes my mother in law had saved from work.

Note that I had to put scrapbook paper on top of them so you could see where they were. They are THAT good at camouflaging with my work top. Useful for when we have burglars who want to steal my top secret craft ideas. But not-so-pretty. So... 

I may love them a little too much...in fact my sister questioned whether I love them more than my kids. (That was an awkward silence...)

I'm so pleased with the end result (apart from the neglect of a fore mentioned children whilst doing this).

Yes that's a rather classy looking Morrisons bag. Filled with cut up ties (pretty sure my husband is aware of this bag...). Okay I'll finish with a prettier picture.

And of course another of the boxes I love so much...

Before                                 After          

And for the record Flash are not sponsoring this post. That's what I was supposed to be using instead of hot gluing paper onto files. 

Learning letters

Today one of the most horrible things happened to me. I was laid on my bed after having a tickle fight with Izzy, just shutting my eyes for a moment. Ah...peace. 


Then out of no where Izzy mouth was over my nose and before I could react she blew a raspberry on and up my nose.


I can just see your reaction now...

Yes that was my reaction too. It was an awful mixture of somewhere between swimming pool water up your nose and dog slaver all over your face. (Yes I did just compare my daughter to a dog...)

See the Beebs even feels my pain. Anyway now that I've suitably grossed you all out...

A few weeks ago I came across Preschool Alphabet. A blog that pretty much describes itself in the title! I had never thought of introducing letters yet with Izzy, and I'm not sure why as we've started with numbers.


Lindsay shows you how to really make learning fun and as a bonus you get some pretty artwork! 

She recommends when starting with a letter to introduce its shape first and then to stick things to it that begin with that letter (we used star stickers). We also then drew pictures on the other side beginning with 's'.

She drew a slug by herself, and while I was putting Ethan down for his nap she grabbed a stencil and traced the sun shape! I was beyond proud!

Ethan enjoyed doing squiggles too, and especially holding the pen while I wrote his name or drew pictures.

I'm so glad I found her blog. She has a ton of ideas for each letter, enough to take up a week. I'm going to start properly in September when she begins preschool properly.

One Day Monday

So I have something I'd like to share before I get to some great projects. Every year our church has an athletics day where six of the churches in our area all get together and compete at field and track events. 

Yes we are all that fit.

Anyway, the last few years I've either been pregnant or recovering from having a baby...so when I have run I've not been very good. I did love running and was in the top few in my school for long distance, but recently...not so much. 

  

However a few months ago I was talking to my younger brother and telling him that I wanted to run well this year but wasn't sure whether to go for the 1500m or try for the 5000m. And he said something like "No offence but I think you should go with the 1500m, I'm not sure you could keep up with people like me in the 5k." 

Well I know he was just being honest.

But I went right ahead and worked my butt off (literally a bit too!) to make sure I could do that 5k...

Which I did yesterday!

No photos! (My face was pretty red! Not unlike the above photo.) But I ran the whole way. Came second (there was just two of us girls, but it still counts!). Then did a 100m relay, and then a 400m relay. 

Yes I'm crazy. And not doing much walking today!

Here's some much less self destructive things to do with your time.

Such a cute dress! And the best bit? Sadie from Craftiness is not Optional included a free tutorial and pattern! Gotta love a freebie.

What an amazing idea! Julie, guest posting at Skip to my Lou shared how she turned a little table from Ikea (think about £5), into a Lego table for her son. Brilliant! Plus my husband would actually get excited if I did this one!

This is art I could totally do! Plus is would fit in perfectly with the theme of this weeks Make it by Monday challenge...Nerissa and Peter from The New Domestic do a great how to and make it look so easy!

Enjoy your week!

Napkin holders

I found this great tutorial for using up scrap or spare fabric and knew they'd make a great present for someone (who shall remain secret till Christmas).

The tutorial is really easy to follow, so just click over there to see how it's done!

The only change I made was using rolled flowers instead of buttons, simply because I was using what I had on hand, and I didn't have enough buttons.

Plus as an added bonus, they double up as cute wrist cuffs!

Sharing here at the 'Bloggers' Dinner Party'.

Shoe refashion

Jill from Made it on Monday started up a challenge each week: 'Make it by Monday', where she sets a theme and you can post your idea on that theme. Last week was outdoor games and activities and I linked up the bean bags I made. This week I decided to pretty up some plain pumps I have.

I like them but they show a little too much toe cleavage... :)

So I made some flowers (first time making some like this but they were really easy!), I think they're called folded flowers or something? But you just use nine circles, one as your base and the others in quarters and hot glue around and finish with a button.

So I got to this point and Izzy noticed I was about to glue them onto my shoes. She did not agree with that and promptly retrieved some of her own for the flowers, which incidently she did all the folding for.

So I glued the flowers onto a grip.

Yes they're pretty massive on her feet!

And now I have flowers for any shoes and even for hair if I don't mind cheesy hair...

And a before...

And another after:

I love having a theme! I've been too nervous for something like this before but this challenge just pushed me to go for it. 

One Day Monday

I have found some amazing things this week. Mainly because my husband let me browse Pintrest for an hour or so while he looked after the kids. Yes he is amazing.

I promise he's not kidnapping her and she was enjoying it!

I'll start with a quote I found to motivate me to try some of these things...

Found here.

Oh my goodness! These look so yummy! And people would bite into them without even knowing what deliciousness awaited them. Posted at Inside BruCrew Life.

How amazing does this look? And it's all from paper! The tutorial is at Craftastical.

This tutorial is from Kiboomu and they're make-it-yourself bath crayons! They look quite easy too. My kids would go crazy for these!

(here)

And finally I think these name cards are so simple and beautiful. Anyone have a butterfly punch?

I would love to know what you are loving this week and as always if you've stumbled across any good ideas (especially ones I can use as gifts!). 

rhiannon.parker2904@gmail.com