Here are some shots of our presents in action.

Hannah, Sarah and Ellie are walking like Egyptians in their new belly dancing scarves. I also made the girls personalised mini birthday cakes.



Here is Susanna giving Alice a big welcome kiss. (Thanks for the photos Leah and John!)

John and Leah's little girl Susanna turned 1 in June. Happy Birthday Susie! For Susanna, I made Alice.

I used Wee Wonderfuls' Olive pattern to make Alice. It was one of the most challenging projects that I've sewn so far. Getting the legs in was the hardest part. You have to sew already stuffed legs into the body and there isn't a lot of room. I had to get advice on the pattern instructions from my sewing expert (thanks Nat!) and even then it took me 3 attempts to get it right(ish). On the 2nd attempt I sewed the legs in backwards (oops!).

Alice hung around in our living room for a while before I packaged her up and sent her to her new owner in Vancouver. She freaked out Andrew one night when he fell asleep on the couch and then awoke to find Alice staring down at him.

I'm happy with how she turned out even though she has some very obvious flaws. They just add to her charm (that's what I tell myself anyway). I'm looking forward to another go at the pattern. I might try the Archie pattern next.

Eliana Veitch turned five on Monday. Happy Birthday Ellie! In the time of uni stress, we also missed the twins' birthday. So, we invited ourselves over to dinner at the Veitch's the other night and we brought presents!

For the girls we picked up three Belly Dancing scarves while we were in Egypt. They have lots of coins on them that jingle as you move. The girls loved these! They spent the better part of the evening "belly dancing" around the living room. I also put together a CD with a few belly dancing songs so they had the appropriate theme music for their dancing. To go with the Egyptian theme, we included a book called The Egypt Game. I haven't read it but it's a Newbery Honor winner so I'm hoping it's good.

Instead of wrapping paper, I made drawstring bags to put the presents in. On each bag, I embroidered one of Allsorts' Pretty Maids. There is an Irish, a Japanese and a Spanish girl in traditional dress.

I did manage to fit in quite a bit of crafting during my uni break. Lots of the kiddies had birthdays so I had lots of birthday gifts to make. I'll be showing off what I made over the next few posts.

First up, a birthday present for Isaac who just turned three. I made a personalised towel cape for Isaac. I've got heaps of mileage out of this craft idea. This is a very easy gift to sew. (thanks LJC!) This time the towel cape also doubled up as wrapping paper (thanks for the suggestion Sarah).

My standard kid's present seems to include a t-shirt, a book and a toy. The t-shirt is from Threadless. My favourite t-shirt supplier also has a kids' range. (I have way too many Threadless t-shirts. I should really count them.) The book is City Dog, Country Frog by Mo Willems. A recommendation from book scout, a great blog about books for kids and teens. The toy is from Playmobil. I love Playmobil. All of this was wrapped in the towel cape and then put in a kid's envirosax bag.


Do you like our personalised Happy Birthday gift tags? They are from Moo.com. I used to make my birthday cards. I'm now so lazy I don't even write on a birthday card! But really, what three year old reads a birthday card? That's my excuse I'm sticking with it.


Happy 3^rd Birthday Isaac!

On Sunday, we headed into Terrigal to walk up the big hill and look out at the lookout. We had also planned to walk / scooter the along the Promenade (unfortunately it started to rain so we went home and played cards instead).

At the lookout, the boys discovered what fun it is to run full pelt down a hill. They did this several times dragging poor Richie up with them each time. The rest of the adults sat at the bottom of the hill and watched the fun (Annie did join them for one run).

Oscar ran like he was escaping from an angry mob carrying flaming torches. He ran down the hill, screaming with limbs flailing. Look at the photos - mouth open, look of terror on his face. It wasn't that he was scared doing it, he just found it more fun to pretend that he was. I think Oscar would make a great extra in a zombie film. He's certainly got "fleeing in terror" down pat.



More photos (slideshow) on Flickr.