iPhone Snapshots - November 30

Anyone remember having these as a kid?

There's just something about the texture and flavour of these jelly cups that I love :)

Neckie the giraffe

Now my previous post about soft fill was probably a bit mysterious, but all for a good reason. I was making a surprise for Frannie for her birthday! Seeing as she reads this blog regularly I didn't want to give the game away.

I had already gotten her a copy of the super awesome Zakka Sewing craft book but if time permitted I was going to try to make up a Mrs Perkins giraffe for her since I really didn't want her stealing mine.

It was a bit of a mad rush - and gee those horns always get me - but I made it!

Girl or boy? Hmmm...
I wasn't sure if the giraffe was going to be a boy or a girl so I picked fairly neutral colours - beige with a light white pattern for the body and a very pale turquoise for the feet and horns.

Matchy-matchy
Can you see a bit of a colour theme happening with the wrapping paper? I've never felt quite so coordinated ;)

I added a bit of the matching ribbon around the giraffe neck (gifts should be at least partially wrapped don't you think? heehee) and we were ready to go.

After a rather lovely meal at Maze (thanks again Frannie!) the gifts were opened.

Hurrah! New friends!
Coined with the apt name of Neckie, it was decided that she was a female giraffe. Although it wasn't my intention, Ray pointed out that Neckie was really channelling Tiffany & Co, what with her (almost) duck egg blue ribbon and mane colouring.

What can I say? The girl has high standards ;)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY FRANNIE! x

***EDIT - click here if you want to see how Neckie is settling in to her new home***

Pretty paper

I love pretty wrapping paper. It can seem like such a waste though when it ends up getting crushed, crinkled and ripped up, especially with some of the prices being charged these days. I know I'd much rather put my pennies towards the gift itself rather than the package it comes in!

Cue a rubber stamp, an inkpad and a roll of white paper.

I loooove the colour of the ink
Just repeat as you see fit and *stampstampstamp*, a sheet of pretty wrapping paper!

Totally stuffed

Look at this lovely lot of soft fill in my hand.


It looks so fluffy and soft and cushy and almost like a heap of frothy light bubbles, glistening in the light.

Well it's NOT. Do you know how much of this you need to actually stuff anything?? That amount you see there looking oh-so-innocent would probably be able to stuff something smaller than those little pellets with a toy you get in a Kinder Surprise. Just.

Stuffing anything larger than the aforementioned pellet takes a surprising amount of time and energy.

I now have very sore fingers. Stupid soft fill.

Mario Love

When I was growing up, we were never allowed to have any gaming consoles in the house. A computer yes, but not any Sega/Nintendo/Atari entertainment. I don't think we were any worse off for it, but to this day I kind of suck at console type games.

I had a childhood friend whose house I would visit when I was younger and pretty much force to drag the Nintendo (NES) out and play Super Mario. I'd get blitzed every time seeing as she got the play it every day, but I didn't care. The game was so much fun!

These days I can probably afford a plethora of gaming consoles, but find they aren't much fun if you don't have anyone to play them with. Plus I have tendency to like cutesy games that boys just don't really want to play all that much, so I haven't really gone all out with buying them. My Nintendo DS however, has been a fantastic purchase. Hours of entertainment was had when I was living and travelling around Europe - it helped waiting at airports, sitting on trains and generally filling in boring waiting bits that happen when one travels. And yes, my favourite game was Super Mario.

Variations on the game such as Mario Kart and Super Paper Mario haven't been bad either, although I'd advise people to not bother with Princess Peach. Boring and slow! Well I thought so anyway.

Like I said, I'm still pretty sucky at console games, but someone said to me recently when we were playing it in multiplayer mode on the Wii that they had never seen me so worked up about a game/sport/competition ever. What can I say - I love it! Who can resist the distinct sounds (1-up mushroom!), level music and general cuteness of the game? I look at Yoshi and I just want one - so when I got this awesome present from Linderrr, I was one happy Mario fan.


I love love LOVE IT!

Springing into Shape

After my efforts to get into running, I was told not to run anymore since my stupid knee was playing up. Again. Urgh.

Unfortunately I had already signed up for the last race in the Spring into Shape fun run series with meJoolie, so I figured I'd do my best and would just walk the 4.3km course if the knee started to hurt.

I managed to finish the course with a combination of slow jogging and walking in a time of 33:03. That in itself means not too much at all to me seeing as I've never done one of these before but once the knee heals up, I'd like to use it as a benchmark to beat.

Check us out - still smiling post-race
To celebrate finishing our first run (more walk in my case), we took advantage of the complimentary 10 minute massages post-race and scored some freebies (shower gel, juice, a health bar and the Sunday paper). We then rewarded ourselves with a hearty breakfast at Cafe Panette - no wonder we were smiling!

Eggs a la Mer with a roesti on the side
I have to say that I enjoyed myself a lot more than I expeted to. We were lucky hat on a really wet weekend it didn't rain while we ran! I'm hoping that phone calls tomorrow to an osteo and an acupuncturist will mean I can try out another fun run soon - being injured is so frustrating, especially with summer on the way.

Dress upgrade.... or is that upsize...

I've made this pattern (Butterick B4701) up 3 times now, once sized down to fit a 2-year-old flowergirl and twice for Princess S in a size 4. She's fast outgrown them but apparently the Princess loves her dresses so much that she won't let them go, so I thought I'd make her an 'upgrade' of sorts. She's just turned 4 and is about average size for her age, so the Butterick pattern must really cater to smaller-sized kids! Based on that I decided to just make the dress up in the largest size for the pattern I had, which was a 6.

I found a really pretty pink and white stripe cotton to make it up in. Unfortunately it has turned up looking a little red in the photos, so you'll just have to take my word for it.


This was my first effort working with stripes and I had decided at the start that I would try my best to match up any stripe joins in the fabric, so I was very conscious of cutting the fabric using the print as a guide as opposed to the fabric grain.


Now I know a 4-year-old isn't going to notice details like stripe matching, and if I didn't point it out, no-one else would either, but I'm sure everyone has a bit of anal-retentiveness in them. I just happen to have a larger dose of it :)

Woohoo! All lined up!
I have to admit I was really pleased with the result. Matching up the stripes around the zip was a bit of an effort, but as I tend to find zips annoying to sew in general, it was nothing new to do it a few times over.

My hand-stitching skills are also improving - you can hardly see the thread where I've sewn the lining to the dress *yay*


I guess it's true what they say about practice making perfect :)

How not to prepare

Kimba and I were supposed to have started making up some super cute sock owls for an owl mobile using a pattern we had both bought from Craft Schmaft quite awhile back now, so we booked some time in this weekend.

Aren't they cute? Details and photo source here
Unfortunately we didn't have any socks at the ready - so to solve this problem we decided to go shopping!

4 hours, several credit cards and multiple shopping bags later, I found some gorgeous little baby socks for my mobile.


We were good to go! Pity it was time for dinner. At least we'll be prepared for next time - maybe.

iPhone Snapshots - November 3

Afternoon tea in the office, thanks Tammy!

Superhero Blee

A long overdue birthday present started to sort itself after I found this fun flannel print.

I whipped them up into some PJ pants (cropped, in case you were wondering why they look so wide - and no he's not a midget even though there has been talk of a height complex...)

And added a personalised touch - just for Blee.

Hope he likes them.