Easter Egg Hunt Minus the Chocolate

With a two year old who is going through a bit of the terrible twos at the moment I wanted to limit the amount of chocolate he got on easter day (yeah right!). So for his first ever easter egg hunt I grabbed some animal finger puppets from the local $2 shop and some refillable plastic eggs from Lindcraft (plus a few Cars 2 eggs as well) and voila - an easter egg minus the chocolate.

Did you have a traditional easter egg hunt or something a little different?

Yes Please Thank You - One of Everything

Book shelf, bunting, book organiser, clean white floors, oven, pram, pocket shelf..... I'll take one of everything please

Image via dejligheder blog

Having a ball

This is what a public holiday should be about - kicking the ball around with dad at the local park

Em wanted to get in on the action

 I hope you all had a great long weekend. Did you get up to anything interesting or just chill with the family? (photos of our easter egg hunt shortly

Pinspiration - Shirt Sleeve PJ Pants

Inspired by this tutorial by indietutes:

Imgage from indietutes

 I made these quick and easy PJ pants for my little man:

They were so easy to make - you only need to sew 3 seams. I didn't follow the tutorial exactly (I got confused) - but they seemed to turn out alright. And i love that they are made out of my husbands old business shirts which are nice and soft from lots of wear. When they run out i may have to hit up the local op shop.
What have you made or done that was inspired by Pinterest?

Bunting, Mobiles & Embroidery Hoops

Loving the combination of the bunting, cloud mobile and embroidery hoop artwork in this nursury.

Photos by  Simple Bloom Photography via Spearmint Baby

Pinspiration - Bunny Onesie

For all those Pinterest addicts out there, here is a question for you: How many pictures have you pinned of things that you want to make or do and how many have you ACTUALLY made or done? My answers would be hundreds, and less than 5 respectively! So today I am starting what I hope to be a regular feature on my blog - "Pinspiration" - that is, things i have pinned to my DIY boards and Sewing Inspiration boards and ACTUALLY made or done.
First off the ranks is an easter appropriate onesie.

Inspired by this tutorial by Finley and Oliver

Image by Finley and Oliver

I made this:

Check out Finley and Oliver for the details on how to make a bunny onesie, and check out my Sewing Inspiration for Kids board on Pinterest to see more things I hope to make.
Have you ACTUALLY made anything that you have seen on Pinterest. I would love to see it - leave a link in your comments below to your blog post.

Toilet Paper Rolls Activities

Looking for some great rainy day activities - well I suggest you start collecting your toilet paper rolls now! They are super easy to make something special (and cheap!) with. Need some inspiration....

Super heros by Made by Joel

Robots by Life on the Gravelly Road

Owls by Simple as That

Rockets by Skip to My Lou

Animal Collection as seen on Pikaland

Hanging rockets via Factory Direct Craft

Changing Faces via Little Learning

 And some that i made for my little man - of course Toy Story Themed

 

These only took about 15 minutes to make - only change I would make next time is to paint the tubes first (doh!).  If you wanted to make some of these yourself - let me know and I will email you the Toy Story pics which have been scaled to size.

Any more great toilet paper roll ideas you have seen?

Baby Photo Shoot with Hayley Grace Photography

When I heard Hayley Grace Photography was offering limited free new born photo shoots in order to boost her portfolio, I snapped up the chance. I must admit this is not something I would normally get done, but now that i have, I wish we had done it with our son too.How cute is my little girl!

Be sure to check out Hayley Grace Photography on the web and facebook. She was a pleasure to work with and a true professional

My Creative Space - Rocking the Headband

So apparently when you have a girl you are meant to go accessory crazy! I didn't think I would because I am not a girly girl by any means (I can't remember the last time i wore heals and I don't even own grown up lipstick!) but who can resist a baby in a cute little head band. There is just something so sweet about them. And being the crafty person that I am of course I thought i could make my own. And here is the result.

I bought all the materials on Craftumi (bands by Gemma Joy, Crochet  Flowers by DeDor Supplies and buttons from collection at home) and they were a great nap time craft (i.e. it didn't take too long and it didn't matter if i had to go to Little Miss' room every five minutes to stick the dummy back in!)

Emily rocking the headband

And while Little Miss has been rocking the headbands this week. my little man has been rocking the raincoat. Looking forward to some more rain so we can team the raincoat with his new Charlie & Me gumboots.

Be sure to head on over to Our Creative Space to check out some great other crafty ideas and beautiful projects

Chalk Play

With 15 minutes to kill the other day while we waited for our play date to arrive and finally some sunny weather - I whipped out the chalk, spray bottle and paint brush for some quick chalk play. I originally got the idea from Play Create Explore. Too easy and super easy to clean up as well.

Chalk + spray bottle + paint brush

Ollie was here

And then of course we had to spray the house. Why? Because he is a boy and that's what they do.

Just a small fan of Toy Story

To say my son is a fan of Toy Story is an understatment. To say we have had to watch the movies at least 50 times would be an understatement, more like 500 times (at least there are 3 Toy Story's we can rotate). So he was in seventh heaven when we went to a friends for a play date last week and he had both a big Woody and a big Buzz he could play with.

Following the play date, his nanny (grandmother) bought him a little Woody to match his little Buzz, but within 10 minutes Woody's leg had fallen off and tears ensured. So off Nanny went to Toys R Us for a replacement, only to return with the mother load of Woody's - one just like his friends. The joy this spontaneous present brought to my son was beautiful.

On the homemade front - I previously made him some Toy Story Magnets (which I know he still plays with because they keep turning up in random places) and I also made some other Toy Story toys earlier this week (pre big Woody) but i am yet to show them too him, and I am a bit worried they will now pale in comparison to big Woody. Will keep you posted.

On a side note here is a quick shot of my son sharing his toys with his baby sister!

Does your child have a favourite movie they are obsessed with? Have you made any homemade toys with characters from the movie? I would love to hear about them.

World in a Box Update - Construction Land

A quick round up of the dinosaurs from Dino World in a Box and a quick drop in of some trucks has created Construction World in a Box. Too easy - and more minutes of fun!
Anyone else tried this one yet?

Sleeping babies - when is it boasting?

Photo of Emily by Hayley Grace Photography

Is it just me or are there other mums out there who have been afraid to talk about how well their kids are sleeping for fear of it being taken as boasting or for fear of making others feel bad? Here's the thing - my darling baby girl, who turned six weeks last Sunday, slept through the night 5 out of 7 nights over the past week. When I say slept through the night, she has finally gone down just before 9pm (she refuses to sleep between 6pm and 9/10pm for some reason), had a dream feed at 10.30 and then she has slept through til 6 or 7 am. Now personally I think this is bloody brilliant of her and has nothing to do with anything i have done, but when people ask me how she is sleeping i simply say, "she is pretty good" as i don't want to be seen as bragging. It was the same with labour - I was lucky, small baby and all, and it wasn't too horrendous, yet I feel almost guilty when I tell people this.

Are there others out there who have felt this way? If someone told you there kid was sleeping through would you see it as bragging? Or is it just me? Should we not be celebrating each others luck even if it does make us a little jealous?

PS - little miss conveniently woke up for a 3.30am feed last night so I won't have the dilema at mothers group today as to whether or not to say she is sleeping through the night. Very thoughtful of her, and it did give me an excuse to watch Housewives of Beverly Hills.

Dino World in a Box

Now that I am a full time SAHM, I am trying to make more of an effort to organise some activities for my son for the 2 days during the week he is not at little school. As much as I try and get him out of the house as much as possible (at the moment we are going to the park twice a day) - there are of course times when you just can't leave the house and the toddler needs entertaining (particularly when breastfeeding!). So of course i turned to the multitude of ideas I have pinned on Pinterest for inspiration. The idea of a sensory bin is in no ways new - but it was the dinosaurs which caught my eye (not least because we have exactly the same dino's) in this one created by Play Create Explore

Image via Play Create Explore

So a quick scan of the house had me come up with an old fruit box, some old fish tank stones, landscaping stones and toilet rolls and here is the end result. I probably could do with some more stones but it was the best I could come up with at 10pm the night before.

Come the 3.00pm feed, I pulled it from it's hiding place in the laundry and set it down on the living room floor - and the smile (which of course i didn't catch on camera) went from ear to ear on my son, and best of all kept him entertained during the feed.
The next morning he pulled it out again, removed all the dino's and made it an undersea world with all his fish and sea creatures. I have visions of creating a whole bunch of worlds including farms, towns, under the sea, and train world for future feeding times. Will let you all know how i go. In the meantime i have a huge assortment of ideas pinned on my Pinterst board DIY - Kids Stuff and Activities to keep me going for the next 50 years. Feel free to check it out and try some out yourself. Be sure to come back and let me know how you went.

A New Approach to 2012

Calendar print by Handz on Etsy

Firstly - a very belated Happy 2012!!!

Confession time - I have been avoiding blogging. Not that i have had a lot of time to blog with welcoming a new baby girl to our family in early January, but time issues aside, i have been reluctant to blog. Why? It is not for lack of things to write about - but more a fear that if i write about the things that are currently interesting me I might disappoint my readers. Being well and truly in baby / toddler land at present, my days consist of why won't my baby sleep to looking for activities to try and entertain my very energetic two year old son, and cute kids products I find on line (what else am i meant to do during the 3am feeding except shop on my phone!). I still love looking at pretty stationery and design things on line - but it is not my only focus at the moment. So hence my lack of blogging.

After I realised on the weekend why i hadn't been blogging - i soon came to the decision - bugger it! I am going to blog about what I want to, and hopefully my readers will like the new direction - if not, I won't be offended if you decide to leave me, but i do hope you stay and that i find some new readers along the way.

Ok - moving on. Earlier this week I had another "ahah" moment. i was reading some blogs looking for inspiration to entertain my 2 year old and i read somewhere (sorry can't remember the exact blog) about how important it is to let your kids get dirty. I am not a germaphobic parent by any means (my son rarely looks clean!) but i have been reluctant to do dirty / messy activities in order to avoid the inevitable cleaning up. But in an attempt to be less of a rigid parent (that's a whole other blog post!) I didn't stop my son at the park when he wanted to play in the dirt and mud puddles. And do you know what - we had a great time and the only implication was we had a bath before dinner when we got home and not after - not exactly earth shattering! He got to play unrestricted and I got to enjoy watching him do it.

So - the moral of the story - let them eat mud pie - you will both enjoy it! and let them test their climbing skills even if it gives you heart palpitations

And yes - I will be posting some pics of my beautiful new baby girl soon!

The Babies Room

I know I said I wasn't going to blog for a bit - but before I take my break, I thought I would quickly share the babies new room with you all. As we are not finding out whether we are having a boy or a girl I have had to go neutral for now, and then once bubs arrives, I have my eye on a whole bunch of prints for the main wall.

 First off is a cloud mobile made from some fabric I bought over a year ago with no particular project in mind, and a branch that i found washed up on the beach at Copa when I was away on a girls weekend last year. The plan is to hang it from a eye hook in the ceiling, but as that requires husbands assistance it is taking a little time!

My inspiration for this mobile came from Jolie Momes Factory blog.

Next up is the family photo wall above the cot

And lastly an ABC gardland to fill the main wall until I decide on some prints

(This garland will be available to buy in my etsy store as a DIY kit in the next month or so - keep an eye out).

So there you have it - if you want to see what the room looked like when it was my son's first room - you can check out my post on it here. I also have a pinterest board dedicated to my fav kids room ideas - I have so many ideas and things i want to try.