Meet Milton

Hi y'all!
Say hi to Milton the Monster!
I made him after being inspired by a felt monster of the same shape on Pinterest. I have heaps of cool fabrics to use up, so I drew out a pattern & sewed Milton out of some fabrics instead of felt & I really like how he turned out!
He has one big felt eye & a big lopsided smile with his tongue sticking out, as well as a big torso & short Asian legs like Willy {belly laugh!} I gave him some taggies sewn in the side cos Jaimeson does still love to chew on taggies & he has a small plastic rattle inside. And I embroidered Jaimeson's name on his butt cos Jai's not gonna be able to find many personalised things, so when I can personalise something for him I will!
And I made Milton totally, from drawing pattern to cutting, sewing, handsewing, stuffing & finishing, in just 2 of Jaimeson's sleep times! Not bad!!
You like?
:) C

My Hawaiian Birthday Party!

Hi y'all!
Big THANK YOU {hugs} for all the birthday wishes and I had a fantastic time at my Hawaii 3-0 Party on Saturday night!
I didn't get my camera out at all on Saturday, being the Birthday Girl I spent my time flitting about the party saying a quick hello here and there! So here is a collage that Dad put together and emailed around!You will notice a few things off Pinterest! The Shark Fruit Salad made by Mum! Which was totally fantastic! And was the subject of many photos! The Birthday Cake Bunting which I just loved! Plus I made this card suitcase & Cocktail Umbrella Wreath (which I don't have pics of! BOO!), Peanut Butter Ice Cream sauce, and this Pina Colada punch... wow, there was a lot of pinspiration for my party!
It was a great night, thanks all for coming!
And for you family, here are my presents so you can see what everyone got me! Ask away if you want to know who bought what Mum!
I got a gorgeous Alfred Meakin Vintage Dinnerset, you can see the cake plate and a bowl here in the pic, with flying birds on it, from Mum and Dad. I saw it at Salvos and it totally reminded me of the dinner set I ate Christmas Dinner off in Germany & it brought back so many memories! I really loved the set and so Mum said she and Dad would like to get it for my birthday because dinner sets are Mum's "thing!" Thank you! Now I need a dinner party to use it all at!
The vintage cups, saucers and teapot are from Brad & Danith cos Danith said after seeing my pic at Christmas of all my vintage stuff she set off on an op-shop mission (she loves op shops too!) and found me a mis-matched tea set for my birthday. I love it!
And in family tradition, my sisters, aunts, uncle, parents & cousins all did a page in a 30th birthday scrapbook for me! I started the tradition when Yvette was turning 30 and we did one for all the cousins then! You use a pic of yourself with the birthday-er (if you have one) and say what they mean to you or a funny story about them. It is such a thoughtful thing and I spent about 1/2 hr at 1am on Sunday morning checking out all the pages! {hugs!} Love it!
I was spoiled with Jewellery! I haven't gotten any Swarovski jewellery before, and I got 2 things this birthday! I also got beautiful diamonte and pearl earrings off Tara and a gorgeous little handbag necklace off AJ! So sweet!
Willy gave me the lego (lol! He knows me well {wink!}) and an IOU for $400 to buy something in NZ! YAY! Thanks Willy!! xoxo
And so now I'm officially out of my 20's! {Sob!} LOL!
:) C

Pinterest Christmas Garland

Lookie here, I made another thing off Pinterest! Hot Dang I'm on a Roll! {high five!} I made THIS Paint Chip Heart Garland, in Christmas colours. I love it {holding hands over heart}. It turned out perfectly from what's in my mind!I tried to make it a bit variegated, by using more of the darker colours on the left and fading off into the lighter colours on the right. There are some mixed up light and dark ones, but I'm SO impressed with how it turned out!I collected some green and red paint chips from Bunnings when Will made my Wrapping Station and I had this project in mind. Its actually kinda hard to find really red paint chips, I guess it's not a common wall colour! So thats why some of the hearts near the right hand end are a bit pink. I don't mind {shrugs shoulders lightly}.
Anway, it feels so good to have completed it! I punched the heart shapes out using my Emaginations Folk Heart Punch I bought about 8 years ago, which unfortunately I obliterated about 1/3 way through punching. Yep, apparently sitting idle in a drawer for 5 years doesn't do punches any good and the mountings disintergrate! See... obliterated!! That was once all one piece! Luckily it still works if you hold all the metal innards together (forget the plastic casing), so I was able to finish my garland. Then I laid them out in the order I wanted and sewed them all together on the machine! I let the machine do approx 4 "empty" stitches between each heart so they wouldn't be jammed up beside each other when they hung. I love it!
And then I sticky taped it to the wall. LOL! Classy! I'll find a better place for it next Christmas!

High Five for another Pinspired project completed!
:) C

Bloggy Advent Calendar DAY 19

Hi y'all!
Today I'm posting about a sweet little Christmas ornament that I was inspired to make off Pinterest! If you haven't heard about Pinterest yet, you are totally missing out! It's an online pinboard where you can pin pics of things you like on websites as you trawl around the internet. So you don't need a long list of bookmarks that you can't remember what they were for! Ok, that's not the best description of Pinterest, but it's awesome. YOu can also just go there for inspiration (called Pinspiration!) and you can "follow" other people whose interests are similar to yours. I LOVE Pinterest, and it has inspired me to sew/bake/cook a few new things You can check out my Pinterest board HERE.
So I was inspired to make this sweet little Gingerbread house ornament. (Hahaha, cheesy pic of me with the house! LOL!) It's made of felt with "candy" buttons sewn on the roof. So cute! I also sewed a gold star-shaped button the front door.
I wanted to personalise it a little more, so I freehand embroidered "The Lams, W, C & J, 2011" on the back of it. I {heart} it! It turned out just how I wanted to too! And, I was so glad to have actually made something that I had pinned on Pinterest, cos I have a whole "Christmas" board and I hadn't made anything off it! Hooray for making it {high five}!
It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!
:) C

Bloggy Advent Calendar DAY 18

Hi y'all!
Yesterday was my extended family Christmas Party, with my cousins on my Mum's side. Mum had read all about a Cookie Swap, somewhere in our mags after Hawaii I think it was, and she decided it sounded like a fantastic idea for our Christmas party! {up here's for thinking!- pointing at head} We do have a few keen bakers in the family and so we knew there would be some enthusiastic participants {rubbing oven mitts together with glee}! The idea was to make at least 2 dozen cookies and bring them to the dinner in a festive tin/container. The containers all go on the table together and everyone chooses some of each others cookies to take home. YUM! We also brought a copy of the recipe to swap too, so we could make more of our favourites at home! {sweet!}
I dabbled with a few different recipes- Cranberry Apple Pecan cookies, Peanut Butter Cup cookies (both of them were a bit soft- is that common with American cookie recipes? They seem to like them soft...) but in the end I really couldn't go past the Melted Snowman Cookies I had seen on Pinterest! They were so cute! They are just a basic sugar cookie dough for cutting shaped cookies, then you accessorize with white icing, a partially-melted marshmallow (about 7 secs in the microwave does the trick), choc chips (mini M&Ms would have been great too, but I didn't have any) and decorating gels to draw on the arms & facial features. Oh how I LOVE LOVE LOVE how they turned out {swoon!} They are gorgeous! And they don't taste too bad either! I also made cinnamon stars using the same dough recipe, and a Cookie Cutter I got at Williams-Sonoma on our Honeymoon. It makes a slit in the cookie that allows it to sit on the edge of your coffee cup! Pretty cool hey?!
Have yourself a Merry Little Christmas!
:) C