It's Been a While...

Since I last posted that is... I have, since going back to work, been very slack with my online commitments.

I haven't stopped though. Not that I think anything ever could, and I've been doing life of sewing, a few markets and also rearranged my work room the other week in attempt to contain all of that stuff I've got laying around for weepantz.

I've been very busy mothering my 2 beautiful kids, and I have been cherishing the moments we have when I'm not working to spend time cuddling, tickling and getting kisses from them.

And now I'm going to go back to relaxing on the couch, and I hope to get back to more frequent blogging now that I'm semi-coping with being so busy!

Alone...

Ever since I had Oliver I have never been alone... I am forever chasing children, telling them to stop doing what they are doing, and trying to mould them into little human beings and even when I am left without them for a short time, I generally spend time thinking about when I have to get them back.

Today, however, I am alone...

Oliver started childcare today. 

I was intent on starting him in daycare for 1 or 2 days this year as it will give me more time to do WeePantz things, and also give me a little time to myself as well as giving him the chance to develop socially and learn things through activities I can only rarely be bothered cleaning up (such as painting etc). 

I then had the opportunity to go back to work 20hrs a week so Olly will now be away from me a little more often as well as giving me the opportunity to earn money for the things that all women crave like shoes. WeePantz will still continue, I just crave outside time as well, and this job will pay for the childcare as well!!

So today, I had my first shift back in a cafe (I didn't break anything so thats a positive) it was lots of fun, and I cant wait for my regular shifts to start :) So now I am alone, no one to tell to stop picking their nose or to get out of the fridge. I can go to the toilet on my own and can have a shower without an audience.

Loving it! I can also work uninterrupted on some big orders I have also had and a little idea for the shop (I'll keep you updated for that).

So until tomorrow, I am going to go and enjoy my solitude, sew without one child as the "pin lady" and the other being the "reversing button boy" and get some work done!!

And don't forget the February special on the website 20% off orders over $50 when you use the code BIRTHDAYBASH.

Tuesday...

So today is Tuesday... or if you ask the wiggles, it is Taco Day (yes, I watch far too much wiggles with my son). I have been working on orders and also getting ready for the market all whilst looking after my beautiful kids who seem to know when I get up super early to be without them and sew in peace and get up at the same time to bug me!!

I've been playing with some of this beautiful red minky, it is so so soft and delicious!! I want to play with it all the time!!

On the weekend, I also took the kids in to the shops to visit the man himself... SANTA!!

At this point, he was receiving strict instructions to bring trucks and a DS for Christmas. Very important stuff here. 

And then after the formalities were over, the kids both gave him a cuddle. This is the first time Oliver has actually met Santa without screaming his head off so I was pretty proud. He might actually enjoy all those presents this year, although wrapping paper is such a fantastic toy!!

I have almost finished Ruthie's Christmas dress too! very excited about this as it is just gorgeous, I will hopefully finish it off tomorrow as we have school christmas carols tomorrow night!! So I will post pics then!

Until next time...

Wordless Weekend

The First of Blogtober...

Today is the first of October and marks the first day of Blogtoberfest, a month long festival of blogging. This year will be my first year taking part after reading all of the posts last year, and I am very excited! 

If you would like to join in, head over to tinniegirl's blog by clicking the Blogtoberfest icon in the top right hand corner of my blog.

The First of October is also a very special day in our house because it is also Oliver's birthday!

I can't believe that 2 years and 6 days ago, that this is what I looked like...

Yes, I was 37 weeks pregnant in this photo, I had to strap my belly daily so that I could stand. I later found out that I was actually 41 weeks pregnant in this photo and there had been a miscalculation of dates. 

I can't believe that 2 years ago we brought this tiny little person home to our house and welcomed him into our lives.

That this gorgeous, tiny, little person would become someone that miss Ruth would love, protect and play with constantly...

That he would teach me about being strong because he is...

That I would fall in love every single day with his crazyness and his beautiful blue eyes and the way he gives cuddles.

And that I would have my whole world turned upside down, and be better for it!

Happy Birthday Oliver, you are a gorgeous little man, and I love you very very much :)

And Happy Blogtoberfest to everyone! 

Naughty little Blogger!

I am currently the most neglectful blogger in existence. I do have excuses though which I will hopefully be able to shed more light on soon as I have been talking to some stores about stocking WeePantz. And very soon hope to be announcing my first official stockist.

I have also been accepted to start selling at a few new markets :) and that is something I am very excited about, but the last few months of the year are now OFFICIALLY booked out for me. Very busy, but busy is the way I like life. Especially since my PND I learned that if I dont get bored, then I wont give the depression headspace, very important for me, because (as my therapist put it) I tend to make the depression like a cd on repeat and struggle to move on once it is taking charge of my mind. So busy is GREAT!

So as I said, I am forever busy with WeePantz really taking off, so I dont make it into the forums much anymore. In fact at all, which is very sad, but I am still reading the blogs of my beautiful sewing friends when I can. And have met a few new bloggy crafters lately as well :). I hope all of my crafty friends still pop by here every so often as well. :)

A few things Ive been up to...

Well mainly sewing nappies, wetbags and bibs to be honest. I have a focus group sample to finish by friday of 14 nappies, and a market on Sunday so I hope to make at least 30 nappies this week. I am well on the way to completing that goal too. :)

Ive been doing alot of organising for Reusable Nappy Week. Not many of you know that I am the Australian Nappy Network coordinator for Victoria, so its also the business end of the year RNW wise and I am organising static displays and an information session.

I have been baking... yes... that is something I am constantly doing isnt it? Yesterday I made eclairs... DELISH!! Im not an eclair person, but I filled them with yummy custard cream and I think the fact that they were nice and fresh and crisp made them just delicious!

I tried a few recipes for this, but I found that winging it in the end and using my own judgement worked the best. I watched a video on making choux pastry, and noted their consistency prior to baking, so made the butter, water flour mix, allowed it to cool and then added one egg at a time until I reached the right consistency. I think the recipe called for 2 eggs and I used 1 and a bit, Im not sure if perhaps my eggs are just bigger than theirs...

I have been sequinning as well. Ruth's callisthenics competitions are about to start, so its the home run now with costumes with the first comp in 2 weeks.

I'll show you all finished photos when I have them. I may have to wait until after comps, as she is not really meant to be wearing them until then aside from fittings. But the costumes have definitely been an educational journey with sewing on my first sequins. The red outfit pictured above took me quite a long time to finish. I also sewed lycra for the first time. LOTS of googling before even putting pattern to fabric there as I was so afraid!

Amongst that, I have finished my winter coat, which I started a long time ago. It worked out so well and I will update the blog with pics soon I hope! 

I also completed (well my version of complete) the coffee date dress. I had to add so much to the pattern due to my height and also my bust (which is by no means ample) that Im not sure it still is classed as the original pattern, but I will give credit where it is due :) I was STUMPED by the all in one facing, it was slightly crazy, but now that I have figured it out, I am sure I will do this style of facing again as its easy once you know how!

I have also been doing the usual parenting tasks. Oliver is getting very cheeky now and is learning how to push his mother's buttons to make her cranky! Ruth is turning into a gorgeous, and very strong willed little girl and loves her callisthenics and also her reading. 

So I will tentatively say that I am back. I hope to attempt to be regular blogging when I can to keep you all updated. But for now, I am off to put the nappies on to wash, bake some bread and maybe eat an eclair hee hee. Then I need to update the website. 

Catch you all later.

Wordless Weekend

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Wordless Weekend

Loving Mummy

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School Holidays Day #1

I struggle to keep my children occupied. They both love creating as I do, so when I'm busy sewing, cutting, designing, blogging etc. They get quite bored. I have been really blessed since Ruthie started school, as I have been able to use Olly's nap time for my blogging, sewing, cutting and designing time, it has been working out well :-) Then... along comes school holidays. I swear it snuck up on me and that she surely has only been going to school for like 6 weeks... Turns out its only been 8 so I wasn't far off!

So in order to keep miss Ruth entertained I have decided to do something fun with her every day that Olly can join in on, so that she can have quiet time when he is sleeping and I don't miss out on my sewing cutting and designing time!

Yesterday we made Mini Hot Cross Buns from a fairy tale cook book that "Santa" brought her for Christmas last year. Baking might just be my daughter's favourite thing ever, but then I introduced her to kneading, she might be now addicted and will be begging me to make bread, which I don't mind as I love making bread myself.

The recipe was pretty basic, and didn't really taste that good, so I will be searching for a new recipe for This Friday as we will have to have hot cross buns for Good Friday.

kneading and rolling the individual balls of dough into the pan.

we were singing a roll the dough song and he was rolling his hands like we were, it was very cute, but do you think he would do it for the camera?? don't be silly... Olly was having a great time watching though :-)

Piping on the crosses. This mixture was very thick and quite difficult to pipe, and I've piped some difficult stuff in my time as a bakery lady when I was pregnant. Next time calls for more water in the mix, even though you aren't meant to!

the finished MINI hot cross bun. It is very tiny. 

The buns might not taste very nice, but Ruthie loved baking for the day. Now to top that today!!

Amy 

My Creative Space

Wow this week has gone super fast! I feel like the gap between Thursdays is slowly becoming shorter. Which apparently is true now by a slight shift in day length due to the recent Chilean earthquake according to NASA. But is that really the reason for my lack of ability to keep up? Probably not! Most likely, the cause of my surprise at weekly intervals is due to being pretty darn busy!

Anyway, that was completely irrelevant... haha! I have this week been making nappies and other general wares for my market this weekend in Williamstown. (details over to the side of the posting area)

Whilst awaiting an order of about 600 snaps I thought Id get stuck into my other wares, which has become quite small of late due to summer ending and me packing away all of those lovely dresses that I was selling over the warmer months. I gave a small preview of some of these pants last week, made in denim. This week I cut into the cordorouy, mmm I love cord, it is a wonderful winteriffic fabric. 

They aren't complete yet, so this batch is still a work in progress, not ready for sale. I have to stitch on the faux fly and possible (not sure yet) appliqué on. Oh and my weepantz labels. But I am, I must admit, falling in love with these pants...

These, however, are my favourite, they are beautifully vintagey retroish. (Yes, Part of my creative space this week is making up verbs :-p) Anyway, they are my favourite, and if I was allowed, I possibly would wear these myself, but ahh alas, I am not a children's size 2...

In other news, the girl has started school full time this week, so that's 5 full days. Its a little sad for her mummy as I miss her a lot. I also miss our creative moments which I have been known to include in this Thursday digest. So it's just me and the boy now. I attempt to make him do creative stuff like drawing with me, but he's much more interested in rummaging through my scraps bucket and wearing the long thin pieces as scarves, hats or belts. Otherwise, all he wants to do is this...

EAT!

Yes, my son, old hollow legs here, I will say he's being creative because the Vegemite is so lovingly smeared all over his face... And just before he was painting himself with Yoghurt. Perhaps my son is creative after all, he just requires a bit of inspiration (yes, the inspiration is food....)

Okay, well I've gone off on a motherly bragging tangent and I must go attend to this boy as he is wandering around with a bottle bag as a handbag with a hackey sack inside and cant get it out...

For more creative spaces head over here

Wordless Weekend

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Lost in Translation, some other Sewing from before Christmas

Ive been meaning to blog photos of this for a while and just never got around to it. So here we are...

For Christmas we had decided to go away to Bright which is in North East Victoria. We had also decided that with all of the stuff we had to fit into the car (golf clubs, guitars, kids toys etc) that the pram just wasnt going to fit. So I made the decision to make myself up a Mei Tai sling.

There are a bunch of tutorials online so I didnt use just one of them, but I did stick with the instructions for the man-tai very loosely when putting it together.

I used some white duck cloth... I know what you are thinking, white?!?! are you crazy?? but I didnt want A black one and white was the only neutral colour option left.

I also used some of some quilters cotton that I had laying around for the outside panel to make it pretty.

The sling is being modeled by my very talented Sister In Law Heather who loved getting to wear Olly to the pub and back. :-)

Olly really liked it too :-) He also really liked that iceblock. His first one ever... he was slightly confused by the cold at first, but because it was so hot he eventually figured out why we were giving it to him!!

and yummed it all up :-D

Advent Blog-A-Long Day 8!

Well! A big couple of days here! Ive spent a fair bit of time in the sewing room, not only sewing, but organising (I will share pics of that on Thursday). And Ive been super busy doing family orientated things, much to the distress of some people, I still have to sew though!! So thus my short posts over the weekend! Mister WeePantz was home so mummy did some work!!!!

So here's a bunch of Photos of what we have been up to!!!

 

We put up the Christmas Tree!!

Ruth was very excited to decorate the entire thing herself, and Oliver was very beautiful, with tinsel draped all over him whilst sitting in the high chair looking on. There's no playpen around it or anything, so I have now decided I just need to record myself screaming OLIVER!! STOP TOUCHING THE CHRISTMAS TREE!! Im sure it will get alot of use!!

1 complete secret santa gift!!

 I finished and posted both of my secret santa gifts today. I must say I am nervous of how much there is, and really hope my SS recipients both like their gifts. Its always hard when you dont know someone well to send them a super thoughtful gift. But alot of time went into choosing these gifts so Im hopeing that they are recieved with a smile!

I took the kids to the zoo with my Mother In Law

I will post more pics of this adventure tomorrow I think as there are so many, and its too difficult to just choose one!! But this is my favourite photo, I thought this sign near the lion enclosure was ace! The kids just loved being able to be so close to animals from places like africa, asia and south america.

Anyway... more on that tomorrow. My newly organised sewing room is SCREAMING to me... Oh no hang on thats the kids tv show that is going, there seems to be alot of screaming on that... Id better go check its not scary!!

Until tomorrow...

Amy xo

It is a beautiful, sunny, non-windy day here in Melbourne today! Shock horror! So I told Ruth that we could head down to the park with her scooter and play on the play equipment there. Its only a block away but we had to stop 3 times because Ruth was getting worn out on the scooter. But she had an excellent time scooting down there, around the footpaths, up and down hills at the park and home again.

I took some beautiful photos of the kids while we were down at the park and I just had to share them with my friends in blog land. Mainly cos I am uber proud of how beautiful the children I produce are! **hint of cheekiness there**

I also recieved an e-mail from a market here in Melbourne that runs in Brunswick and St Kilda to invite me to fill in at their special teeny tiney kids and baby market on the 7th of November. I graciously accepted the offer and will confirm my place this week. Very exciting for me to be thought of in a time of need and I am very glad that my bamboo fleece and snaps arrived today in time to make up a stack of new nappies before the 7th.

You will all no doubt grow tired of hearing of my nappy sewing efforts over the next 2 weeks but I might try to squeeze in some other stuff as well so we will see. I want to make myself a top out of some lovely white fabric I have here its a little bit stretchy and a little bit slinky, I will post the top when its done. :D

Oliver Turned 1!!

Can you all believe my little bubba has had his first birthday? Hmm so the party was HUGE I was cooking from 6am onwards, and collapsed into a slightly drunken heap at 8pm on the couch while everyone else cleaned up :P

I made a guitar cake for the boy which worked a treat and the oven survived not burning it before dying three days later! So glad that happened after the party!!



It was a lovely party and I have posted a few pics to show how much he enjoyed the cake, I didnt get to make him an outfit like I had intended cos I was so busy planning the massive meal everyone was getting!! :P But I am super proud of the cake, I did very well!!

Oops! I missed a day yesterday. I was busy making a lasange. I even made the pasta! I was very proud of myself! Felt very housewifely too :P

Some sewing happened here yesterday too! AMAZING!! I put together a nappy for Oliver as we are moving him up a size. The nappy is very cute and I cant wait to show it off! Sucks that its winter!!! LOL!!!

My beautiful boy is 10 months old today! I cant believe he has grown so quickly! Soon I will have a toddler on my hands! Hes so beautiful and Im loving every minute of being his mum even if he is nothing but trouble!









Now back to sewing... I bought some embroidery thread yesterday which I am using on my nappies. I made a really cute paw print one, but because it was my first, I will have to keep it for Oliver as its slightly off centre and a little bit dodgy.

I used a piece of paper as a makeshift backing stabilizer because the minkee kept getting caught in the feed dog of my machine... Im looking forward to doing some more embroidery too! I might do some for Miss Ruth on some clothes and of course on my nappies!

The exuse for not sewing yesterday....

My gorgeous little man! I was playing with the kiddies! Fair excuse I reckon!! Hes such a sweetheart. His sister is just as beautiful! But a feral 4 year old at the moment :D

So there's loads of sewing planned for today. I am actually awaiting fabric so there will mainly be cutting out and organising ready for the sewing to take place. Also snapping glad I will have good arms soon! haha the snap press gives them a good work out!!