it's beginning to feel a lot like....

christmas :) i barely snuck it in but have finished our advent calendar and strung it up tonight all ready for tully and asher in the morning. I go the idea for these little envelopes from here.
Mine are quite a bit brighter and varied but i don't think i would have gotten all 25 done if they were all the same. I'm thinking i might separate each one with a bit of ribbon to stop them from sliding around but otherwise I'm pretty happy with them. I've made a couple of stars to go in them instead of chocolates whcih will go straight on the tree. Still got to get one of those though.

I think the kids are going tolove it:)

another thing both my kids love to do is paint. No surprise there. However, i was surprised by tully's aspirations to be a hair colourist. Gee i though Asher's hair was vivid enough without the added colour:)

cheeky monkey

It's been a while since i made a tee for the asher basher boy so i pulled my finger out last week and whipped up this little number. It really suits the little fella. The daks he has on are a pair tikki made him when he was very little. I think they might be a 00. He wears them as long shorts now and will probably be in them next year as proper length shorts. Talk about getting maximum life out of clothing:)

I love this second shot. See how the ball is captured mid air. Asher had thrown it and Lach took the shot. Genius.

And this is what has been keeping my hands busy whilst i have a little break from the tee's. I don't know what it is with me and felt and buttons, but i can't stop playing with them. These are a couple of chrissy decorations I've been having fun with and some more hairclips. Today i started our advent calendar as December is looming ever closer and guess what it's made from? You guessed it...spotty felt and buttons. just can't get enough...

the circus :)

i had so much fun with this little project :) and now it's all finished i can show it off. I hope that the recipient likes it as much as i do. Lachie's a bit sad we're not keeping it for our kids but now I'm inspired to get to and make some more paintings for them as well. The tones are pretty close in these photos to what it is like in real life. The flag is much lighter though. My favourite bit is the little mouse with the clown nose:)

I was pretty busy yesterday and finished off this little drummer boy as well. He should be making his way over to ozebaby some time today.

i love the beach

sea, sand and a stunning sunset ;) what could be more perfect

meika, our true angel

Having just completed two angel pictures and being this time of year, I have been thinking alot about our own little angel, Meika. This might seem a strange thing to blog about to some but i figure i already blog about my other two children and other personal stuff, so why not talk about my first child. For me it is very important and cathartic to speak of and remember Meika.

Meika was our first baby and was still born at 28 weeks, 7 years ago. She was born on Dec 30th so this time of year always brings back so many memories. Hard to believe we should have a 7 year old with us. And so sad that we don't.
This sketch is the picture i drew for the memorial card at Meika's service where we scattered her ashes. I always thought that she would have red curly hair and lo and behold our little asher man has the exact hairdo i imagined her to have. Her ashes were scatterd at a very significant spot on the coast and we visit every year on her birthday to say hello. I like to imagine her smiling up at us from the waters like a little mermaid. A sad story i know but one that i wanted to share.

i see angels

check them out if you would like:) They're up previewing over at ozebaby right now. I decided to pop them up as auctions as i think they a bit spesh as they are hard to find tee's and i'm only planning on doing one more Christmas themed one (a little drummer boy).

This little miss is Annabell and is a design i used for Christmas cards quite a while ago.

And this is Audrey. My mum has an applique angel on her bedroom wall that says, "angels have red hair". I think it must be true:)

And some pics of my little angel in the shirred attempt. Looks ok but it's a bit lose around her chest. oh well.... I love yellow on her.

and loking a little holly hobbie :D

santa claus is coming..../sneak peaks :0)

i really don't like hi-5 but i can't stop humming this little ditty. I'm getting a bit excited about the upcoming festive season :) On the weekend we went along and checked out the much talked about christmas pageant here in adelaide. We only caught the end bit of it but it was very impressive. Tully and Asher loved it! So did the other 300 000 who attended :0 The next day we participated in the walk against warming. Unfortunately the south aussie's weren't as active partcipants with only about 2000 or so there.

Yesterday tully and i baked. I don't buy biscuits anymore as i much prefer to make our own. Much yummier and not as chock full of crap. This is our batch from yesterday. Tully just wanted to make circles but i couldn't resist the trees lol.

and this is a little sneak peak of what i've been doing and have just about finished.

and another little sneak peak of the latest pikkitint venture. My side done and on to tikki now.

and the last sneak peak is the beginning of my next project which should be appearing up at ozebaby before the end of the week.

ohhhh the concentration.....

threading a needle sure is hard work, especially when your only 3 :D Tully recieved a little sewing activity in the mail from her fabulous aunty georgina the other day and couldn't wait to get started "knitting" (she gets a bit confused). I found her concentrating very hard trying to thread the needle. oh soooooo cute!

Today was a great day. For one the sun is shining and it is lovley and warm but the other good thing was the ever thoughtful lachmonster took some time off work today to allow me to go to the craft and quilt fair for 3 hours by myself!!!! Gee i felt sorry for all the other mum's there pushing prams and battling with their bubs amongst the hordes of grannies. So this is a bit of my haul. The rest is pressies for my little mum so i can't post pics just in case. Can you see a colour theme happening:D I was sooooo stoked to find the baby chibi dolls pattern by the talented Jhoanna from one red robin at a great store quilt fabric delights. I also got a very cute giraffe pattern by Melly and me and some fabulous fat quaters. Now i need so squeeze some time in to make some stuff.

what's been going on?

Things have been a bit quiet on the t-shirt front of late. Tully's is the only tee I've painted for ages. That's because i've been busy on another project using the above type of paints for a change. I used to be an oil painter but haven't used them since i've had kids as #1, i don't have the space and #2 the fumes are really full on and not safe for kids to be around in my opinion. So now i use acrylics when i do paint.

The other things i have just been doing is washing a bucketload of tees ready to be painted. The ever helpful tikki found a heap of tees for me and today they arrived in the post. Lots and lots of different types of Bonds numbers there. I was so excited i had to wash them immediately. I'm particularly excited about the little yellow, white and pink one as they are so hard to find now. I already have a sketch ready to go up on this little number.

straw, straw, strawbbbberry

Finally a new tee for my poor neglected little daughter. she absolutley loves it and clapped her hands excitedly when she saw it :) Children are the best critics.

A dragonfly decided to come and interupt our modelling shoot. And so here's tully trying to catch him. I love these shots!

Poor little asher boy has been a bit neglected too. He hasn't had anything made for him for ages so he's next on the list. Little man doesn't ask for clothes like his big sis though. He much prefers toot toots :D

op-shop goodness

How beautiful is this picture? I found it in one of the many books i bought at the op-shop today and had to start my post with it.
i finally ventured into this op-shop which is really close to my house but only open on Monday's and my goodness I'm glad i did:D the op shop gods certainly delivered.

First off i scored these beautiful patterns. Love the little girl's pattern but it's a size one so too small for tully but i couldn't leave it behind.

This book which has some hilarious things in it but also some great ideas.

like this owl which is actually papermache but i think would work really well in felt.

And the owl and the pussy cat were found in another wonderful old crafting book

which also contained this very thrifty add.

these little pants also jumped off the racks at me. What a score. The waist needs to be taken in but they will be wonderful for tully this summer. The top which was with them was not so great... There were any more fabulous scores but this is enough show and tell. Gee i love op-shops :0)

i'm obsessed!!

with making hairclips!!! I'm having so much fun with all the pretty buttons, ribbon and felt. Tully got this spesh little strawberry one the other day which suits her so well. There are heaps up at tikki's justwaiting for a little girl to love them, or if your like lily decide they're birds and pop them in a nest lol. Lucky i have lots of neices to make xmas pressies for:D