365 | 2010

Happy New Year to you all. I hope you had a wonderful festive season filled with good food, good company and plenty of laughter.

I've decided to jump on board and attempt to upload a photo a day in 2010 as a part of the 365 project. Here we go! The challenge I set myself is to capture our day to day "real" life and hopefully improve my photography skills along the way.

365 day 1 - it's all about pampering

I won't be boring you and posting my photos here each day but you can take a peek at my progress here if you are at all inclined.

baking tray printing

If you are a parent or carer at home with pre-schoolers (or even schoolers now that the holidays have started) and looking for creative activities to keep them occupied then look here for a multitude of ideas by Amber, a clever mum with her own "two little craftmonkeys". You can even sign up and have weekly inspiration popped into your inbox. Too easy.

Today we made our own hand printed Christmas Cards using this tutorial. Ruby (who is 4) was able to do most of this on her own with just a little assistance. She was just beaming with a sense of achievement at the end.



The thing I like about this activity is that other than a paint roller (which we purchased at the local hardware store for a couple of dollars) everything else you will need is probably in your house. This is good for me as I tend to do things on the spur of the moment with little (ok honestly usually no) forward planning. Yes Mum.... nothing has changed! Often my ways lead me to creative thinking as I'm left to find substitutes for ingredients or materials I don't have at hand. This has resulted in some disasters along the way but also made the making fun and the end product uniquely ours.

handmade advent

I made a decision that I wanted to make an advent calendar this year - something with fabric (of course) - but what?

Unfortunately that question remained unanswered for quite some time until I hit Flickr for inspiration. So many clever people out there!! My palms get sweaty with excitement sometimes when I'm glued to the computer drooling at the wonders created by crafty folk all over the world. Seriously, if you ever feel like you've hit a creative brick wall, just head over the flickr.com and search the topic of whatever it is you're attempting to create and "voila"..... you'll be back in business!!

Here's my proof.

1. Lego City advent calendar 7724, 2. kids' drawings, vintage print, 3. advent calendar? christmas tree decoration? popcorn bags?, 4. Advent Mantle, 5. Day 1, 6. Advent calendar 2008, 7. Advent Calendar 2007, 8. Advent Calendar, 9. Sankt Nikolaus today

Aren't they just fabulous?

So reinvigorated I came up with these little xmas socks. When I say "little" I do mean this literally as in hind sight they are a tad too small for practical goodies. Oh well.... I'm sure size is overrated! They look cute.

We missed the first 2 days this year but I think my little ones will forgive me and be more than happy with 22 surprises. I've mixed them up with a few sweets (which were discovered by the sniffer dogs within the first hour - mental note - keep chocolate in the pantry until the day of opening), treasure hunts and special outings (christmas lights, museum, beach, bowling etc).

This year due to time constraints I've stuck the numbers on but next year I plan to come up with numbered buttons as a more permanent decoration. I think they'd also appreciate a little adornment with the odd ribbon or trim. Anyway, that's for next year.

Also this week I managed to bake these gingerbread christmas tree biscuits for the kindy fundraiser.

I had to hide them from the kids and then buy them one each at the party. Yes! Slightly odd things to do - you see I stuffed up the recipe (while talking to DH I added too much flour) then to totally finish it off I burnt them in the oven. Total disaster! So after a trip to the supermarket for extra eggs I finally managed to bake 14 cookies which was just enough. Oh yeah, and I was doingall of this on the day of the event..... typical Fiona style!

Are you feeling creative this Christmas? If not, check out what others are up to here and get your handmade jiggy on!

and the winners are...

Chloe + Kaycee

Now the funny thing is that you both requested the same bird hammer toy! What were the chances of this happening? I think the only fair solution is to make a second hammer toy with the same fabrics. It's nice to know some of my designs can be equally popular with both genders.

Thankyou to all of you who took the time to enter the giveaway. While I'm feeling all festive and oh so generous I do have a runner up (this means everyone who didn't win) solution to offer. It goes like this...

For those of you who have fallen in love with the toy of your choice (and how could you not? :) I'm happy to reduce the selected toy price from $20 to $12 (plus the cost of shipping) for the remainder of the week, with Sunday 6th December 2009 the final day to purchase with this offer. This is the cut off day for international shipping orders before Xmas, so I can get them posted to you on the Monday.

If you would like to take up this offer please leave me a comment with your email address, or alternatively email me at: fee dot dyer at gmail dot com . I will require your Etsy Username (free to join if you are not currently registered) so I can adjust the listing to your reduced buying price.

If this all sounds confusing, it's really not, it's probably just my "I'm writing this at 1am" way of explaining it!

Time for zzzzzzz. Nighty night.