Easter Jumping

We had a lovely picnic at the beach today with my family. The weather was amazing! I let the waves splash over Chelsea's feet and she loved it. And there was lots of jumping... as you'll see in the photos!

A different kind of sewing

I decided that i should sew an outfit for Chelsea. In the big batch of hand-me-down clothes i got from my mum were two outfits i had sewn for my younger siblings 10 and 7 years ago. So i knew i had done it before. Just not in a very long time!!

Sewing clothing is similar to bear making, but different enough to prove a bit of a challenge. I 'stole' the pattern from another commercially made outfit of Chelsea's, giving it a few tweaks to make it look more like i wanted it to look (and a little less complicated!). Cut it out. Made some more tweaks. Started sewing - yet more tweaks... a bit of unpicking. A bit of re-designing. A bit of experimentation and trial and error - and finally the outfit was done!

Its like an oversized romper, or one-piece bloomers, made in a sweet 'old fashioned' butterfly and flower print of muted creams, pinks and blues. It has two butterfly buttons down the back and some buttons and snap fasteners between the legs for easy nappy changes. I'm pretty happy with it. Some bits are a bit uneven, but I think it's great for a prototype!

New Bear - Erno

Whipped this little dude up last night. (I make it sound so easy don't I :P) My plan was for him to be a new line of Emma's Bear kits. I've measured out how much of each fabric is required (with a little extra in case of errors), and have his pattern all drawn up, and instruction booklet at the ready... so look out world, there's going to be an 'Erno Invasion'!

Keeping up with a hungry hungry baby!

We were down to the last three of Chelsea's chicken, veg and pasta meals, so i decided it was time for a new batch. This is what was whizzed up this afternoon, along with some lean beef mince. I made WAY too much (again!), and ended up with about 21 meals (cost approx $15 and took about an hour all up from chopping and boiling, to sterilising the containers to whizzing it up and packing in the freezer).



I actually ran out of my nice little clip lock containers and had to use our breakfast bowls for some of the ones i'll keep in the fridge and use over the next day or so. Not sure what we're going to eat our cereal out of now though... :P

Postcrossing

I found another postcard waiting for me when i got home yesterday evening. This one is from France. Must get off my butt and post some more. At the moment postcrossing lets me send 12 at a time, and I've now only got two travelling. So that's 10 little pieces of joy I can send!

New Bear - Sullivan

Sullivan is the successful compilation of my hand sculpted eyelids and some hand sculpted claws. I am REALLY happy with him! He took a hell of a lot longer to finish, but i think if i do a few more like him i'll get faster as i figure it all out. Bella strolled on over to see what I was doing (I took him to mum's place today to show her his funky feet in person. She was amazed by how real they feel too). And my little sister Lilly chose Sullivan's name! So it was a whole family affair today!

Backyard picnic

Chelsea was going crazy inside this afternoon, so i packed up all the bear-making stuff and some of her toys and we set up camp in the backyard. I plonked her right in the middle of our rather large picnic blanket - but she still managed to find her way off the edge of it, and into the muddy grass! Her nice little romper is now in the washing machine in a (probably in vain) attempt to get it clean again!


I should probably change the title of this blog to 'The Inner World of Chelsea' instead! Seems like it would be more appropriate! :P Nevermind. I did get a heap of bears drawn up on saturday night while Chelsea and Mark slept. A bit of Harry Potter on the TV in the background, and i was inspired like i haven't been in a long time. So now the slow process is cutting and pinning them all out. I have one that i sewed while Chels had her morning sleep today that i'll try those polymer clay eyelids on tonight.








So bear stuff is happening. Just slowly, and in the background at the moment. More bear photos will come soon enough!