Crafty Daddy

I'm finally getting around to posting some photos of the big gift we made for our daughter's 5th birthday.  We took an underutilised storage area and made it into a fun, functional and colourful room for the girls.  My husband spent a lot of time painting, finishing off some unfinished bits, adding carpet, making shelving and a fold down blackboard table.  I made the colourful Asian curtains at the back of the room, and chose the teal blue for the curtains and bean bag.  Wall stickers and a TV/DVD player combo finished it all off.  It's a great little room and well loved already...and let's face it, the kids were already going in there before it was a play room so this is much better as we now know everything is safe and comfy for them.

 If you have an under-used space in your house, consider relinquishing it to the kids.  We really love that the kids now have a place to go and watch tv and spread out their toys without us having to hear and see everything!

Lala-what-sy? Oh I see...

So, our oldest daughter turned 5 yesterday!  Quite a milestone.  For her birthday, she wanted to go to "fancy pants" lunch at the Langham Hotel, which we did a few weeks ago.  Her mum had a skating party for her on Saturday as well.

What do you get a 5 year old for their birthday? Specifically when you've decided you're making it...  We asked a number of times what was the gift of choice for this birthday.  The Lalaloopsy doll came up a few times.  I had heard of these dolls through craftster before, because some clever person before me had crocheted their version and posted it up.  Another poster on ravelry shared a pattern for a Lalaloopsy style doll, so I set off from there.

I did some research and foudn that the pattern I was going to use for my doll was quite plain and didn't seem to have the same outfit or colouring as any of the "real" Lalaloopsy dolls.  After much deliberation on the Lalaloopsy website I decided I would make my doll to look like Berry Jars n Jam.

That's the original there - molded pink plastic hair, gingham dress and orange bows.  I can do that.  (well, not the molded plastic bit...)

And that's my copy.  Pink hair - check, "gingham" dress - check, orange bows - check!  She even has on white socks and knickers, how cute is that?

There was a bit of a panicy moment for me when we picked up our girl from her mum's.  She said, specifically, oh you don't have to buy me a Lalaloopsy doll anymore, Uncle Adrian got me one.  EEK!  But, turns out she loves my one, a lot.  I guess the 12 or so hours work that went into her was worth it.  Next stop, Marina Anchors??

PS - Another birthday gift post of the playroom we set up for Lily's birthday will come soon, as well as a post of the gift we made for her twin cousins.  And a post of what I made my husband for Father's Day.  Plus 3 more birthdays this month...wait, make that 4!

Another gift down!

One of my nieces has her birthday a few days after mine; this year she turned 12.  She is really into horses and plays field hockey but at first I wasn't sure what to make for her. 

I searched my favourite craft site craftster.org using the simple search phrase horse and came up with all sorts of inspiration.  Crochet head covers for her horse, a beanie with a mane and ears made to look like a horse, machine appliqués on a tshirt or bag, etc.  One of my favourite inspirations was a pieced quilt pattern.  I am not much of a quilter so I didn't know what I would do with this great image:

In the end, I drew the design out on a letter sized piece of paper and let it stew a while.  Then I added a mane and tail for more interest.  Finally, after much thought and a little research on what favourite colours the birthday girl liked, I decided to put the picture to canvas, then down the side of the canvas I wrote a birthday message. 

 All done!  And looking pretty cool if I do say so myself.  Thanks to my husband for helping out getting enough layers of paint on there to make it look nice and opaque over the black.