Spring sewing

There's nothing like a beautiful spring Brisbane day to start some sewing again. 

For some reason I seem to go into hibernation mode during winter (even though our winters a very mild!) and not get a lot done; I blame the short days!

I started off nice and slow by mending some clothes; sewing on buttons and redoing hems in thrifted vintage skirts. I then completed  little project I've been meaning to do for a while; a plastic bag holder. 

I needed something that was quick, easy and satisfying, oh and I was keen to use this cute fat quarter I picked up earlier in the year!

Now we have somewhere with than the back of the cupboard to put those pesky plastic bags, and as you can see by how full the bag is we had ALOT!

Now to stop collecting them......

I then started working on my christmas gift list. Early I know, but I am a planner at heart and thoroughly enjoy surfing blogs and websites for great sewn gift ideas. I have added plenty of links to my bookmarks!

You can see some of my homemade gifts from last Christmas in this post. 

I've discovered the world of fabric covered buttons and using these to make accessories. And then I found yoyo necklaces USING the fabric buttons. Oh Etsy you are amazing! Check out some Etsy inspiration here and here. 

Sooo... I started experimenting with making my own fabric buttons

I think I like the plainer patterned ones better. I guess it would probably help if I got the flowers in the middle of the button!

Have you started your gift list yet, or is that just me! 

Hope you had a great weekend

xx Kim

A weekend whip around the food garden

Lovely lavender...lavendar yoghurt cake but what more?

The first ever passionfruits in our garden.. I CAN NOT WAIT!

A forgotten tumeric root in the back of the pantry...to THIS!

Ravishing native rosella

Raspberries on weetbix is THE best start to the working week

Growing my own peanuts

Lovely productive lemons

Cool capsicums

Promising pumpkins

Hope you had a lovely weekend!

Loads of LUFFA & my first GIVEAWAY!

From this in August ...

I was so excited to grow my luffa plants. As you can see above I raised these little beauties from seed, a very rare feat in my gardening experience so far. 

I have written about my luffa's here, here and here. Can you tell I'm playing favourites!

Well this weekend it was time to harvest them!

I have harvested a few here and there to include with presents, but this time we ended up with a whole load!

... to this in April

And this isn't even half of them. These are just the ones that have been left to dry on the vine, which makes it super easy to take the exterior shell coating off and get the seeds out. There are still a whole load on the vines too, which means we'll be stocked up on luffa's until the end of the year!

Peeled and de-seeeded

When they luffa pods are as dry and brown as the picture above, it's only a matter of banging the pod against a hard surface to loosen in from the luffa and peeling off the outer shell and tipping out the seeds (for seed raising later on).

Load of LUFFA's

The next step is to soak them all in bleach to make them sparkling white.

Eventually, I'd also like to try making soaps incorporating the luffa's.

I now have SOOO many luffa seeds that I do not know what to do with, so I'm going to do a little giveaway. 

The first 10 people to leave a comment will receive a pack of 10 luffa seeds for you to grow your own. 

Please include your email address so I can email you to get your postal address. 

Hope you all had a great weekend!



AFTERTHOUGHT: Well I am new to this whole giveaway business and of course dived straight in! I don't want to be bailed up by the quarantine authorities so unfortunately I do have to limit the giveaway to those addresses in Australia, excluding WA & Tas (goodness they are strict!). Sorry about getting your hopes up if you are outside these areas, hopefully I can come up with a giveaway for everyone shortly :)

My beautiful nephew

Meet my little nephew, Patrick Isaac

Those eyes get me every time!

It's so beautiful watching this little life get used to the surroundings around him. Trying to take this crazy world in.

I am absolutely loving spending time watching little Patrick get bigger and brighter. Even if it's just a few weeks between visits his little personality is becoming more and more apparent each time.

I get to spend this whole weekend getting cuddles! SO EXCITED!

It's really getting Lyndon and I thinking more and more about having our own little family, especially since I celebrated my 27th birthday on Monday; time is ticking!

Oh what a whole new world of blogs and information to keep me busy!

Have a great weekend

xx

The MOST amazing week of my LIFE!

That's a big call I know!

But if you've been to the Woodford Folk Festival, north of Brisbane, you'd understand instantly what I mean. 

Here are some snapshots from that most heart-warming and life-affirming week

I can't believe I haven't been there before! It's only an hour away from my house.

Mind you, it was one of the wettest festivals they have had in their long history, thank goodness for Ivan our campervan for keeping our dry!

Have you been? What are your experiences? Do you have any festivals that you go to every year?

I will certainly be going again!

Making a framed silhouette

Recently I spoke about all the gifts I made for family and friends for christmas. 

The silhouette prints would be one of my favourites just because of our simple they were and look quite effective.

I wanted to take you through the steps to make these if you wanted to. I've seen people who have used a side portrait of their children through the years which would be a sweet little keepsake.

Like I said in a previous post, I came up with this idea when I spotted felt with adhesive backing at Spotlight in their bargain bin. I think I got this for around $1.

It was a bit manky on the edges but was plenty enough to do the silhouettes I wanted to do. I have since seen it for around $5/metre all nicely rolled too, which is still really cost effective. 

First step is to find a picture you want to make as the silhouette. I went online and used google images to find mine, but you could use the outline of photographs, or images in books or magazines, anything really. Just make sure you do it mirror image to the way you want the image to be shown in the frame (I learnt that the hard way!), especially if you are using letters or numbers!

This is one of the images I found online and thought it would be perfect for a new little babies room. 

Roughly cut out the image on paper, it doesn't have to be perfect at this stage because you will have to cut again when it is on the fabric. 

I found sticky taping the image to the adhesive cover made it sturdy enough to cut around. 

Once cut out you can see why you had to use a mirror image of the picture

Then here comes the easy part! Simple cut out the amount of background fabric that will fill the frame and stick on your silhouette! Make sure it is in the centre and sitting straight, but being adhesive you can pull off and reapply if need be. 

Then it's just a matter of putting it all together in the frame. I painted my frame black so that the silhouette would stand out. 

All done! How easy was that hey!

If you've made anything similar please share your links, there are so many possibilities that you could come up with!