DIY Kids Photo Books :)

I know right!! I did some DIY!  I'm exceeding my expectations!!

My boys LOVE looking at photos (Especially if they're in them) but we don't actually own any photo albums!  (Everything's on our laptops, it's sad, I know...we really need to work on that...at least a wedding album would be good)  So yesterday I set about selecting some photo's of the boys doing different activities with different family members and then we went off to print photos and get supplies!

My original 'supplies' were going to be a couple of small photo albums with room to write about who was in each pic, but then I read yet another awesome post about mums crafting with their kids and thought stuff it, lets find something the boys can add their own personal touch to!!

Well, after 3 hours of searching and only finding 2 DIY albums (that weren't quite designed for small children) I gave up and decided to get crafty!

Some card, some ring thing-imys and a hole punch and Hey Presto...

We have ourselves an album!!!
A bit plain, but with some scrap booking paper, some puffy letters and a whole load of photos...

 They were coming to life!! 

 I made one for each of the boys, with their own photos to look at and decorate.... I think they were a little bit awesome... and so did the boys :)

 Then came the decorating!!  Letters, shapes, coloured card, corrugated card, stickers, glitter, stars, rock guitar stickers, fluffy balls (of which the cat stole most) and Googly eyes!! (I was most excited about the googly eyes!)

I should also mention the scissors and copious amounts of glue!  We had a few issues with scissors...apparently if your left handed you have to buy left handed scissors...3 lefties at one craft table...4 pairs of right handed scissors...seriously, I didn't even know you had to buy hand specific scissors!!

 Confession time...the boys had a blast for about half and hour with gluing and stickers before they started wandering off to play cars...and just maybe me and the hubster continued to play with the decorating stuff....there were A LOT of googly eyes...and now there are not...

 And there you have it!  2 kids photo books, made with love by all of us, with room to add more with each activity/photo opportunity!!  We had a visitor shortly after we packed away and both boys showed off their books with all of their pictures and crafts!  I really wish we'd done this sooner, but better late than never!!

On a quick side note, going through all the pictures of the boys also turned out to be a great time to talk about baby sisters arrival in a couple of months, showing them pictures from when they were teeny little babies, just out of mummy's tummy!!
I think they're getting the idea! :)

DIY Kids Bench seat!

If you didn't gather from the last post, my house can get pretty messy from time to time all the time.  My lounge is pretty much a battle zone from 6am til 7pm, and i'm totally fine with that (ask me again after i've tripped over my third truck) but i like to have a few quick and easy clean up solutions for those occasions when i have to pretend to function. 

Toy boxes are the obvious solution, but i wanted a neat way to store them....and then i saw This and it all made sense!!  After a wee chat to Hubby and a lil' bit of shopping and rummaging we got to work!

I was given the job of making the seat part! 

I used a yoga mat cut to size for a nice cushion base, followed by a layer that i cut from an old Duvet!

I was super lucky that Spotlight had a sale on all their fabric, and i was able to get a couple of meters of this 'Construction' upholstery fabric for a steal!
Also...I got to use a gun stapler! Wahoo!...(Clearly I don't get out much)

Meanwhile, somewhere outside, Hubby was getting the storage part sorted!  We made it to fit the 2 containers that we were already using to store toys :)

And on goes the seat!!  I'm exceptionally proud of myself for getting the fabric print in the right direction! (Yes, that is something i would stuff up!)

Given that this is a seat for small children we decided that painting the outside of the box would be a good idea, to make it easier to clean.  Construction yellow seemed like a good choice!

And here is the finished product!! 
Super proud of our efforts we are!!  And the boys just LOVE it!!!

The Official Seal of Approval - Two very happy boys!
 Lachy has taken to setting up his trains on top, and Olly will happily sit and just open and close the drawers, occasionally removing a toy or putting one away :)

We did get a few more crafty bits done (Love 3 day weekends!) but that can be another post for another day! :)  Would love to know how you store your kids toys away!! 


Renee  :)

DIY Nursing pads!!

Yup, i'm pretty budget nifty when i want to be!!  Sick of paying exorbitant amounts for disposable nursing pads only to find that you're allergic to the plastic in them??  Sick of paying for fabric reusable nursing pads that lose their absorbancy after (or during) one feed??

ME TOO!!!

After a wee bit of Googling, however, the basics for making your own Nursing pads started coming out of the wood-work!

I would need....

# A sewing machine
# Polar fleece
#  Flannel
#  Another 'inner' fabric
#  Scissors
# Something round and booby-sized

My hot chocolate lid and flannel

To start, i found an old flannel blanket that was never used, an old towel, and some polar fleece!  And a hot chocolate lid that i thought might fit...

Did i mention that it was a cute kids flannel blanket?! Bonus pics!

 I cut 2 flannel rounds, 1 towel round and 1 polar fleece round.

I even got a fabric marker for the occasion!!  I'm that Flash!

The stacks :)

I tried to make sure that there would be a bit of overhang in the polar fleece rounds so that even if the flannel and towel fabric got soaked, the overhanging fleece could still 'repel' the damp from going through to your clothing. (It seems to have worked)

Yes, i cut matching pictures for each pair of boob-pads!!

Some stitched up pads :)

I put 1 flannel, 1 towel, 1 flannel together (in that order) and sewed them together using a straight stitch, then used a zig zag stitch around the outside (i don't have an over-locker).  Then i put a piece of the polar fleece under the flannel bit, and sewed that on using the same 2 stitches.

The finished project :)  Success!!

If you're feeling a bit fancy you can contour your boob-pads by cutting a slight wedge out of them, and stitching the two parts back together.  (Make sure they're joined properly or the pads will leak through the gaps)  Being the non-sew gal that i am, i just whipped over them again and again with a zig zag stitch, and that seems to have done the trick!!

So there you have it!  I'm now the proud owner of 5 pairs of home made nursing-pads that actually do work!!  I'm a bit of a legend cow, so knowing that i'm not going to leak in public is pretty huge for me (I did test them at home before i wore them out in public!!).  For the record, i do soak the pads, but it's only gotten through the polar fleece part twice, and both times was when my supply was trying to keep up with my growing boy!

Another thing i'd like to point out, these things are comfy, and are fitted enough that they don't leave funny lumps and bumps showing through my shirts!!

Let me know if you've found a different, nifty way to make these, i'm keen to see some different techniques!  And let me know if you try to make any, i'd love to see how anyone else has gotten on with them!! 
Thanks everyone that thinks up/figures out these things and puts them on line for the rest of the world to benefit! You folk are fantastic!!

*These pads were not my own design, i found the style and instructions on line on Heaps of different sights, however i was unable to re-find the specific blog that i first saw them on! :( *


Renee  :)

'Not all who wander are lost'

DIY Divas!!

Last night i had the most enormous amount of fun pretending that i knew all about DIY!! I was invited along to a women's night at the local hardware store by a good friend, and thought it would be a bit of an interesting/educational gathering with everyone trying to sell us something.  What i found instead were a whole lot of interesting activities and games that made you feel like you could possibly build a house!

Painted planter box!! (The wonky ends were totally on purpose !)

I built a planter box (they even let me drill some holes), also got to paint my hands, jeans  and the floor planter box, we learnt how to make quick easy art work with napkins, glue and a small canvas, I changed a car tyre in 2 mins and 54 seconds.  Using a skillful netball throw, threw 8 rugby balls into the mini concrete mixer in a minute, sliced (i'm not even sure what that means) a golf ball into tub to win a chilly bag (using my hockey skills), cast a fishing line into a chilly bin from a couple of meters miles away to win a fish measure thingy-me-bob, and most exciting of all, i won a spot prize!! Yayyy!! It was a bucket full of...well...handyman stuff that i'l probably never use but my hubby was pretty stoked!

My pretty art!

And for the whole night no one tried to sell me anything and i was constantly offered wine, juice and cheese (hmmm, we never did find the other nibbles!)  And even better, i had Lachy with me the whole night and he was just the most AWSUM TROOPER!!  He slept for about half an hour then just stared at everything from his pushchair, occasionally holding a wee conversation with anyone that stopped to talk to him!  He did have a horrendous and scary screaming fit wee melt down in the last 5 mins, but then it was home time and he was my perfect wee gentleman again!!  My babies AMAZING!!!

DIY Diva's (kinda)

 I had so much fun!! Thanks Rach' and Charlotte! You ladies are amazing!!  I'm really looking forward to next year!! My mission for next week is to find some herbs to put in my SELF MADE planter box!!Oh the fun i shall have!!

Toodles!!