My first sewing project: Kite mobile

I got a sewing machine - hooray!!!

This was my first creation:

3m Ribbon = $6
Cotton = $1
Embroidery hoop = $2.50
Paint chips from Bunnings = free

TOTAL COST = $9.50

Luke's view

Luke is fascinated by it!

I can't wait until I do sewing lessons. I am seriously excited! I have already started pinning exciting projects.

Impending mailbox project

This is my mail box. It came with the house. Those who know me know me will know that I love getting and receiving mail. The highlight of my day is when the postie drives past my house. Since taking up postcrossing and getting a high volume of random postcards coming to my house, I have noticed the mailman stops an extra while at my box. I suspect he is reading my postcards!

My mailbox is the same colour of my old car. It is a pale yellowy cream. It's numbers 3 and 2 are different sizes. It has a love heart on it, and I think that is cool! We once had a party with balloons on a very hot day. The balloons burst and melted into the pole. There is some curling ribbon left there too.

I see people do creative things on Pinterest and then think why didn't I think of that. I want to be creative too. Somebody has probably already stolen my idea, but nonetheless, this is my design for my humble letterbox:

Okay, my design doesn't do it justice. 

First of all I want to paint it red. Because we are chinese and red means good luck! I will need to find out what paint works best for letterboxes. I'm sure my Auntie Leanne would know. Or the people at Bunnings.

I want to get rid of the yucky uneven numbers and put lovely stylish silver ones. Silver is the colour (okay, white gold) of our wedding rings and I think just that little more classy.

I think it would be cool to put one of those little flag things on that you see in American movies, but that is completely an optional extra.

Then the pot. Plastic vs. Terracotta? As much as I definitely prefer terracotta, I think I will go plastic. It being placed next to the driveway would be less devastating if I somehow came into contact with it with my car. I will paint it red and purple. I will print out and make my own stencil of the words thirtytwo in a really classy font and spray paint it on. Again I will need to investigate which paint is going to be best for all of this.

I actually thought of putting the words tigapuluhdua (thirty two) as we are Indonesian after all.

Then I will put some pretty flowers in. I'm thinking geraniums or potted colour. Something not too expensive because I simply don't trust some of the kids in the neighbourhood. Perhaps even succulents, but I think flowers, tough flowers, will be prettier.

Now I just need to work out how I will go about it. Whether I bash the bottom out of the pot all together and put it over the existing letterbox. If I take the letterbox out of the ground and cement it into the bottom of the pot. Maybe even reposition where my letterbox is all together. And then there's the question of whether the soil will be drained enough for the flowers.

If this plan does ever come to fruition, perhaps the postie won't be reading my mail anymore, but instead stopping and smelling the flowers?

Organising the linen cupboard

Look at this mess! Just look at it! Okay, it was much worse before I became pregnant and started 'nesting', but still, what an unorganised chaos! Today, a blog that I read inspired me and I got into an organisation mood!






First of all, I pulled out everything in the cupboard. I then put everything in categorised piles.

Empty Cupboard

Categorised piles.

After that, I measured what space I had to work with and noted it all down. I counted my categories and wrote them down too. Perhaps I could fit two categories into one place if there were only little of them.

Taking measurements 

Writing down what I need

After this, I went to Sam's Warehouse - Plastic storage heaven! And yes, I took my measuring tape with me. I measured all of these boxes and after a long decision, I came home with 12 boxes in 3 different sizes. (and some aluminum foil... we ran out!)... Oh and it's very important you get boxes with wheels!

Love my Honda Jazz... Excellent storage space!

I got home and repacked all of the bed linen. I put everything in the boxes and then made labels for everything!!!

Only problem is I have too much of some things, so it overflows. But that's okay, because the boxes help keep it in a nice pile. And unfortunately there are only enough room for 2 boxes on each shelf, but I've put some miscellaneous items in to bulk it up.

I feel clean now! :)

Saving the world through organisation...

So today I have been busy... Some would call this business 'nesting'. I will post more on what I've been up to later, but first I am going to share how I made our bin area neater today.

Mess!

This is what our bins looked like. We broke the purple basket and decided to use it as a recycle bin. Previously we had been using a cardboard box.

How awesome are laminators?

I went to the $2 shop today and bought a bin, which was ironically $7. The thing that has annoyed me most about our recycle bin is things don't get rinsed (ew, mould!), or things end up in there that shouldn't, like plastic bags.

So I went to our local councils website and printed off a pretty PDF file about what you can and can't put in the bin. I then laminated it so that it was that bit more waterproof and stuck it to the side. Hopefully people will read it and be educated!

Now we have two bins, so I wanted to distinguish this new one some how. I got a permanent texta and copied a 'recycle' symbol off a simple google search. I think it adds a bit of a personal touch :)

The bin fits nicely in the corner of our kitchen now, and looks much better than a broken purple washing basket. 

Note how the recycle bin is bigger than the waste bin? That's because you should make twice as much recycling as waste. (That's why the wheelie bin is bigger too!)

Hungry Caterpillar collage

So I'm a little mad on the Hungry Caterpillar. It's one of my favorite children's books. The book actually lives in the back of my car so that when I am teaching I can just whip it out and read it in an instant given the chance.

Given that I'm now expecting, and without knowing the gender, I made this picture for my future little caterpillar:

I made this 12 weeks ago, but only just bought a frame today. (So hard to find a nice A4 frame).

So step 1, I whipped the book out and pretty much had a look at the picture. I realised I would need a few different colours to complete my collage.

-Green + hint of yellow (body)
- Red + hint of blue (head)
- Yellow (eyes)
- Brown + hint of yellow (nose and feet)
-Watered down blue (antlers) + red pencil/crayon.
-A4 Yellow + hint of red/orange (as my background)

I painted onto the paper sizes what I thought I would need

Step 2. Using acrylic paint, I painted the colours I needed. I semi-mixed the colours, meaning, I would paint a whole piece of paper green, add in the yellow so it was still visible, not so that it would mix totally with the green. I used different sized paper dependent on how much I needed.

Step 3. Once it was dry, on the back of the paper I drew, using pencil, what shapes I would need to create. I used the book as a reference. Just remember that when you cut it out it will be 'backwards'.

Step 4. Carefully cut out and stick onto the background paper (mine was yellow, but you can choose whatever colour you want, really). I used PVA-style glue as it is clear and has a bit more hold than the old glue-stick. Use a paint brush for the more intricate shapes.

Step 5. Using a red pencil or crayon, create detail on the antlers.

This project only cost me the price of the paint and paper (which I already had) plus a $2 frame from Big  W!