Around the house: the lounge

It dawned on me the other day that we've been living in this little villa of ours for over three months and I have yet to share any pictures of the interior. Shame on me. Why don't I kick off a wee house tour with a look at the coziest room in the house: the lounge.

Part of me is sad that the landlords blocked up the original fire place. It would be so nice to cuddle up in front of a roaring fire on these chilly evenings. They thoughtfully picked out a lovely faux fire electric heater for us though, so it does sort of feel like a real fire (if I really use my imagination).

Slowly but surely, we've been collecting artwork to put on our walls. I've arranged and rearranged the collection we have thus far, but it doesn't seem quite right for hanging just yet. Just need one or two more pieces and then I can finally clear off the sideboard and admire all that lovely art up on the wall - where it should be. The two pieces on the left in the picture below were done by our neighbour in Regina. The colourful one is done in a technique called crosshatching which blows my mind every time I look at it...thousands of hand-drawn lines done oh so straight without any rulers! Crazy. Beautiful.

This little built-in cabinet has become our little work station. There is a spare room we'd intended to use as an office, but at the moment, the temperature doesn't rise above 10 degrees in that room so we don't really go in there too often. Most days, the laptop sits on this cabinet or in the kitchen...whichever is warmer. The painting was done by the daughter of TDSH's host family in Suriname - way back in 2000! I can't believe it's been that long since he lived there! It's nice to have this little reminder of that time in our house.

When you look at the view out the lounge window, you'd never guess that we live in the middle of a very dense residential area of Dunedin. Sheep graze on that hillside and there are horses just at the base of that hill. We also hear the occasional rooster in the mornings but I have yet to see one. Plenty of people keep chickens around here (one day we will too, I hope). It's hard to believe, but there's another subdivision just on the top of that hill as well...it's the ultimate farm folk/city folk town. Love it!

I'm almost embarrassed to show this corner of the room. A big, beautiful blank wall and not even a stitch of art on it. Shame on me. I MUST get something up there. One day soon...I promise.

Every room in our house can be closed off with doors. So much for open-plan living! To get from our bedroom to the toilet, you have to go through FIVE sets of doors. When it's this hard to heat a home, you really want to be able to close off rooms and heat only what you need. We've turned the doorway from the lounge to the kitchen into an art wall for Abner. When I first showed her the string and pegs and told her she could put up her artwork, she beamed! She feels so proud to have her art on display for everyone to see. I love having it up and seeing what she adds (I don't think she's taken anything down yet, so it's getting kind of full at the moment).

That's about it for the lounge. What room do you want to see next?

Snow day!

Remember when you were little and school was cancelled due to snow? Best days ever, right?! Abner is experiencing her very first snow day today. A few centimeters of snow in Dunedin mean that schools are closed and traffic is at a standstill.

So, Abner and I are spending the day together at home trying to stay warm, playing in the snow a bit, and sipping mugs of hot chocolate in front of the (faux) fire. Strangely, the snow is making me want to listen to Christmas carols and cook up a turkey. Happy snow day everyone!

Ticker tape doll quilt

I've been meaning to make Abner a doll blanket for ages. She didn't seem fussed by dolls for a while there, but now she totes around her Cabbage Patch doll and stuffed monkey around the house most days. I had given her a scrap of fabric to use as a doll blanket, but even Abner knew it was kind of lame. You could almost hear her thinking, "Mama, I have seen every last one of the quilts you've made; I know you can do better than this." The time had come for a proper doll quilt.

Yesterday when she came home from school there was a wee surprise waiting for her - a brand new, mama-made, ticker tape doll quilt. I saw a few of these quilts on Pinterest recently and loved the look of them and how they used up so many little teeny tiny scraps. [Yes, I'm still on a scrap busting kick.]

There is a great ticker tape quilt tutorial over on Sew Mama Sew if you want to make your own. For a doll quilt, I found a fat quarter to be the perfect size. The only variations I made from the original tutorial were to piece together some scrap binding rather than chopping into a nice big piece of batting. I also laid out my scraps on the quilt top (secured with straight pins) before stitching them down. I found this helpful (if a little pokey) for making sure I was happy with the final arrangement.

I also used this project to try out this fancy pants machine binding technique. See how there is a little strip of green accent fabric peeking out? Pretty cool, eh?! The whole thing is machine-done, so there is no hand sewing involved as there normally is in binding a quilt. I kind of like hand stitching my binding and I don't love how (despite careful pinning) I wound up with a line of stitching around the perimeter on the back, so I'm not sure I'd try this again. But, the effect is kind of cool and the technique is very clever, so do give it a try if you'd like. I found this tutorial from 52 Quilts in 52 Weeks quite helpful.

With this project, I'm pretty tapped out on scrap busting ideas yet I've barely scratched the surface of my scrap pile! Send me your favourite scrap busters, please!

Fabulous fabric bunting

Who says bunting is just for parties! In my continuing quest to conquer my scrap bin, I whipped up a little fabric bunting to dress up our lounge mantel. I dug out all the scraps that had a bit of a vintage vibe, cut them into rectangles, stitched a channel and strung them up. No fancy finishing. Just raw edges in all their glory. A perfect project if you're looking for almost instant gratification.

Photography scavenger hunt for kids

In the last few days before Abner started school, we were scraping the bottom of the barrel finding ways to stay entertained around the house. I think we were both sick of all the games and books we have and one can only spend so much time at the local library and museums. In a fit of genius, I came up with the idea for a photography scavenger hunt.

I wrote out a list of things for Abner to find around the house and yard. She had to read each item herself before running off to photograph it. Once she'd taken the picture, she had to bring me the camera so that I could see the photo before moving on to the next item on the list. I tried to write multi-word, descriptive clues so that Abner got some good reading practice. As Abner put it, "it's fun and I get to work on my learning skills, too!"

I love that it kept her busy for about an hour as I worked on some sewing. Abner loved it because she got to practice reading, use her digital camera, and she got to proudly show off her photos each time. Here are a few of the photos she took the last time we played:

a favourite book

a pretty quilt

a wooden elephant

Happy Mother's Day

Mother's Day has nearly past here in New Zealand. Thought I would share a few pics of our family sharing the day together at Sandfly Bay. We did plenty of walking along the beach, checked out the sea lions resting on the beach, built many sandcastles, destroyed just as many, splashed in the ocean, and made the long trek back up the sand wall to the car park. All that, plus we went out for breakfast and had ice cream in Portobello. Phew. What a day!

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there! I hope your day is as sunny and fun as mine was.

Postage stamp chair pads

I made up these postage stamp chair pads a few weeks ago for my sewing chair and Abner's antique school desk using this great tutorial from Elizabeth over at Oh, Fransson! I've used the technique before, but always find it difficult to explain when people ask me about it. If you want to give it a try, get your hands on some light-weight fusible interfacing and check out Elizabeth's posts. With this technique, you get the satisfaction of quickly piecing a project without the headache of keeping track of your rows and piecing all those little, teeny tiny squares together!

For these pads, I used two layers of batting to provide just enough cush for my tush, but still keep it manageable to push through my machine. A walking foot is definitely recommended if you're going to give it a try yourself. I decided not to quilt the finished piece since they're kind of small and probably won't be going in the wash too often. The layers are secured enough (I hope) with just the top stitching around the edge.

So, you'd think with all these scraps being used up on these scrap busting projects, my stash would be looking a little weak by this point. You'd be wrong. I think I have enough squares cut and spare scraps left to make up an entire set of chair pads for our kitchen chairs plus a new more projects! Stay tuned - more scrap busting projects coming your way soon!

Reusable fabric food wraps

I'm a big fan of Abeego beeswax fabric food wraps. I bought one for TDSH a few years back and he uses it most days to pack his sandwich for lunch. I haven't managed to find any similar product here in New Zealand which kind of had me bummed out since we're now packing lunches for Abner too.

Luckily, I stumbled upon a tutorial for making your own beeswax fabric food wraps over on The Art of Doing Stuff a few weeks back. So, on one of my first kid-free days, I gave it a shot. Folks, I think we have a winner. These turned out great!

Making them yourself definitely feels good. The cost is minimal (could have made it even cheaper if I'd used up some scrap fabrics instead of buying new) and it really didn't take long to whip up a couple of these bad boys. I found a vegetable peeler worked well to get the bits of wax off the big chunk. I even kept the foil I used for these ones so that I'll be able to take advantage of the wax left on it for the next batch I make. How's that for reusing!

I still prefer the Abeego originals, but these will do until I can get my hands on more.

Birthday round up

It was party time for us this weekend. Abner chose to have a small party taking just a couple of friends to the  Discovery part of the Otago Museum (it's a bit like Science World/Centre for those of you back home). We've held off on going since it costs a chunk of change whereas the rest of the museum is free/by donation. So, it was extra special for her to finally get to go for her birthday with her friends.

It was a perfect choice since the weather was miserable for the party and we got to stay cozy and warm playing with the displays and checking out the butterfly exhibit. We even got to watch the day's first flight (where a batch of new butterflies are released into the exhibit). The kids also got to experience butterflies landing on them...Abner only freaked out once.

Once we'd had our fill at the museum, we headed back to the house where the parents joined us for tea and cake, we opened gifts and, I handed out this year's handmade party favours. This year I hand stitched motifs onto long sleeves shirts for each kid. For Abner's shirt, I used one of her own drawings as inspiration. She's been doing these swirly flowers for a while now and I absolutely love them. She loves having one of her drawings on a shirt.

Other than that, Abner spent a good chunk of the weekend practicing riding her new big girl bike - a gift from The Dear Sweet Husband and me. It's borderline too big at the moment, but at least it will last a while and she's getting the hang of it quickly. Her run/balance bike was awesome and all, but it didn't do much to teach her about brakes. Ah well...falling off your bike a few times is all part of growing up, right?

Best mac & cheese ever

That, there, is the yummiest bowl of mac and cheese you ever will see.

Abner and I love macaroni and cheese. We used to have a box of KD (Kraft Dinner) every couple of weeks or so back home (don't judge). At first we were sad to realize they don't have it here. [Well, actually they do have Easy Mac, but that's just not the same.] But, then I made up my own fancy pants version. I can't even begin to describe the yumminess I created!

Three different cheeses!

Caramelized onions!

Oh my gosh, it was so delish! I just had to share it with you all. The mac and cheese recipe is now posted over on my food blog if you'd like to make some yourself. It's the perfect lunchtime food for these chilly autumn days (or the chilly spring days parts of Canada seem to be experiencing this year.)

And because I know you're wondering...

Yes, those are original issue 1977 Star Wars action figures. They like to hang out on the table during lunch.

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FIVE!

My little girl turns five today (or tomorrow for those of you reading this in North America today). Here's a snapshot of little Abner at five:

She has two adult molars already and is quite excited to lose her first baby tooth. She keeps wiggling her teeth trying to loosen them and speed up the whole process.

She can read a good deal for her age - even her teacher remarked on how well she reads! She's now able to read short paragraphs of text on her own with only occasional help from an adult. Now that she can read, one of her favourite things to do is look over our shoulders while we're on the computer or reading books and call out words she recognizes ('cause that's not annoying at all).

She has not picked up any kind of a Kiwi accent yet, but has adopted a few local words, like: wee (small), carpark (parking lot), and heaps (lots).

She can pour her own cereal and milk for breakfast (which comes in handy when TDSH is out of town and mommy doesn't want to get up at 6:30 a.m.)

Her favourite chores are setting the table for dinner, pouring her own milk (into a mini wine glass, no less), putting clean dishes back in the pantry, carpet sweeping, putting beers in the fridge for mommy and daddy, and helping to match socks fresh out of the laundry.

She can also tie her own shoes...if you have about five minutes to spare before actually needing to head out the door.

Happy birthday to my favourite little girl.