Holidays and making days

Term one is over and with Easter the holidays have started…

We spent Easter Sunday with family and a trip to the beach. In between eating chocolate that is.

After the second tropical cyclone in as many weeks, the weather was superb, and the beach laden with treasures for the finding.

The children and my brothers made a beach hut over three days. It was a architectural feat and a sight to behold!

It was ALMOST warm enough for swimming. For me it was perfectly warm enough for photography 🙂

There’s been plenty of making taking place now school’s out. The children have been making some very nice mice... these are much tidier than the slime they spent yesterday concocting!

This is a lovely free sewing pattern from Ann Wood, lots of fun and suitably small and cute!

They look pleased with their efforts don’t they?

Billy doesn’t look so happy with his new make… Maia lovingly crafted this finger knitted scarf just for him (matches the mice!).

In other projects at our house, my Hygge is coming along well:

I really enjoy making the cross stitch on crochet. I’ve never cross stitched before, but its very relaxing (once you get the stitches in the right place that is). The single crochet is getting a little mind numbing, but easy to work on in front of the TV after work in the evenings 🙂

What are you working on, any good holiday projects for kids you can recommend?

Mini cats and dogs

I love small things, Ive never been able to resist a tiny… anything.

Im drawn to  miniatures, especially little toys and such, tiny enough to fit comfortably in your hand. In fact I have a whole shelf dedicated to tiny knick knacks – a number of which date back to my childhood.

This weekend I’ve been making tiny crochet pets by Lucy Collin. Ive made many of her mini animals over the last few years, I love them all. The vast majority are free patterns and they are quick and easy to make, all in one, minimal yarn changes and almost no sewing of ends. Always adored, firstly by me and eagerly by my children who always beg and plead for me to make just one more…

No surprises, then that we’ve had 5 new cats and dogs join the family this weekend!

A pug named Petunia, two cats – Shadow and Paws, a Jack Russell named Jackie and a Dachshund (with a green jacket) by the name of Dash…

Perfect little pets, so well behaved and suitably tiny 🙂

Small enough to fit one, or three, in your hand.

And perfect for cuddling up with in bed at night (or slipping into your pj pocket):

Don’t you love that angelic sleeping pose Carter has for the photo?

That’s more like it…

Both he and Maia love them, and even though they are quite un-eastery, Maia has made an Easter movie about them! I can’t upload it onto the blog, but Ill do my best to load it onto the Green Dragonfly Facebook page shortly edited: when someone tech savvy enough helps me do it – I can’t seem to share with the page only my (personal) friends, fb is not in my good books!

The weather has been a bit dire of late, so I’ve also made good progress on my Hygge. Ill pop back in a day or two and share some update photos with you all.

What are you doing for the long weekend? What projects are you working on? ~ J xox

 

Pizza night and a bunny

The school holidays are coming to an end this weekend, come Monday we’ll be back to the school/work routines. It’s lovely to take the time together to make some meals a special celebration of the season, the holiday and just being together.

We love a pizza in this family, and now that autumn is here and the evenings are fine but cool, it’s the perfect time for cozying up in front of the pizza oven.Ready to come out…
Maia set the table for us, including picking a bunch of autumnal leaves and flowers and making little place setting name tags…Of course, the pizza was delicious… there are never any complaints about eating dinner on pizza night!And as you might have noticed in the first photo, dessert was also cooked over the open flame – well the marshmallows were anyway 🙂If you follow me on Facebook you might have seen that I recently taught Maia to knit. She picked it up really quickly – I’ve tried and tried to teach her to crochet but it just hasn’t stuck – but she’s taken to knitting like a duck to water…Don’t you love the look of concentration?

I found this really easy pattern to make a knitted bunny, which is basically just  a square which you sew up in a triangle to make the head and then along the seam to make the body… that doesn’t make much sense, but  you can find a much better explanation here!

Stuffing the body…And sewing the final seam:Love that tongue!

Here’s the finished bunny, cute huh…Pretty nifty how two of the corners make the ears! Im thinking it would work just as well with a crochet square, and even better if you had a furry yarn. She was very pleased with herself, and I am very proud of her yarny creating 🙂

For me, Im working on sock two of my second pair of socks, this pair is MUCH easier than the first was!This is taken this morning, while having breakfast. Green smoothie and blueberry and apple pancake squares… the raspberries have finally finished for the season.Don’t you love the colors, these self striping yarns are awesome!

What’s going on at your place, what are you working on?

Have a great week everyone!

‘Tis the season

For reindeer cookies…The silly season is upon us and the year flying by at an alarming pace. But there is always. Always! Time for reindeer cookies 🙂This year they were decorated with chocolate and m&ms.

Gingerbread Reindeer Cookies recipe:

• 1/2 cup golden syrup
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 3 Tablespoons butter
• 1 Tablespoon milk
• 2 Cups flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ginger

Preheat oven to 180 C. Heat golden syrup, sugar, butter and milk together in a pot until melted.

Sift dry ingredients and add to pot. Blend together well, using a wooden spoon.

Cut out gingerbread man shapes, place on baking sheet and bake for 7 -9 minutes until lightly golden. When cool decorate with melted chocolate and m&ms. Share with all your friends!!!

An unexpected gift

In a swift turnaround from what was looking like a rather ordinary week, our two-doors-down-neighbor showed up one afternoon struggling to see over the top of a large box which had been left with them earlier in the day (even though it was clearly labeled with my name and our correct address) by an inattentive courier.

The children were beside themselves with excitement as they tore off the tape. What could it be? Who is sending us this huge package all the way from Oregon USA?

Well it was a very generous gift from the lovely Lisa of Blondies Bearista. Packed up in the box were not one, but three bears, a monkey, a kiss and a turtle!

Thank you Lisa, for such a lovely, thoughtful gift… the children have become firm friends with the toys already 🙂 In fact there’s not much room in either child’s bed at night!

Has anyone else received anything nice in the mail recently? It’s been such a long time (if ever!) since we’ve got anything near this delightful in the mail!

Jxx

Toadstools coloring page

I made a new coloring sheet, this one in keeping with the toadstool theme 🙂

You can download it by clicking on this image:

Or to download it as a pdf, click here.

Enjoy 🙂