I am so happy to announce that I was chosen as a crafting expert for the Fiskars Design Team. Woohoo! Here's the link to my about me page on their website and while you are there you might want to take a peek at their Project Gallery for ideas and inspiration.

I am really excited about this new adventure, however it's always daunting starting something new and I am extra nervous having not worked for 7 years. I keep telling myself that I whilst raising my children I have gained many useful and transferable skills. I count being able to make a tasty spaghetti bolognese and managing to hide all the vegetables (even the tomatoes) as pretty spectacular, actually.

That said, I have a great enthusiasm for making things and I am really excited to be able to share some of it with you.

Now, please go and check out my giveaway ~ I'd love for you to win!

I want you to have this

All is well in my little world. My hair is brushed, my shoes match (almost), my Pandora radio keeps getting better and better and there's milk in the fridge.

So I have decided to host a giveaway ~ to enter please *Follow* my blog (counts as one entry) and/or *Like* me on Facebook (counts as a second entry). You can find my FB page here. Just leave a comment under this post and make sure I have a way to contact you if you are the winner, either through your url or email address.

Winner will be announced on Friday.

One crazy kid and her bib t-shirt

A long weekend (my kids had no school on Friday which makes it a 4 day weekend ~ a wholly sensible work/life balance, if you ask me), so a bit more time for making. I don't know what inspired me to make up this little thing, but after coming across this plain brown t-shirt in my little one's drawer, I decided it needed a bit of cheering up. I had a scrap of cool Alice in Wonderland print and some pink ric rac and made up a pattern on paper.

I had some buttons I made myself which fitted perfectly. Here is my button making tutorial in case you'd like to try it.

Now, I am first to admit that I've had my fair share of sewing disappointments and when we know each other better I will probably divulge each and every miserable failure to you. But for now, just know, that when things turn out right (like with this t-shirt) I feel so happy I could dance! In fact, I probably did.

Father's day card idea

(The one on the left is the one I made for my dad. As anyone who knows him knows he is a bow tie kind of guy. My 6 yr old made the one on the right).


At the risk of alienating those of you who don't have children, I am going to assume that you might still be interested in this idea, in case you have a father of your own that you want to recognize on Father's Day. Father's day is June 19th ~ as I have to keep reminding myself. I don't know if it's because I'm getting old or if it's because I have children who make me a little crazy, but I have a real problem remembering days, weeks and even months. This week I wished my son's teacher a happy weekend (it was Monday), last month I wrote a preschool tuition check and dated it October and sometimes I can't even remember what I'm wearing if I close my eyes. (And all of that is true).

Moving swiftly on, I found this nice explanation on how to make origami shirts. The tutorial comes across a little brusque because there are a lot of exclamation marks!!!!! and bold typing, (I need to be treated gently when learning something new) but if you do what she says, it comes out perfectly. And I mean perfectly!!!!

We enjoyed tipping out my jar of random buttons and letting loose with the glue. (What can I say? I was feeling reckless ~ it's almost the weekend~ I think).

My 4 yr old made this beauty.

Orange bundt cake perfection

I make a point not to buy butter or have it in the fridge. Its bad for you, right? Clogs up your arteries with a thick (but deliciously buttery) gunk. I also don't buy cookies, sweets, candy or chocolate for the kids. (Of course I buy it for me. It's in my family's best interest that I succumb to an illicit chocolate hit craving a few times during the day). So, you'd think I spend my days eating well and feeling pretty pious about my family's healthy diet wouldn't you. Well, we're not UNHEALTHY but I actually spend quite a lot of my time looking for recipes to bake cakes and cookies and cupcakes and breads myself and if there's a recipe WITHOUT butter in it ~ it's like winning that golden ticket.

Our orange tree is as generous with its fruits as our lemon tree and I have been trying to use as many oranges as I can, though picking the oranges often proves to be a problem. They are so securely attached to the tree that you need to give them a really good yank to get them off. Yanking, pulling or shaking a branch of a tree heavy with oranges whilst you are standing underneath it is not a good idea. Let's just say I have taken to wearing a bike helmet whilst baking with my citrus fruits.

This is the second time I have made this orange bundt cake and it is seriously good. I like the recipe because it calls for vegetable oil and not butter.

I found the original recipe here but I made a couple of changes. Here's how to make it my way :

Ingredients

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/2 cup orange juice
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 3 eggs, beaten
• 2 tablespoons grated orange zest

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and grease and flour a bundt pan. In a small bowl, combine milk, 1/2 cup orange juice, oil, beaten eggs and 2 tablespoons orange zest. Set aside.
2. Sift flour, salt and baking powder into a large bowl. Mix in sugar. Make a well in the center and pour in the milk mixture. Stir until thoroughly combined.
3. Pour batter into bundt pan and bake in the preheated oven for 35 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Allow to cool.

I made a little frosting to pour on the top simply by stirring together some confectioner's sugar with water until it was a thick, sticky yet runny consistency. I then grated in more orange zest to taste and poured it over the top of the cake.

Enjoy! (And you can eat as much as you like because there's no butter in it.)

Father's day gift idea

FYI, Father's Day in the US and the UK is Sunday June 19.

In the hopes of actually being useful I wanted to get this out to you a few weeks before Father's day. It is something I have been doing for the past 4 or 5 years for my husband and all you need is a couple of willing children (or a stack of previously created art work, and let's face it, we ALL have that!) and a large frame. I remember buying this frame in Target years ago but I know you can get them anywhere.

My husband hangs this on the wall in his office and every year just before Father's Day I ask him to bring it home so that I can change out the art work for new pieces.

I usually save the best bits of my children's art work in a container all year round so I have plenty of choice when it comes to selecting pieces of art to put in the frames. What you see here now is last year's effort as I have yet to replace the art with new things but this year I may add a photo or two as well as the art.

Do you have a child-related blog post you would like to share? Maybe you have children and need some inspiration or ideas for toys, projects or clothing for them.
Beneath the Rowan Tree makes beautifully simple and traditional Waldorf toys for little ones (you can find her shop here) and this week she is hosting a playdate link party/blog hop. Go ahead and check out her post here.

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Here is another etsy treasury I made recently. If you were to tell a story, how would it go? I enjoy all kinds of books; contemporary, historical fiction, biographies...but I do love classics especially Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte and Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell. I would like to think that any story I had to tell, would be something inspired by these novels. (In reality, my life is happy, straightforward and uncomplicated!)

I have just finished reading A Tree Grows in Brooklyn which I really enjoyed. Have you read it? It tells the story of the life of a little girl growing up in the NY suburb in the early 1900s. She lives in stark and gruesome poverty but her parents thankfully recognize the importance of education and allow the protagonist and her brother to continue on at school whilst many of their contemporaries have to leave to get a job and earn money.

Makes me feel grateful for my easy life....

I wanted to share a red and turquoise treasury I made on etsy last night.



My three favorite items in this treasury are this Rainbow Butterfly Paper Quilled Pendant by HoneysHive



This stunning print from MyMonography



And last (but not least) this cushion from SpirrelMonkey.

We have our son's birthday coming up on June 14, which also happens to be flag day here in the US. I don't know much about flag day but I do know my son (and husband) and partial to a flag or two (as well as kites, wind, sails etc), so I have been thinking about decorations involving flags. I came across some inspiring ideas...

by Martha



These cupcake toppers from Fiskars...



And this lovely painting on cardstock by Larkspurstudio

Last weekend we went on a family trip to LA, which is only 40mins from where we live and we go there reasonably often for one reason or another, but this time we went on the train and stayed downtown. The kids were so excited about traveling on the Amtrak's Pacific Surfliner and it actually felt pretty relaxing compared to sitting in traffic on the freeway.
On the Saturday we stopped by the LA Library (mainly because it was within walking distance from our hotel) and we got lucky enough to meet a fantastic library volunteer in the children's section who read stories about dinosaurs, taught the children about helicopters and flew toy gliders in the fabcy library lobby.
On Sunday we went to the California Science Center which gets a huge thumbs up from our family. We were there for hours and still feel like we need to go back and see what we missed. Everything was very child friendly and hands-on and I can't recommend it more highly. They have a beautiful Rose Garden and it was so nice to see so many people outside enjoying the good weather and beautiful surroundings.



This is my little one and me in infrared.

I was looking back through some photos from last year and I came across a file of pictures I took when we spent a month in Singapore between October and November. I was reminded of the bright colors of this street scene...



...and of the ornate statues adorning this temple...



and am encouraged to embrace a bit more color and contrast in my home.

Nice little tutorial on using up small (and I mean really small) scraps of fabric and making them into something decorative AND useful!

Find it here.

I listed a new bag in my shop last night. I like it so much I think I'll have to make another one just for me. Do you sometimes have trouble parting with the things you make?

I know I have mentioned my lemon tree before, but just look at it (again)! Look at all those lemons! Does my excitement betray my damp, cold homeland origins? My kids don't understand what the fuss is about because a lemon tree growing in their garden is all they have ever known. To me, however, it is an amazing sight and one that I always hope to appreciate. That said, do you think a lemon tree has such evil thorns on its branches just so that it REALLY REALLY hurts when you spike yourself, draw blood and then get lemon juice in the wound?



Not to be put off by the thorns, I picked a couple of lemons last night and made this delicious lemon and blueberry loaf and took it along to my book club. It was so good.





Thanks lemon tree.

Teacher appreciation week

My children are very fortunate to have 4 wonderful women in their lives who have taught them things no test score can measure and no budget (big or small) can buy. This week is teacher appreciation week (though I understand that for much of the US it was last week) and today we bought in snacks for our teachers. We made lemon and blueberry muffins and carried them carefully to school in brown paper bags. I hope our teachers know how much we appreciate them.



I am making the apple/thank you gift tag available for download here.

Sewing is my craft of choice, but I'll pretty much give anything a go if I feel so inspired. I saw this necklace on the Anthropologie website the other day but at almost $400 it is completely out of my price range! I have never made jewelry before but this didn't seem too complicated or requiring any special tools, so I had a look around Joanns this afternoon and this is what I came up with.



Ok, it's not quite as lovely as the Anthropologie one, but it cost $6 total and I have enough ribbon and clasps left to make 2 more. I did use ceramic beads like the one from Anthropologie but the choice in Joanns wasn't extensive. In fact, these orange beads were all they had, but I like them. I like the way they sound when they bump together and I like their weight and feel. I am going to keep my eyes open for some ceramic beads in more pastel colors to make another necklace.

Mother's day idea and quick tutorial

Mother's Day in the US is Sunday and many people are starting to think about something special for the women in their lives,and in my opinion, there is nothing more meaningful than a handmade gift from the heart.
I have been making simple but gorgeous scarves these last few days and recently listed this scarf in my etsy shop. They are simple to make but the key is in using high quality fabrics, since they will be worn close to the skin. You can line a scarf by using 2 contrasting or co-ordinating fabrics, but for a summery, light-weight feel, I used just one kind of fabric and hemmed the sides and mitered the corners. Then, I made a tutorial on how to miter edges which you can find here. Consider it my mother's day gift to you! So go and grab a length of that special fabric you have been saving for an important creation and make the mum in your life something pretty.

Spring so far in Southern California has been pretty wonderful. I miss the sun during the winter months and it feels good to see it coming back again. I have lived here for 6 and a half years now (I am from England, where we LOVE to complain about the weather, even during a heat wave) but I don't think I will ever tire of nice weather. I feel really lucky to be able to eat meals outside, to have a large yard in which the kids can run free, and to have the Pacific Ocean at the end of our street.
I have been enjoying the many nice spring/summery flower accessories like this and this, that are appearing in the stores this season, so I am going to dedicate some time to showing you how to make some of your own, using very simple yet very effective techniques.

The first tutorial will explain directions for creating these...



You can find the tutorial here.

Not leggings, jeggings!

Have you come across jeggings yet? I'm sure you have, but for those of you who don't know, they are jean-leggings, hence jeggings. (Clever, hey?) They are made out of a denim-look stretch fabric and they are worn tight to the skin, like leggings. I noticed some jeggings fabric for sale in Jo-anns last week for $5 a yard and couldn't resist it. They had a 'blue jean' effect as well as a 'black jean' effect and I went with the blue. Now, I am pretty sure that jeggings would not be a good look on me, but I love to make clothes for my daughter(age 4), so while she was sleeping one evening I sewed up a pair. I didn't use a pattern, but I figured her legs are probably the same thickness as my forearms, so I kind of winged it and for once I got lucky! I made her put them on as soon as she woke up the next morning, and to my relief they fit. They are kind of crazy looking, but they suit her. You would say that too, if you knew my daughter.





She wears an AFO (brace) on her left leg, the outline of which you can see under her jeggings in these photos as it is quite bulky. The jeggings are pretty stretchy and even fit nicely over the brace. Don't you love it when things just turn out right? It doesn't always happen. I've had my fair share of sewing disappointments and I'm sure there are plenty more yet to come, but for now however, I'm going to enjoy watching my crazy little one run around in her new jeggings.

I am from England and living in California, which will explain why our house was the only house in our neighborhood last week with a large Union Jack hanging out the front. Obviously last Friday was the royal wedding, and there's nothing like putting 5000 miles between you and your home country to make you feel patriotic. Not to be outdone by the festivities back home, we had our own wedding party with some good friends big and small, good food and lots of Pimms. We tried to keep the menu typically British, with roast beef, watercress and mustard sandwiches, quiches, sausages on sticks and a delicious rhubarb crumble. By the time we started our celebrations the newly-weds would have been safely tucked up asleep in their four-poster bed, but we watched some of the wedding highlights online and the kids dressed up in costumes and had their own parade.





The good thing about these decorations is that I can get away with leaving them up for a while. All the way until about July 4. Though I might take down the Union Jack outside...



Want to make my deliciously English rhubarb crumble? You can find my recipe here.