who's with me?

View this inspirational treasury here.

It's Halloween, which means it's officially (well, not officially) OK to start talking about Christmas, right?  I'm really looking forward to the anticipation season, if you know what I mean - starting to think about presents, turning on the heating or even the fire, opening the advent calendar, sipping amaretto, eating mince pies, making a festive gumdrop wreath and, maybe most of all, digging out my box of decorations to hang on the tree.  I LOVE my shoebox full of decorations, especially all the random handmade ones.

Anyway, I got to thinking (thanks to some inadvertent inspiration from Saffa) about just how much I really do love all my decorations and how quite a chunk of my collection came from a handmade decoration swap that I took part in back in 2008 (no way! five years ago!) via Swapbot.  The swap was so much fun!  I loved getting little parcels all through December and every single decoration, no matter how simple or fancy, tickled me thoroughly pink.  I also loved the idea of my own little handmade decorations hanging on other people's trees, maybe for year after year or even generation after generation.

So, it's been five years.  Don't you agree it might be time to participate in another Christmassy swap?  I had a quick look on Swapbot again, but couldn't find anything, so I decided I should try to organise one myself and just wanted to ask... who's with me?

I've never organised a swap before, but here's what I'm thinking.

* Anyone can participate - I think this swap should be open to all comers, regardless of geographical location.  For this reason, make sure any materials you use are OK to send abroad and the deadline for posting will be set at December 1st to allow decorations a few days to hang on trees prior to Christmas Day (and because it's easy to remember).  Don't tell the boss I said so, but you could always bend this date a bit if you were sending to someone in the same country as yourself since this swap is meant to be fun and not stressful.

* Decorations can be as simple or as elaborate as you like and nobody should worry that their decorations might not cut the festive mustard.  Part of the joy of a tree covered in handmade decorations is that some of them are beautiful and some of them are wonky. It is all good, so please don't let wobbly creative-confidence stop you from signing up!

* We're all busy, so I'm thinking we should keep the numbers small.  I'm sure nobody has the time or energy to go into full-on production-line manufacturing!  It all depends how many people sign up, but I think if we get more than around five takers, then I'll probably divide into two (or more) groups.  You'll need to be prepared to be a little bit flexible on this depending on interest (or lack of) but I'm thinking you would make, and therefore receive, six decorations as an absolute maximum if you did decide to take part.

So what do you reckon?  If you'd like to take part (please, please, please!) then drop me an email (you can do that by clicking on the airmail envelopes on the right-hand side there) giving me your full name and postal address by midnight on Monday November 4th.  By Wednesday November 6th, I'll email everyone who's signed up, detailing how many decorations to make and where to send them to.  This will leave you almost four weeks to make and send your decorations.  Simple, no?

So, are you more Scrooge or Santa?  Please banish those humbugs (bah!) and let the festive spirit run free - sign up and/or spread the Christmassy word :)

happy halloween 2013!

As promised, here's Dulcie in her spidery Halloween costume, complete with those hand-drawn flies*.  This picture was taken on the way into her nursery Halloween party on Monday and, as you can see, she was chuffed to bits with her outfit and with the general party atmosphere.

Since I am still off work (just for a few more days now!) I was able to go along to the party and, despite it being my basic idea of a social nightmare, I'm so glad I could.  It was so sweet to see Dulcie enjoying herself and mucking in with everything, not fazed at all by the strange outfits, noise and general hullaballoo.

Here she is "dooking" for apples (can you still call it "dooking" when you're using a fork?) and loving every minute.  She did, with a bit of assistance, get an apple eventually.

Dulcie kept me close most of the time, but it was more like she was excited to have me there than that she needed me for reassurance.  When it was time to read a story (Room On The Broom, naturally!) she charged off to bag the prime spot at the front of the group, leaving me far behind.

When I picked her up on Monday evening, she was (as usual) full of beans and chatting about her day.  Apparently she had helped to repaint her key worker's face in the afternoon and was exclaiming, "Kelly Anne's face blue!" all the way home.  Gawd bless 'er!

I am seriously loving Dulcie's nursery.  My mum stayed at home until I started school (although I did go to playgroup a couple of mornings a week, I think) and my sister is a full-time stay-at-home mum, so it can be hard to have to do something different in the way I'm bringing up Dulcie, but when I see how much she gets from the experience, I'm so glad things have turned out this way.  I'm even starting to think nursery may just be worth every one of those millions of pennies!

Hope you have a suitably spooky Halloween tomorrow.  Enjoy :)

* I feel I need to add a disclaimer regarding these flies and let you know that their colour did not hold in the wash and they've turned blue rather than black - not a major issue in this case (they'll do for one more party) but it would have been annoying if I'd been decorating a longer-term garment.  I don't know if this is because I used pens rather than a computer printer or whether it would have happened anyway.  I've never washed anything that I've used transfer paper on before (I usually use it for lavender bags etc.) but one day I will experiment further - try it with computer-printed images, permanent markers etc.  I would like to be able to draw things for Dulcie to wear, but there's not much point if I can't wash the clothes afterwards.  Do let me know if you have any insights!

miss dignity

Have you ever noticed how many old, still-in-their-packaging tights you always find in charity shops?  I've never been sure why that is.  Why would so many people get tights, leave them in their packaging and then hold onto them for years on end?  It's one of life's mysteries.  Whatever the reason, these tights, spotted in Oxfam today, were particularly impressive in their packaging design.  Nice.

Halloween is coming

I'm busy drawing flies on transfer paper for Dulcie's Halloween costume.  She has a couple of parties to go to and is going to be dressed (in a mixture of handmade/charity-shop-bought items) as a spider, these flies being the extent of the "handmade" element.  I hope they won't disgust/frighten any of the children or staff at her nursery.  Perhaps realistic flies are not appropriate Halloween attire for a one-and-a-bit-year-old to be wearing?  (I am still not confident when it comes to this PUBLIC mothering malarkey.)  Still, better slightly creepy over-sized flies than slightly tarty witch outfits (right?) which I was shocked to see do come in toddler sizes.  Yuck.  Halloween is not about looking sexy, if you ask me...especially when you're not even two yet!  Jeez...

Excuse the manky ironing board, floor, life...  Even the top is manky with old food stains under those flies, but I'm too frugal/stingy to put flies on a top that is still clean and wearable.  They don't exactly breathe a new lease of life into a garment!

I'll be sure to share a picture of the outfit in its totality (complete with toddler inside!) before the month is out.  I hope it turns out OK.  A Halloween costume is one of those funny mothering firsts (last year was lower key/less public) that you don't really think about too much before it happens.

dressing your child like a sideshow freak

The Weird and Wonderful Sideshow, a photo by Horrible Adorables on Flickr.

I am truly loving this Weird And Wonderful Sideshow fabric by Jordan Elise of Horrible Adorables. I think I am going to buy some and make a dress/top for Dulcie from it, probably a dress. I just need to wait and see how dress number one (still sitting cut but unsewn) turns out to guage how much of this fabric I need and whether or not I need to find an alternative pattern. 

I showed Dulcie this picture and she was very excited and even learned to say "bearded lady" straightaway! Graham likes it too, so it's a winner with all the family :)

You can buy fat quarters via Etsy here...

or various sizes and finishes from Spoonflower here.

eggoes

Retro Chocolate Hedgehog Cake, a photo by Annie Montgomerie on Flickr.

Dulcie loves hedgehogs at the moment, or "eggoes" as she calls them. She always wants me to make hedgehogs out of playdough. It will be her birthday soon, so I'm thinking of making her a hedgehog cake a bit like this. I think the amount of chocolate in this design will be good to help me get over the shock at Dulcie turning two already! And this sort of cake (I'm presuming mine won't look quite as good) might not be beyond even my non-existent baking/decorating skills. I do like the home-made look, you know... as evidenced by last year's Hungry Caterpillar! Ha!

baby, it's cold outside

When it's not raining, I am loving this colder weather.  Brrr!  Wrapping Dulcie up is a good feeling too, not that she's willing to keep her hat on for long.  I'm hoping, like last winter, that it will just be a case of her getting used to it because she does actually seem to like the hat, judging by the fact she wants to put it on whenever she sees it and loves to look at herself in the mirror when she's wearing it.  This hat was purchased this summer from a hand-knits (and other bits) stall in aid of Guide Dogs For The Blind and I love it, it's very funky, I think.

Thumbs up for mittens!

I didn't realise Dulcie's pushchair hood was reflective until I took these shots, or is that just her angelic halo?  Ha!  Not likely...