Christmas Coasters

I have been crocheting up a frenzy!  Everyone is getting crocheted treasures for Christmas this year, so be warned, Loved Ones.  My favourite thing at the moment are Hexagon Felted Coasters made out of the amazing Noro wool.   I played around with a few different shapes and designs but Attic 24's Hexagon pattern I think works the best.  This is a perfect project for the kind of crafter that I am -

1. You don't need to muck around changing wool colours as the Noro does it all for you.
2. Felting is really easy - just pop the finished hexagons into the washing machine on a hot wash.  3.The felting process covers a multitude of sins.
4. You can get 7 coasters per skien of wool or one big mat.

Look at those colours - sigh

Ohhhh so pretty

I had them all finished and laid out like this and thought how
 good they would look sewn together.

All sewn up

What do you think?

I want these all over the house now.

Hello Birdies

Our big project these last few days has been the Bird Cage/Avery Make Over.   Technically this is Miss M's Christmas present but it has turned into a whole family thing.  Miss M has been bird obsessed for a few years now, we have had budges before but I don't like them in the house (being the neat freak that I am, Mum!)  We all have that niggling level of discomfort about caged birds so we thought we would create a nicer, out door habitat and try again.   I got this old cage on our local garage sale site,  we wrapped it with a finer wire and have found the perfect spot.

Before 

After

I think I might like to live here if I was a pet shop budgie.

Via Gumtree I found a local breeder with baby birds for sale only $15 each.  I love it when all your Christmas Gift Organising Stars align... it was meant to be.  The breeder lives about 10 mins away from us, so we all piled into the car and had a family outing to his house.   It was bird heaven, he had been breeding birds since boyhood (which was a long time ago) and had all sorts for sale.  It was tempting to get something more exotic but budgies really are at our level at the moment.  Oh, he also had a great after sales policy - if they die or fly away, don't worry, just pop back & I'll give you another, what parent doesn't love that!

Not sure of their names yet, we are still at that stage where
 we come up with a new name every hour, on the hour.

After we had safely ensconced our new birds in their home the we all sat around watching them for hours like it was a fire place or a fish tank.     

Where Has The Time Gone

Three legged races - love them.

Wow we are hurtling towards the end of the year and I am officially on Hols, as of NOW!   The girls finished school yesterday and today marks the end of a parenting era, with our last ever Kindy day.  Our community kindy is just beautiful and has been a big part of our lives since 2006 when our first child started there.  I remember looking in wonderment at parents that had all school aged children, who were miles away from baby years and who even had children who sat in the front of the car!  Now I am one of them, I feels like I have moved to a new level of the Parenting Club.

The last two weeks have been a blur of parties, costumes and props to make for the school play,  concerts and performances, teacher gifts to make and lots and lots of crochet.

Well done to my big girls for such great performances in the school Christmas concert.  Miss M as Perri-Meter the odd-one-out Elf who saves Christmas with her (possibly autistic) mathematical skills.  Miss S was part of the Christmas Wish Clowns who sing to a sad Perri about believing in herself.  Miss S was also chuffed with her cameo appearance as one on the elves who bounds out of Perri's present machine.

           A couple of Teacher gifts, I trust in the adage "you can never have too many bags."

Sack races - Go Master B, who knew you had such hidden talents

Crochet Oh Crochet how addicted I have become.
(More Crochet posts to come)

Clever Things My friends Make

I have some very crafty friends, (and some very professional artiste's - you know who you are Ms KLB!)  The unfortunate thing is that we all live miles away from each other so have to share project progress via dodgy iphone snaps.  This doesn't stop us and somehow it really doesn't matter, as the old adage goes its the thought that counts (or the text message.)

This is the start of Ms Soon to be Mother of four's crochet blanket.

How great is this bird cage prototype by Ms PN
- note how well it goes with my bird cage purse.

Before

This is a pair of shorts I made years ago for my girls then
handed down to Ms S for her girls.  Her girls have worn them
and now thrifty Ms S has up cycled them into plastic bag storage.

After

The shorts live on...

To Do

I, like many people at this time of year have a long list of jobs to do and not enough time to do them in. One of the little jobs I need to do is to fix my Bird necklace.  The poor little bird has fallen off his perch and now looks dead at the bottom of the cage.  This really freaked out the kids when I wore it to kindy one day.

Feels a bit like my energy levels at the moment.