Margaret Mahy inspiration

One of my favourite authors of children's books is New Zealand author Margaret Mahy. I took Miss 3 into town this morning and saw a display of Margaret Mahy books at Books A Plenty with a sign for a Margaret Mahy exhibition at the Tauranga Art Gallery so along we went. It was a lovely exhibition inspired by her poetry with beautifully illustrated drawings by David Elliot.  The Art Gallery is holding 'Story Telling sessions' related to the exhibition in the school holidays which sound like fun.

Then we walked along to the library where I got this book out "The hand that first held mine" by one of my favourite novelists Maggie O'Farrell. Amelie chose a couple of DVD's to take home (we really should be taking home books too!)  and I spotted this Margaret Mahy collection so we got that too.

It's got the "The Witch in the Cherry Tree" on it which I loved reading when I was little.

(I found a Brambly Hedge DVD too so had to get that one as well!)

Margaret Mahy's first book published,  "The Lion in the Meadow",  is still one of my all time favourite children's books and is already one of my toddlers favourites too.

I took this book to school the other day for the five year old class I teach in. I read them the story and we talked about how the mother gives the little boy a matchbox with a dragon in it to scare the lion away.  I gave them all their own matchbox and they decorated it with kozo tape and drew and cut out a little animal to put inside the matchbox to scare the lion away (although some decided they wanted the animal in the matchbox to be friends with the lion instead which was cute!)

Happy reading!
Megan

a kids questionnaire

Here's something fun to do with your little ones...my sister found this questionnaire on this funny blog so she asked my three and a half year old the questions the other day. It was pretty funny reading her answers! Definitely something to pop in the memory box and have a giggle about when she's older.

1) What is something Mummy always says to you?

That I’m beautiful and cute, and that she loves me.

2) What makes Mummy happy?

When I talk nicely to her, and that she loves me.

3) What makes Mummy sad?

Don’t know.

4) How does your Mummy make you laugh?

When she laughs at me!

5) What did your Mummy like to do when she was little?

Play puzzles and read girl books.

6) How old is Mummy?

Don’t know.

7) How tall is your Mummy?

Medium

8) What is her favourite thing to watch on TV?

The Go Show

9) What does your Mummy do when you’re not there?

Has a sleep and does her jobs.

10) What is Mummy really good at?

Reading stories to me. Stitching and sewing. I miss her when she’s at the sewing shop. I stay at home with Daddy and Stella and we eat a nummy dinner.

11) What is your Mummy not very good at?

Reading funny books without her glasses.

12) What does Mummy do for her job?

Sewing. She gets her money from the money shop when she needs more.

13) What is your Mummy’s favourite food?

M&Ms. Roast chicken.

14) What makes you proud of your Mummy?

Doing beautiful pictures with her.

15) If your Mummy were a cartoon character, who would she be?

Don’t know.

16) What do you and your Mummy do together?

We go to bed and have cuddles.

17) How are you and Mummy the same?

*a whole lot of gibberish about who the tallest is and reaching really high books*

18) How are you and your Mummy different?

Don’t know.

19) How do you know your Mummy loves you?

She gives me presents.

20) What does your Mummy love most about your Daddy?

Chicken pie.

21) Where is your Mummy’s favourite place to go?

Bernina (sewing shop)

22) What is one thing you wish you could change about Mummy?

I would turn her into a frog! *gales of laughter* cause I like doing that when I’m a fairy. And a princess.

23) What would your Mummy do with a million dollars?

Buy lots of toys for me. Buy Superman. Buy lots of zips. (pronounced thipth).

24) What do you wish you could go and do with your Mummy?

Play schools and have morning tea.

25) What is one thing you hope never changes about Mummy?

I hope she never turns into a frog.

Megan

a reversible shoulder bag

My sister Amy put in a request for a shoulder bag for her honeymoon so I found this great tutorial at the fab blog verypurpleperson.com. It has really clear instructions with photo's and the pattern too.
I ordered some lovely Echino fabric from stitchbird.co.nz for Amy's bag and used some fabric I already had (also from Stitchbird) for my one as I decided that I really needed another bag too (*insert snort from husband here*).

I just used some white cotton duck for the lining for Amy's bag so it's not really reversible (unless she wants a white bag some days!) but the duck was good for making the bag nice and strong.

One thing I found when I made up Amy's bag was that the strap ended up too short so I had to unpick and add a 10cm approx panel to the strap.

So I added a 5 cm approx panel to the pattern when I made up my bag.

It's a great size for a shoulder bag, not too big but big enough for all my day to day stuff. 

I also like the look of this tutorial from Tinyhappy for a shoulder bag with just one strap that you wear across your body which I find great when I'm out and about with the kids.

...And on a completely different tangent, have you seen these in the supermarket? 

I went in there the other day as you do to get just one thing and ended up buying all three of these as well...naughty end of the aisle promotions!!  I have a friend that used to have a bit of an addiction to Squiggle Tops...maybe these will find their way to her mail box soon..

Megan x

my creative space: bridesmaid purses

We had my sister Amy's wedding in Hawkes Bay in the weekend - we had such a great day getting all glam, the ceremony was beautiful and the reception was a lot of fun! There were even bag pipes after the ceremony playing "Scotland the Brave' which sounded amazing walking out of the church. Miss 3 and Miss 1 were flower girls and wore these cute-as Mary Janes from Cherish Child with cream stockings and these lovely dresses from Hatched Boutique.  The fairy wand with flowers was a really cute idea too.

Amy asked me to make some purses for me and the other two bridesmaids for the wedding. Luckily I had just been given some curtain fabric sample waterfalls that weren't needed anymore from Guthrie Bowron in Tauranga which were perfect for the purses (thanks Sue!)  I was going to try to make a purse with a flap over the top but in the end I decided a zip one would be better to keep everything in so I made up a pattern myself. I wanted to make them a bit rounded with a couple of pleats so was really pleased with how they turned out.

The fabrics were perfect in that they were the same pattern but different colours so we knew which one was which. So if you are after some nice fabrics for small things then curtain and other upholstery type shops might just be the place to try!

I had the same fabric in black too so I made another one for me as I thought it would make a nice 'going out' clutch (not that I get out much!!!)

Amy and her hubby are on their honeymoon now in Bali lucky things!!!

For more creative spaces, visit Kirsty's here

Megan

patchwork

I had my first go at some patchwork in the weekend- a patchwork cushion using some of my reds and pinks fabric scraps ...

and an Elmer cushion from the book "Elmer the patchwork elephant" by David McKee. 

(Elmer's a bit wonky whoops!)

I really like doing patchwork- it's pretty cool to make a whole new fabric from a lot of little scraps!
Megan
PS: If you are an Elmer fan I found some great activities here to go with the book...
http://www.randomhouse.co.uk/childrens/elmer/home.htm

rainy day kids ideas

I've just started back teaching one day a week and one of the classes I'm teaching is 5 year olds. Their teacher wants me to do lots of 'language experience' activities where we do an activity or listen to a book and then write and draw about it. So I dragged all my old resources out and made a list of ideas and practiced a few on my 3 year old.   I thought I'd share them with you if you're wanting some things to do this rainy weekend! (Both activities use things you've probably got around the house)
Magic Milk
This activity is a great little science one and also good for learning about colours/colour mixing.
You will need

• full fat milk (full fat seems to work better than trim, also warmer milk seems to work better than milk straight out of the fridge)
• food colouring- red, blue, yellow and green
• eye droppers
• dishwashing liquid (I use Palmolive, a teacher said she used the cheap pink stuff and it didn't work that well)
• saucer

1. Pour milk into saucer
2. Put a drop of each food colouring into the saucer (top, bottom, left and right like this)

(I used way too much food colouring here, two or three drops is enough!)

3. Squirt a bit of dishwashing liquid into the middle of the saucer

4. Watch what happens (it's pretty cool!)

Magic pictures
The teacher in the 5 year old class I'm in had just done this with the class so it was a good memory jogger for me as I used to like doing this activity with my own classes -it's neat as an intro to print making but is also just a good art activity that can take a little while to do which is always good!!
You'll need

• A4 paper 
• chalk (any colour)
• crayons 
• sharp pencil

1. Fold the piece of paper in half width ways and cover the inside right side with chalk quite thickly

2. Now cover the chalk with crayon; again the thicker the better (no gaps ). You can just cover the chalk in one colour, do stripes like mine horizontally or vertically, thick zig zag lines, anything really as long as the crayon completely covers the chalk.

3. Fold the piece of paper back over like a card, draw on the front of the 'card' with the sharp pencil. Colour in some of the pictures with the pencil to see what happens when you open the card (like my heart and the birds wing)

You could get them to write their name too- kids love seeing their name backwards!
4. Open up the card and see how the picture has lifted from the right side and made a print onto the left side!

Have fun!

Megan

my creative space

In my creative space today... I am loving my new sewing calendar that I was lucky enough to win from Melissa's giveaway at 'Tinyhappy'- so many great projects and they even come with templates too. There's a couple of projects that will be perfect for my christmas napkins.

I am also loving my cute- as paper bags that Bee from Purrsie sent me the other day- aren't they sweet. They are from a cool Japanese shop in Auckland. Thank you so much Bee!

And I am admiring this 'Amelie' rain cape from Juliette Hogan that I spotted in last week's Viva. I wouldn't mind it raining if I had this to wear around!

You can take a peek at some more creative spaces at Kirsty's here
Megan

More christmas embroidery

Thank you for your lovely comments about my embroidered napkins- I finished the rest of them in the weekend so here they are...

I have uploaded the individual photo's to my flickr page so you can see what stitches I used. 

And if you are wanting my (very basic) pdf of the designs here's the link again

Megan ♡

my creative space: christmas embroidery

I know it's only August and you really don't want to see Christmas things already but this little project is such a nice one to do on a winters evening that I thought I'd share it now. I thought it was going to be a project that would take me quite a while but I actually did these six napkins in one evening as they really are quite quick to stitch.  I saw the idea to embroider christmas napkins on one of my favourite programmes last year, 'Kirstie's Homemade Christmas', on the Living Channel.  I love the idea of getting out the christmas napkins every year as a little tradition and my girls hopefully treasuring them one day as a sort of family heirloom.

I found the napkins in Briscoes on special for $2 each which was great- they are really good quality too. Or you could make your own or hunt for a set at an op-shop even.  I drew the designs myself after looking through my christmas crafty file, christmas craft books and looking at clipart to get ideas.
So if you would like to make your own christmas napkins here's what you need..

• white cloth napkins
• an embroidery hoop- I used a 15 cm one
• an air vanishing pen
• embroidery thread in chosen colours- I used the same 5 colours (red, pink, green, light green, yellow and  beige) for all the designs which gives a nice look of unity to the napkins.
• embroidery needle
• scissors
• christmas designs ( if you want to use mine I've made a pdf of them for you- they are pretty basic as I just drew them on paper and scanned them in as I can't draw on the computer!) 

I chose to stitch my designs in the centre top of each napkin so when they're folded the design will be at the top but you could put the design wherever you want.

Either draw the designs straight onto the napkin or trace them by putting sticking the designs on a window and tracing the design onto the napkin.

Stitch over the top of the design with your chosen threads. I used back stitch, chain stitch, satin stitch, running stitch and split stitch for my designs. There are instructions for these stitches here. The individual photo's of each design are on my flickr page. 

One issue I have is the slight mess at the back of my work so I'm going to iron a bit of interfacing over it to sort of hide it!! If you are a much neater embroiderer than me you probably won't have to though!

Some other ideas....
* these designs would be great for embroidering christmas stockings or decorations or any other christmassy things
* you could even embroider the name of each member of your family on a napkin and every year they have their own napkin- this would also make a great gift for your mother/mother in law if your whole family is going to their house for christmas!
*you could also make these for a house warming, engagement or wedding present embroidered with things like a heart, the couple's initials, a little house picture, a key,  engagement/wedding date,  a plant or flower, a cat or dog if they have pets or any other meaningful pictures for the couple.
* Other christmas motif ideas... Father Christmas, a christmas pudding, a reindeer,  a gingerbread house or gingerbread man...

This one's my favourite :)

Happy stitching!

Check out more creative spaces at Kirsty's here

Megan ♡

my creative space: a starfish softie

Just a quick creative space today...I got a request for a soft toy starfish the other day so I used one of the girls stick-on bath toys for the design and made it up last night. I like his cheeky smile :)

For more creative spaces head to Kirsty's  here

Megan ♡