I made a little bag for my favourite young whippersnapper recently to say thank you for some extra help she was giving me.

She needed something she could just pop a couple of dollars, a credit card and her football player swap cards in. That last one is, of course, a joke. Like all young women these days, she collects Rugby Union autobiographies.

She also needed something she could swing jauntily from her arm.

I used this brilliant tutorial to make her a little zippered clutch.

You might remember the gorgeous ikat-style fabric I’ve used for the outside from my fabric luggage tag tutorial. I’m just the teensiest bit obsessed with it.

I lined the inside with simple grey and white dots.

Of course I also sewed a stamped name tag onto the lining because as regular readers can attest, I loves me my personalised bits.

Are you wondering what freaky kind of name ends in -AWG? Well, it actually ends in -DAWG. As in Lu-Dawg,  Chris-Dawg, Snoop-Dawg, Dawggy-Dawg. As you do.

This little one took me a couple of hours as I was taking my time to ensure I didn’t muck it up. But I think once you’ve made one, you could sew up others very quickly. Wouldn’t they make sweet gifts with a little bottle of nail polish inside?

Especially if it were this, my current favourite: OPI’s Planks A Lot which, incidentally, also describes some of my dearest friends perfectly.

This year Olive helped me make this tiny pot of lip balm for her big sister as Olive’s Christmas gift to her. Unsurprisingly, she couldn’t resist sticking her little fingers in to test it.

We used this recipe with a few tweaks of our own.

Olive helped me grate the beeswax (I ordered a block of organic cosmetic grade beeswax from a small Australian apiary – happy to provide details if anyone would like). I melted the beeswax with some olive oil and then she added a few drops of orange flavouring essence. I didn’t add any honey as the comments below the recipe indicated it was difficult to incorporate.Turns out so was the orange flavouring.

Sophia doesn’t seem to be put off by the slightly oily orange film that lies beneath the solid portion of the lip balm but next time I will definitely use a proper essential oil. Cowboy sewing is okay but cowboy chemistry, not so much.

A little leftover play dough pot was recycled to become the perfect little lip balm pot and after I cut a piece of Sophia’s favourite fabric, Olive stuck it carefully to the top.

Sophia made these sweet little magnets for Olive just using Sharpies (permanent textas) and a sheet of magnetic paper.

There is always a risk that sibling gifts will be received with this kind of reaction:

That picture CRACKS ME UP every time. It’s from this spot-on post on the trouble with handmade sibling gifts on the lovely Sugar City Journal blog.

We scored a win this year as my girls anticipated and received each other’s gifts with genuine mutual delight.

But I just know there is a photo like the one above in our future.

Sophia made some little guys as Christmas decorations. The “Noth” pole kills me.

Ee gads, it’s nearly mid January and I am still posting about Christmas.

I know it’s now a distant memory for most but I did just want to share a few things from Christmas chez twirling betty before we plunge headlong into this bright and shiny new year.

We hosted Christmas lunch this year and as well as close family this year’s other invitees (who for one reason or another were far from the rest of their own families on Christmas Day) included a Swede (the nationality not the vegetable), a Ukrainian and a helicopter pilot who after a few red wines and some goading from his mate (my brother), very casually showed us the bullet wounds he received in Nigeria during the somewhat tricky extrication of a person that other people did not want taking off in a helicopter and disappearing. So yeah, you know, just the usual festive tales. What. The. Dickens?

(I bet you’d look startled too if a giant human suddenly snuck up and snapped your photo. Yep, I totally papped that reindeer).

We had a fabulous day despite the shopping, planning and preparation nearly giving me a nervous breakdown in the weeks beforehand.

The glittering, glimmering  thumb tack-laden Christmas tree made a perfect centrepiece.

And thanks to those who inquired in the comments about my poor bruised thumbs from all that pushing in-ing. I’m pleased to report the swelling has now subsided.

I’m in a gold mood at the moment.

The little blue bowl in the next shot was a Christmas gift from my most favourite young whippersnapper. I am deeply in love with it.

In a fit of madness, I made the poinsettia table runners on Christmas eve. They are just rectangles with a very rough hem and actually didn’t take too long however as a result of squeezing that little bit of making in, I was still in my underpants and a t-shirt (as you do around your own home – you know you do) about 5 seconds before our first friends began arriving for drinks.They probably wouldn’t have batted an eyelid even if I hadn’t managed to pull on presentable pants and a shirt. Hooray for really good friends.

We put our golden Christmas poos pine cone decorations on a sideboard along with some tiny (real) cones found on a relaxing ie, kid-free weekend we snuck off for just before Christmas. The ceramic bauble is from Deruta, a little hill town famous for majolica ceramics in Umbria.

The Christmas tree went in a decidedly and somewhat embarrassingly un-twirling betty direction when I took one look at our breakable Christmas decorations and just couldn’t face another month of sucking air through my teeth in horror every time the kids went near the tree. Let alone as tiny hands and fingers tried to decorate it. I just didn’t want it to be like that for them and so, short of time (promises to decorate that night had been made), I got all this year’s decos from our large, local, soulless supermarket. Yuk. But the payoff: being able to relax and the kids having a total ball, was totally worth it.

And since a girl can’t just go entirely cold turkey, I did also end up making about 12 of the white felt baubles, one of which you can see in the shot.

She needed me to use super glue to stick his jingle hat on and, forgive me, but I couldn’t resist including this: the cutest set of instructions ever.

I do hope that all of you had a safe break and have had a fabulous start to 2012. Is it going to be a spectacular year. I can feel it in me waters.

A while back I came across this SPECTACULAR wreath made from golden thumb tacks. I was a smitten kitten.

And so I applied the technique to a polystyrene Christmas tree form. It took about 4 billion gazillion more tacks than I anticipated and weighs almost a metric tonne.

I tried ribbons tied around the base and a couple of other embellishments but settled on this very simple cream ribbon after I realised that only Liberace wrapped in tinsel could  upstage this baby. That is, something restrained was required for balance.

I am deeply in love with its armadillo-like scales that reflect any little hint of light and look festive in extremis.

My long-suffering husband (“poor Andrew” as people more brave than clever have been known to call him in my presence) did not even bat an eyelid when I not only came home with a new wreath, but also asked him to affix it to the door.

Oh, and also to hang my new “Merry Christmas” sign.

He didn’t even ask where the old wreath went.

It was a Christmas miracle.

The stockings have (finally) been hung by the chimney with care. It happened a little later than usual this year as I had to actually make one for Olive first.

I used this lovely, easy-to-follow tutorial from Cluck Cluck Sew and was pleased with the result.

I sewed the jingle bells on just to give Father Christmas a fright when he tries to fill it silently.

And yes, I know it’s ENORMOUS but I used the dimensions of her big sister’s stocking, made by my Grandmother Betty. Anyone with kids (or indeed siblings) will understand the imperative for the measurements to be exactly the same.

Stockings are absolutely one of my favourite bits of Christmas. Have you hung yours yet?

My girls finished their letters to Father Christmas last week. They spent so much time on them I thought it only fitting that the envelopes were a bit special too.

If you just slip some aluminium foil behind the snowflakes, they sparkle and glitter like mad in the sunlight. It’s such high reward for such little work. My favourite kind of craft with kids.

What do you get when you combine a paper punch with Japanese washi tape? Why you get homemade stickers that are almost as cute as a dwarf rabbit in a sock.

It’s a really simple process and I actually came up with the idea months ago when I was trying to work out a way to decorate my sewing machine. What? Doesn’t everyone decorate their sewing machines? Of course you do.

Anyway, I googled the idea to see if anyone else had come up with it, and they had. A wonderful blog called Creature Comforts did this post on making Easter stickers back in March. So while I can’t claim to be the first person to combine washi tape with paper punches (although apparently can lay claim to the hilarious title of being the first to combine washi tape with magnets  – my most popular tutorial EVER, btw) , I have come up with a slight variation or two on the theme.

What you need:

• Washi Tape (duh)
• Paper punches (double duh)
• Baking paper.

What to do.

1. Lay strips of washi tape onto the baking paper. Ensure the edges of each strip of tape overlap just a fraction so that the sticker will stay together when you peel it off the  backing.

2. Punch it up my friends. Punch it UP.

I decided to see how a border paper punch would go.

It went beeeuuuutifully.

As I mentioned above, I decided to decorate my sewing machine with some of these stickers. The results make me happy.

There’s a sneak peek at the Christmas centrepiece I’m working on in the background, too.

And as I’m in complete love with my jumpo tag punch, I decided to give him (yes, he’s a big, strong male of the species) a run while I was at it. I must confess that the tag punch didn’t come out quite as neatly as I’d hoped and I trimmed the edges a little bit to neaten it up. But it wasn’t too bad. You can see the rough edges in this photo in which I’m peeling the sticker off the backing.

If you do have trouble getting the punch edges to bite cleanly through the tape and baking paper, you could try layering your stickers between two sheets of paper. This gives the punch something more papery to bite in to and seems to help.

Given the season, here are a couple of other ideas for wrapping your pressies – or making cards.

What? You’ve never heard of Christmas bunnies? Eeeeveryone knows about them. They run around in a flurry of silver snow flakes being very Christmassy indeed.

I had to pop that silver paint pen in the picture because I just bought it yesterday and it makes me very nostalgic for my childhood. It was probably one of the few crafty supplies I had as a kid. I loved my gold and silver paint pens deeply, used them sparingly and, worryingly, inhaled their heady, painty scent with glee each time I pulled the cap off. So I was transported back to my childhood as I uncapped my pen yesterday and inhaled deeply. And passed out dizzy on the couch. Joking.

Sharpening paper punches

A commenter on the fabric luggage tags post asked me a good question about sharpening paper punches. And given the abuse I often subject my punches to, she raises a really good point. If your punch edges do dull, there are a couple of things you can try. The first, also mentioned by aforesaid commenter, is to punch through some tin foil a few times. But if you need to bring out the big guns, I find punching through thick-ish sand paper a few times works really well. Just ensure the rough side is faced onto the cutting edge.

This is the third in my Paper Punch-a-palooza series. If you enjoyed this then you might also like my first two Paper Punch-a-palooza posts:

1. Paper punch to make stencils

2. Paper punch to make fabric luggage tags

It was a gorgeous, balmy late Spring evening 2 weeks ago when I signed Sophia up for Nippers: the children’s arm of our local surf life-saving club. I felt so excited and privileged. Excited that Soph would be taking part in this active and exciting club; something that’s a rite of childhood passage for many Aussie kids who are lucky enough to grow up near the water.

She would be exerting lots of energy ands having fun in the sand and water at her own local beach while beginning the process of learning all those important things future surf life-savers need to know. We and the parents of the other kids, many of whom are friends, would sit with our toes in the warm sand as the sun sank and chat and laugh as our kids ran around in front of us yelling happily as they took part in training.

Only my little babe wasn’t yelling happily. She was kind of struggling.

In the first activity, a relay race, she had dissolved into tears half way through a lap after some boys behind her had yelled at her to go when it wasn’t her turn. Confused and flustered she started running, realised her mistake, and then upset and embarrassed caught sight of her dad on the sidelines and made a bee-line for his arms, sobbing.

After many tears and protestations that she just wanted to go home, my husband managed to coax her to rejoin her team. And she ran a good race.

On the beach this first day with the wind making it impossible to really hear any of the commands being yelled at them, she struggled with the bigger and rougher kids pushing her out of the way in a later game as they all tried to grasp one of the few flags at the other end of the beach.  She ran fast but then she stood back, unsure and willing unto just dive in when it came time to “fight” for a flag.

Sophia was behind some other kids with her gross motor skills at kindergarten. I put that down to being a first-born to a slightly protective mother. She has improved in leaps and bounds and, when we gave her a two-wheel bike that was really much too big for her last Christmas (you know, better that she grows into it than out if it in a flash and all that), she stunned us when she hopped on and after 2 minutes of tuition took off down the road on her own. She looked like a pea on a pumpkin.

So she’s certainly got the physical wherewithal. But while she’s as active as any other little 6 year-old-bundle of energy, she’s a book-worm and is happiest drawing or making things.

But she’s also brave.

In the tag game I mentioned at the start of this post, I could see she was flustered and unsure again.  She stayed put though. After checking with the parent who was directing the game as to where she should stand. And that’s the other image I keep coming back to. My little girl amid the chaos, her arm raised politely as she follows the Age Manager in charge around the melee trying to get his attention to ensure she is doing the right thing. Making sure she’s in the right spot.

I coped with all of this until I saw her little shoulders heaving and making a supreme effort to keep her tears at bay.  She had finally attracted the attention of the Age Manger and been shown where to stand but she was like a tiny island of worry and upset in an oblivious whirlpool of chaos. Her distress was palpable to me and it took every ounce of my strength not to run and rescue her. To wrap up that little body in a warm towel and make her feel better. To reassure her. To make it all ok.

Which is exactly what I used to wish for in similar situations. An anxious, shy kid, I was involved in any number of things in my childhood that made me feel the same. Yet, I survived. And, dare I say it, have ultimately thrived.

I am terribly guilty of speculating about how Sophia is feeling based on what I would have felt in a given situation. I try very hard not to assume Sophia is feeling the same as I would have. I fight against my instinct to rescue her from those situations; situations where she is safe but unsure. Safe but upset. Upset but learning.

Afterall, arguably Nippers is really a microcosm for life and I would do her no good whatsoever if I just ran in and made her feel better every time. I would, in fact, be doing her a disservice.

But when I saw that worried little girl, tiny finger up trying desperately and failing to get the attention of an adult to ask what she was supposed to do and then her tear-stained little face and panicky look I started crying. And I’ve cried every time I’ve thought about all those moments of desperate vulnerability all weekend.

After the  beach games it was time to take to the water. Despite the chilly wind and choppy water, even the smallest of kids were expected to lie face-down on a board and with the help of an older more experienced Nipper, use their arms to paddle out to a marked point.

I saw Sophia hop on her board, saw her start paddling and then take a face full  of salt water when a wave splashed over the tip of her board. I saw her start to cough and splutter and  had to look away. I couldn’t watch anymore. My heart was in 1000 tiny pieces all over that windy beach.

Nonetheless, I looked back. And when I did I saw my girl had reached the mark and turned her board for the shore. Only unlike all the other kids who were being escorted back in by their older guardians, Sophia was paddling back on her own. Smiling, she sped up as she caught a wave on her board, then another and another until the last one delivered her back to the sand. Ecstatic she jumped off her board and ran over to me to finally be wrapped up in that big, warm towel.

She can’t wait for next Friday.

I have always been an IKEA fan. When we lived in Rome pretty much our entire apartment was furnished with IKEA furniture. Which means that when I am wandering around this Swedish store in far-flung antipodean Melbourne I feel like I am in Rome. How’s that for bang for your international buck!

In fact, just a glimpse of the bedside tables we had in Italy can reduce me to nostalgic tears. Sometimes it’s all I can do not to throw myself down onto the closest Ektorp and bawl my eyes out.

I generally manage to control myself but that’s not to say my handsome husband hasn’t found me misty-eyed and gently fondling the familiar curves of a white plastic chair.

Aaaaanyhoohaa, enough about my inappropriate advances on Swedish furniture and on to the tutorial for this lovely fabric covered lamp.

What you’ll need:

•  IKEA Tassa Natt lamp. The article number, in Australia at least, is 201.316.08

.

•  Fabric.
• Sticky tape
•  A low-wattage bulb. I used 15 watts.

What to do:

1. Unscrew front plastic cover from lamp and take off the annoying whimsical dancing frogs.

2. Use the paper as a template to cut your fabric to size. Alternatively, the measurements are roughly (and you can be a bit rough with this) : 25cm x 17.7cm or 10″ x 7″”.

If you want to hem your fabric, add whatever your seam allowance will be to the measurements above.

You can just use a rectangle of fabric and either hem the edges (although I, true to form, didn’t bother) or, as you can see in the next photo, simply sew some cute ribbon or trim along each edge.

3. Using sticky tape on the inside edges, attach fabric to plastic cover.

4. Whack that sucker back into its mounting frame (which you will have previously screwed into your wall)

5. Let the line shine in.

Easy, non? Mais oui.

One word of caution: there is always a risk of fire danger when you add materials to a lamp (or indeed anything that generates heat). I recommend using a very low wattage bulb as I have (15 watts) which, even after hours of continuously being on, was barely warm. That said, this is probably better as a mood light rather than something you would leave on all night long in your or your child’s room.

No need to limit ourselves to kids’ bedrooms though.

I think two of these (perhaps not so much in this fabric) – one either side of a headboard  – or indeed in any room would look fab. In fact, I am working on some wall decorating in our living room and think this might be just the trick in among our pictures.

I also love that the fabric can be changed so easily – always a good thing for someone like me who falls in love with something new every other day.

Here’s the lamp in situ. This is Sophia’s little nook. We live in a small house so when I put both my girls into a bedroom together a year or so ago, I wanted to create a tiny space for Sophia to retreat into if she felt the need. A space just for her. A curtain (IKEA, of course) strung between her wardrobe and the wall makes the perfect little spot.

She likes to sit and read books in there.

Although she’s getting kind of long now. We might need to start thinking about an extension.

So there you have it my darlings, a lovely fabric lamp for a cosy space. I hope you are inspired to brave the never-ending maze of halls and pathways at IKEA and have a go at your own. Take lots of water and a GPS if you want to be absolutely sure you’ll make it back out alive.