The new cubby!

Well, here it is!  The new cubby house is finally up.  The kids are loving their new space.  Yesterday they were dressed and out the door to play it in well before 8am!  The cubby house was a Christmas present from Santa (actually a second hand cubby house we bought on ebay).  We cleaned it and stained it (still a work in progress) and it has come up great.  There's still a few things we want to do on the inside but the kids are enjoying playing in it in the meantime.  I got a little wooden oven and sink to go in there as well (also from ebay) which the kids love.  Now to figure out what I can take out of the house and store in the cubby instead!! 

Holes dug and posts go in (not an easy job to dig holes here!)

The floor goes on. 

Eating lunch in their new cubby house!

One of the best Christmas presents yet I think! A huge thank you to our family who helped us put it up!

Homemade Washing Powder

We've been making our own washing powder for well over a year now (and it's probably been about that long since I've been meaning to blog about it too!)  Anyway, I am finally getting around to posting the recipe.  It works really well.  Sometimes I find that the soap in it doesn't dissolve entirely but that is because we generally wash in cold water.   The original recipe calls for borax but I prefer to use bicarb. All our family has very sensitive skin usually due to the extra 'perfumes' and added nasties in commercial washing powders so this homemade powder works really well for us.

Homemade Washing Powder

Ingredients
2 cups grated Velvet soap (2 bars)
1 cup lectric soda
1/2 cup bicarb

Method
Grate soap finely in Thermomix (about 30 seconds on speed 8).  Add in lectric soda and bicarb and buzz in Thermomix until evenly combined.  Use one scoop per load (I use a scoop that is roughly 25gms) 

One batch of washing powder lasts me a month.  I do at least one load of washing a day.  At roughly $3 per batch it works out as a much cheaper option than most commercial washing powders! 

Merry Christmas!

So...Christmas did not end up quite as we had expected this year!  I ended up with a tummy bug on Christmas Eve so spent the next day at home by myself while Chris took the kids out.  I was even too sick to watch the kids open their presents which I was really sad about.  Luckily no one else got it and we were able to celebrate a belated Christmas the next day.

We started some new Christmas traditions this year which meant a really lovely lead up to Christmas.  It started with our Advent stick on the first day of December.  Every night just before bedtime we would take it in turns to open one of the papers, light our candles and read a story from 'The light in the lantern'.  

On Christmas Eve, we went outside to sprinkle our reindeer food on the driveway (packets of oats with some glitter mixed in) and we put some food out for Santa under the Christmas tree - he got some chocolates and milk this year.  The kids loved running around to sprinkle the reindeer food. 

The kids were so excited to wake up on Christmas morning and find that Santa had left presents for them under the tree.  Jacob was so excited to have his own set of vintage Thomas the Tank Engine books!  Esme and Gideon were just excited about everything. 

The most exciting thing of all was that Santa brought them a cubby.  He left it on the driveway in pieces so when they went out to check if their reindeer food had been eaten they discovered it.  They were literally screaming in excitement.  In the lead up to Christmas Jacob had been talking about wanting Santa to bring a cubby with a red slide (we hadn't said anything to the kids about what they might be getting for Christmas).  Funnily enough, that's exactly what he brought ;)  Stay tuned for more photos of the cubby house being put up! 

Christmas Advent Stick

Recently I attended a Christmas workshop at my childrens' school to learn how to make an Advent stick.  An Advent stick is basically an Advent calendar but instead of pockets, items are wrapped in tissue paper and tied to a stick.  All the items are either objects from nature or things that have been handmade (no chocolates in sight on this calendar!) Each week of Advent corresponds to a different world, as per Steiner traditions.  Week 1 is the mineral world.  Week 2 is the plant world.  Week 3 is the animal world.  Week 4 is the human world.  I had such a lovely couple of evenings crafting with some beautiful women and enjoyed putting lots of love into all the handmade things for the kids. It was a little harder than I expected to tie all the items onto the stick but with the help of my (ever-suffering) husband we were able to do it. Here's some photos of what was on our Advent Stick.

Day 1: Beeswax candle in  holder and verse about the first week of Advent

Day 2: Shells

Day 3: Chalk

Day 4: Painted stones

Day 5:Beaded Christmas ornament

Day 6: Bath crystals

Day 7: Glass stones

Day 8: Beeswax candle in  holder and verse about the second week of Advent

Day 9: Gumnut Christmas Ornament

Day 10 : Seeds

Day 11: Handstitched Holly decoration

Day 12: Dried Rose petals

Day 13: Felted acorn gnome

Day 14: Bulbs

Day 15: Beeswax candle in  holder and verse about the third week of Advent

Day 16: Finger knitted snail

Day 17: Feather

Day 18: Origami Crane

Day 19: Sea shell turtle

Day 20: Coral

Day 21: Hand stitched dove

Day 22: Beeswax candle in holder and verse about fourth week of Advent

Day 23:Silk Angel

Day 24: A verse I wrote for the kids

The kids had a lovely time taking it in turns to open each parcel.  I'm looking forward to creating another one for them next year! 

Handmade Christmas Ornament for 2013

I have resolved to start a new tradition of making a new Christmas Ornament each year for our tree.  I love the idea of making something special each year and hope that in years to come I will be able to look back and see all these special things I made. 

This year's ornament is a peace dove made from this pattern.  It looks relatively simple but a lot of time and love went in to making it!  I'm planning on making some more to gift in different colours. 

Strawberry Santas (the dairy-free version!)

Dairy-free, gluten-free, soy-free, sugar-free

I've seen photos of these strawberry Santas going around a lot lately.  They look  really great.  The only problem is that the ones I've seen are made with whipped cream and Jacob can't have dairy.  So we came up with our own solution - cashew nut cream!  I've posted my recipe for cashew nut cream before.  It makes a great filling for strawberry Santas.  You will need to add slightly less coconut milk to this recipe though to make these.  The cashew nut cream needs to be a pipe-able consistency otherwise they will just collapse.

Ingredients
20 strawberries
2 quantities cashew nut cream (with slightly less coconut milk) 
a handful of black chia seeds

Method
Slice off the leafy end of the strawberry so the strawberries sit flat.
Then slice off the tip to make a hat. 
Put your cashew nut cream into a piping bag and pipe swirls on the top of the strawberry base. Replace hat.
Add a dollop of cashew nut cream to the top of the hat and down the Santa's front. 
Add two chia seeds to each Santa for eyes (we actually used flaxseeds as we didn't have black chia seeds!)

Enjoy! 

Pants, pants, and more pants!

I've been having a bit of a pants making 'frenzy' at the moment.  In the last couple of months I have made 6 pairs of pants, most of them being in the last two week!.  I have a couple of friends with babies coming soon so I wanted to make some matching sets for their new additions.  Anyway, here's a snapshot of what I've made...

Some apple pants for Esme

Back view

Some velvety owl pants for Esme

I am really loving the 'big butt pants' pattern at the moment.  Pattern can be found here.

0-3 month old velvety owl pants

Back view

6-12 month old Hungry Caterpillar pants

Back view

6-12 month old owl pants

Back view

12-18 month old Hungry Caterpillar pants

Back view

I've been busy working on the matching tops this week too - I'm hoping to pop those up here too when they're finished.  It's been school holidays here the last few weeks so I'm enjoying the opportunity to get a bit of sewing done without having to rush around picking up and dropping off kids!