Sunday 19 June 2011

Bag Lady!

Love, love, loving the sewing machine at the moment (and yes I have promised my mum that once I start working full-time in September I will actually go out and buy my own!). Latest project to hit the machine...bags!

Never made bags before but I'm kinda liking it. So, my first ever bag was this little heart number for Em (we decided that, at 9, she was now too old for the Disney Princess bag thing and should get a bit more sophisticated!):

 Took me blooming ages but she loves it so it was worth it!


 Next up was this strippy stripey bag that I'd coveted for a while. Just loved doing this, lots of different fabrics, ribbons etc and I loved how it turned out:

 And this bag's function? Well I needed a bag to keep all those bits of materials in that I'm going to use to make bags with! You see, a self functioning bag, practical as well as lush!


So, I've just commandered some floral curtains from the loft, I feel a shopper coming on!

Monday 6 June 2011

Creating

I came to a very sad realisation this morning.

Undoubtedly the Garlic's number 1 fan was Rob's Grandad. I'd often get emails from him thanking me for the blog. I think, as he lived 200 miles away, it was a good way for him to keep up-to-date with what was happening up here, especially with his much cherished great-grandchildren. Consequently there's been a few posts that I've posted with a 'Grandad would like that' tone about them. This morning I was out in the garden hanging out the washing and just thinking about how much I liked our house and where we lived. I had a quick thought 'oooh I keep meaning to blog about that, Grandad would love that'...and then the realisation hit. :( Grandad (and indeed Nana when she was alive) would say how much they loved the home we built. I thought a couple of weeks ago how nice it would be to blog about our house and how pleased Grandad would be that we agreed with his and Nana's thoughts.

End of an era.

However, in memory of our beloved Grandad/Great-Grandad we shall be carrying on with the posts today and one I think he might like as it features just how fab Emily is!

There seems to have been a lot of crafting round here lately. I was going to do this post about everything I'd been up to but I must start with how fabulous my darling daughter is getting at scrapbooking. She's scrapbooked for a good 2 or 3 years now but recently she has been producing some very grown up layouts. She's been coming up with these all on her own, matching her colours, balancing her LO etc etc and I think she's doing a great job!



Definately the makings of a professional scrapbooker in that girl!

I've done a couple of LOs lately too as my MIL bought me a scrapbooking book for my birthday so have taken inspiration from that. Firstly my Royal Wedding LO:

And a LO about the lily the kids planted for Grandad:

 Speaking of MIL, I've still got a big hankering for the sewing machine and spied a project I wanted to do. MIL is getting a much longed for new kitchen and as said project was for an oven glove (nope, no idea why I desperately had the need to make oven gloves either!) then I thought she'd be the perfect recipient. The original pattern was for a cupcake oven glove but it didn't seem MIL's type of thing but on another page of the same book I found some fab chickens, so a bit of pattern combining and voila!

 Er yes, did get carried away and had a 'need' to make a teapot cozy and apron aswell!

Oooh but I still needed to sew more and those chickens were calling to me. Hang on, chickens? Who do chickens remind me of? Maybe this woman who we just happened to be visiting last week. I feel a chook-related pressie coming on....

Chicken egg cozies! Love 'em!

And I did have every intention of putting the sewing machine away but it's still there with a new project sat on it, watch this space!

Hope the WiFi works up there Grandad! ;)

Wednesday 1 June 2011

Creating Ways To Remember

One of the hard things when you lose someone close is how to break the news to your children. Their pain can be worse to witness than what you're feeling yourself. However, we're open and honest with our children and so we've sat them down and explained about Great Grandad.

Emily's old enough to be devastated and was very upset on Friday. We also made the decision to let her decide if she'd like to go to the funeral. We've explained exactly what a funeral involves and she's been so grown up in making her decision to go. In fact, I couldn't be more proud of how Emily's handled this whole situation, she's shown a level of maturity and compassion way beyond her years. What a girl she is!

Xander's been fairly good. We weren't going to tell him, an autistic 4-year-old doesn't necessarily have the right thought processes to understand death. However, we decided to be honest with him as not being could cause more confusion for him. Do you know, he's done great with it. His fish died a couple of weeks ago so we've told him Grandad's up in the sky taking care of Ferb, and that seems to be working for him!

Anyway, I decided that as well as us looking through pictures of Grandad, it'd be good to get the kids involved in something to remember him by. With it coming up to summer we'll (hopefully) be spending a lot of time in the garden, and Grandad always loved sitting looking out at his garden, so that was the route we took. We went out and bought a lily plant. When we came home I enlisted Xander to collect stones to provide drainage for our pot:

Which he did in his wheelbarrow then placed them carefully in the pot:


Then both kids got to filling the pot with compost:

 I put the lily in the pot and the kids patted soil around to make sure it was safely tucked up in there:


And voila, a beautiful lily plant for us to remember Grandad this summer while we're out in the garden:

Hope you like it Grandad! x