Festive Days.

It's my favourite time of year. I love getting ready for Christmas. My days have been filled with Christmas craft, Christmas tunes, Christmas lunches and Christmas cleaning (in between looking after my children).
This year I have wrapped my gifts in black, white and brown paper with pops of colour. I recycled a Country Road catalogue, cutting it into circles and stitching them together to make garlands, and made stars out of sticks and embroidery thread.
My favourite craft this year has been making decorations out of Cornflour Dough (recipe below). So cheap and so easy!
Now for some Christmas baking, if Elke will sleep long enough!

Cornflour Dough
1 cup cornflour
2 cups bicarbonate soda
1 1/4 cups water

Mix ingredients together in a saucepan over medium heat. Stir constantly until the mixture looks like mashed potato. Turn into a bowl and cover with a damp cloth. Let it cool and then you can knead and roll out the dough to cut. Air dry overnight.
I used a felt tip pen and pages from a damaged old book to make my decorations look pretty.

Flowers.

At 4am on Friday morning, a friend and I set off to the flower markets to buy flowers for her sister's wedding. I never enjoy the flower markets, but Friday's trip was the actually ok. The bride had asked for Australian natives and flowers that looked like they had been picked from the wild. We ended up with a lovely mix of natives and traditional english flowers. My favourites were the Flannel Flowers and Peony roses.
I spent Friday and part of Saturday putting the flowers together. Being a florist is hard work!

Market Day.

I know it's been a week, but I thought I'd share some photos from our market stall at the Wild Ones Art and Design Market. We had a fun day at Hazelhurst, but we were very tired by the end of it! Having a market stall sure is exhausting. We loved seeing what other stall holders were selling. We each bought a polymer clay ring from Me We, and would have loved to have spent all our profits at the other stalls! Another favourite of ours was Hayden Youlley Design. Oh my goodness, that boy is a genius with ceramics! His wares will be on my Christmas list for sure!

Wild Ones.

My sisters and I will be selling our wares at the first ever Wild Ones Market at Hazelhurst Regional Gallery on Sunday! It's our first market in a while, so we are nervous and excited. We are frantically finalising our stock and getting ready for the big day. If you're in the area, come and say hi. I think it will be a good day!

Counting down.

There's only a week until my sister's wedding! I can't believe how quickly the time has gone. We are busy making bits and pieces for the big day, and slowly ticking things off our 'To do' list. I'm a little stressed, but mostly excited.

I have just finished the little flags to go in the desserts – I used lovely cotton tape and toothpicks.

Etsy love: Carson Converse Studio

I Love the quilts by Carson Converse Studio. I want a big one for my bed. The only tricky bit is choosing between crosses and triangles...

A joyous front door.

Every year I get so excited about Christmas and all the lovely crafts and decorations you can make, but I rarely end up doing anything special apart from gift wrapping. This year I started early and made a wreath for our front door using paper, cardboard and buttons. It was easy to make and I feel joyous every time we open our door!

Cross stitch.

A little while ago, Anooke borrowed a book from the library full of unconventional cross stitch patterns. I was inspired when Anooke started her Mexican Day of the Dead skull and thought I might try my hand at one. I decided that instead of using the traditional rainbow of colours, I would do mine in yellows, limes and mustards. I like Anooke's traditional version better, but I'm proud that I've actually finished!

Etsy love: Cassandra Smith

I'm totally smitten... How awesome is this painted, naturally shed Mule Deer antler by Cassandra Smith.

Ribbon and patchwork.

While visiting my parents yesterday, we took a trip to my favourite patchwork shop to get some ribbon for my doorbell. An hour later we left the shop with more than just ribbon. Be and I found Amy Butler's 'Honey Bun Pouf' pattern and decided we had to have it. Before we knew it, we were picking out our six coordinating fabrics to whip up one of our own. Be chose bright oranges and pinks for her pouf, while I decided on greys with a splash of limey yellow for mine.

It seemed like a good idea at the time, but now I'm feeling a little daunted by the project. I'm determined to make this pouf and not have the lovely fabric end up in a box somewhere with my other half finished projects!

Forts.

I love forts. Anooke and I used to build them in the lounge room and play Barbie weddings all day. Then there were the "make a den" days where Zee, Anooke, Be and I would build forts on the clothes line or over chairs and have shops and houses and such. The folks over at Booooooom ran a competition to celebrate the release of Where The Wild Things Are to build your own fort. This is one of my favourites, but you can view more of the fantastic entries over at Booooooom.

Image via Booooooom.

Sweet Paul's advent calendar.

I'm loving this advent calendar that Sweet Paul made from match boxes. I think I might try one myself – yes, I have left it a little late, but better late than never! Here's how to make one of your own:

I made this advent calendar for Country Living.
Its made of matchboxes and some scraps of paper.
Just hot glue the tops of empty boxes to one another so you get rows.
The bottom should be 9 and decrease by two until you have a single box.
Cut wrapping paper to cover each row, secure with hot glue.
Then hot glue the rows in a tree shape as shown.
I used small stamps to stamp the numbers on each box.
On top you can hot glue a star or a cut out like I did on this one.
Fill the boxes with candy and trinkets and you are ready to go.

Thank you Sweet Paul!

Sweet, Sweet Paul.

Now as you can tell, I'm very excited about Christmas, so had to share Sweet Paul's 'Holiday Countdown' with you. One of the things I love most about Sweet Paul is his wonderful Christmas craft and recipe ideas. From now until Christmas, Sweet Paul will share Christmas goodies with us everyday. If you are as crazy about Christmas as we are, make sure you check in with Sweet Paul as often as you can.

I feel like.

Making a rubber band ball.

Image from The Selby.

Spring has almost sprung.

It was a beautiful day today. The sun was shining, the birds were singing and the blossoms are starting to bloom. We wanted to be part of it all, so Lella and I set up our screen printing equipment outside and started printing our new postcard range for an upcoming market. What a beautiful day, it reminded us that spring is almost here!

For those who appreciate a good beard.

Etsy is home to some awesome beard art. Here are some beard-a-licious must haves for anyone who loves facial hair.

Images via Three Red Hens. The print is from egg-a-go-go, the bag is from The bold banana and the Lumberjack card is from Dude and Chick.

Homage to the Beard.

If you have read our first ever post 'A beard by any other name...', you will know that Lella has a thing for beards. I had thought that her obsession was rather odd, but came to terms with it (and even have to admit that Captain Gregg – from The Ghost and Mrs Muir – is pretty fine, beard and all).

So when I came across Erin Dollar's fantastic handmade beards on Etsy, I quickly showed Lella and we decided Erin may just be one of the coolest people with an Etsy store. 

Not only is Erin an excellent beard maker, she is also a wonderful illustrator and has a great blog, I made you a beard, dedicated to 'sharing beard related tid-bits'.

Whether you are a beard maniac, or prefer a clean shaven chin, I'm sure you will appreciate and enjoy Erin's work – she has had me chuckling all morning.

H is for Hamish.

My baby boy is a month old today and I thought it was high time to get creative again. We received so many beautiful gifts for Hamish and I needed to come up with something to say 'thank you', so I decided to screen print 'thank you postcards'. I cut a decorative stencil of the letter H (I love cutting detailed patterns) and Lella helped me print it onto thick recycled card that my local printer cut for me. I plan to send them with a photo of Hamish, in a clear envelope. I had so much fun printing these, that I have moved onto some new stencils. I'll post some photos of these when I'm done. 

To sew or not to sew?

If any of you are at all creative you will know that starting a new project (be it sewing, painting, printing, etc.) can be a messy process. I'm itching to get my sewing machine out and start on some gifts for friends and a few new toys, but I just can't bring myself to make a mess! We don't have a lot of space, so as soon as the sewing machine comes out we lose our dining table and most of our living room. Should I just take the plunge or enjoy my tidy living area for a few more days?

Illustration by Zee