Advent Calendar DIY

Well I do love a project or two your know.
And any occasion can be milked to the max in project world.
Xmas in particular is perfect for maximising that crafty DIY potential. Yay!

Last year I had a board on Pinterest full of decorations, recipes, wrapping solutions and diy gifts waiting to be executed in my home. Sadly I left it all a bit too late & inbetween work craziness, weekend markets, sewing orders, shopping & my family being over, I ran out of time.
We did have great fun making some of the table accessories and my dad got totally stuck in to transforming the acorns we'd collected into shiny little gold nuggets - sweet.

The 1 thing I was disappointed that I didn't get around to though was making an advent calendar for Lula.

So this year I was determined to.

I really should have started it earlier in Nov to make 1 Dec deadline, but I had a shop bought choccie one as back-up. And I ended up being only 1 week late!

There are so many pretty ideas for homemade advent calendars, but this one from Morning Creativity caught my eye.

I had an overwhelming response from the office to the empty loo roll request & accumilated quite a collection in just a couple of days. So there was no excuse.

I darted in to a chinese shop to get some little trinkets & set to work:

Materials:
* glue
* 25 loo rolls
* tissue paper
* Cardboard
* Stuffing (or tissue paper) for chimney smoke
* 24 little gifts : here are some I chose from

- balloon
- shiny tedy keyring
- bubbles
- xmas bow
- mini slinky
- bouncy ball
- locket
- whoopee cushion
- stickers
- lip gloss
- butterfly rubber
- hair clips
- goggly eyes
- Hello Kitty patches
- Washi tape
- parachute man
- magic growing cactus
- xmas tree decoration
- beads
- plastic reindeer
- growing dinosaurs
- heart pendant
- ink stamp
- fun necklace

Squeeze a layer of glue around the top of a lo0 roll & place down on to tissue paper until dry.

Trim excess tissue paper, so each tube is sealed at one end

Staple the loo rolls together (in a tree or house shape)

Turn the joined loo rolls over & paint/write/stick your numbers on

Find 24 little pressies to hide inside each day

Then put glue on to the open ends of the loo rolls, place card on top & weigh it down until it's dried & all the pressies are sealed safely inside each tube

Add a roof, chimney & smoke & some ribbon to hang!

Ta da!

A little surprise every day

 

Merry Christmas!

xxx

Turning 5 : Alice in Wonderland

Riiiiiiiight from the very beginning, and as we approached Lula's 1st birthday, Warren & I naturally discovered our strengths in the party planning process. We fell in to our respective roles when it came to the preparations with no discussion required as to who was in charge of what.
Warren is the master baker & cake sculpture extraordinaire. And my specialty is theme coordination, decor & bunting!

And it has been that way for all of her birthdays ever since.

★

We have had a Lollipop, Rainbow & Cup-Cake party,  and then this year, we thought an Alice in Wonderland theme would be cute.

I look so forward to these dates; to have a special day with our squish & friends obviously, but also it's a great excuse to make some stuff & do a mood board ha ha ha. (I had no idea a few years back that having a child would be so much fun!!!)

There is so much inspiration out there for Alice in Wonderland & Mad Hatters Tea Parties on Pinterest & Google searches. These along with this fab book, Everything Alice, which I received last year for Xmas that's filled with wonderful craft projects, meant I was ready to go.
With a couple of props, it was really easy & fun to pull together. I actually wish I'd had time to make more stuff, as it's such a lovely theme, but it was a little last minute & rushed so it was what it was!

A sweet little email invite:

The key fun decor elements for me were:

* Keys (Bought for a few rand @ a junk shop & threaded on ribbon to hang round the teapot etc)
* Playing Cards (R6 from the Chinese shop & used scattered on the table)
* Eat Me / Drink Me labels
* Tea Cups & Teapots
* Red roses
* Sugar cubes
* Pink plastic flamingoes for the garden
* Giant clock (I was luckily enough to borrow one, but a giant cardboard one would work just as well)

You can make bunting by printing out large cards or just threading ribbon through standard playing cards punched with a hole punch. Stack some old books & find some interesting bottles to decant the drinks in to.

We kept the food list simple with a Queen of Hearts Tea Party feel:

* Jam sarnies
* Tea Cakes with marmalade
* Strawberries & meringues
* Jam tarts (or jam biccies in my case)
* Ice Tea, Lemonade, Juice & Tea
* and a beautiful heart birthday cake

And for entertainment, we kept it super easy by printing & cutting out Cheshire Cats to stick on to chocolate coins for a garden Treasure Hunt. And then for a twist on the egg & spoon race, we had a tea-cup race (Lula's toy cup/saucers with sugar cubes balanced inside)

Here's a few pics:

An Alice In Wonderland Mad Hatters Party, to celebrate turning 5.
♥

* i must sort out all these images, I seem to have messed up the treatment & res in the process....

I couldn't resist doing a special little shoot with our Squish either. 

I made a cute little blue tulle skirt with red pom poms, and found some gorgeous B&W stripey leg warmers to complete her Alice look ♥

Happy Birthday to our beautiful squish
♥

Show & Tell

* Enormous remote control plane

* Now that's some impressive twerking 

* Well that will teach him. Let 'im 'av it!

* It's time to start feeling Christmassy & watch this film 

* Chatroulette Wrecking Ball

* So sweet. Happy.

* The Maker by Zealous Creative. A strange creature races against time to make the most important & beautiful creation of his life

x

Show & Tell

* Show us your moves

* Funny faces all around us

* Such beauty in the creation of life

* I have to say that I think quite a lot of these Japanese inventions are pretty good!

* Wa ha ha. What does Steri Stumpie have in common with a Llama?

* ello ello ello

Tra la

x

Superhero's. The story continued....

It makes me burst with KAPOWSs & WHAMs to know that since the launch of my Superheros range last year, we've helped mould a good number of new little super stars around the country (and a few overseas I believe.)

This year it was very exciting (and slightly nerve wrecking) to be back @ Kamers with more Superhero fun.

To show off the designs we borrowed a very cute little blond friend to match our Squish and captured their best action hero moves & made them in to large cut-outs for the stand.

                   

 

How sweet!

          

Aswell as the popular lightening flash & star branded Superhero Capes, I had my new dress up range available, aswell as Jolly Roger pants, pretty strings of felt hearts, cute cloud wall hangings, baby shower gifts, and more pretty skirts, aprons & crowns. And bunting - of course!

Webersburg, Stellenbosch was such a beautiful location, and in particular, Friday's late night opening offered us such a dramatic sunset treat over the dam.

Well done to the Kamers Clan for another splendid show & to all the talented people who worked hard throughout the year to create such beautiful products. My faves this year were funnily enough all my neighbours : Simply Bee ( I bought 'miracle' propolis serum, face wash, shaving stuff for Warren & plenty of gifts for friends & raw honey) , Michelle Ludek (the bestest harems/ jumpsuit in a crazy zebra print that I just love to bits) & the Ceramic Factory (their dinosaur plate & yellow bambi are at the top of my Xmas list!)

And a special thanks to my Super Family for supporting me & all the wonderful mums, dads, aunts, friends, siblings, god-parents, god-fairies, neighbours & grandparents who bought a piece of my world for another little person.

And now on to the Christmas orders!

BOOM!

Show & tell

* I absolutely love this idea, Dinovember

* A very funny website that creates one liners from your Facebook status post history

* Little elves for Christmas. Too cute!

* Quite an incredible split!

* I've been saying that I need to learn how to do some updo's for lula's hair - this might be a stretch too far!

* Sweet Advent Calendar printable

* How bizarre - fire alarms in The Ice Hotel

* This is a great thing to do - recreating childhood pics. I love the 2nd image!!

♥

Show & Tell

* Beautiful people

* Hello

* Christmas...Snow... wish I could see Slava Snow Show

* Very funny Unpretentiousil

* Astronauts return to Earth

♥