Lilly's Farm Party

Colourful Farm Fun
It is birthday time once again in our house so here is the latest. The children from my daughters class new it was Lilly's birthday but they didn't know about the party till they got to the other end of their excursion. My daughter school has it's own little working farm and it couldn't have been a more perfect location even if it was pouring rain most of the day. My friend Lisa from "Deer Little Parties" came along with some of her supplies to help me decorate and keep the party rolling. Once again there was lots of cooking and cutting out of party printables to do, and once again no matter how organised I try to be there always seems to be that last minute rush on the day before. The party cupcakes nearly didn't make it when a man decided that giving way at an intersection was not on his agenda and the entire crate with party food did a complete 180 in the car and landed upside down. Yes, I nearly cried but I repaired what I could once I arrived at the venue. The kids had and absolute ball! The baby animals bought along by one of the other families were a huge hit!

Suppliers List...
Decorative Supplies from http://www.deerlittleparties.com.au and http://www.cakebakeshop.com.au
Cake- Farm animals mini cupcakes and hay bales cooked by me. Feed bags also by me.
Party printables from www.etsy.com
Baby Animals from Nick and Coral email me for their contact details groobiteam@optusnet.com.au

It's beginning to look...

To Look Alot Like Christmas !

 We have been busy crafting in between markets and sewing up stock. Here is a little birdie we made after being inspired by the recent pattern in the Australian Better Homes and Gardens magazine. Might have to make a few more of these lovely little fellows for the Christmas Tree! He is sitting nestled in the cute little advent calendar I purchased from the Upholstery Gallery in Ballarat. Can you guess the theme for Christmas this year yet?

Sew Selfish? A new project just for me.

Is it possible? Oh yes it is!
Phrase: SEW SELFISH
Definition: To sew exclusively for ones own indulgent pleasure when there are so many other tasks to be done.
This is where I introduce my new personal project. You'll need to use your imagination a lttle bit for the start of this introduction, It's BIG! well it's big for me anyway. So with out further due, imaginations in the ON position please, and cue music...

SPACE ODYSSEY THEME begins to roll in building up the atmosphere...

Bom BOM bom BOM bom BOM etc, etc....

I have started a quilt! yes ME!!!! BAM BAAAAAAA....... Music continues

It may seem a little strange that in all these years that I have been sewing I have never, and I mean NEVER attempted a quilt.

THEY SCARE THE CRAP OUT OF ME!

Crazy right? all that sewing of pretty little dresses and I break out in a cold sweat at the thought of the task of putting a quilt together. It's all those little pieces, the absolute accuracy of cutting perfectly straight and even lines the  1/4 inch seams, and the time it takes- OH my the hours and days and months and even sometime years ( I hear the ladies chatting at the quilting store of the many months and years they can put into one quilt I imagine my self rocking quietly in the corner dribbling slightly with a half done quilt at my feet after a week!)  I mean it does my head in. So what on earth was I thinking? I don' know to be honest, maybe it was the cute little picture on the pattern packet maybe it was the embroidered little red riding hood on the lovey linen pillow on the top of the quilt in the photo. The pattern "Poppet" by the lady from http://www.averyfinehouse09.blogspot.com/ (sorry can't remember her name right now) And so it begins one fine Thursday morning during my local shops regular sit and sew with my faithful sewing girlfriend at my side...

And oh no, I don't just want to make the pattern exact, pfft no way! I want a BIG one for my daughters bed a 210 x210cm. Ooh another great idea to use the vintage sheets and other collected scraps 38 different colours in all. At no point at all did my little inner voice of common sense scream out "NOOOOOOO"
I hadn't really used a rotary cutter before or a one of those big see through ruler thingies (which I happen to now own-  they are unreal to use) Cutting out hundreds of tiny squares and rectangles, cutting and cutting and more cutting stop briefly to count 60, 70, 90... ARE WE THERE YET? I'm over this cutting already only 300 and something to go- UGGGHHH!

So after 2 days of working away at cutting out and piecing a 'random' pattern together  I have learned that there is no such thing as 'random' in quilting. To make it look really random and spaced out you really have to deliberately place pieces in a certain order. So here it is so far...



8 rows of 17 laid out ready for pinning.

and the first two rows sewn together.



Dying to share with you...

A RAINBOW OF COLOUR
We are now at the end of our school holidays here and boy am I going to miss not having to rush around in the morning and be out the door by 8am. I needed to have a break from the sewing so Miss 15 and I decided to have a play with the dye I have had sitting in he cupboard. I overcame the chance of a major dye disaster and bit the bullet! Methodically and carefully we dug out every single large coffee jar we had laying around the house, measured out exactly 1 litre and 1 Tbs salt in each and every single one of them.
We also thought that it would be a great idea to have a few samples of every colour in varying intensity...so over the next 4 hours this id the beautiful rainbow of sample colours we have created along with a few custom mixes, with each and every formula being recorded with a hope that we might be able to recreate it for a future Myrtle & Grace collection... I did say I HOPE!

I use syringes to measure out the dye to the exact millilitre just because the dye looked amazing in them all grouped together I though I wold take a photo of that too!

A Party Peek In

Just A Little Sneeky Peek !

Though I'd let you have a look at a quick snap shot of the party almost set up. It just had all the consumables to finish setting up. Sorry about the quality of the picture as it was snapped on the iphone in a hurry. I am so looking forward to viewing the edited snaps that Celeste Vermeend (from www.ourgirlyworld.blogspot.com ) took for me then I'm sure you will really have something to drool over! The start to the day while setting up was extremely windy and blustery and chilly but, all in all the afternoon could not have been more perfect weather wise with sunny 18 deg celsius. I know the girls little and grown up had a ball!

sale SALE sale SALE

Our first ever SALE!!

Only  a week to go before our first ever sale and it going to be HUGE. With lovely Melbourne designers joining us from The Wolf and I (ladies wear), Pip and Maude (hand crafted cards), Ohme Ohmi (Children's vintage tin toy prints), and of course Myrtle & Grace. Keep an eye out for the spot specials in the lead up like..

 First of the spot specials in the lead up to the first ever Myrtle & Grace SALE. First to comment SOLD here for one of each of the sizes 18/24 months, 2 ,3 and 5 Super thick and warm boys "lumber Jack" zip up coat, can have a huge 50% off! Postage AU Local $6 International $9.50  Was AU$59.95... NOW AU$29.95. There are also 2 pairs of jeans left in size 2 and a size 3 WAS $29.95 NOW only $19.95
And below are the cute applique long sleeve T shirts, sizes 1 to 6. available in Kite, Hedgehog, Owl,  Boy bunting, Robot WAS AU$34.95 each NOW 2 for AU$50.  email me with your selection groobiteam@optusnet.com.au

  Pop along to The divine Mill Rose Cottage , 92 Inglis St, Ballan on Saturday 24th September 10am to 4pm. There a stunning cafe with garden setting nextdoor that the sewing girls like to call the "Daddy Creche" they serve amazing food, coffee, and bevy. So why not make a day of it and pop on up to Ballan maybe even visit Ballarat or Daylesford while you are here. Only 1 hr from the Westgate bridge or on the train from Southern Cross Station and just under the hour from Geelong. Hope to see lots of you there.

 

A Sneek Peek @ Party Preparations

One Week To Go!
We have been VERY busy here with new spring/ summer dress style on their way and party preparations in full swing! Here is a little bit of a sneek peek at some of the labels we have been making here at Myrtle & Grace H.Q (aka the kitchen table) The Gorgeous sabby, vintage themed graphics were sourced from http://www.shabbyblogsblog.blogspot.com/   and are just perfect for our Spring Garden, Vintage, Shabby Themed Party. Shabbyblogspot have a tuck load of free images to download, your imagination is your only limit with what you can do with them!I've also added some of my scrapbook stash into the mix. The papers I have used are Emma's Fabric Shoppe from Crete Paper.

 Looking good so far...

 Name place cards for the table

 Little nectar bottles reused with new labels. Old fashioned Vintage Paper straws have been sourced from Cake Bake Shoppe, 30 Main Road Ballarat and from Twiggi- www.twiggi.com.au

 Some little labels for the cakes and biscuits.

The full little nectar bottles re labelled to co ordinate with our theme. I can't beleive there is only a week before the party! This week will be very very busy finishing the vintage fabric swags, buying food, and finishing the birthday cake.

School Holiday Stuff to do Part 3

More ideas BANGLES...
...to fills the school holiday days and entertain the little and not so little ones.The girls aged 3 to 15 enjoyed this activity. It's super cheap and relatively easy to do.
This idea has been used in many different ways in our house. A couple of years back we made some bangles for school fair they were cheap easy. While wandering through the "cheapo shop" I found some  plastic tubing (about 15m in fact for only $6.50) this one is bigger than the one we used last so we could put more interesting things in it.

You need plastic tubing- available from fabric or hardware stores

 Cut to desired length add about 1cm extra(- you stuff one end into the other).

 Fill with anything your heart desires- this time around we have used Easter egg foil rolled up into balls, glitter, tiny stars, scrap ribbon. Other things you could use are beads, seeds, coloured pencil shavings, your imagination is your only limit here.

 We used the blunt end of a skewer to stuff our foil beads in. Even miss 3 managed to create her own bangle.

It gets a bit tricky here so adult help may be required. Leaving about 1.5cm spare at each end pinch in end like so and stuff it firmly into the other end of the tube. dipping the plastic into hot water helped soften it enough to get a tight fit. 

 And finally here is a selection of our pretty bangles. Just a tip- the fine glitter may escape so a piece of clear sticky tape around the join will help keep it inside the bangle.

Super Easy Christmas or Party Bunting

SUPER EASY CRAFT!

Ok this bunting is so very super quick and easy. You can used ANY Chritsmas gift wrap or as I've done these paper doilies. If using gift wrap just cut isosolies triangles to the size you require. I like them to be about 20cm long, to get it done even quicker layer the paper to cut multiples out at once. For the doilies cut the top few inches off to create a straight edge. I have used 2 different sized ones and alternated them along the ribbon. Any ribbon can be used and even the metallic curling ribbon runs through the machine fine. Leave yourself a tail of about 30 to 40cm for tying off. layer your doilies or paper under the edge of the ribbon as in the first picture and just straight stitch keeping the ribbon lined up with the edge of the paper. As i'd mentioned I've alternated different size doilies along the way leaving a gap of about 4 cm between each doilie. You don't even need to cut the thread just stitch along the ribbon for an extra 4cm then carefully feed the next doilie or bunting under the ribbon an keep going until you run out. Don't forget to leave a tail at the other end to tie up. It's really cheap to make and super easy to make.You can make this as long or as short as you like and can also be done in birthday wrapping paper or scrapbooking paper. Time this one took me 20 mins and cost-  ribbon $2.50, Doilies 2 packets $4.00 total $6.50 for a super effective decoration.
The last photo is my next little project. I've made heaps before and though for Christmas I 'd make a long string of small tissue paper pompon flowers. This is just the start so I'll pop on another picture once finished. Just as cost effective but a little more time consuming.

48 hours...

IN just 48 hours I have...

Made three more Wallets. Scrapped with Celeste (the one on the right) Made a page at crop. and finally after 2 years of procrastinating, started making a Vinyl shopper bag. The story behind the bag is this... A few years ago I had the idea that I would have some of my fave pictures of Emily printed onto heavy duty sign writers vinyl/PVC and after a test run on my sewing machine went horribly wrong I put it away for a while, then it got moved, then found again! Yeay. Now all inspired again after making the small PVC and paper wallets I found at the Ric rac blog. AND investing in the crucial and life saving Teflon foot for my sewing machine, sewing this baby up was a dream! That is until the upholstery thread ran out and the nearest shop is 40km away! a great big BUGGER, I'll have to wait till I go back into town again to be able to finish it off, but you gotta admit that it's starting to look pretty awesome already! Can't wait to show you the other side and if all this works out and they prove to be easy enough to bind I might just offer custom order bags for sale with your very own pictures on them.

Creative little Family

This is lovely little pumpkin Lauren made for a school project. When I said to her that she could make them to sell the only response I got back was a shrig of the shoulders and a funny noise that sort of sounded like a cross between Ughh and I dunno. Teenagers! Any how, this is now my pin cushion so his expression is very fitting.