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Excellent Freebie kit at Jaelop Designs

Just a quick share while I have a minute, shall post proper update later.
I have just stumbled over to Jaelop's lovely blog and spotted this beautiful freebie kit "A simple day"

Due Tomorrow!

Wow, I don't quite know how it's happened but our EDD is tomorrow!

Absolutely NO signs whatsoever of this little one wanting to come and say "Hello" just yet so it looks like we may be playing the waiting game for a while.

Dougie is officially "off work" now and will go back 3 weeks after little one has been born, I feel really lucky to be able to have him at home with us in the lead up to the birth and for that length of time after too.

We all went for a lovely 2hr walk on Monday, we are lucky enough to live on the edge of town so it's only a 5 minute walk to get to some open fields and countryside. Spotted lots of Gatekeeper butterflies in the hedgerows, blackberries galore and watched the fish darting about in the river.

Thanks to Claire "The Green Queen" & Weleda

It's my lucky day today!
My name has been drawn from the hat and I have won a bottle of Weleda Pregnancy Oil in a giveaway at "The Green Queen" blog.

Just wanted to say a big "Thank you" to Claire over at "The Green Queen" http://greengoodlife.blogspot.com/
and of course also to Weleda http://www.weleda.co.uk/ , whose baby range we have recently fallen in love with as our little man can now enjoy having bubbles in the bath without his eczema flaring up.
:)

Sarah xxx

I'm an Auntie!

I have a Nephew, Aidan :)
From the very few details we have so far, my sisters waters went at 3am Monday morning and she and her husband went into hospital at 9.30am, where baby was monitored and the decision made to keep them in.
Despite my sister actively pushing from 9pm through to 1am Tuesday morning there was little to no progress and  my sister and her husband were told it was "c-section time and no arguments!" by the Dr/consultant, so off they were whisked to theatre.
So, little Aidan has weighed in at 7lb, I don't know the time of his birth yet, hoping to get details from sisters hubby at some point, lol

Looking forward to meeting the little man :)

What a bad blogger I am!

Wow, I can't believe it has been so long since I last blogged on here.

Here we are now at 37 weeks pregnant (give or take a day or two), we have been very busy trying to tie up as many loose ends as possible around the house etc. to help us get ready for our new bundle.
The little box room at the front of the house has been decorated as the nursery (although baby will not move into the room for at least 6 months) We have had a new boiler and central heating system installed as our old one was very unreliable throughout winter.

The birthpool has been inflated to check for punctures (lol, luckily none found..phew) and packed away again ready for the big day.

But most importantly we have started a Hypnobirthing course, which we are both loving. I'm trying to find practice time every day as we are late starting the course as we had to wait for a late scan to reveal if placenta had moved allowing for a natural birth or not.

MoonFlower Designs is doing well and we are pleased to see some more requests being placed, Stacey, our Guest Designer is coming to the end of her 8 week design slot on the site, we hope to have her return as a Guest again at some point in the future as she creates some beautiful signatures :) Many Thanks to you for your hard work Stacey. xxx

We are still on the look out for designers and guest designers  to join the MoonFlower Team, so if you are interested drop us an email to moonflowerdes1gn@aol.com and we will definitely get back back to you as soon as possible.

That's about it for now, other than the stuff I mentioned above there have been the usual regular Gruffalo  spotting trips to the woods which ds absolutely loves.

That's me for now, I'm off to practice my breathing and relaxation techniques again :)

Sarah xxx

Project: Nursing Chair

While I've been off work I managed to pick up a 2nd hand nursing chair from a local buy, sell or swap group on FB. The chair including footstool cost me £60, so a nice little bargain :)

The beige cushions aren't quite me to be honest and there is certainly evidence of a child set free with a red biro at some point in the seat cushions past, and although I'm not the sort of person to jump for a cloth everytime there's a minor spillage, it's nice to have the option of removing covers and giving them a wash, so off I toddled to Ikea to buy some fabric!

I found a fabric I liked "Guvnor" at £3.99 pm, so 4 metres purchased, and here is the (nearly) finished result! I still have to cover the footstool which I hope to get done tomorrow.

also...I finally found myself a wrap sling!
It's a Girasol Rainbow 5.2m, I won it in an eBay auction, it is well preloved but in wonderful condition and beautifully soft.
Obviously no action pics available yet as 7 mths pregnant,
however when ds saw it he got very excited and started shouting
"Wrap me up Mummy! wrap me up!"
so here's a pick of it non-action :)

Some time at home

Well here I am signed off work with a chest infection at 26 wks pregnant :( I'm into my 2nd week off now and although I know I have lots to do and get on with I just don't have the energy right now with this constant terrible cough. My sick note from the GP will run out at the end of this week and luckily for me I have the following 2 weeks booked as holiday anyway, as I don't see my chest getting better by next week. That all means I'll have been off work a month by the time I go back! I don't like being signed off, I love my job and being at home sends me crazy lol, although it is lovely to spend extra time with my little boy :)
My little man is at nursery this morning so I've been doing lots of online research into slings, real nappies (like i don't have enough already lol) and cribs etc. trying to find the best deals out there.

So while I'm off I shall try and get a new blog layout on the go, something a bit more summery, I've not been on a digiscrap download session for a while and i bet there are some stunning kits out right now. I also have the MoonFlower Designs blog to get up and running, I think I'll soon find myself very busy, lol.
Catch up again soon
Sarah x

Funky Easter Freebie at Jamie Dell Scraps

Had to let you all know about this fab freebie digi scrap kit I spotted at Jamie Dell Scraps.
It's a fantastic kit of beautiful vibrant colours perfect for scrapping all those Easter Egg Hunt pics.

http://www.jamiedellscraps.blogspot.com/

Don't forget to say thanks if you download, it's wonderful to see Jamie back designing kits again :)

Sarah xxx

Fluffy Post!

Yay Fluffy post! lol
The lovely postman bought my free LittleLamb nappy to the door :)
It is gorgeous, I chose the bamboo nappy in size one, and I was very pleasantly surprised to see it came with it's own wrap, I just assumed I would need to use one of my existing wraps for it but there was one in with the free nappy! So impressed, I think i may need to order a couple of nappies from them now...ohh ohhhhhh Cloth nappy addiction is back again!

World Book Day..we won a prize!

World Book Day was yesterday and Ds went off to nursery refusung to wear his Gruffalo costume! Grr...
However at some point in the morning someone managed to coax him into wearing it, and he won the prize for best costume in the Toddler Group :).
The nursery gave him a storybook called "What's The Time Mr. Wolf?".
I was very surprised when I turned up to collect him that
a) he had won the prize, but also that
b) he was the only child that I could see in a home made costume!
All the others had been shop bought outfits from Asda etc, which I thought was a shame.

It maybe is a slight reflection on our "Buy it cheap and chuck" culture, where (although Ds's costume was made from what was knocking about the house already and reclaimed fabrics) it is often cheaper to buy a ready made item than it is to go and buy the fabric and the ribbons etc and do it yourself.

Anyway, I'm not judging those who shop bought. Everyone has to do what works best for them, but I will say I really enjoyed making Ds's 1st dress up costume and will definitely be going for homemade next time too :)

Gruffalo Outfit Pt 2

I have had more progress on the Gruffalo outfit today.
There is now a picture of the Gruffalo's face on the front of the tunic, courtesy of the mask template on www.Gruffalo.com
which I printed, coloured, cut out and stitched on to the tunic, then as dp pointed out ds is a toddler so I have plastic coated the picture (with my trusty friend "sellotape") to make it wipeable.
Here's a piccie..well ok 3 piccies :D

I have also made a start on the hood to go with it, which still needs horns and eyes.

More to follow as it happens , lol.

Sarah x

Beautiful New Freebie DigiScrap Kit at Jaelop Designs

Wow! I'm totally in love with this Digi Scrap Kit "Sweet Girl" by the wonderful Jael Lopez of Jaelop Designs (one of my all time favourite digi scrap kit designers blogs.) and it's totally FREE!

Here's the preview and the link to the blog!

http://jaelop.blogspot.com/2010/02/kit-sweet-girl.html

Remember if you download this kit from Jaelop's blog, leave some love in the comments :)

World Book Day

Apparently it's World Book Day this coming Thursday and DS's nursery have asked that all children attend in a costume depicting a character from their favourite book, which for my little man is The Gruffalo.
Now, from what I know of the Gruffalo, apart from that he is brown and furry, is the following....

"He has terrible tusks, and terrible claws, and terrible teeth in his terrible jaws. He has knobbly knees and turned out toes, and a poisonous wart on the end of his nose. His eyes are orange, his tongue is black. He has purple prickles all over his back. He IS the GRUFFALO!" Lol..

So for the 1st time in a very long time, I have had the sewing box out of it's corner of the sitting room and have been delving through my collection of fabric scraps and ribbons.
I acquired a brown fleece blanket from my Mum (thanks Mum :D), found some purple ribbon in my ribbon stash (I always keep all ribbons from flowers, gifts etc. as they are great for scanning in to PS for digi scrapping and for all sorts of arts & crafts).


The Basic Kit

My 1st step was to decide  on how to make the "body" I toyed with the idea of a cape, but bearing in mind DS is under 3 yrs old I came to the conclusion a tunic would be better for a rampaging toddler. Ds just so happens to have a Thomas The Tank Engine tabbard  style apron for painting and other messy activities so it provided the perfect pattern for cutting the fleece blanket to shape, I then used some brown ribbon found in the bottom of my sewing box for tabs to stop the tunic flapping as he walks and runs.

The Tunic

After that came the Purple Prickles! 

I got to work cutting lots of triangles out of the lovely purple ribbon, which ds absolutely loved throwing everywhere! Grrr..

In the end I had about 30 of what was probably 40 or 50 but the remainer have been liberally scattered to all corners of the sitting room by a toddler throwing them in the air and shouting "Triangles!" at the top of his voice LOL.

I got to work sewing the purple prickles to the back of the tunic, just randomly placing them as I went rather than a regimented pattern, a few thumb stabbings later I had finished, with 20 prickles in place, that is the back of the Gruffalo finished.

He has Purple Prickles all over his back!

So that's my progress so far, I now need to make a hood to go with it and maybe a mask that a toddler can tolerate for more than 10 seconds, but I am happy for now to have broken the back of the project and have made a good start.

More to follow when the hood has been made :)

Sarah x