Our Birthday Celebration 2020 - 1 Out Of 3 Celebration - Homemade Birthday Cake, Card and Gift

The months August, September and October are our most exciting time every year as we have a birthday in each month. This year we celebrate our birthdays in isolation due to Covid-19 and we are home based. So, we're hoping to go back to basics and have simple celebration with lots of quality time.

I thought to incorporate some activities for my 5 year old to keep training his fine motor skills. Luckily, he likes to help out in the kitchen, doing measuring and mixing the cake ingredient.

He also made the birthday card and the drawing. The drawing process was a directed drawing. He's not a big fan of drawing and colouring so a bit of encouragement was required 😆. I'm glad at the end of the process he was proud of his drawing and showed more confidence. The drawing is based on Dad's fish tank that has lots of vegetation.

Sweetie Pie Vest, Beanie and Booties - Unisex Baby Gift Set

This unisex baby gift set consists of an adorable vest, beanie and booties (mittens included for size 0000 and 000). All handcrafted from 100% Australian Cotton yarn from Bendigo Woollen Mills. They are soft and super practical for everyday use and mild weather in Spring or Autumn.

They are available for custom order from my Etsy store in sizes 0000-0 and a range of cheerful colour.

The vest can also be worn as sleeveless top.

Easy to care for with minimal appliques.

The booties have ties that are easily removed if not needed.

National Science Week Home Experiment with Primary School Age Kid - Osmosis and Capillarity

It's National Science Week last week in Australia and I thought to include a bit of home science experiment as part of remote schooling.

The topic for the first experiment is Osmosis. We sadly sacrificed 4 of our precious gummy bears for the experiment. *Sobs*

The yellow gummy is the control gummy, red was submerged in tap water, orange in sugar water and green in vinegar water. We didn't expect the experiment to take a looonng time and ended up leaving them for about 2 hours or so until we finally saw the result.

And the gummies weren't significantly inflated as we hoped. The red and green gummies which were submerged in water and vinegar water were the largest gummies at the end of the experiment.

The second experiment was about Capillarity. We used a few drops of our water paint for this. We left the jars overnight for the water to reach a good height so we can see the secondary colour.

The water between red and yellow:

The water between yellow and blue:

And, the water between blue and red:

The colours are faint and I think it may have been a much clearer result of we use food colouring instead of water paint.

Renee Blouse - Handknitted Cotton Cable Blouse

What better way to celebrate the arrival of the warm weather than to finally put on a cool cotton blouse and show some skin. This cable pattern blouse is handcrafted using the finest Australian cotton from Bendigo Woollen Mills. They are available in ready stock and custom order from my Etsy store in sizes 6-12 and gorgeous choices of yarn colour.

Luna Blouse - Handcrafted Lace Cotton Blouse

Get ready for Summer with this flowy cotton lace blouse. They are now available in ready stock and custom order in size 6/8 or 10/12 and a range of beautiful shade of Bendigo Woollen Mills cotton yarn.

The fitting is loose and perfect to wear with a thin camisole underneath and catch a bit of a sun.

Order now from Etsy

Arts and Craft Afternoon - Christmas Cards Making

My five year old has been stuck at home in the last few weeks with us because of the Stage 4 Melbourne Lockdown and it's getting hard to keep him entertain. Apart from the remote school learning, I try to spend time with him without technology, doing educational tasks that are not too draining. So, this is one of the fun arts and crafts activities that we ended up embarking on. 

I'm not the best in drawing and to be honest it's not my favourite thing to do. I found out through remote learning that he's also not into drawing and finds the tasks very daunting. We decided to take the opportunity to learn together and find resources to draw items in simple lines and shapes.

The Christmas cards are pretty much an excuse that I made up 😅 to entice him in the drawing practice. I told him he can send the cards to his friends and teachers this Christmas. He took it on board with minimal fussing and ended up quit enjoying himself. 

We only managed to make 4 cards in one sitting, but we're planning to make more.

Now Also Available in Cotton, Sweet Keira Baby Gift Set: Bolero, Beanie, Booties and Mittens

I'm happy to announce that this beautiful handcrafted baby gift set is now also available in cotton. I use the luxurious soft cotton yarn from Bendigo Woollen Mills to handcraft the set myself. The set is available in size 0000 up to 0 and a range of shade. The soft cotton yarn is perfect for mild winter weather, spring and autumn, and also those cool summer nights.

Available for custom order of material, size and colour at my Etsy store.

Spring Roll Making: Multitasking of cooking and pre-occupying my school age child.

With the pandemic going out of control in Victoria at the moment, we have returned to remote schooling. So, our 5 year old has been stuck with us, without his friends, for a few weeks now. I've been making an effort to add some variety to his activities. 

Our activity today is rolling spring roll. I prepared the filling ahead of time and asked him to help out. He did very well, only a few came undone during the frying process.

Tiny fingers at work!! I gave him motivation by saying whoever rolls the most gets to eat the more.

Sewing Boys Winter Pyjama Pants

Winter is wrapping up here in Melbourne. We're about a month away from Spring and I thought I could hold of sewing a larger size pyjama pants for my five year old. But he had grown so much taller in the last few months that his pants are looking ridiculously short!!

So I thought I went ahead and sew a few pairs for him anyway, in larger size so he can continue wearing them next winter.

I use Burda 9747 pattern for this and they are super easy to follow. Most of the sewing are straight lines.

The fabric pieces only consist of 4 parts, 2 front and 2 back. So I started by cutting the fabric according to the pattern:

The first step was to sew the outer sides of the pants, combining the front and back parts of the pants for each legs. As I don't have an overlocker, I sew 0.5 cm seam allowance on the right side, reverse the piece inside out and sew 1.0 cm seam allowance to create smooth joints.

The same process was repeated for the inner parts of the pants:

The next part was the only non straight line sewing of the whole process. This was to join the crotch part, combining the left and right parts of the pants:

The remaining steps were the waist band sewing and hemming the legs. For the waist band, the process again is super simple. It basically involved folding the fabric the create a space for the elastic bands, sewing the band and leaving a small opening to insert the elastic, inserting the elastic and sewing shut the opening.

I followed the original height of the pants although it's currently too long for my son. I folded the extra height and hand sewn it. This should be easy to take out next winter when needed:

I love the result. It doesn't take long to sew and the material is affordable. This pair is a size 7 according to the pattern and I only use 1m of fabric for each pants.

I'm tempted to sew one for myself for next winter...