Say A Little Prayer For Joshua

Our little boy Joshua was diagnosed with Bronchiolitis and Pneumonia and admitted to hospital on Christmas Eve. During the course of the afternoon his condition deteriorated and he was transfered to the pediatric Intensive Care. On the morning of Christmas Day he had to be intubated. He is now stable but still fully sedated, we're hoping to see an improvement in his condition in the next couple of days but he is still fighting for his life.

It's Beginning To Smell A Lot Like Christmas ...

Christmas Potato Stamps

We've had a lot of rain recently - I know, a lot of people have had snow but that won't happen in our neck of the woods, but let me tell you we've had rain. A lot. And so we had to find things to do inside. The other thing that has happened is that this year we have none of our Christmas decoration. I don't fancy going out buying a lot of things just for this year so instead we spend time making things. It's a bit limited what you can do with a 3.5 year old - he is really into MAKING things but that doesn't mean you can make the most complicated things. So we opted for potato stamps:

First press cookie cutters into potato halves, about 1cm deep. With a knife take off the surplus of potato that is outside of the cutter shape. I wouldn't recommend using plastic cookie cutters, the metal ones are just easier to get into the potatoes.

Get colours, glitter and paper ready ....

Once finished, let your stamps dry fully.

Cut out and place in a heavy book overnight to flatten them. Then stick around your fireplace, voila.

And if you're still looking for some last Christmas cards, print off some free ones here at Dawanda. Christmas stress? Pah!!  [frantically buys last-minute Xmas presents online with no hope in the world of receiving anything before the end of January]

The Race To The Finishing Line

It's been a bit of a mad month - first I decided to re-open my frogs+sprogs shop and on Dawanda. I didn't really expect very much to happen, but how wrong was I ... several of the lovely snuggly blankets are now in the post, as well as a few of the funky crayon rolls. I hope their new owners will enjoy them as much as I enjoyed making them.

Then there was the advent calendar project .... and since I had now dusted off the sewing machine, I decided to go for option no.1 and voila ....

I am quite pleased with the end result - I know it still has a number missing, but the little man hasn't noticed so far, and to be honest I doubt he will. I'm planning to stock these in my shop for next year so I'll soon start working on them.

And last but certainly not least there was the Christmas Swap organised by the lovely Louise over at Sew Scrumptious. I was lucky to be paired up with Louise herself, and the directive was one christmas card, at least one handmade christmas decoration and some Christmas chocolate. Her parcel arrived a few days ago and look what got: (apologies for the poor photo quality, it was evening time and I managed to get photos done just before other half launched himself onto the chocolate):

 

The cutest little christmas stockings with my sons' initials:

A gorgeous fabric wreath:

And some more chocolate ... but that was gone by the time I finished the photos.

My parcel is now on it's way over to her, here's a little preview.

I now have one project to finish before Christmas and am also working on lots of new product ideas for the shop. Surely an excuse for some more fabric buying?