happy handmade birthday to me!

After another busy few months, I’ve got lots to show here –
just got to find time to write about it all now..



For starters: here are some photos taken on my birthday in August. Both kids had made me cards and gifts and had wrapped them up and hidden them around the house, they were so excited to give them to me on my birthday..



Cyan gave me all sorts of little handmade goodies..





Oli made me a pincushion:



Some of Cyan’s wrappings were just as good as what was inside!











Oli also made me..



.. a cuddly tadpole!
He told me he wanted to make me a cuddly frog (frogs are my favourite animals) but he didn’t know how to, so he decided that a tadpole would be easier!
I am very happy with my tadpole.



Check out how well Cyan can wrap!





She made her own envelope too..



.. with two mini cards: happy hopday mini bunny card & mini snowflake card!







A shiny frog! On cork!



Oli’s envelope..



.. with another tadpole drawn on..



.. and inside a multi tree frog card..



On the front: green poison dart frog, red eyed tree frog, strawberry poison dart frog, blue poison dart frog, glass tree frog..



Inside: smoky jungle frog..



.. and on the back: golden poison dart frog.



Cyan saved the best (so she insisted) gift for last..
with giant fluoro bunny gift tag!



The gift inside was this necklace which Cyan raided my crafty supplies to make for me!









The necklace is made from lots of charms and findings, strung on some of Cyan’s embroidery thread. She is disappointed that I haven’t worn it more, so I explained that it’s not very practical and I would be worried about it breaking, and that we will sit down together at some point and reuse the elements to make something a bit stronger and more wearable.



They made me so happy with all their thoughtful handmade offerings, better than anything money can buy!



After I cleared up our breakfast things I had to go and get ready for work, and found the kids upstairs playing twister..





So adorable..





I had arranged to work half days for a week, so I could spend the afternoons with the kids when Karl was at work. It was a lovely sunny day, Karl brought the kids to meet me when I finished work at lunchtime and we mooched about town for a bit and did a bit of shopping..



I snapped these lovely pics in a beautiful garden next to our new-ish mall, it’s been planted this year with lots of lovely meadow flowers and is a beautiful spot in the middle of the city..



Oli was too hot and sat down in the shade of a tree to look at his 3D book we just found in one of my favourite charity shops..





















Cyan reading her charity shop book: The Forgetful Spider by June Woodman – a lovely book with charming stories and illustrations, I highly recommend it if you happen across it (I just checked and it looks to be out-of-print).



I had a lovely birthday! I will try and post again soon, with more handmade birthday gifts and cards plus birthday parties galore.. I still need to write about our wedding too, which was nearly a year ago now!! Where does the time go....

the crown jewels

Oliver and Cyan’s school held a party to celebrate the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, with a hat competition for each year group. We decided to make crowns.





Oliver’s crown is based on the St. Edwards Crown, worn by the Queen at her coronation.





Cyan’s is a mini replica of the Imperial State Crown, worn by the Queen for important state events.

It’s amazing what can be done with some corrugated cardboard, a little gold spray-paint and lots of acrylic gems and other embellishments! I think it’s safe to say I got a little carried away with the whole project! I made the crown bases, Oli and Cyan had fun helping with the spray-painting and loved sticking all their ‘jewels’ in place. They also enjoyed researching the real crowns, and reading all about the amazing gemstones they have. I remember having quite a fascination with the crown jewels after I went to see them in the Tower of London when I was a child.

Oliver won his competition; Cyan didn’t win hers, but she did just win a drawing competition at school the previous week and I guess you can’t win ’em all!