WIN a fabric crown for your little princess

Would you like to win one of these fabric crowns? Head over to my Facebook page and comment of the photo there telling me your child's favourite dress ups! Winner will be chosen Friday 25th July at 8:30 pm.

A new addition!

Our family of 5 will be a family of 6 come January next year! Yes we are expecting another little treasure!

My girls are old enough to understand what is happening and they are so excited which is lovely. Elsa was only just 3 when my youngest, Eve was born so it is definitely different having such a large gap.

 My last 3 months have been spent sleeping, dealing with morning sickness, and lots of daydreaming about what I am going to make for this new baby! My Pinterest boards have been filling up with ideas and in the process I may have tipped off a few of my friends that there was a new baby on the way!

I think you will be seeing a lot of baby things popping up on the blog over the next 6 months or so!

Now, what do I start on first?

Learning to Sew

Over the last few months I have had quite a few of my friends want to learn to sew. I love to teach sewing and I find it so exciting when they finish their first item and see how proud they are of it! I often have people ask "Where do I start?" or "What should I sew first?" so I thought I would put together a list of tutorials and patterns that I love and that I think would be great to learn to sew with. If you are going to pin any of these patterns please go to the original blog/page and don't pin them from my blog to be fair to the original pattern/tutorial designer.

If you very new to sewing you may at times need a little more help than what is in some of the tutorials. I can recommend that you head over to YouTube in these situations and search for a video as I am sure you will find someone who has made a video of what you are wanting to do. This is especially helpful if you are a visual learner and don't have anyone in real life who can sit down and help you.

The first blog I want to recommend is MADE. I LOVE this blog and all this things that Dana makes. She has a TON of free tutorials and some pretty awesome patterns to purchase too. I own the shorts pattern and it is a favourite in this house! My girls love their MADE shorts and it is an awesome pattern to sew too.

These are just a few of the awesome tutorials/patterns on this blog. It is well worth a visit if you are wanting to learn to sew!

Another favourite blog of mine is Made by RAE. Over here you will find some gorgeous women's patterns along with the kids stuff. It is such a great feeling wearing something you have made yourself so check out her women's patterns as well as the kids ones. I will mention below some easy women's patterns too as it is probably best to start by sewing something that isn't too fitted so you don't have to worry about it not fitting very well. Once you have the hang of sewing some simple things though I can totally recommend Rae's patterns!

On to blog number 3! Another fave...acutally I am only sharing patterns and blogs with you that I LOVE so I guess that 'fave' thing goes without saying!

Craftiness is not optional is full of gorgeous tutorials for lots of girly things! 

Ok lets move on to our Aussie Designers! I really should have started with them as they really to have some of the best patterns out there and I am not the only one saying it!

First up is Pattern Emporium. I adore these patterns and the flat front skirt is a perfect first item for yourself!

Fresh Designs Patterns are used by me ALL the time and are super easy to follow!

Make it Perfect has only recently started selling patterns as PDFs and I am so glad she did! I have a lot of hers as paper patterns but being able to buy and sew on the same day is awesome and so are her patterns!

Another easy womens pattern I can recommend as a first project is the Versatile Wrap skirt. I LOVE mine!

Last but certainly not least is BOO! Designs! These patterns are great to start experimenting with adding your own designs features and changes to a pattern. Before these patterns I was a 'follow a pattern to the letter' type of sewer. Now I still like to follow the pattern as that is jut how I am but I also love to add things and change things to make it mine!

Phew! That was a lot of link and photos! There are so many more I could mention but these are probably the ones I use most. If you are wanting to learn to sew I hope you are now feeling inspired! Remember you have to start somewhere so just start and don't be afraid of making mistakes...practice, practice, practice!

Happy 4th Birthday Eve

FOUR years old! My baby is FOUR! I honestly am blown away by how fast time goes. I must admit to feeling a little sad. I loved the baby years. I know there is so much to look forward to but I feel very sentimental looking back at photos of my gorgeous little Eve. I am also very glad that she gets to stay home with me for another year before I send her off to school!

1 day old

6 months old

1 year old

Eve was born 12 days before her sisters second birthday so for the last few years I have thrown them combined birthday parties. I'm not sure how much longer I will get away with doing this for though. I think Eve might want her own party once she starts school next year!

Happy Birthday Eve!

My (slightly grotty!) little princess

Eve you are delightful! You love to have fun and be silly and to dance! You are kind, loving and affectionate. I love you to the moon and back xxx

The Versatile Wrap Skirt {A Make it Perfect Pattern}

Taking photos for this blog post took forever! A combination of getting your 5 and 7 year olds to take the photos and using a tripod and a timer meant a challenging photo shoot! It doesn't help that when I look at the photos I can see the weight I have gained. I think I have been living in denial but photos are ever truthful unfortunately! Anyway back to the sewing...

I purchased this pattern  when I first got back into sewing so probably about 5-6 years ago! It is a simple pattern where the pieces are cut from the measurements given. I know some people hate this and prefer to have pattern pieces but I actually really like having measurements...no tracing out the pattern pieces!

I wore the skirt out before I had put the button hole on the side as I really wanted to wear it out and I was really pushing it to get it done! At first I was happy without the button hole but after wearing it again today I have now put the button hole in it as the ties stay in place better with it.

I have now pulled out heaps of other fabric that I could use to sew myself skirts and can see that before long my wardrobe will be full of them! Hooray for ME sewing!

Pattern - Versatile Wrap by Make It Perfect

Fabric - Twill Bouquet in Black, Dowry, Anna Maria Horner purchased from Hawthorne Threads

Laila Ruffle Dress by Bobkin

This dress is just the most ruffley girly dress ever!

I must admit I was a little scared of the invisible zip but I got it in ok and it wasn't as bad as I thought. 

The fabric is Circa by Jennifer Paganelli and it is just perfect for this pattern. There are a few other options in this dress pattern including a double ruffle(this is the single!). 

Pattern is available soon...like today or tomorrow soon! Head over to the Bobkin FB page to keep an eye out for the release.