Happy Halloween

Yesterday we celebrated Halloween with some great friends of ours. It was fantastic! Rosie dressed up as a dancing witch and Harry was a pirate. :-)

They had organised some super cool activities for the kids such as...
a lolly scramble (beats knocking on doors that is for sure)...

'Pin the Wart on the Witch'...

and a 'ghost' search in the trees.

They were also treated to a cool magic show and were very impressed with Karl's array of tricks, as was I! 

As for the trick or treaters, having been caught out in the past and having nothing to give, I stocked up in anticipation...and not one person came. Poor Rosie (bless her heart!) stuck a paper bat to the letterbox and sat beside it and waited for someone to come...and no one did. She told me she did spy someone dressed as a pumpkin but they were walking in a different direction. I think we live in quite an 'old' neighbourhood and there aren't a lot of kids around so she was quite disappointed. I told her that I would take some of the treats and hide them in a treasure hunt around the backyard one day soon and she and Harry can search for them. My lolly jar at school needs refilling too. :-)

Halloween Cupcakes

While I was searching for ideas for Halloween food I came across a free template for these super cute cupcake toppers at Living Locurto.

I have just discovered Amy's website and there are so many inspiring ideas for party planning and DIY crafts. I highly recommend it.

Today we made these chocolate cupcakes with ganache icing. We found some orange cupcake papers at the supermarket and separated out some orange star sprinkles from a multi coloured batch of stars we already had.

To make the cupcake toppers we simply cut out the Happy Halloween circles, glued them to some black paper and attached them to craft sticks with double sided tape. Harry helped me.

Our family love cupcakes and these little toppers add a touch of cuteness. :-)

Halloween Decorating

I have never decorated our house for Halloween before but this year Rosie and I thought we might do something very small to get the house ready for Halloween.

We found this great bat template over at Country Living and this afternoon we made a few bats from some black card to stick on our walls.

We traced the template onto some sturdy card to make it more robust and then Rosie drew around it on the folded black paper.

It only took a few minutes to make several bats so it was an easy craft activity to do while dinner was cooking.

All was going well until...

I heard Rosie shout out, "What happened with this?" It seems that something went wrong with cutting out this particular bat so we had a good laugh about this strangely shaped one.

Now our lounge walls are graced with these gorgeous bats and we are set for our Halloween weekend. :-)

Too Cute!

During the school holidays I indulged in one of my favourite past times...foraging through op shops. Due to the limited hours these types of stores are open, I can never get there during term time so it was a real treat to take my time wandering through the Hospice shop. I love that you just never know what you will find!

A couple of years ago I posted here about my love of vintage patterns and my search for an elusive Simplicity pattern for retro kids overalls and pinafores. Guess what? I finally found it! I have literally been searching for years for this pattern after seeing it on another blog. This particular blog was a sewing blog and the woman makes these retro overalls in gorgeous fabrics and they sell like hotcakes.

I would love to make Harry a pair of overalls (though they won't have Spiderman on them so I don't know if I will have any luck getting them on him!) and a little pinny for Rosie. I am also keen to try one of the little Jiffy dresses for summer. I will add these projects to my extensive 'to do' list. :-)

Disco Dots

Rosie has been invited to a disco birthday party soon and being fairy obsessed for a long time now, we of course had nothing suitable for her to wear.

Over the weekend we popped out to Spotlight and picked up a metre of this fab disco dot material.

We searched through my pattern box and found a pattern which we had enough material to make. This was definitely a very quick and easy dress to make and after 30 minutes, it was complete.

I am not sure what else we will put with the dress but she has a little sequin bolero jacket that we might use. After all, a girl can never have too much sparkle at a disco party. :-)

First Swim of the Season

The weather over the last few days has been absolutely amazing so it seemed like a good time to test the Pool Doctor's work. :-)

Of course, it was far too cold for me but Taff and the kids were keen to enjoy their first swim of the season. I have to say that despite the warm weather, the pool was freezing!

This didn't stop these keen beans, once their lifejackets were fitted they bravely entered the water.

It was the first time the kids had worn lifejackets in the pool and there were some tears until they realised that lifejackets enable you to float, even if Daddy has let you go. :-)

They obviously need a lot more exposure to the pool over the next few months but hopefully they will continue to grow in confidence. This was a new experience for them and quite different from their structured swimming lessons in a shallow warm pool.

I was very proud of them and we are looking forward to more beautiful weather soon. :-)

Our Labour Weekend

I love long weekends so much! It has been a very domestic weekend and we have tackled some of the bigger jobs around the house that we have been putting off for a while. I thought I would share just a few photos from our weekend which capture some of what we have been up to.

Rosie and Harry's room received a little spring update with some bargain polka dot bedding I picked up from the Clearance Shed and Ezibuy a few weeks ago...

Taff has been working tirelessly on sanding and painting our bedroom. He has spent some long hours in here and it is 'almost' done...

Rosie has been learning her lines for the Primary Presentation at church next week...

and so has Harry...

And our new sofa arrived. This sofa saga has been ongoing and I could write a novel (albeit a boring one) about it. I will probably settle for a blog post about it sometime soon but we "think" we might finally have chosen the right one for our space.

Although we didn't go anywhere exciting, I love weekends like this. I really am a girl who loves to be at home and always have been. Home is my sanctuary and I love nothing more than working on it and relaxing in it. :-)

Harry Loves Sunglasses!

Harry has developed a strange obsession with sunglasses lately. When he was younger he would never wear them and pull them straight off as soon as we put them on. Now he won't take them off. As soon as he wakes up he likes to put them on and they are on and off throughout the day.

I did however think he was taking it a bit too far when we walked into his room the other night and found this sight! Yes, he truly is asleep, believe it or not. The green thing on his head is Rosie's book bag and she told us the next morning that he put it on because he wanted to be a pirate. Little kids really are hilarious and it is the little moments like these I never want to forget. :-)

Our Trip to the Craft Show

Last weekend Rosie and I went to the Dunkley's Craft Show at the North Shore Events Centre.

I usually attend every year and have noticed a significant decline in the number of exhibitors in recent years, but I was quite shocked by how small this year's event was.

A lot of the usual exhibitors seemed to have pulled out during the recession so there wasn't a whole lot that I was tempted by. I felt there was a real absense of 'cool craft'! :-)

Rosie was far less judgemental however. As soon as she saw this stall dedicated to fairy items she was taken with it. She was allowed one thing at the show and she chose a small bag with fairy treats including shredded foil paper, I mean fairy dust, inside. She later confided to me that she didn't think the fairy dust was going to work as it was 'only cut up wrapping paper'. Still, she seemed happy with her choice.

The biggest hit ended up being the free dog balloon which provided a lot of entertainment once we got home! Despite my disappointment at the range offered at the show, we had a lovely mum and daughter outing together and that is what matters most!

My Fascination with Mirrors...

I absolutely love mirrors and the way they lighten up a corner or a neglected wall. They reflect light so brilliantly and give a room a completely different look and feel.

I was visiting the Dogs Breakfast Trading Company the other day and found this fantastic white round mirror which was perfect for a blank wall in our entry hall. It has a wooden textured frame which is still very subtle, but is also a bit quirky too. The best part? It was only $39.00!

This was an inexpensive way to add a point of interest to the entry and perhaps most importantly, lighten up the space a little.

First Aid Kit Organisation

In the holidays I decided to complete a few small organising projects around the home. One of them was reorganising my first aid kit and cupboard.

It was in desperate need of a clear out and the perfect opportunity to throw out old and unused medication. I even found a bottle of anti colic baby medication, now that is going back a while! :-)

I purchased a couple of large plastic containers from Storage Box and printed out and laminated some first aid checklists from Martha Stewart's website. I then used Blu Tac to attach these at the back of the cupboard so that I can easily refer to them when needed.

I placed all the boxed medication, band aids, bandages and creams into the large container and all the suspensions into another. It is also a good place to store Rosie and Harry's Well Child books.

While I was at it, I decided to create an emergency supplies storage box, in light of the recent Christchurch earthquake. I have all our torches, batteries, candles and matches stored in here so that I will know where to find them in case of a power cut or emergency.

As you can see, the contents of my cupboard were in disarray before, now it is a lot easier to find what we need, when we need it.

My Berry Boy

Today we decided to pick up a mid week treat for dessert...strawberries.

My little Harry is a big fan of all berries, but strawberries are definitely his favourite. He has asked for them several times over the winter, but has had to make do with strawberry yoghurt and jam. :-)

He could hardly wait until dinner was over so that he could tuck into these little gems.

I just love the look on his face with a mouth full of berries...pure joy. Luckily for us, he did decide to share with the rest of the family. :-)