Walking with the Dinosaurs

Last night we took the boys to see the show Walking With The Dinosaurs at the Burswood Dome. Mum and dad took Cate to her Jazz dancing class and then to HJ for dinner then home to watch "Hoodwinked" on DVD so she was happy as.

I was lucky enough to win tickets to see this spectacular, and I am so glad I did as a family pass was $380! We got there about 6pm and took the boys to the food hall, the ques for food were so long so I bought the boys some pre cooked Hawiian pizza, bob got some pre packaged sushi and I got this salad that was so yuk and pre frozen I had to return it for a refund.

Anyway, we headed over to the Dome, had a look at the merchandise and bought 2 dinosaur swimming bags, got some ice creams and went and sat in our seats. The show started 20 minutes late but the boys were good, we saw another family from school so said hi to them.

When the show started, Oliver was perched on the end of his seat, he was fasinated from beginning to end. He wore a green shirt as he wanted the dinosaurs to come see if he was food and give him a sniff! He was talking to them, laughed so hard when the palentoligist started talking about dino poo and was fascinated when the long neck cooed to the herd and when the 2 leaf eaters were trying to protect themselvs from the baby t-rew, untill the mum t-rex came in and she was huge! Stu thought it was ok but he wasn't riveted to his spot, if it was an army man expo he would of been in his element!

Some pictures, not the best but you get the jist.

An apple for the teacher

This is a quilt I made last year for Stuarts Pre-Primary teacher Miss Cooney. I made the crazy patch apples on the October school holidays then over the next few weeks did machine blanket stitching around the apples, added borders, joined together, added outer borders then I backed it, put the label on it, quilted it, lol, finally completed the hand sewing on the last Monday afternoon of school then raced to the school with it, couldn't wait till the Friday.
It was so worth it, every second I spent working on it over the last 10 weeks, I think its the biggest thing I have ever completed! It turned out a bit bigger than planned, they always do, its about a queen bed size top (not down the sides iykwim?) but I put a sleeve in it so it can be hung on the wall or used as a quilt.
I really wanted to make something special for Miss Cooney as it was her 1st year of teaching and she is just so kind and nice. According to her, there are no naughty children, just some who make the wrong choices sometimes
So she absolutley loved the quilt, loved how there was one apple for every child in her class, loved that I put the class photo onto the back as a label and my son wrote his own name, she loved my quote "a good teacher deserves an apple, you deserve the whole tree" awwww.
Anyway, she was delighted, I am delighted she loves it so much (don't want to brag but she did say it was the best present she has ever recieved :-) )
And, we are having a quilt and sewing display in March for the Baptist Church and Miss Cooney has kindly agreed to lending it to me for the display, as I finished it so quick no one got to see my finished master piece!
Close up of the apple.

Stuart and Miss Cooney

Cate and the finished quilt

I'm not so!

"I'm not so" says Cate, "I am not so a winger".
Guess who was winging in the car this morning!
Some pics of Cate in my fave outfit ever by Cakewalk, can't wait till the weather cools down, I am over summer.

Farmyard Friends dress

Some pictures of Cate and Squeek-Eyes (the guinea pig) and one with Toby (the cat) in a Robert Kaufman Vintage Farm Yard Friends dress I made.
Its a bit big but still cute. Very USA Ebay Boutique.
I got the fabric cheap from Textile Traders, its a quilting fabric but I think it looks great as a dress. I fussy cut the bodice front and back and used my roll hem foot and ruffler - fun fun fun!

Oliver Sketch Picture

Oliver and I had a spare half an hour before Occupational Therepy this morning so we went out for coffee and a choc milk, then had our pic taken together in one of those sketch booths at the shops.
Not the best of me, my eyes came out quite squinty but for $6.00 I was pretty impressed. He was cacking himself, in peels of laughter!
You put your $6- in, line the camera up and it takes 3 pics so you select the best, then choose which "artist" you want to sketch it, he picked Raphael (from TMNT) but there was also Leonardo, Donatelo and Michael Angelo (just different sketching techniques).
Sorry its a pic of a pic but you get the idea, I am going to have one done with each of the kids and frame them for there rooms, a special pic of "mummy and me"

chair bags - continued...

This week seems to be chair bag week, I am getting a bit bored with them now.Today I made a snowboarding print one for Olivers friend "Siprious" (sp?), I got it made in 8 minutes, how professional is that! Sorry, no pic.After school drop off this morning I started Nadia's chair bag, I just love the name Nadia.I have used some funky bright scraps all from the same range and sewn them together, then I ironed them flat; making this my background. For the top piece, I traced the letters backwards onto vlisofex, ironed the vlisofix to some pink homespun, then cut the letters out leaving the letters insides empty.After peeling the backing of the vlisofix off, I ironed the pink homespun on to the top of my background. Then I used matching pink thread and machine blanket stitched the homespun top to the scrap background, securing them together!This is called Reverse Applique and I learnt about it from a Jan Mullen pattern. I then attached the name piece to a backing and made up into a chair bag. Yay! All finished, I am so over chairbags!

chair bags - continued...

Kids all went back to school, happy as.
Oliver walked into his class and said "Hi Miss Bolding, I'm back, can I go on the computer now?" lol. Nothing has changed with him. Stu has a new teacher, Miss Freeman, he was ho hum about the whole back to school experience.

And Cate. First day of Kindy. Her new teacher seems lovely, her name escapes me! Mrs Brown (assistant principal) was an extra helper and Cate had a great time, sat down and did some drawing and told me "You can go now mum" awww, and since I picked her up she has been telling me how much she loves me, awww.

Back to the chair bags.
Oliver has a new boy in his class and they have just imigrated from India! They needed a chair bag, when I came to collect Oliver after school they were some mums waiting for me to see where I purchased our chairbag! So of course I offered to make on for Olivers new friend. I don't have enough dinosaur print left so I will use snowboarders.And then, this afternoon, I got a phone call from Mrs Brown asking if I would be able to make a chair bag for her daughter Nadia in year 3! Now Nadia loves pink and purple and is happy to wait an extra day to give me some extra time to create a special bag for her. I am thinking of doing the reverse applique for her name at the top and for the bottom cuff a detailed girly print, and maybe look at elasticising the top cuff so it sits snuggly on the chair.

Back to School - chair bags

Pretty much everything needed for school can be purchased through the uniform shop or wooldridges. Excitment plus!I made a chair bag last year for Oliver and I bought some fabric to make one when needed for Stuart and for the life of me I can not find where I have stashed my blue fabric with green frogs dressed as spiderman!So, this afternoon I asked Stu to come pick out some fabric, after a few minutes he was bored and left me to it, after specifically saying "no flowery bits", hmph!At 11.30 pm the night before they start year one and two, I started the chair bags! Now a chair bag is a very simple bag with a cuff at the top to slip over the chair, and a cuff at the bottom to hold there school hat and art smock and other bits. Its quite important to the kids, its so they know who has whos desk is whos and it allows a bit of colour and individuality.I found some dinosaur flanelette in camo print, very noice, I did intend to use it one day for pjs, but the Target pjs are very good, especially when on sale at 20% off making them $16 a pair, nice, thick lush flanelette too, much better quality than this $3- a meter dino print from Textile Traders. But I digress.So, I hemmed the bottom cuff piece, sewed one long piece inside out so no seams, turned right way, tucked bottom cuff into sides and sewed up, tucking top piece under 5 inches to make a top cuff for the chair and whalla! A chair bag! So, of course it went so well I made a matching one for Oliver!
Will put a picture up tomorrow of the boys at school with there chair bags. And one of Cate too, I can not belive my baby girl is off to Kindy tomorrow :-( And I'll put one up of me cos I had my hair done today and OMG it cost alot of $$$ but thats ok cos I rarley spend much on me, well, I spend a fair bit for me at spotlight but we won't go there!Off to bed, its 1.30 am and I have to get the kids up by 7am, no sleeping in for them, can't be late first day back at school!