Show and Share: Heart Soaps in a Coat (Felted Soap)

I would like to introduce you to my big girl Kaea.  She is a talker.  Started talking quite early, has a fast growing vocabulary and talks about everything!  Inspired by Meagan at This Whole Family we chose to celebrate Valentines Day by creating felted soaps together.  Such a wonderful hands on and useful craft to complete with our children.

Together we've made her first "Show and Share" tutorial, thinking it would be a great way for her to do what she loves best - talk and share, and may be experience an audience wider than her family.  You will hear her refer to "Tazza and Daddy" as these are who I framed as her audience.  The concept of a blogging community as an audience was a little hard to explain!

Following this "Show and Share" are some supporting notes and comments from her Mumma.

Perhaps, your little people could enjoy this "Show and Share" with you.

Heart Soaps in a Coat (Felted Soap)

The movie could do with polishing, however the focus is showing and sharing in her two year old way.  We would love to hear what your little people think.

Mumma's Supporting Notes

The timing of Meagan's tutorial on Felted Soap could not have been better for me.  We are almost a year into toilet training and my pet peeve at the moment is liquid soap.  The liquid soap dispensers are not kind or encouraging to little people who want to grow in independence.  I am not a fan of soap bars left wet and slippery at the basin either.  Felted soap is a great solution.  Wool is self sanitising, it creates a lovely lather of soap, acts as a cloth to wipe off extra dirt and allows the soap to dry in a contained space.  And it looks beautiful!

I have also read that once the soap has disappeared, you can cut open the felt, insert another bar and close the opening with more felting.


You will need:

• a mould for your chosen soap shape
• gratings of soap - I chose to grate a quarter of a cup from a bar of soap
• a double boiler - I used a heat proof bowl over a pot of boiling water
• a few drops of essential oil - optional, I used sweet orange
• tbsp of coconut oil - optional, I found that it helped to melt the soap
• wool roving, suited for wet felting - I found more than enough in a bag for less than $NZ5 from Spotlight
• an old stocking
• a bowl of warm water

 Add grated or pieces of soap, along with coconut oil if using into a double boiler.  When the soap has softened (timing will depend on the amount of grated soap) add essential oil if you wish.   Softened soap can then be spooned into your moulds.  Take care it can be hot.  Level the soap and leave to harden overnight.

Pop the harden soap out of the mould and cover with the wool roving. 

At this stage we placed the soap in an old stocking.  Using a stocking makes it easier for hands, big or little to matt/felt the wool.  You may go without a stocking, it will require rubbing the wool for a little longer.

Dip the stocking wrapped soap into warm water and begin to rub all over.

It soon begins to lather.  We took turns to rub the soap for almost ten minutes.  For a larger bar of soap you may need to rub for 20 minutes.

Finally, unwrap the stocking to reveal your felted soap - or soap in coat!  Leave the soap to dry completely before using.

Thanks Meagan for sharing your tutorial and I hope you and your little people enjoy Kaea's "Show and Share" x

A time to thank our friends..even the imaginary ones!

KB baked her first batch of Christmas cookies.  We chose a Belgium Biscuit recipe - delicious and spicey, drizzled with a lemon icing.

It took all day from mixing the dough to cooling, baking then cooling, then icing.  As a treat she got to stay up a little later than usual with Mum to finish these off.

We chatted about giving thanks to those who care for us and for whom we care about at Christmas time.  This included her friends of course.  And she included "mmm", "yay" and "ha" - her imaginary friends.

A month ago these three appeared or at least became apparent to me.  You see I forgot to dry them after KBs shower one evening (I did not know they were there!!).

I have since learned that they are girls.  They are very small and can fit in KBs hand.  They are gorgeous as told in one of her palm stories (when our family are in places where there are no books handy we use the palms of our hands together to tell a made up story) one morning... "Once upon a time there were some girls mm and yay they were gorgeous and nice..."  Their front door is on the wall beside her bed - which explains the knocking that we hear in the evening.  They recently celebrated a birthday and quite a birthday party happened at our house with many soft toy guests and two different cakes.  KB is teaching them how to use the toilet and they help her too.  They get pushed on the swing.

Many people believe that imaginary friends appear to help a child get through hard times and certainly research seems to support this.  I thought this too.  I did some research and more thinking about when mmm, yay and ha appeared to my "eyes" and what times they appear to play with KB.

They seemed to appear not long after KB tried to initiate a game of tee ball with a four year old at play centre, with whom she had played a couple of weeks before.  The four year old did not respond despite KBs attempts at asking.  So I wonder if KB needs friends for reciprocal play and in her life mm, yay and ha fill this need between real friends.

Perhaps, they have appeared since KBs sister E joined our family.  KB loves her sister but cannot wait for her to play with her...sooo may be mmm, yay and ha fill this gap.

Or may be as this research suggests, imaginary friends are created by children with active imaginations.

What ever the reason - mm, yay and ha are a part of our family, friends to KB and this year will be getting a gift of thanks from her.

How about those names??!

On a roll...a crayon roll roll

Have you visited Skip to My Lou?  For crafting, creating and celebrating this blog is full of fun and fancy and worth a visit.

I have been creating crayon rolls for gifts for Kaea to give to her little friends as birthday presents.

In version one I followed the tutorial almost to the tee.  I made the crayon roll before buying the crayons and then discovered that I could not find a pack of sixteen crayons, so coloured pencils it was!

In version two I modified the design to fit twelve coloured pencils and created my first fabric yo yo on which to fasten the roll.  I found this tutorial on fabric yo yos to be very helpful for a beginner like me.

I know I would love to see my girls receive a gift like this, so I hope Eve and Emma enjoy them.

Sisters...what a gift!

Well, while I wrote my last post on birthing soundtracks I was going into labour!  It was very surreal.
Little Elidi arrived in super quick time days before her due date on Saturday evening!

Our big girl spent that night with her treasured Nana and Poppa.  While Nana and Poppa were none the wiser - just thought we were tired and their grand daughter wanted to stay over - KB knew otherwise.  Her Dad even heard her say to Nana "Mama's at home doing yoga".  That was her interpretation of witnessing a contraction in process and her Mumma breathing through it.

We chose not to share our news of Elidi's arrival to the world until her big sister had met her.  On Sunday morning when her Daddy picked her up he showed her photos of her new sister.  Even the fact that she really had a sister was surreal to me as KB had spent the last month talking about her baby sister (and none of us knew the gender of our baby).

By the time she arrived at the hospital she was ecstatic and crawled over Mum to the bassinet to see her sister and all of this came out:

"Aw my sister"  "Hello Babe" "My baby sister I love you" and then straight into singing her her favourite lullaby "Chi baba"

It was such a tender moment that while I watched and marveled at how beautiful and loving my girl is her Daddy shed many proud tears.

Elidi is five days old today and as in her names definition "Gift of the sun" she is a true little gift  - another beautiful daughter for Mum and Dad, and a sister for KB.

I hope their relationship as sisters is one full of rich memories, fond times, interesting challenges and lots of love as my relationship with my sister has and continues to be.

Dear Daughter

To my Gorgeous Big Girl,

Before you become a big sister I want you to know how much I love you and how much richness you have bought to my life.

Since your presence in the world in my tummy you have been a treasure to us.  First as a secret which Dad and I did not want to share, then as a taonga to all who knew you were on your way.

Before you became a part of Mummy's life I did not realise how much you would teach me.  From you I learnt to listen better, be calm, relinquish control and let you lead and grow as you needed to.

Daddy and I grow to love you more and more each day.  You have a huge heart, an amazing brain and caring nature.  Your zest for life is infectious and we marvel at all that you observe and the connections about life that you make.

You have been very in tune with Mummy's growing tummy and the soon to arrive baby we will all love together.  To "Rainbow Chocolate" you will be an awesome big sister.  Becoming a big sister is exciting and you will always be a big sister.  Too, you will always be Kaea, our big girl.  You will always be you and we want you to be who you are, always.  As a big sister you will be amazing - as a big sister myself I know what a privilege it is and sometimes what a challenge it can be.  I think if you listen, love and empower then you are doing great.

Thank you for being such a supportive, caring and beautiful part of my life.

Love you so much and always will KB,

from your Mumma xx

Gorgeous Handmade Apron!!

Our little KB has a talented crafting Aunty who lives just out of Christchurch.  For her birthday Aunty Pam crafted this simply gorgeous apron - which we all love, especially KB!  Thank you so much Aunty Pam.

She looks super in the kitchen and seems to want to bake more often now that she has her apron from Aunty Pam to wear!

The colours and fabric combo are lush, the frills are perfect.  I could never imagine being able to sew so well.  I have not photographed the very personalised tag tucked inside with a message to KB along with a scanned photo of her too. Amazing.

For this fashion shoot KB was keen to cook with marshmallows so we attempted a modified hedgehog recipe with almonds, marshmallows, coconut and biscuits.

She is mastering her knife skills.  As well as her ability to actually put the ingredients in the bowl, rather than her mouth!!

All was going swimmingly until Mum put it in a too large tin for setting.  However it has been a hit with visiting family members.

For hedgehog recipes try these:
                                
                                  Cadbury Bournville Cocoa Hedgehogs
                                  A pure chocolate version of Hedgehogs

My Creative Space: A Quilted Headboard

Now that my big girl is in her bed, and we have rearranged her room she really needed a head board.  But my goodness to buy these things are expensive!  It seems even more so if you are looking for character or originality.  I still find my self being hit with a barrage of pink when looking for anything slightly girly. Perhaps I am looking in the wrong places, please redirect me if you think I am.

All of this led me to "Why don't I make it myself".  Armed with mdf, some timber, batting, foam, a few power tools, spray adhesive, buttons and sewing machine we have this... a quilted white head board with randomly sized and placed buttons.  I love spray adhesive - it has come in handy for a few things.

Luckily you cannot see the back of the head board.  The back is purely functional and hardly pretty.  Problem is that when her blinds and curtains are open you can see a corner of the poor finishing through the window.  One day, when my belly is back to normal size I shall felt the back and tidy it all up.

In the meanwhile KB adores her head board.  I could not believe how excited she was to have it up.  It has proven to become a wonderful bedtime quiet game tool too.  KB counts the buttons, we match buttons and she practices her colours.  Who knows what we might do with the buttons next!

Now KB has a  hand crafted head board to match her up cycled Dr Seuss foot stool.

Check out more creative goodness from the Creative Space community here.

A mouse took a stroll through the deep dark wood...

We celebrated our daughters second birthday during the weekend.  One of her favourite books is the “Gruffalo” so we celebrated to this theme.  

KB wears her home made ears and tail - she was of course the mouse!  Her cousin proudly wore his home made Gruffalo costume. My sister is very clever!!

KB’s most favourite sweets are marshmallows, so requested a chocolate and marshmallow birthday cake.  This became a chocolate swiss roll filled with home made marshmallow, covered in chocolate and decorated as a log from the deep, dark wood.  I managed to craft a wee (well actually he is quite tubby) fondant mouse - eating the nut.

We also had scrambled snake (scrambled egg with sushi roll), owl icecream, roasted fox (chicken) sandwiches and Gruffalo crumble.  

The crumble was a home made apple crumble with boysenberries for his purple prickles, green grapes for his poisonous wart, his orange eyes were apricots and his black tongue was licorice erupting from the crumble.  It was delicious!!

The table setting was the woodland scene complete with edible toadstools and leaves.

I now get to look forward to my nephews birthday and working with my sister on creating something fun for him!!!

Happy Birthday my Little Mouse x

Trilly for Trelise

Meet Trilly.  This wonderful little tweet heart is my first ever hand made softie.

The hand drawn pattern for Trilly was inspired by the wonderful fabric I have for my daughters quilt (yet to be constructed).  I am so very proud of her as I managed to use the applique stitches on my adopted sewing machine (a very flash Janome - with a touch screen) and my first attempt at applique.

Trilly was a hand made gift for Trelise who recently turned one!  Trilly winged her way to New Plymouth with me on my first girls weekend away since KB was born.  I have so much to post about that weekend!

Janome locked up on me when I attempted to created Trilly's sibling as she was in desperate need of a service.  Months later all serviced and eager to go I have Janome back and can crack on with the next "hundred" or so sewing projects on my mind!

Banana Choc chip Muffins and a Delissimo Cake!

Delissimon's Double Chocolate Mocha cake was today's inspiration for baking.  Perfect for a friends birthday and just the right type of baking for a wet and windy morning.  This will be served with a dollop of cream and a sprinkle of cinnamon.

You can find Monica's deliciously easy recipe here.
The tissue paper flower is a decoration I slightly modified from this pattern here found on Prudent Baby.


We followed this event with banana choc chip muffins.  Recipe courtesy of NZ's Womans Weekly.
This is a great recipe - very sweet.  We used less sugar and only a third of the choc chips recommended and they were still very rich.

Then my lovely sister arrived with loads of her 'Breastfeeding Bar' - which I just love, love, love.

Clearly all of the chocolatey baking was enough to set off the terrible twos in our house.  I am exhausted from exercising all of my patience and consequence today!!

Hope you all have a lovely weekend and get the chance to make one of these scrumptious recipes x