my creative space

It seems all I have time to write about is what I make. And it's not looking like any extra time is coming my way any time soon. With 2 weeks and a bit before the Christmas market and a whole lot of new people wanting to book a stall, I'm busier than ever!

Hello! What am I?

Nice, roomy and cosy...

I spent quite a bit of time sewing last week though, and since making kids' clothes was going to take too much time, I decided to shift focus and make easy fast things with an emphasis on summer and picnics. I had a pile of vintage tea towels waiting for their turn... most of them ended up as cutlery holders, some others as snack bags. They came out great and had lots of success at the Art mart. So now I've got a couple of weeks to make a few more (and finish some custom orders).

Kiwiana tea towel turned into a snack bag

More snack bags, made from coffee sacks this time

Isn't this Pukeko cute?

This one has to be my favorite cutlery holder. If it doesn't sell I might have to keep it.

More creative goodness here.

my creative space

With my first market of the summer a few days away, I am trying to get as much done as possible to get some sort of stock. As usual I've left to the last minute, and I've got very little left in the shop. It's too late to be making any clothing, so I've decided to start a new project... Hint: it's a very practical item that is a must have for anyone picnic inclined.

What are other creative people up to? Have a look here.

Friends will be friends

Our friends who stayed with us a couple of weeks ago sent us some photos. Luckily they were a bit more onto it when it came to snapping memory, we didn't take one single photo!

The kids had a fun week end at the Community

Tired baby

reading time

Nayou and Tahi

Chilled evening on the deck

What do you do?

When you wish your town had a proper Xmas market but it hasn't? You organize one!
For two years I have been thinking it would be nice to have a Xmas market european style where you can find all sorts of crazy stuff and meet fun people. So I decided to give it a go this year, cross fingers it'll be a success! I've already had lots of interest which is great, and the market promises to display a great variety of  goods.
This has meant I have had even less time to organize my own sewing madness and I haven't entered my workshop for days, but I'm hoping to get in there soon and sew up a storm... Yes well, life with two kids a garden and chooks and dog just wasn't busy enough.

Last night Josh helped me design the poster, it looks amazing I'm really happy with the result. I'm so lucky to have a lover who's a genius with photoshop! All going well, I'm getting some posters printed out next week and sticking them in all the windows in town!

The big egg

One of our chooks laid a 95g egg. Turns out it was a double yolker too!

We had some good friends visit last week, their son is 3 days older than Tahi. It was so nice catching up with them, after not seeing them for 2 years. We had a great time. They came to attend a hui at the community we have been involved with so we all went down and spent a couple of days there. The thought of having some people we know already join in is quite pleasing... what will happen next?
Unfortunately Josh and I are so lame we didn't even take one photo! Luckily our friends are more onto it, some I'll have some photos to post soon.
One another note, christmas is right around the corner and there are a couple of market coming up in Gisborne, one which I am organizing. It's called the "Gisborne Christmas market" - yes very original!- and will take place on the 17th of December. I"m quite excited about it, although it means I'm going to need to spend a bit more time in the sewing room. It probably also means I'll be late once again for family xmas presents... sigh.
Anyway, I will do my best and keep posting photos of anything that comes out of the workshop...

my (late) creative space

Wow, the past few weeks have been so full on, now I really understand what people mean by living life to the full. Just have two kids and lots of friends to visit and catch up with and a garden, some chooks and a sewing room and you're pretty close. I feel so lucky though, and I love where our family is at at the moment... Josh is finally starting to do some interesting stuff, and earning some money -sometimes- Tahi is just a delightful nearly four year old, great big brother (considering his age) and so smart. He's recently taken to building marble runs with blocks and is very talented. For one they actually work, and they are really inventive. He's also getting into music, and loves playing with the little guitar Josh found him at the tip. His favorite band is Queen, but he also likes Def Leppard, Autozamm (His uncle's band), T-Rex,... Anything with guitars and drums that plays fast. That's my boy.

Miro has just started shuffling, sitting up by himself and trying to crawl/ pull himself up. It feels like we went through 10 months of inertia and all of a sudden he's all over the place. He's is happy all the time and is so cute and fun, he loves his brother and is just all go all day. We took him to his first swimming lesson last week, he loved it!

Parenting is such a crazy, incredible eye opening adventure, I can't stop myself from wondering how I could be so lucky to have given birth to two such amazing beings, and I'm sure all the mums out there think the same. I feel blessed to have had this opportunity in my life.
Anyway, this is my creative space for this week: a snack bag! One of the on-my-list-for-ages projects. I used a coffee sack scrap (from another project hopefully soon to be finished), lined with organic fair trade cotton tee shirt (left over from my KowTow stash), put some velcro to close it. Pretty simple, Tahi loves it and it's easy to wash, no nasty plastic. I then decided to make a couple more for Tahi's little friends we visited over the week end. I tried using snaps, but I think I like velcro best.

Check out these other creative spaces!

How we move

When Miro was born I started looking for a bike trailer so I could take both kids along. We love it, and last week went for a picnic at the botanical gardens. Kids in the trailer, food and picnic blanket at the back and off we went! For the story, it ended up raining so we had lunch at a friend's, but we did go to the botanical gardens afterwards.

We're gearing up for summer at home as well, with a nearly there almost finished bathroom (a year after Josh first started taking it apart), and a new outdoors couch/ dog bed. The couch is in the corner of the deck that gets the most shade in summer and when sitting down you have a great view of Kaiti hill and our garden. Neat.

Outdoor lounge area