Day 141- Crazy Ghanaian pants become skirt

Way back in 1999 I spent a few months living in Ghana and teaching English as a volunteer. I lived with a family during my time there and my local 'mum' made me these amazing patchwork pants with some fabric I purchased at one of the local markets. The thing about this fabric is that it totally encapsulates 'my Ghana' with it's colour and vitality. It brings back wonderful memories of the streets of colour I walked among.

My time spent in Ghana was and remains to be magical in every way. I fell in love with the people and their way of life in an instant. The day I left was a day of great sadness, and were it not for some other commitments I made before going there, I doubt I would ever have left. A part of my heart remains in Africa always.

Here are the patchwork pants below. I haven't worn these for so many years. They never fit properly, were in fact huge in spite of being measured before they were made, and an alteration a couple of years later went a bit wrong due to the side pockets. And as for wearing them now, I may be a little alternative in my fashion sense but even I would feel a little out of place wearing these around the streets of Bendigo.

It's time to get the seam ripper and the scissors out!

First, I used the seam ripper to rip the inner leg seam all the way around (a bit hard to see).

Then I chopped off the legs to the desired length and basically sewed the seams back together, chopping out a little bulk.
I'm happy with this cute little skirt, and can now wear the spirit and colour of Ghana once again.

I am hoping to make something out of the bottom of the legs tomorrow.

Day 140 - Pirate Treasure Maps

Happy Monday everyone! I have to admit that with my current schedule I usually love Mondays. I drop the two big kids off at school and then take my two little people out for cinos before Aidan's toddler music class starts at 10:15. He loves it so much that I just adore taking him and we have so much fun together. It really sets up my week.

Today was a little different. My Liam was home from school sick and had kept us up most of the night with a fever and throwing up. Poor little man.

It was a busy day as usual but when Juliet came home from school we decided to make treasure maps. We did ask Aidan to join us but he was busy throwing his first ever major tantrum for the entire half an hour we took to make our maps. Maybe next time....

We drew up the maps, then used a tea bag and some charcoal from our fire to make them look older. Then we burnt the paper around the edges. It was all very exciting and we felt terribly bad and crazy.

We finished off by dressing up as pirates and putting on some music to dance around the lounge room too. Everyone's mood seemed to improve with the tunes and several new dance moves were created on the dance floor. Music has the power to heal and we fell about laughing at each other's dancing.

Here's what we made. Aaaaargh!

Day 139 - Let's go fly a kite

Another awesome day spent with my family today with a morning of yabbying in our dam, a long lunch of sweet and savoury crepes and an afternoon of crafting and kite flying.

We decided to make some paper kites which are really easy to make and fly amazingly well. We used this online 2 minute tutorial here to make our kites.

We had a great time running up and down the driveway flying our kites, until a couple of falls and skin off knees and then some rain sent us inside again.

Here are some pictures of our fun.

And a little video.

And just because she is so cute, here's a photo of my daughter yabbying at the dam.

Day 138 - Fabric Photo Fridge Magnets

I had a fantastic day today going for a country drive with a morning market and browse, lunch in front of an open fire at a country pub and a beautiful sunny drive through farms and bushland with my family. I felt incredibly lucky. It didn't leave much time for craft though, and I found myself wondering what on earth to do at 9:30 this evening. The clock was ticking!

Enter printable fabric and sticky magnetic tape. Magically fridge magnets appear. Wow!

Printed onto the fabric - 

Magnetic tape - 

Fridge - (crowded)

Day 137 - Do you like green eggs and ham?

My husband was giving away this old t-shirt and it seemed perfectly suited for a bubba refashion.

I decided on a cute little pair of overalls. First I cut out the pieces, 2 bib pieces and some pieces to make shorts, with a little bit of extra length at the back for an elastic casing.

I decided to add these vintage braces to the bib.

 I cut off the blue bit of the braces in the picture which was a little old and stretched, and sewed the mouse bit to the top of the shorts.

Here's the finished product.

Day 136 - Marshmallow art

Exhausted tonight and having worked briefly on a couple of craft items but having no finished work to share, I was feeling a little down and uninspired. Thank goodness for the internet at times like this. In desperation I googled five minute craft, thinking I had about that long before I fell into a coma like sleep.

I was so excited when I found this article http://www.huffingtonpost.com/phil-hansen/5-minute-crafts_b_1613153.html#slide=1121526. So much so that I created one of the crafts and then went onto book depository and ordered the book. YAY! I love this idea.

All you do is print out a photo, then place packing tape over the photo and print it again, then roll the marshmallow in it. Unfortunately I made the kids marshmallow and chocolate crepes tonight with my new crepe maker so I only had 2 marshmallows left. Otherwise I would have gone on all night, perfecting and experimenting. Love, love, love! Here are my kids in marshmallow form.

Day 135 - Button Bowl Balloon Experiment

I attempted to make a button bowl by gluing buttons to a balloon and then popping it. The buttons kept slipping down the balloon while the glue was drying. Gravity was beating me....

It didn't work very well but I think it would be better if all the buttons were the same size and the plate was flat.

Another time....perhaps.