Polka Dot Party

Makayla turned FIVE at the start of August and is now happily learning at school. It is great seeing both girls trotting up the steps to school happy being together. Ariana is loving having her younger sister there with her. ♥

I thought I would share how her special 5th Birthday Party went. The start of the month actually seems so long ago. August has been so busy!

I thought a Polka Dot theme would be easy enough to do and would appease Miss Girly Pants as well. I collected things for the theme for a month or two before hand so that helped a lot!

Some favourite snap shots taken on the day.

After going to another friend’s girls 5th birthday party and seeing an awesome fairy called Taffy, I booked her in to come and help. Makayla was mega excited about Fairy Taffy coming. I can not recommend Taffy enough! She was just awesome to deal with leading up to the party and on the day gosh it was brilliant having her there. The children were mesmerized with her and lined up for a small face paint. She used a number system so the kid’s could play and come back when it was their turn. There were activities set up for children to jump in and play with.  Check her facebook page out.

Here are some of the face paint creations Taffy the Fairy did:

 

 

Now I had fun deciding what food to make! Pinterest was an awesome tool to collate ideas together. I made an album on there and went from there. Polka Dot Cake of course plus other round or dotty spotty inspired items….lolly cake, marshmallow treats, popcorn, cupcakes, rice crackles among some of the items. Jelly Ribbon slice was just cause I wanted an excuse to make it!  Honestly that was fun and easy to make! I will defiantly make it again as the wow factor is so cool.

Here is the recipe:

 

Here is the Jelly Ribbon Slice that I made for the party:

 

I made cupcakes in a few different bright colours and they looked great on the spotty dotty cupcake stand I found at Spotlight.

 

It was super fun! The cake was massive and we had three quarter’s of it left after the party had finished as each slice you could cut into four pieces! Hubby took a chunk to our neighbours and another chunk to his work. It slowly but surely disappeared.

Three more years to the little one turns five and 2 years til the biggest turn;s 10 so we can have a holiday from BIG birthday parties.

 

Just a shameless – I love my children post.

I have some gorgeous photos of the girls I would love to share. Over the weekend my eldest got her long hair cut and it really suits her.

New do for Ariana

Looking all grown up.

This is another photo of the eldest two modeling two Winter Garden Hats for me. These two hats were made for another set of sister’s in Christchurch. I bet they are needing them today with the huge Southerly blast hitting New Zealand.

Makayla and Ariana.

This morning when I dropped Makayla off at kindergarten, the photos were back from Photolife. I love the one of the girls together. I should line it up against the last one and see how much they have grown up.

Kindy photo 2013: Makayla 4, Holly 1 and Ariana 7

This is of Makayla on her own.

Makayla at 4.5 years old.

Holly had her second birthday last Wednesday and I have been planning Makayla’s fifth birthday which is at the start of August. Makayla is very excited to turn five to go to school with her big sister.

Montage of our wee celebrations for Holly’s second birthday.

Big two year old.

Holly and I.

Holly had a surprise visit the day after her birthday from her wee friend as he wanted to bring a party to Holly. Very sweet however Holly had no idea about blowing the candle out.

 

 

 

 

 

Hats for Ethan

Please support Ethan and his family as they fight leukemia by visiting their Facebook page:  CLICK HERE

 

I have made two soft warm hats for Ethan using the awesome Reid DK/Worsted Hat pattern by Shannon Passmore. I love the construction of the earflaps so mind blowingly simple and it saves having more ends to sew in and casting on more stitches and in general a mess!

For Ethan’s two hats I teamed up two 4ply yarns to make a 10ply.

The first hat was a soft baby white yarn and a self striping sock yarn – I called this one Courage.

Reid Hat for Ethan #1

The second hat I used the colour red as this is one of Ethan’s favourite colours and aptly called this one “Red for Ethan”

The red in this one is actually a very soft acrylic! I know! Shock horror. It is not often I knit with acrylic but teamed with another self striping sock yarn it just looked great.

Reid Hat #2

Good news is I can custom knit this hat to sell as once you buy the pattern you can knit to sell from it. I plan to make a few hats and sell them to help raise some extra funds for Ethan’s family to help pay for the many incidentals that are incurred going to and from hospital and appointments.

Here are some other Reid hats I have knitted:

For a first birthday present.

Reid Hat – child size for a Birthday Present

Birthday cakes from this year

Holly’s first birthday seems a while ago now :faint: gosh she is almost 18 months old! Where does the time go?

GF Chocolate Cupcakes

Big sister’s helping to blow out the candles for Holly.

 

Montage of the party fun.

Holly’s wee cake I made (GF Macro food’s Chocolate cake) to share with cousins who came to visit.

Then it was Makayla’s 4th birthday in August.

 

Heart shaped cake!

Makayla was sick during her birthday so we didn’t get up to much.

Birthday Girl

Then it was my birthday – Thirty-something 😆

I made my cake as you do…and decided on trying out a red velvet layered cake from a recipe book I was given “New Zealand’s Hottest Homebaker” book.

It was fun to make but man it is H.U.G.E.!!

Ariana’s Birthday was the end of October and we made a birthday cake and some GF/DF cupcakes:

Ariana’s 7th Birthday cake.

 

About to eat the cake!

Damn now I feel like baking! >.< Must resist!

Birthday Present for my niece

My youngest niece has just turned ONE and I found the most gorgeous wee set to make her. I also have had some merino material for the last 3 years that has been begging to be used. Shame! But better late than never!

A few friends of mine have used this pattern so felt brave enough to tackle it myself. The pattern is a Heidi & Finn Yoga set that you can get off etsy.

I was going to use snaps as the closures as opposed to ties as the pattern suggests, however the two layers of merino were not think enough to support that. You would need to add a secret layer in between the merino in the initial stages of sewing to do that. Just a hint. 🙂 Anyway I ended up using buttons and that went well.

Yoga Hoodie & Pants set 12m

Yoga Pants

Small details up close.

 

Now I better make my girls some tops and pants of their own! The top is reversible as well. I joking said if Birthday Girl makes a mess on the chocolate side her Mummy can reverse the top to hide it!! 😆

On the Birthday Girl! Fits well.

I have four other patterns from Heidi & Finn to do so watch this space! 🙂

Sewing mojo has hit me!

Following on from my earlier post I have made a few things in the last few days.

On Friday I made two pairs of knickers for Miss 5 and she loves them! They are very cute and fit so well on her.

The pattern is called Children’s’ Undies from that*darn*kat blog. She has other tutorials so check it all out!

Today I realised that Miss % had a 5th Birthday Party to go to and we have minimal funds for the present! What to do?????? I bravely thought I could whip something up and I went with this thought process. Brave I know but I am glad I had my Mum around to help keep the two monster kids sorted.

I selected this pattern called Twirly Skirt Tutorial and some of the new dress material I bought last week. I ended up not using some of the length of the skirt as it just seemed a ridiculous amount to go around a wee person!!!! 😆

Stripy Twirly Skirt

Rainbow of colours

Hanging skirt

Miss 5 was a grumpy so and so and these are the best photos I could get of the skirt being modeled before I had to pop it into the bag.

Oh so pretty even on a grumpy girl

Minus the grumpy face

Next time I make this pattern I will make the waistband wider and use less skirt length. I did like the ribbon idea for the tie.  It’s the first time I have given away a present like that and I am sad I won’t really see it being worn like I do when I sew for my girls. The 5 year old girl who has this goes to another nearby school and not the same as my girl so no real chance of seeing the skirt in action…oh well!

My big girl is 5 and off to school tomorrow!

Time sure can fly!

It seems not long ago she was born and made me a Mum 🙂

 

So many moons ago with my new baby girl

 

 

Snuggles at bath time

 

Now Ariana is a vibrant young girl…

 

On her 5th birthday

 

 

Last day at kindy

 

 

Birthday cake time

 

Here is the birthday cake Ariana and I came up with 😆

 

Barbie and her "small" pool - her legs are too long to fit in and it wasn't a small cake!

Sweet treats

Fairy bread

More nibbles

 

 

Bouncy castle fun!

 

It was a fab day yesterday with many family and friends. Thanks to those who came! I am now quite exhausted today and I am thankful it will be a quiet day. It will be early to bed and up ready for her first day of school tomorrow!

Wish us luck there aren’t many tears (happy ones)! 🙂