Tea Trolley DIY 2.0

Our new friends Jared and Georgia sealed the relationship with love when they gave me a spare tea trolley they had laying around.

I spent last ANZAC weekend sanding and painting it, and finally attached the vinyl during the week.

I wish I had a before photo, but I don't. Needless to say she was in need of a lot of love and had 3 different paint colours showing through from her many years serving a primary school class room. "Library book returns" was painted on the top, probably explaining the slight bow in the top shelf.

I painted her Treefrog Green from Resene. Two test posts was enough to do two thick coats of paint, and half a meter of vinyl from Spotlight was enough to cover the two levels.

We did have a chunky dark brown shelving unit along this wall, but all it did was collect folded washing and an odd assortment of junk. It couldn't really be used properly. We sent the shelf out to the garage a few weekends ago and haven't regretted it for a second. 

Now our green trolley stands in it's place and I am mighty proud of her, shining away against a wall in our lounge, sending a bight burst of happiness into me when ever my eyes meet her. 

She was destined to hold Milla's "art supplies" (which I hope to get more of, our small collection is really rather pathetic) and our snuggly blankets that we use every single night on the couches. I do love snuggling under a warm blanket with my man! On Monday nights she'll serve drinks to our connect group as a tea and coffee station. LOVE.

Details:

Resene Treefrog Green (2 testpots) $8 (on sale anzac weekend)

Vinyl from Spotlight $10

Sandpaper $5

My happiness and functional space, $$Priceless.

Read More:

Tea Trolley makeover 1.0

Happy Chevron Pillows

Happy Chevron, welcome to my lounge room. 

My womb-baby reached 30 weeks gestation this week. That was kind of my mental marker to allow myself to begin preparing as it was also the marker where I would be finished with my Around The Table prep.

On Tuesday I crossed off everything on my to-do lists, remade some new ones and immediately felt the need to complete something on them.

I went out and bought this delicious fabric then and there - something ridiculously bright and happy for our lounge room, and practical for comfort and snuggling / feeding a little baby.

I still don't have a zipper foot for my machine (anyone know where I can find a Globe one??) so I decided to be brave and hand sew my zippers in. WELL. Let me tell you, I have never been more proud of my sewing skills! My zippers look A.maze.Zing! 

I totally recommend sewing in your zipper by hand. The first one took me forever, but the second was relatively fast and totally worth it. 

Green and orange zippers. Happy colours, happy Sophie.

How have we not had cushions until now??

MORE MAKINGS:
PAINT: Tea Trolley Makeover

FABRIC: Peplum Dress

CROCHET: Granny Circle Blanket

Linking in with Show n Tell 

Crochet Baby Wipes

emerald green and lemon baby crochet wipes

I just whipped up these during nap time today. I keep thinking that I want to make them but always found an excuse not to. Today, the vacuuming  dishes, laundry, lunches, and everything else had been done so I decided to push aside the mummy guilt and spend some time crocheting.

Inspired by the love of my crochet dishcloth I had in mind to make mini sized ones for the purpose of wiping Milla down after her meals. I find the store bought face flannels are rather flimsy and don't do a very good job. Hopefully these will manage to wipe off the dried Weetbix that seems permanently attached to cheeks around here!

I'm hoping to get stuck into my sewing room in the next few weeks. I have loved making useful and personal touches for our home this last month and am getting rather addicted to it! I have a huge list of things I would love to do before the baby arrives and must get onto it!

Speaking of which, thank you so much for all of your kind comments and for joining in on our excitement! Love xx


THE DETAILS:
Baby Crochet Wipes - 20 chain stitches across, with 15 rows of half-double-crochet stitch, and a border of single crochet around the outside :) Emerald green and lemon

Joining in Show & Tell at Leonies place.

Crochet Owl Purse

Lately I've been trying to use my nights that are usually spent on the couch doing not-a-lot and trying to turn them into something productive.

It's amazing how much of an energy and confidence boost that can be felt when you create something with your own hands. Lately I've been foccussing on crochet because its easy and portable and I can still do it while watching a movie / tv / talking with Mr Moo. 

Some day soon I hope to clear out my "sewing room" (that never did quite get used for sewing, more like unfolded washing) and do something in there. In the mean time I hope you've been enjoying my crochet goods!

I saw this cute owl purse on Pinterest (which i've been using lately and loving! You can find Sophie Slim on Pinterest here) and knew I just had to make it!

This crochet owl purse comes with a pattern and tutorial that is so easy to follow. I think if you're a beginner with a crochet hook you could probably create this yourself! I mimic'ed the colours the creator had used because I thought they were super adorable but used pink instead of purple.

I mostly wanted to make this for Milla because she is a huge transporter. She loves to carry sand or stones around the yard in her bucket, or plastic shapes in a clear zip bag. I thought this might encourage her to carry some little treasures around with her but was unsure if she would figure out thats what it was for. I hate it when homemade projects go to waste!

Fortunately, as soon as she saw it the following morning she had to have it! She immediately put it around her neck (I had made the strap longer than what the pattern suggests so she could do that) and put some of her plastic shapes in it! Its been like that ever since. 

We can't go far without her purse! Success!

[[Honestly, I felt a little strange making her a cute pink purse at only 17 months old, I've had many conversations with mum friends about pressuring a gender to like certain things and am very much in the "let them decide what they like" camp. 

However, Milla loves pink, she often gravitates towards the colour, will pull out the pink balls from her ball pit and collect them, picks out her pink shoes from the rest and so on. That coupled with her transporting addiction I thought this project was appropriate.

Some times its good to think about why you do things. I probably could have made her a frog purse, but I didn't.]]

Here's a bonus clip of Millas sorting (and owl purse) in action::

Do you notice that your children would love a particular thing because of their personalities already? Leave a comment and let me know!

Basket Weave Crochet

I've got the dishes fever! Actually. Thats a huge lie! I don't, but I did have a whole lot of fun (and frustration) creating this rather large basket-weave dishcloth pattern!

I've been following Leonie on Instagram and her recent dishcloth frenzie had me all inspired! It took me a few goes but I eventually found this great link to a pretty (and practical) dishcloth pattern.  Like I said, I used the basket-weave but adjusted it slightly so it had a treble border around it. I accidentally made it far too big. Its about the size of my mac-book screen. Ideally I would like it to be about 15cm.

This week Holly made some dishcloths too and posted a really easy pattern for you to follow if you're a beginner and want to join the cloth bandwagon!

I love my cloth so far and plan to add to the collection, along with some mini ones for Milla!

((If you want to see more crochet inspiration follow Sophie Slim on Pinterest))

Mischief Managed

Candy canes were left at the scene of the crime to apologise to society and make peace with the world.