June wrap up of finished projects

Hi everyone

Here are some pictures of the items I have finished during the month of June :)

A Playhouse for Leeanne F

A roll up/travel car mat (quilted) for the little monster's birthday in September

Another picture of the roll up/travel car mat (quilted)

A zipper pouch for me (to tidy the loose toys and other baby stuff in my bag)

Yay, I can finally find my keys!

An infinity scarf - for me :)

An order finished for Noa

(and her best friends new little bundle of joy!) 

And here is cute little Mr E 

(the said bundle), enjoying his new blanket :)

A thankyou gift for Vicky X :)

A Playhouse for C4AC

(an online auction with all the funds raised going towards PANDA)

This will be available to purchase in the near future...

Keep an eye on my Facebook page to find out more :)

And last (but certainly not least!) infinity scarf for my lovely friend Sabrina!

What a busy month I have had :)

Emma

2 FREE activities you can create for your toddler!

Hi everyone

Who doesn't like a FREE activity?!  And even better that is very easy and quick to organise.
I got the idea for my activity from this one over at imagine our life.

(source)

I love Stephanie's "colour tablets", but I didn't want to spend the money on all the materials she used, and I don't feel like I have the time to spend making them - even though they are super cool!

I really liked activities they were used for so I thought about how I could re-create (on the cheap!)

I came up with this...

These are paint chips from our local Masters (a hardware chain store in Australia), the little monster and I collected them the other day.

Walking around the hardware store was an adventure in itself...the little monster loved pointing at the statues in the gardening section, and telling me what animals they were :)

Ok, back to the activity...

I made sure to collect 2 of each colour "paint chip" cards.  The cards I chose were cardboard rather than wood, so make sure you choose the ones that suit your needs best.

I then used my guillotine to cut the cards down to size and separate each card into 3 sections, shown below: 

The cards can be ordered (as shown above) from light to dark or dark to light - this is activity 1.

Activity 2 requires both sets of paint chip cards being cut in the same way, and then you can ask your little one to match the colours into pairs, like has been shown below:

To store the cards, I had these two little boxes, and we keep one set of cards in each box, so it is easy to complete activity 1 or activity 2 at any time.

To help pack up, you might like to write a "1" or "2" on the back of the cards, so you can easily ensure you have an even number of cards in each set.

You will notice that I didn't create as many colours or sets of colours as Stephanie, but I'm pretty happy with what I did come up with...mainly because it was FREE :)

If your child is a little older and/or needs more of a challenge...have a look at this link, and see how you can adapt this activity (I found it just now while I was trolling Pinterest...) - I think I'll have to do this for my little monster once he has mastered these first two activities :)

I hope you and your little one are enjoying these activities!  I will share another one soon :)

Emma

C4AC - Have you met Suzanne?

Hi everyone, 

I thought it might be good to introduce the team of lovely ladies I'm collaborating with for C4AC (if you would like to know more about C4AC have a look here).  

The first post introducing Vicky from Very Vicky - DreamBig can be found here.
The second post introducing Jenica from The Pookie Patch - patchwork quilts and baby gifts can be found here.
The third post introducing Kelly from My Two Moos can be found here.

This is the fourth post introducing another of my team members...Suzanne from Lil Munchkins 4 kids.

All team members were asked the following questions:

1. Who are you? 

2. Tell us a bit about your business and what you sell

3. Why have you chosen to support PANDA as your charity for C4AC?

Here is Suzanne's to answer these questions:

Having sewn all my life and now with a gorgeous Grand -daughter, who I love to spoil I decided to start Lil Munchkins 4 Kids . I have been going now 3 yrs and I just love it. I can go into my sewing cave and get lost amongst all the beautiful material to create something pretty.
I make cute and unique OOAK clothing for children. I use only quality material sourced everywhere. So please come and have a look on my page.

I choose PANDA as my charity as I believe there is little known about Post Natal Depression. There are many young mums out there who desperately need help but quite often have no idea why they are feeling the way they are.

Nice to meet you Suzanne :)

Keep an eye out for the next C4AC post...I'll be letting you all know why I have chosen to support PANDA :)

Emma

Keeping him busy for more than 30min!

Hi everyone

So today I decided to recreate this activity from The Activity Mom (labelled in the blog post as "transferring").

You will need:

An ice-cube tray

Pom-poms

Tongs 

FYI (I will be getting the little monster his own set of tongs 

ASAP as he is ruining my good ones!)

1. Place pom-poms on the ground
2. Show your toddler how to use the tongs
3. Let your toddler practice picking up the pom-poms with the tongs
4. Once your toddler has the hang of picking the pom-poms up, ask them to place the pom-poms (one by one) in the holes of the ice-cube tray
5. When all the pom-poms have been used, tip them out and repeat :)

This activity develops hand eye coordination, and fine and gross motor development.

I was interested to see if my almost 22 month old little monster was able to manipulate the tongs well enough to be able to have enough control to place the pom-poms in the individual holes of the ice-cube tray...and you know what...he could do it :)

He had a fabulous time doing this activity and it kept him extremely busy for more than 30min, in fact he wanted to keep going with the activity when it was time to pack up for lunch :P

If you wanted to make the activity a little harder for your toddler, you could add in an element of colour sorting, like has been shown here (top, left hand photo - photo is by The Activity Mom).

Another item from my fab less than $25 cheap shop spending spree used and enjoyed :) Yay! 

Emma

C4AC - Have you met Kelly?

Hi everyone, 

I thought it might be good to introduce the team of lovely ladies I'm collaborating with for C4AC (if you would like to know more about C4AC have a look here).  

The first post introducing Vicky from Very Vicky - DreamBig can be found here.
The second post introducing Jenica from The Pookie Patch - patchwork quilts and baby gifts can be found here.

This is the third post introducing another of my team members...Kelly from My Two Moos.

All team members were asked the following questions:

1. Who are you? 

2. Tell us a bit about your business and what you sell

3. Why have you chosen to support PANDA as your charity for C4AC?

Here is Kelly's to answer these questions:

I'm Kelly from My Two Moos. I have 2 gorgeous girls 2 years and a 5 an half years old. I started My Two Moos up after watching the joy on my oldest face after making something for her and it has just grown from there. I'm currently making Dolls, Softies, Baby and kids blankets, toys and gifts. But in the next few weeks i am very excited as I will be adding new lines (even something for us mummy's) to My Two Moos so would love everyone to come over and check it all out.

I wanted to help support PANDA with this collaboration as depression is a very real issue and would love to raise more awareness for the mums and family's that need support. Having a baby is such a magical time and we as mothers put a lot of pressure on ourselves and when things don't go exactly the way we would have liked we tend to beat ourselves up and not seek the help we need. So I'm hoping with this collaboration we can help put the word out there about PANDA and take away the stigma about seeking help for depression.

Kelly 

Nice to meet you Kelly :)

Keep an eye out for the next C4AC post...I'll be introducing you to another team member!

Emma

Hours of entertainment for less than $25!

Hi everyone,

My little monster is almost 22 months now and he absolutely loves doing new and exciting activities.  I've been feeling like he's ready to start learning new things rather than just playing most of the time.  So off I went to visit The Activity Mom, and I had a browse through the activities for 1 and 2 year olds.

There are some great ideas on this sight, and after just a quick look through (I'll definitely have to go back for a closer look as there are so many wonderful ideas on this site), off the little monster and I went to gather supplies from our local cheap shop.

We bought all this for LESS than $25 

and I know we are going to get hours of fun out of all this stuff :)

In case you have trouble seeing what is in the photo above, I've listed the items we bought below:

• metal backing tray
• yellow watering can (toddler size)
• silicone mould (this one has a transport theme - even though its pink :P)
• pompoms
• pipe-cleaners
• water colour paints
• double ended textas (one end is a stamp and the other is a regular texta)
• 4 pack of little white plastic baskets 
• 8 pack of coloured bulldog clips
• 38 pack of pegs (this packet was actually purchased at our local Woolworths - next door to the cheap shop)  

See, so much stuff and hours of potential fun to be had :)

Ok, here is the 1st quick and extremely easy activity I'm going to share - Make Your Own Peg Matching Game.

You will need:

• Pegs (in 2 colours to begin with - but make sure you have 4 colour options available)
• 4 x permanent markers (the same colours as the pegs you are going to use)
• A small box (I've used an old gift pack box from Kikki K, but you can use an empty shoe box or something similar - just cover it in white paper)

I made this activity for the little monster about 4 months ago (with only 2 colours), but he needs a challenge as the activity became too easy for him, so I have added in 2 more colours to bring the total to 4 colours - and now it is much more challenging :)

Ok, here is how you can make your own peg matching game :

1. Take your box (covered in white paper, if its not white)
2. Using your colour coordinating permanent markers draw circles (and fill them in) around the top edge of the box. 
3. Make sure you evenly space the circles, so that the pegs fit comfortably.

And your done!

Ask your little monster to match up the coloured pegs with the circles you have drawn on your box.

As your little one learns to open and close the pegs, and place them on the correct spaces they will be developing their fine and gross motor skills and learning about colours :)

And when your finished playing the game, it is extremely easy to pack up too...just place the pegs inside the box and put the lid on box.

I can't wait to see what we dream up next :)

Emma

C4AC - Have you met Jenica?

Hi everyone, 

I thought it might be good to introduce the team of lovely ladies I'm collaborating with for C4AC (if you would like to know more about C4AC have a look here).  

The first post introducing Vicky from Very Vicky - DreamBig can be found here.

This is the second post introducing another of my team members...Jenica from The Pookie Patch - patchwork quilts and baby gifts.

All team members were asked the following questions:

1. Who are you? 

2. Tell us a bit about your business and what you sell

3. Why have you chosen to support PANDA as your charity for C4AC?

Here is Jenica's to answer these questions:

Who are you - I'm Jenica, a Can-Aussie mum of one toddler, known as Pookie. I split my time between Ontario, Canada and Queensland, Australia. I've been sewing since I was about 3 years old, but have only really gotten into it and loving it in the past few years. I love making clothes for my son and for his friends, but I fell in love with patchwork quilts last year when I made a rag quilt for him for Christmas. Most of my free time (what little I have!) is spent sewing. We are finally living in a house that has some extra room, so I have a sewing room for the first time - but prior to this I've had sewing spaces in the kitchen, garage, outdoors, on the floor, at a friend's place, in our bedroom and on my son's change table.

My business is "The Pookie Patch." I'm just starting up, with C4AC being my first big project. So far I've done patchwork quilts, but hope to expand into other patchwork items and baby gifts. My first patchwork quilts were primarily flannel, but more recent ones are quilting cotton. Sometime in August I'll be hosting a "pagewarming party" market night with the theme Pinwheels and Playtime, and I can't wait to have a great night with some of the businesses I've admired for a long time, and with a few friends who haven't quite ventured into facebook businesses yet.
All quilt tops that don't sell are donated to the Palmerston United Church Supply committee, where they are completed (if incomplete) and forwarded to areas where they are needed, such as women's shelters, drop in centers and Nuestros Pequenos Hermanos (a group of orphanages in central America). The primary reason for starting up The Pookie Patch was to help fund some of the quilts I make to donate.

I wanted to support PANDA as depression affects more than just one person - it affects everyone surrounding them. In the case of PND, it has a huge effect on not only the mum (or dad), but her baby as well. It's an area that is often misunderstood and that needs a lot more support. I suffered from PND after the birth of my son, and if it weren't for the support I received I know that both he and I would have suffered a great deal more.

Jenica

Nice to meet you Jenica :)

Keep an eye out for the next C4AC post...I'll be introducing you to another team member!

Emma

C4AC - Have you met Vicky?

Hi everyone, 

I thought it might be good to introduce the team of lovely ladies I'm collaborating with for C4AC (if you missed the last post explaining what C4AC is, it can be found here).  

This first post is introducing Vicky from Very Vicky - DreamBig

All team members were asked the following questions:

1. Who are you? 

2. Tell us a bit about your business and what you sell

3. Why have you chosen to support PANDA as your charity for C4AC?

Here is Vicky to answer these questions:

I am a mum of three gorgeous kids (the loves of my life) two girls and a boy in-between!
I'm from Canberra and have a regular day job, and yes, in the Public Service.
This time last year I decided I needed a creative outlet, so I did a couple of sewing classes and some online tutorials and off I went! I found myself enter this 'other world', a world where fabric, patterns, embellishments and showcases are everything, and only others who have entered truly understand!!
So now I enjoy making children's clothes, dolls, softies, and cushions. I love challenging myself to do new things, especially for showcases. I'm really enjoying the creative ride!

I am supporting PANDA in C4AC. I think more research needs to be done about Post Natal Depression and being a mum myself, I really feel for the parents that suffer this illness at a time that is supposed to be their most happiest.
Vicky

Nice to meet you Vicky :)

Keep an eye out for the next C4AC post...I'll be introducing you to another team member!

Emma