Half term highlights...

To combat the back to school blues I will share some of what my half term looked like...

Baked some blueberry scones

Went to a certain Swedish furniture store and indulged in my fav treat

Along with some tasty donuts from a certain America donut place

I think The Belgian looks hot here - but then I am bias!

Did some crafting on a onesie - I shared this earlier in the week

Impressed myself with my chevron creating skills

Ate at So Bar in Knaresborough getting two-for-one using our new free trial Tastecard - fellow Brits sign up now!

Creating his 'n' hers lamps on our bedside tables - Homebase were selling these Habitat lamps at better than half price.

Did some more crafting for the babies nursery - I will share a DIY for this later in the week.

Picked these up at Ikea as well for the nursery - we are thinking of a 'feature' wall of pictures rather than painting

In other news:

• Saw Beautiful Creatures on Orange Wednesday - not usually our cup of tea but we enjoyed it
• Had our 20 week scan and all is well - we are Team Yellow and waiting to find out
• I am totally loving Pink's new song with the guy from FUN
• Watched Nashville for the first time today and think I could really get into it - always been a closet country music fan
• Found Paige's blog through Shimelle and have been having a real nosy around - am totally inspired by her use of hearts, confetti and layering

What have you guys been up to recently?

Diy chevron cushion cover

So earlier in the week I declared my intentions to actually do some crafty projects this week.
When I started to think about the fun of designing a nursery I started scanning pinterest.
I was in love with this cushion from Etsy  and this is partly what inspired the yellow and grey colour scheme
and the elephant theme.
But it was made in America and this equals large postage costs so I thought I'd have a go at creating a chevron pattern myself.

1) First I brought a yellow cushion cover for £3 at Ikea.
2) I created a chevron pattern with masking tape. Most blogs and tutorials advise you to use electrical tape as this eliminates the chance of the colour bleeding, but I found that masking tape worked fine. Also you a-types out there would definitley bust out a tape measure - but i just eye-balled it and the end result (pictured below) is accurate enough - so long as you don't look at it too closely!
3) Using grey fabric paint purchased at Hobby Craft and the sponge applicator (pictured at the bottom) I applied a generous layer of paint trying to go with the grain of the fibres on the pillow cover.
4) I had to wait patiently for the paint to dry. The Belgian found this very difficult and I had to swot his hands away many times.
5) Peel back when you are sure it is dry.
6) Stand back and check for any small errors - I then corrected these with a small paintbrush.
7) I then ironed it with a sheet of paper over it on a low heat. I should have ironed it first and would advise this to be your first tip.
I still need to buy a pillow to go in it and a rocking chair for it to rest on. I might do a smaller plain grey one and iron on a yellow polka dot elephant. I will do a photo shoot when its all ready, but for now you get the impression!

Stamping on fabric...

Playing around with my amy tan stamps and a onesie. Do you like?

Pinning Projects to Paint...and other things!

It's no secret that I have been having a crafty drought these past say four and a half months.
I think there are many reasons - mostly relating to the baby growing in my belly.
For instance:

• feeling too sick and lethargic to do anything more creative than channel and web surf
• barely having any photo's from the last few months
• especially lacking pictures of Christmas - where I was being sick a few times a day
• realising a distinct lack of storage space and rapidly accumulating scrap albums
• trying to clear out my scrapbooking room - ready to transform into a nursery

However the nursery is giving me some creative yearnings and I have spent the week pinning craft projects that I hope to work on over this half term holiday.
I will post the top four here to share with you all and to commit myself to completing at least two!

1) Firstly since we don't want to find out the sex of the baby we have decided that colour scheme will be yellow and grey with polka dots and a jungle theme. I loved these spray painted and decorated zoo animals over at Spearmint baby and think this would be a fun project and would look great displayed on the window still or book shelf. With yellow and grey accents of course.

 

2) For me the most ambitious project (since I am useless with a sewing machine) and the one I will probably save for nearer to the birth when I may be able to get some direction from the lovely textiles teacher at my school. I love this honeycomb material - any ideas where to source it in England? Elephants and giraffes are going to feature most heavily in the decor. The tutorial is found here at Sew 4 Home.

 

 3) I love this shadow box idea from Our Day by Design. I have ordered some elephants punched out in greys, blues and yellows from ebay - cheaper than the actual Martha Stewart punch which is £15. I just need to get the shadow box - I seem to think that Ikea stock these quite cheaply? Am I right? 

4) And lastly the project I will be tackling first I think is this animal painted canvas - here is the youtube link. I brought the supplies yesterday and have printed the pictures off ready to roll.  I think I might make the silouette with material and have ordered some grey and yellow fat quarters off ebay this morning. So it may look more like this...

How cute is this? From here.

So there you have it. I do pin a lot, but I also try to actually make some of the things I pin. Hopefully I will have some projects to share with you all by the end of the week,

The Precious Little Wriggler...

So I am a bit late joining Sian's storytelling Sunday party, but I thought that the theme of sharing your precious would work well with my exciting news (that I hinted at last week).
My 'precious' is my 12 week scan pictures.
It's been a bumpy journey getting there.
I was pregnant last April, but sadly lost the baby in June - a week before our scan was due.
I struggled afterwards with anxiety and sleeping at night.
For a while life was pretty hard.
So when I fell pregnant in October I took some convincing that it was true.
So I couldn't quite believe it when I saw the little heartbeat at eleven weeks.
I am due the 10th of July.
A summer baby.
I have been very sick, tired and constantly nauseous.
But it will all be worth it when we get to meet the 'Little Wriggler.'
This is what the doctor dubbed the baby when it wouldn't stay still during the scan.
In fact my husband said it was doing jumping jacks in my belly!
This suggests that it will take after him.

Layout mainly completed using Amy Tangerine goodies - my first actual layout in four months!

 Here I am at four month's pregnant....

with a rapidly expanding belly that is getting trickier and tricker to conceal from the kids that I teach at school!
I hope that my story brings hope to other couples who are trying for a baby, or who have suffered from similar setbacks.
I found support and inspiration from complete blogging strangers who shared their stories and one in particular who helped me to admit how I was feeling.
Now that the sickness is subsiding I hope to blog more.