My (not so) creative space

So the past two weeks have been pretty uneventful in the crafting department. This is due to some hideous virus infecting mainly my head resulting in lots of naps on the couch and a husband home on carers leave for 5 days. It is by far the worst head cold I've had and thats saying alot because I suffer from sinusitis atleast 3-4 times a year.

I am somewhat back in the land of the living, hubby has returned to his normal line of work and things are getting back to normal (well our kind of normal anyway).

The only handmade item i've made in the past two weeks is this t-shirt.

Miss G appears not to have any eyebrows but I can assure you they are there... somewhere...

During the process of making this t-shirt I questioned myself several times... why the hell am I putting myself through this when I can go down to Big W and buy one for $4!?!! The answer... I love the ruffle sleeves. The pattern is from Ottobre Design (issue 3/2010), a Finnish sewing magazine I picked up at a craft fair last year some time. It was pretty straight forward but the pattern was cut for Miss A (2 year old) and its just slightly big for Miss G (4 year old). Maybe my girls aren't as big as Finnish kids?

The neck doesn't sit properly because I cut the material the wrong way (again trying out my way rather than following the pattern) and the ruffles, for some reason, arent as ruffly as those in the picture but what the hey... i made a t-shirt. Overall it was fun to make and I can now say yes, I have made a t-shirt.

Definitely too big for Miss A (seen here showing you where her nose is located... messy substance on face is the remains of a honey toast breakfast).

When I wasn't slowly dying on the couch, I decided to try a cool idea (which I found on a website which I was totally was going to credit but now cant remember for the life of me what its called) for painting with very watery tempera paint. Pop the paint in some containers, put some paper in flat cooking trays, give them some spoons and away they go. My girls love anything to do with painting and will paint with anything.. so long as its messy (think flour whilst making dough, chalk mixed with a)water or if water not available b) spit, water, dirt, gravel, sand that's escaped the sandpit, squished food etc). But I digress.

Here is how it started. Really fun and they loved getting the paint to run this way and that.

Miss A really got into it.

Miss G loving the idea but exploring different ways of making it totally messy.

Then mummy (I blame it on the nurofen) got a crazy idea to use the huge box from a recently unpacked (but not recently purchased) ikea shelving unit. And here people is the anarchy that resulted:

Yes thats right, pants off, paint tipping, body painting madness.... but the kids had fun.

For creative spaces with alittle more creativity, visit

Kootoyoo

Hope you're having a great week.