New Years Eve 2012

Hello Folks! I hope you all have a super New Years Eve tonight, it seems the weather in Wellington is now officially "broken" with two cold, wet days in a row.

Tonight Rich and I are off to celebrate the new year at a friends house, but unfortunately the BBQ has been cancelled due to the rain. Boo! I am sure there will still be plenty of drinks, nibbles and perhaps some singstar organised for the evening.

Also I am planning on wearing my newly made "space dress" - hurrah!

I have also been thinking a little bit this afternoon about my goals for 2012 - I don't have an exhaustive list like some people, but there are a few things I really want to do over the next year:

Theatre sports

I have wanted to do theatre sports for the LONGEST time, but I just never seem to get there. But at a function a few weeks back I met a friend of a friend who seemed so much fun and she does Theatre sports here in Wellington, so I have decided to give it a go. She said the best way to start is to enrol at the night course at Wellington High School - so I am hoping to start the course in February. It would also be a fun way to meet more interesting people.

Reach my weight loss goal

I have been working hard to lose weight recently and I do actually feel a whole bunch better - I have been focussing on healthy eating and exercise and everything seems to be working out just swell for me - who knew! I hope that this year I'll reach my goal - fingers crossed.

Sew more

I know I go on and on about how I love sewing/crafts but I never have any time to do them. This year I really want to sew more though - I've even created a list of things I want to sew in January.

I hope you all have a super night tonight and I'll see you all in 2012 xoxox

Miss Marlo Dress

Here's the dress that made me completely crazy for about a day, let me explain. I decided to make the dress from some cheap fabric I bought from Arthur Toye Fabrics (which is only about 10 minutes from my house) - the fabric was usually $10 a metre, but it only cost $5 per metre with the half price sale they were having.

The dress is another one from my new Sew La Tea Do sewing book - I cut out all the pattern pieces and I was trying over and over to line up the back interfacing with the two back pieces of the dress and it just wouldn't work! Eventually I asked Rich to have a look at it, just to make sure I wasn't going crazy and he agreed that they didn't line up at all and that I should go online and she what I can find out as there may be something wrong with the pattern.

Turns out he was right, there was a printing error with the book and most of the pattern pieces were wrong! The next day I printed out the new pieces from the the "Meet Me at Mikes" blog (the author of the books blog) and went and bought even more fabric (thankfully they had more and it was still $5 per metre) and cut out the pattern again and began to sew the dress.

When I was almost finished I tried it on an I realised just how short it was - I'm not a tall girl by any stretch of the imagination but this was more like a long top than a dress. So I used my limited skills to add some extra centimetres to the bottom of the dress, I think its actually a kind of cool feature and it came out surprisingly well given I had no idea what I was doing!

I wore the dress all of yesterday and it didn't fall apart or anything so that's a very good sign - I'm not sure if I would wear it with a belt again though. I'm just one of those girls who feels like I need to wear a belt with everything. This slightly awkward photo is taken in the driveway of our building that leads to the car park - its just like Europe :P Actually its a really weird spot for a mural as even on the sunniest of days its still dark in this part of the building. I also need to remember that outfit post should be taken at the start of the day not the end of the day - this dress looks creased from a couple of hours shopping, being taking off and put back on again when I went to the gym (I am a bad person and didn't hang it up when I was at the gym) and a few hours of crafting which involved crouching on the ground to cut out pattern pieces.

What do you all think - I feel like I am FINALLY making some kind of progress with my dressmaking. I think that today may be a craft day as its raining rather heavily outside! Oh New Zealand summer, you are so fickle!

Mermaid Softies

Recently my friend Meg and I decided to do a softie swap - I really love making softies but I just don't seem to get around to doing it enough.

I especially like making softies that are a bit different - we have all seen a million softies of cats, that doesn't mean cat softies are bad, but personally I like to try and make something a little different.

Meg loves mermaids so I decided to made her a mermaid (or two) I used a pattern I found on Softie Making, which is a pretty rad website if you're looking for a softie pattern - especially seen as the patterns are free. I did alter the design a little bit and I gave Meg's Mermaid's bikinis.Here's a close up of the faces - sorry the blue haired mermaid picture is a little blurry, I didn't realise until I downloaded it that it was like that and by then it was too late to take another as she was on her way to the States.


What do you folks think of the mermaid softies? Any ideas for other quirky softie projects?

Wednesday Wardrobe Challenge - Floral

First of all - I want to say thanks for all your lovely comments on the skirt and dress I made - I am such a novice dressmaker. I am at the stage where everything still seems quite difficult and when I talk to friends who are sewers or read sewing blogs where someone has whipped up a dress in an evening my mind in blown! It still takes me HOURS to make something simple, so its really great to have people say great things about what I make - you all rock!

Onto yesterdays challenge which was "floral" - I have about three floral dresses I thought I could wear. The first one I call my "nineties dress" as it looks like something I would have worn in the nineties had I been cooler and dressed more like grunge rock chicks I aspired to be like. I was wearing the grunge/nineties dress for a few hours before I realised some of the stitching had come away at the shoulder and I was showing off a rather striking bra strap! So the dress had to come of and has been added to my continually growing mending/alteration pile. Before I had a sewing machine I never had one of these, now its growing ALL the time - what's with that?

This is the frock I changed into - its not vintage, but it retro and handmade to boot which makes it even better. I think it has a kind of Sixties vibe with Seventies floral fabric.

You may be wondering where exactly I am standing? Well I did meant to ask Rich to take a photo of me when we were out on a walk earlier that day but I just forget. By the time I did remember that I needed a photo it was almost dark.

We did decide to do something a little different for a photo though as I am standing in the lift in our apartment - I love this lift as it reminds me of something out of an Alfred Hitchcock movie, we rarely use it as we only live on the first floor but I do think its pretty rad.

I really love living in our building, there are a lot of apartment buildings in Wellington but a lot of them are really modern and soulless - unlike our art deco apartment building.

The dress has a whole bunch of buttons sewn to the neckline, which is a cute feature and I think it looks great as it keeps with the black and white of the dress.



OUTFIT DEETS:

Shoes - The Big Shwop

Tights & Cardi - Glassons

Dress - Trade Me

Necklace - Equipt

I also finished another dress yesterday! There was much drama surrounding the making of this one which I will explain when I post pictures, but Rich was notably impressed last night when I showed him the completed dress and he isn't easily impressed!

I also have plans to do a spot of shopping today for my January/February trip whilst all the sales are on, I really need some sandals and as mentioned previously togs!

Sunny Day Dress

I decided to by myself the book Sew La Tea Do as a Christmas present, I've looked at this book so many times but I just couldn't justify the price. However, when I found a slightly damaged version on sale for half price at Whitcoulls I couldn't leave it behind!

This is the first project from the book - the "Sunny Day Dress" it's a bit sack like so you really need to wear a belt or a fitted cardy over top to give it some shape. It does have pockets though - fancy!Yesterday was another beautiful day - I keep hearing that rain is on the way but no sign of it yet!

This photo was taken when we went on an afternoon walk in the Botanical Gardens - here's a few more sunny day photos.

I made a circle skirt

For the Christmas/New Years break I have around a week and a half off work and no real plans - which doesn't happen often.

So I have decided to spend at least some of my free time sewing and crafting - here's my first completed creation a circle skirt. It was pretty easy to make using a tutorial I found here. However there are a couple of things I will do differently next time - I am thinking of making another one in some kind of fun craft cotton fabric.

Secret photo Rich took of me walking away - I kind of like it.

Finally - the photo in which the Wellington wind becomes a little bit too much for my hair and actually makes it look surprisingly long.

Happy Christmas!

Hello Everyone - I hope you all had a fabulous Christmas! This year Rich and I decided to spend Christmas at home in Wellington. We started off our celebrations on Christmas Eve by checking out the Christmas Tree at the waterfront. It's a little trippy - but pretty too.

On Christmas morning Rich made us French Toast for brunch and it was AMAZING. I love summer berries.
After breakfast we opened our presents, I got to open my Christmas Stocking from Alicia at So Pauvre

Alicia fed my Hello Kitty obsession with a whole bunch of kitty cuteness!

We also opened the presents from my parents, which included this cute cupcake painting.

After brunch and presents we decided to head out for a walk as it was an absolute stunner of a day in Wellington.

I love that someone dressed this guy up as Father Christmas!

You have to love these Santas enjoying the beach at Oriental Parade, complete with Christmas tree.

I was pretty happy to find a yarn bomb on Christmas Day.

Finally a photo of our Christmas dinner, Nandos Chicken, eaten under the shade of a tree on the waterfront.

The rest of our day was spent hanging out, reading and watching "Bad Santa" - hope you all had a great day too!

All I want for Christmas

A really LONG time ago Olivia from Wait Until Sunset tagged me in her "All I want for Christmas...my top 5" post. I have been meaning for some time to write a list of my top five Christmas items, but I just didn't seem to get around to doing it!

It is now Christmas Eve, so it really is now or never, here are my top five for Christmas:

1) My eyes back to normal

I went to the optician yesterday and my eyes still aren't better, I am now on three different types of eye drops including a steroid eye drop! I really want my eyes to be better so I can go back to wearing my contacts and having a normal life again. Fingers crossed my life will FINALLY return to normal next Friday (30 December), I am due to see the optician again then and I am hoping she will tell me that the eye virus is finally gone.

2) More time to craft and sew

I really, really, really want to spend more time crafting and sewing. I do love to craft and sew and my job is pretty technical so I do need my creative time, but I need more of it dammit! Not sure where I will find it.

3) Some decent gym gear

If you follow my blog regularly you may or may not have noticed I have shrunk a bit recently, I've lost about 8kg (17.6 lbs) and I have also lost 14 cm from my waist (5.5 inches) and 6 cm from my thigh (2.4 inches). My gym clothes are all pretty naff, just old t-shirts and shorts I picked up from The Warehouse for about $15. Whilst my gym is not a posers gym it would be nice to have some decent gym gear - it might ever encourage me to go to the gym more!

4) No more earthquakes in Christchurch!

If you look at a map of New Zealand which show the tectonic plates, you will see that we are split between the Australian and Pacific tectonic plates. Earthquakes are just part of life in New Zealand, I've experienced them my whole life and Wellington has them relatively frequently.

However, the earthquakes which have happened in Christchurch over the past year are something else. There were at least two more decent shakes yesterday when we thought everything was settling down and life was returning to normal for people in Canterbury.

If Santa could work out some way to make the earthquakes to stop so people in Christchurch can get on with their lives, that would be pretty rad.

5) New togs!

Which you may know as swimwear, a cossie or bathers depending where in the world you're from. Here in New Zealand we call them togs! I had the most fabulous pair of togs but they got lost somewhere in-between Korea, Vietnam, Taiwan and New Zealand. I really like these togs by Broad Minded Clothing and also these ones from Mod Cloth.

But I don't want to spend too much on my togs until I reach my goal weight, so perhaps I'll get these ones from Glassons for this summer and invest in a better pair next summer.

Happy Christmas Eve!!

Christmas Hairbows

I nearly forgot to post a picture of these bows! Since I learn to make bows I really can't get enough of them, they make a great simple gift an you can turn them into all kinds of things.

These three are all the classic "hair bow" I made one for Alice for the swap we just did at Crafty Foxes, on for Ria and the middle one is for me to wear tomorrow.

Happy Crafting xoxox

Crafty Christmas Goodies from Ria

Earlier this week I met up with my friend Ria one final time before she heads home to Adelaide for Christmas.

I knew Ria had made me something for Christmas - but I didn't know just how amazing my present would be! I love skulls and all things Mexican, so Ria made me this Mexican Day of the Dead style bag. Isn't it amazing? I LOVE this trim!

If you want to know more about how she made this beauty you can check out some more of the details on her blog here.

She also made me some traditional German Christmas Cake called "Stollen" - I have never heard of it before, but it looks amazing and I really DON'T like the traditional English style Christmas Fruitcake with almond icing. I am saving this for Christmas Day - it looks amazing.

If you want to learn more about how to make stollen, or see how Ria's kitchen exploded when she made this stollen, check out this post.

Finally, Ria very generously bought me "Make!" by Cath Kidston - I have wanted this book FOREVER but I could just never bring myself to buy it, I have looked at it at book stores a lot though.

Believe it or not, this book even comes with supplies so you can start crafting straight away! No need to make a mad dash to the fabric or craft store.I just thought I'd share one of the projects in the book - they are all so pretty, I love the vintage style and all the pretty pictures.