They mostly come at night....mostly

My favorite craft projects will always be those where Rich and I collaborate, this project was a joint Trees and Rich project. Rich designed the pattern, I stitched it up and Rich framed it perfectly (I HATE framing my cross-stitch, it ALWAYS looks wonky).

 

This is a belated birthday present for our friend Ross - I figure when you've know someone for as long as we have known Ross (I've know Ross for 15 years and Rich 10 years) then they will understand if their birthday present is six months late. Particularly when you've made their present with lots of love.

A bit of background - basically no-one in the universe loves the Alien series as much as Ross. He booked us all tickets to Prometheus when it came out last year and set up a mini Alien film festival and dinner and his house prior to the release.

A few years ago, Rich stenciled Ross an Alien t-shirt for his birthday and he was so stoked. We both thought this Aliens cross-stitch would go down a treat and it did - happy Ross.

Lukah's Birthday Quilt

I'm actually a pretty terrible Aunt - I wrote my nephew Lukah's birthday in my calendar on the wrong date which means his birthday present is a few days late.

This year Lukah is turning five and I'm sure that lots of people will buy him school related things (I already know he's received a Ben 10 school bag) so I decided to make him a wee TV/Movie quilt. 

I decided to make a kind of "farm themed" TV quilt as Lukah does like spending lots of time at my Mum and Dad's place on the farm and my brother is a farm worker so the farm is a big part of his life.

I bought this farm fabric specifically for the quilt - its kind of cute and cartoon like - I did want to get one that mostly had cows as the region my family farms is primarily a dairy region. But I couldn't find anything cute and cow specific - I think I was maybe being a little TOO specific wanting cute cow cartoon fabric!

I also added a square of fabric left over from my "horsing about dress" as it seemed to work in pretty well with the whole farm theme.

I really wanted an earthy green for the fleece for the backing fabric - however, its coming into summer here and there wasn't a huge amount fleece at my local fabric store. So instead I chose this almost fluro green - hopefully Lukah likes bright colours as much as I do.

This wee quilt is off to its new home with Lukah in Taranaki tomorrow - I really hope he likes it.

My Korean Birthday!

My co-teacher Jiyeon got a little confused and thought that today was my birthday and not tomorrow.

So she organised a cake and presents for me today. She used the excuse I had to go to the fifth grade teachers room for a "meeting" about classes and when I got there all the fifth grade teachers were there with cake.

But it actually worked out well - if today was actually my birthday I would have suspected she was up to something but as today is the day before my birthday I had no idea!

Mr Moon, our music teacher and technology lover took some video of my grand entrance into the teachers room! Here it is!

Felt Birthday Cake

When I was back home in New Zealand I used to bake a lot, in fact baking was one of my favourite things. But now I live in Korea I don't have and oven, and even if I did have an oven I'm not sure where to buy essential baking goods such as baking powder and coconut.

Due to this fact, I can't make my friends birthday cakes but I can felt them birthday cakes.

Here's a felted birthday cake I made recently for my friend Joseph, I started with a basic pattern but I mostly just made it up as I went along. It's kind of cute I think and the best thing is zero calories!