Farewell Cardboard Box

The drawers are finished and I finally have a bedside table again..... the cardboard box has been banished from my bedroom forever

I even managed to make the bed thismorning (with the cat still asleep in the middle).

The colour isn't exactly what it should be, but somebody picked up the wrong stain from the shelf at Bunnings. It was supposed to be more dark brown and less red, but it still looks good.

The funniest thing is that when we moved the huge cardboard box out lastnight (which had been labelled Hats and Scarves), and opened it, we found that it was actually full of fabric!

I have sooooo much fabric that I didn't even miss an entire box full........ and now I need to find room to unpack it. What a problem to have....oh dear!

The birthday month

April is definitely the craziest birthday month of the year among my family and friends. I'm still heading along the make/buy handmade present path, but year after year, it's getting a bit more difficult.

A friends little boy is turning five this weekend. I've been racking my brain trying to think of something to make for him, when my sister happened to mention that she was going to bake some cupcakes with the kiddies. I had one of those lightbulb moments, and knew immediately what I was going to attempt to make.

The apron was the easy bit.... it's just a much smaller version of my adult aprons. The chefs hat was a bit more of a challenge, but I'm really happy with the way it turned out. I just need to make sure that I take some measurements, and write down how I actually made it before I gift it away! I'm predicting more baking gifts in the future.

Eye Spy....a surprise

I'm a day late, but I received a lovely surprise in the mail last Thursday..... just in time for Easter, Jan from Running Thread sent me a lovely kitsch tea towel wrapped up in easter egg fabric with a little easter egg card. How cute is that???

It was Jan's birthday on Friday, and I'm sure she'd get a wonderful surprise if we all headed over to her blog and wished her a belated happy birthday.

Thanks to Cindy for being the reigning Eye Spy Queen, and to Miss Muggins for this weeks theme.

PS - Head over to Miss Muggins for some lovely giveaways too!

Love Handmade Jewellery

I've realised lately that I have a passion (some may say addiction) for handmade jewellery.
I have a huge array from casual and funky, to formal and dressy, but I absolutely love all of it!

Usually the most difficult question I ask myself each morning is "Which pieces of jewellery shall I wear with my outfit"?

Following my passion, I bought myself a pair of these beautiful Belle earrings from Sharon at Handmaiden. They're a lovely silvery grey, perfect for an occassion where I need to dress up.

Sharon has just launched her Etsy store this weekend where you can find all of her beautiful creations.

I've also been coveting the lovely jewellery creations of Lauren Williams for quite a while now.

I was lucky enough to do a swap with Lauren and I received this gorgeous necklace and matching ring. The necklace pendant can be taken off and then it doubles as a brooch. Yah for multifunctional jewellery!

Lauren has a Made It shop full of lovely creations to check out.

Now..... I need to decide what to wear today!

Full to the brim

We celebrated Easter Sunday at my sisters house today


The tiny but intrepid warriors set off on an easter egg hunting adventure around the backyard.


It was a bit of a slow start, but they caught on pretty quickly once they realised that they could fill up their little carry bags with chocolate!

The table was set for a wonderful roast lamb and roast beef lunch with vegies and plenty of gravy........ but I had to save room for dessert

Homemade pavlova with peppermint crisp........

Homemade Creme Brulee.....

....and homemade Mars Bar Cheesecake (I had to bring a slice home because I just couldn't possibly fit in any more)!

Happy Easter!

a work in progress

I'm still using a cardboard box for a bedside table..... but at least there's now some progress to report

The op-shopped drawers have been stripped and are now ready for a slightly darker stain and then a clear coat of sealer. I'm going for an imperfect / old / shabby look because all the furniture is mismatched.

This little cupboard has been in the shed for at least six years. I originally found it at a church garage sale.

It's getting the same treatment, and then I think I'll use it as a lamp table on the opposite side of my bed.

I can't wait to have somewhere to put all of my worldly bedside treasures....

A Good Friday

Good number 1 - A little Lindt bunny arrived on my doorstep thismorning.... very similar to this little bunny above. I don't think he'll last the day somehow!

Good number 2 - My sister sent over some homemade Salmon Patties for my dinner, so now I don't have to cook.

Good number 3 - I hemmed and then hung my new curtains, so now my bedroom is nice and dark, which means I can sleep in tomorrow. Yippee!

Good number 4 - I spent the entire day today pottering around, and working on some new prototypes for the next market. They weren't all entirely successful.... but it was still lots of fun.

Did you do anything good today?

My creative space

I picked up my new (second-hand) sewing tables on Tuesday, so the craft space is now undergoing it's millionth re-arrangement in four weeks. Well ,that number may be just a little over-dramatic, but it certainly feels like the millionth time to me!

In the meantime, I have this little hand quilting stash beside the couch, and the quilt is laying over the couch, so I can pick it up whenever I sit down to watch some telly.

More magical creative spaces right here at Kootoyoo....

A belated birthday pressie

It was my younger sisters birthday on Sunday, and she'd requested a Ray's Tent City voucher as a pressie.

I'd been meaning to make her a purse since I did Nikki's purse frame class last year, but I just never got around to it..... until last night.

I was just hammering the frame to finish it off at around 8 PM when there was a knock at the door.... and she walked in. Talk about perfect timing!

A completed project

I've finally finished the City Bag for my aunt. I'm quite impressed at just how professional it looks and I'm hoping that she will love it.


I picked up the supplies that I needed from Nikki to make an adjustable strap. I was quite excited by the adjustable strap, and of course now I want to chop all my handbag straps off and replace them...agggghhhh

I still had lots of fabric left so I quickly whipped up a few extra goodies to go with the handbag.
A zippered pouch....


A coin purse....

.... and a passport holder based on this tutorial from A Spoonful of Sugar.
I didn't have any clear PVC so I've just substituted fabric instead to make the pockets, and I used my 18mm bias tape maker to make a little button loop.

... and then finished off with a vintage button from my late Nana's stash (who is my aunts mum) so hopefully she'll really love that bit.

Now back to the 'to do' list.

Make Mend and Do

Welcome to Make Mend and Do - The CurlyPops Make It Up As You Go Along Creative Version....

It seems that certain family members actually believe that I know how to repair various items of clothing. I'm always happy to oblige. I don't have any training in the right way to make clothing repairs, but I'll always have a think about it, and try to have a go.

Take object 1 (above photo) - ripped lining inside nephews parka (raincoat if you prefer).

How do you fix that strange synthetic slippery frayed lining stuff?

I had absolutely no idea - I couldn't use anything that was iron on as I was afraid that I would just melt the entire lining onto the iron, so my best and most creative solution, was to cover all of the frayed edges with some homemade bias binding......

.... and then handstitch the bias binding together to close the gap.

At least he can now easily identify which parka is his, just by looking inside!

Eye Spy..... a new development

Yesterday was another lovely day out at Amitie Upstairs for the Thornbury Craft Bonanza. I didn't really have anything crafty planned to do for the day, so I put my hand up to help Bev with some quilts that she was putting together for Handmade Help.

I have never ever tried to make a proper quilt, and I've never ever tried hand quilting.


This is as far as I got....... but, my new development is that I actually enjoyed it. I'm usually the queen of the quick (less than two hours) and easy (meaning machine sewing) project, but in the last week or so, I've actually been craving for some sort of craft where I can snuggle up on the couch and relax and watch telly. The best bit about hand quilting is that you can snuggle up with the quilt while you're stitching. Who knew it could be so relaxing? Ok, so you probably all knew that already, but I didn't.... I'm such a duffa!


Here are all the girls hard at work


and Anabel modelling her quilt

Bev made delicious Zucchini and Cinnamon cake...

and Sharon made delicious Carrot and Walnut cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting (so I bet you can guess what I had instead of lunch)!

We finished off with a lovely dinner (albeit a bit noisy) in Black Rock.

For those that know me, no I don't eat seafood.... I actually forgot to take a photo of my own dinner!

Thankyou Christina for this weeks Eye Spy theme and to our lovely hostess Cindy.

Envelopes Ready

The glue is dry and the artworks are ready to be stuffed into envelopes for the great mail swap.

My nephews and I had great fun after school on Thursday night chopping up bits of paper, hole punching, stamping, and glueing feathers, pom poms, icy pole sticks, and jewels to create beautiful pieces of artwork.

We made a fantastic mess, someone accidentally leaned on a stamp pad and ended up with a red palm, we spilled glue and paper and goodness know what else.... all in the name of fun.

Wouldn't it be fun to be a kid again!

Some well deserved thankyous

I've been a little bit slack lately with showing and telling about all of the lovely things that arrived in the mail lately.

I'm still in that 'grey fuzzy not quite homely' state - which when translated, means that I keep moving furniture around because I haven't worked out the perfect home for every piece just yet.

To facilitate the constant moving of furniture, I completely stopped unpacking boxes (figuring that the less I put away, the less heavy the abovementioned pieces of furniture will be when I move them).

Yesterday, I actually managed to take some photos to play show and tell.

To begin - the lovely Miriam from BubbaChenille sent me some gorgeous teatowels. They've been washed and ironed and ready to be transformed. This is just one of them.

I won a giveaway over on Kat's Creations last week. I have a bit of a beret obsession, and now that it's coming up to colder months, this will be absolutely perfect! Thanks Kat. It's more grey in real life but I don't have the good camera at the moment so everything is being washed out by the flash.

I received some more lovely tea towels in the mail from Jodie at Ric Rac with some sweet little selvedge key rings and a gorgeous card.

I have made myself a new little spot in the craft space for the selvedge collection just for Jodie!

Now onto some craft shopping - I couldn't resist this gorgeous bag from Cass at Snailblazer.

I have two boxes of handbags that are yet to be unpacked but I just had to have this one too!

I'm trying to stick with handmade for birthday pressies this year so I picked up these cute little ribbon streamers from Silly Gilly. These are for a friends daughter who will be turning three in May. I actually want to put them on and run around the garden myself (you'll be happy to know that I resisted the urge).

My creative space

My creative space is still a huge mess. I moved the furniture around again yesterday (with some helpers) so I'm testing out the new layout today.


I've started work on my Aunts handbag. I didn't even know where to begin to create a handbag with a zipped closure so I've taken the sensible route (very unusual for me) and used a pattern. This is my work in progress City Bag by Nicole Mallalieu.

Would you believe that this is only the fourth zipper that I've sewn in my entire life and it's on a curve and it worked! Just so you know, that's because of the instructions, not because of me.... he he he

My Aunt requested a red white and blue colour scheme but I couldn't find anything that I liked so I've opted for using navy blue cotton drill with a cotton print that I found in the quilting section at Spotlight. I've used interfacing on the bag outer to give it some more weight.

I'm going to make an adjustable strap using this tutorial, but I forgot to buy the supplies so I need to order some oblong rings and a slide adjuster in shiny silver. I think the shiny silver will look really pretty against the navy blue.

.... and on my fridge space - gorgeous artwork!

Head on over to visit Kirsty and sign up to play along.

Shameless Self Promotion Alert

I've added a couple of teatowel aprons to The CurlyPops Shop

You may remember the lovely Guide Dog teatowel that I received from Silly Gilly. It's now been re-incarnated as an apron (this one is size 16 upwards).

Watcha Wearing Wednesday

Today I'm wearing one of my gorgeous purchases from the market on Saturday. It's a button ring by Buttons by Lou Lou. While on the subject of markets, I'm going to play show and tell with all of the lovely goodies that came home with me.


Buttons by Lou Lou hair ties for a friends daughters birthday in May.


Luckie by Tinniegirl.
I joined my nephews up for the Pigeon Pair Kids Mail Swap and we're going to use the Luckie to make collage cards for the swap.

Scented soap in fabric pouch by Troischats. This smells absolutely divine.

Funky doorstop also by Troischats - this has been put to good use already replacing the oxygen bottle that I was using as a doorstop!

Glass pendant by Finki. I'm going to string this onto a piece of leather today (once I find my jewellery supplies) ...yippee!

Hand stitched bowl also by Finki.

For lots more of watcha wearing, head on over and say hi to Fii