Showered

Our baby shower was postponed because I was in labour, so we had it when she was three weeks old. We feasted on home made pizza, strawberry blancmange, mango jelly, berry cupcakes, families of gingerbread people, quiche and potato salad. Guests took turns holding the baby, basked in the sunshine in the garden, and enjoyed an ingenious quiz involving egg babies and Angelina Jolie's babies names. We tie dyed baby grows, opened extremely generous presents, and I fought back hormonal happy tears.  Showered indeed. 

Amazing banquet made by some of my friends (one of whom has a food blog, go check it!)

Mrs Dreaming of an Aga and Florence

Egg baby!

Hubs with his sis, Ray

Opening our amazing handmade presents from Mama Wolf- matching mum and baby collars?! hells yeah. 

Madam here slept through the whole thing...(cutest photo to date!)

Crafty happenings, part two

Rather than head out and buy all of the 'stuff' babies require brand new, we mined freecycle and ebay and borrowed or were given stuff from our friends. We also used it as an opportunity to get our craft on, sprucing up second hand items or making things from scratch.  For most of my pregnancy I felt like my creative energy was entirely supped up by creating a human, but I had a burst of creativity toward the end where I felt inspired by the little wriggler in my belly to make stuff. We didn't get through half of what we wanted too (curtains, toys, clothes, lampshade to name a few!) but we did manage to cross off a few key things. (See Mobile, baskets and toy bags in the last post)


I decided to re-purpose the Liberty fabric table runners I made for our Christmas Dinner party and turn them into a play mat for Frankie-Rose. I backed it in a tough thick cotton fabric and stuffed it with thick wadding before sewing (wonky) grid lines on it. This was especially satisfying as lots of the work had already been done! Voila:

This was seconds before she was sick through her nose, poor muffin. 

We decided on this changing bag (which was a present from my parents)

... as we wanted something that Dave liked and could use too (ie not a floral Cath Kidston number!) as he is doing a lot of the baby stuff too. We also knew that we'd be wearing Frankie-Rose in the sling a lot so a rucksack was more practical and kinder for our backs. Plus it looks cool. But it didn't come with a changing mat so I made one:

There are also a few things that are in progress, the blanket being one. I was reserving the finishing of the blanket for the non-existent last weeks of my pregnancy (she came 2 weeks early) which means it is STILL not finished. Ho hum. But i'll get there! 

The second thing in progress is our vintage high chair. It was 50p from a junk market but was in pretty bad shape. We (ok, ok, my mister) sanded it and painted it bright yellow. It needs another coat, a strap and i'll also add a vintage decal, replacing the one that was there before we sanded it. 

For now it is currently bringing a bit of sunshine to the corner of our kitchen whilst it waits patiently to be finished.

I love the idea of Frankie-Rose being surrounded by handmade things, things made us and our amazing friends with love. It's also saved us lots of money too, which was one of the main drivers (nothing like being skint to get ones creative juices flowing!)  I hope that it means that she will grow up with an appreciation of unique, handmade things too, but we'll see. 

Crafty happenings; Mobile, toy bags

As I mentioned a couple of posts ago, the few days before Frankie-Rose arrived I was busy cutting, painting, sewing, stuffing, crocheting and stitching in any spare minute I got (in between eating,  sleeping and watching telly, that is).  I didn't know it at the time but perhaps my body was subconsciously telling me that she'd be here soon so to hurry up and get things finished! Here are some snippets.


I made a baby mobile, similar in concept to my Christmas garland, using circles of card, felt and fabric. I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out.

I wrapped an embroidery hoop in bright fabric to create the main structure of the mobile. I then plaited three strands of the fabric three times and sewed it to the hoop. 

Then, using my sewing machine,  I sewed my circles into long garlands.

...and attached them to the hoop. Quite easy really and pretty effective, if I do say so myself.

I used bondaweb to create my double sided contrasting fabric circles. It involved lots and lots (and lots) of circle cutting. This is by far the most time consuming part.  I dreamt in circles. 

I've been gathering vintage and second hand toys and decided to make some toy bags of varying sizes out of my fabric stash to hold them in. 

The yellow basket they are in is one of 6 large wire baskets we got from Freecycle (lots of our baby stuff is second hand or free- bless freecycle and generous friends and family!), which we spray painted bright colours. They are ideal for holding toys and baby gumph. 

In other news, Frankie has piled on weight and is now within the average for her age, hurray! No more weigh-in's! and I am slowly adjusting to this maternity leave lark. I could totally get used to our almost daily mother-daughter luncheons and coffee's. Its lovely but odd too- you'd think there would be so much time but nope. The days seem to melt by in a milky-vomit scented haze of feeding and sleeping and baby cuddles. But I wouldn't have it any other way, I feel blessed beyond all measure to be mum to this amazing happy tiny human.

So, who knows when i'll next have time to make anything but I have a few other bits to post that I made before she arrived so that'll have to do for now. (i'll find time in future, right?... right?!...)

Little Vintage

One of my best buds has just opened an amazing kids vintage shop called Little Vintage. Go check it! I have already amassed quite a collection of vintage clothes for Miss Frankie-Rose but It has grown somewhat since this shop opened. (Its very reasonably priced, you'll be pleased to hear)

Sorry, I already bought this one. Adorbs, no?

Frankie-Rose's room...

I had an unexpected burst of energy in the last couple of weeks of my pregnancy and found myself in a nesting frenzy.  Planning, collecting, writing lists and more lists. Re-arranging, picture hanging, washing and tidying, clearing out, sorting through and putting away. Here are some snippets.

We put together a little gallery wall made up of prints, garlands, clocks and curio's. Having a baby, it turns out, is a nice excuse to collect the prints that we've had our eye on for ages. Psychodelic pictures of a Russian circus horse and a cross eyed Lion, epic mountain-scapes, graphic raindrops, proud Peacocks, fictional wolves, little pink piggies, a family of bunnies, vintage book covers and a polar bear in a yellow hat called Bob.

The clock is vintage, Bob the polar bear is by Jamie Mitchell, from Society 6. The  mountain-scape is by tchmo from Society 6. The Raindrop print is by Kerry from the Seventy Tree. The Peacock is by  Minkee and the Polish Circus posters were from the Vintage Magazine Company. Ray made the gorgeous crochet garland. I made the Hooray banner and the wolf poster is based on the Game of Thrones story, illustrated by Maritsa Patrinos. Wolves in a babies room?! Of course! 

This sampler was embroidered by my misters great great grandmother in 1908. Cool, huh?

 I also finally got round to lining some drawers in vintage wallpaper and replacing the handles on them- a quick, satisfying DIY project, and something i've been meaning to do for years. The cardigan was knitted by Fay, she's so talented and we cant wait to dress Frankie-Rose in it!

Ray made the crochet blanket, amazing no?!!! 

The cot is for another post. It is a thing of beauty having been spruced up by my mister and I but it's currently in our room next to our bed with the side down (works brilliantly and removes the need for a moses basket or crib) and I havent got round to taking any pictures yet.

I have to thank Zoe for the trouser-hanger-picture-hanging inspiration!

I also wanted to say thank you to you all for all of the lovely comments, emails and tweets you've been sending our way since Frankie-Rose was born, it's been pretty overwhelming. You're all lovely.

The results of some crafty happenings coming up next...

Heart Home Notebook Tutorial

Just popping in from my babymooning to say that I am delighted to be a contributor to Heart Home magazine this month.

Heart Home is a beautifully curated interiors magazine only available online.  It's also free, Hurray! You can subscribe here.

x