{baking & domestic godessness} Book Heaven!

Sorry for the break but the past few weeks have been nuts but they have been filled with Christmas shopping, dinners, catch ups and cleaning. However, this is not just any sort of cleaning I must say. I was put on to a blog called Simple Mom by Tsh Oxenreider and boy is she amazing! Such wonderful ideas and she has just released a book which I just had to order immediately. (Excuse the lack of photo editing programs on my laptop at this present moment!!)

I was thrilled when I arrived home to this book! It covers mainly money and home organisation - simplifying your belongings and removing the clutter. She works on the principal of "Is this thing beautiful or useful to me?" and boy have I cleaned out some stuff. She helps you to remove the guilt etc of unwanted gifts etc and I can tell you it was a liberating experience! This book is a must for anyone who is a bit of a hoarder or doesn't know where to begin with the clutter.

Another divine book that has also just been released is Cake Pops by Bakerella. I just love her blog and her gorgeous ideas.

She creates such beautiful little gems to share for birthdays, Easter, Christmas and many more occassions. We had our Mothers Group Christmas party last week so I decided to try my hand at some little Christmas Trees. They were rushed and less than perfect but here is my first attempt at trying to create these little  Christmas beauties!

Despite some of them being a little wonky they were delicious and were gobbled up in minutes! Head over to her blog if you haven't checked it out yet, she has some gorgeous ideas for Christmas you could have a go at!

I first made some Cake Pops for Wonder Girl's 1st birthday earlier in the year. I struggled with the dipping but they were quite cute anyway, so thought I would share...

I should also mention I am doing a guest blog post tomorrow at Just Me. A wonderful blog by the gorgeous Sarah, so head on over and check it out!
Have a wonderful Monday everyone Xx

{sewing} Here comes Christmas!

What a week! I feel like I haven't stopped! Cleaning, shopping, appointments, helping people, cleaning, swimming, did I mention cleaning? In amongst all that though I fitted in some sewing and re-covered the gorgeous stool in Wonder Girls room! I spent around an hour browsing all the fabrics in Spotlight last weekend trying to find something just right for this divine stool. I was a little apprehensive about the fabric I decided on as the print is quite bold and is a little brighter than I imagined selecting. However, I almost gave myself a little hi-five when I finished it because I was so excited with how it looked! So here it is...

So after the stool was recovered my next projects were to make a Christmas bunting to hang in the kitchen and a gorgeous little advent calendar for the Wonder Kids! The bunting was first as that was easiest...

3 x mts of 1" red ribbon
18 x Triangles measuring 20cm across and 25cm down. I used pinkers to cut them.

Then brought it all together on the sewing machine using a zig zag stitch in a contrasting colour and spacing the triangles 3cm apart! So here she is... and don't mind the "festive" green wall! Hubs and I are in discussions about what the lucky new colour will be!

Last but not least is the bunting! I found the tutorial on a gorgeous Scandinavian website Pickles Was quite simple to do but I did find the ribbon placement a little fiddly. If it hadn't of been November 30 when I was completing it, I would have unpicked the few that were a little shoddy but whoever said they had to be perfect? Right?!

So there is my past 7 days pretty much in photos! All the fun parts of course, who needs to see photos of food shopping and cleaning the house!

Have a great Friday everyone!