My Creative Journey

More Christmas Crafts and Cooking

2009-12-18T11:53:00.012+08:00

We are doing our daily Christmas crafts and Christmas cooking although the time to sit down and blog about it almost always escapes me as we prepare everything for the end of year season. Can you believe it? 2009 is almost finished and what a wonderful, exciting and great year we had.

Here are more creations and cooking we have been doing for the last week or so.

At the end of year presentation night for Josh's tae kwan do, he surprised us by taking the "Best Kihap" in 2009 award and we are so proud of our little boy who is growing up so fast before our very eyes. And of course, tara likes to pose too.

Also, today marks the first day of School holidays and already we are busy with crafts. The kids busied themselves at making the cover for their colouring book and then colouring the first page of the book. Here they are:

Sorry for the poor quality of the last photos, these were taken with the iPhone and emailed for the blog. Till then, have a great weekend.

More Creations

2009-12-10T11:55:00.004+08:00

Continuing our handmade Christmas activities, the kids are excited every morning as it is really unusual I let them have a piece of lolly in the morning especially when there is some chocolates in the pockets of our calendar, but Christmas has always been my favourite time of the year and I like the kids to see that and enjoy it as well, just wish that family is closer and that we can spend it with our family as well but our thoughts and love are with them in this festive season.

Here are some of the things we have been busy on,

SSorry for the fuzzy photo, i took this last night. Till next time.

Day 7 -Felt Tree Decoration

2009-12-07T17:23:00.004+08:00

This is not a really for the Christmas tree but a part of a book that they are going to put together in the next few days with colouring pages and a song to learn. I like that the kids look forward to the afternoon where we sit down and do some Christmas craft whether it be big or small, hard or easy, quick or takes a long time. Tara keeps on asking me about the calendar all day which sometimes I have to explain how it works, that we can't actually open the pockets until that day is here.

So for today, this is what the kids did with my help (mostly to Tara).

Day 6 - Christmas Pillow

2009-12-06T17:56:00.008+08:00

Before I post our craft for today, this is pushed back yesterday to finish the Christmas tree pencil topper that Josh is giving to his school mates, so here it is,

Day 5- Glitter playdough. They sure had fun playing with it too.

I meant to do pillows to add to each of their beds for a long while and now this is the perfect time to do especially as I adore Michael Miller Christmas fabric so much, I ordered a whole bunch of fat quarters of all the Christmas fabrics. This is just one pillow, I used a different fabric for each side.

Sorry for the crappy photos, it was getting dark and I wanted to post the photos today. I used my P&S one too. This one is Joshua's pillow. He picked the fabrics himself and I love that reindeer and sleigh fabric.

This one is of Tara's, as usual she chose pink.

Day 5 - More on Christmas presents

2009-12-05T16:44:00.004+08:00

Josh decided to give each of his schoolmates a Christmas pressie this year so we thought the pencil topper is a good one, so we spent the whole day creating the topper and writing Christmas cards for everyone to give away on Monday.

The craft for today has been pushed back a day and i hope we have time to make two tomorrow. See you then!

Day 4- Christmas Felt Photo Stocking

2009-12-05T16:01:00.002+08:00

And yet again, another inspiration from Mel. and this one Josh did the blanket stitch around the stocking although after several pin pricks, he wasn't happy anymore.

Okay, I will post one of Tara's as she already misplaced it and won't tell where it is. Till then.

Day 3 - Christmas Arts & Crafts

2009-12-04T14:21:00.000+08:00

This is a bit late as we all started late for the third day since Josh had a play over at friend's house and didn't come home until late in the afternoon nonetheless we still managed to finish our Christmas craft for Wednesday although it was way too late to post.

And the results: this one is Tara's

and this is Josh's.

Day 2 - Christmas Crafts

2009-12-02T21:53:00.000+08:00

Sorry this is so late, Joshua had a play over this afternoon and we didn't start the craft until after his play over from friends and of course, the day is almost over but anyway, the craft today is an easy one for the kids, all they had to really help was to put the beads on the topper. We made the Christmas pencil topper, of course, inspired byM el.

Since we decided to have a handmade Christmas, I have perused the Internet for ideas and templates, and tutorials and for the most part I get a lot of my inspiration from Mel, she is just awesome, if you are not reading her blog yet, you better go and add her to your reading list, she is a super mum. Here is her blog.

Here they are, we have made a few more for Josh's friends from school for their Christmas presents.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

2009-12-01T17:09:00.012+08:00

Well, here we are, the first day of December.

Remember we made a promise of Handmade Christmas this year so I started to get everything ready for the kids to do as well as taking on the Christmas Reading program that I wanted to do with the kids inspired by Mel here. Most of our presents are handmade from baking, drawing, Christmas cards to sewing pressies. We put the tree up on Saturday and the kids enjoyed hanging the decorations, it was fun as we didn't get to have a tree last Christmas since we were overseas.

Oh, while surfing through web last weekend, I thought I'd make the kids their very first advent calendar and so on Saturday, I started cutting out the fabric for the calendar, still debating what sort of calendar to do as there are so many out there that are so gorgeous, but knowing that the 1 December is just around the corner, I went for the simplest one, a quilted advent calendar with pockets. Each pocket has some lollies and 2 pieces of paper. One paper tells them what Christmas craft we are making for the day and the other piece of paper tells them what book we are reading today. Here it is:

Here are some more details in the house, we haven't really finished decorating but the kids are already getting excited for Christmas.

And for the CHRISTMAS CRAFTS 2009:

Day 1: Nativity Scene Kit.

I bought this kit which includes the story and as well as making a nativity kit. Since its the first day of the Christmas Crafts, I thought something easy and quick would be good as we assess the time with school and all. Here is the result of our Day 1 craft.

moving slowly

2009-11-29T08:49:00.003+08:00

wow, I feel like I've just finished blogging about the party (parties) in October and then again, its December and time to countdown the days for Christmas. This is too quick for my liking although I am excited for the December Crafts and Reading we have planned for this year.

Right, I see that my kids are now enjoying more and more of the craft activities together more than before after spending a few weeks watching 'Mister Maker' so we talked about spending December in Crafts and Reading program. We are also decided it to be a Handmade Christmas, making our own cards, and as much as possible our own Christmas presents. How good is that? I am so excited. Yesterday we started by putting the tree up and the kids had so much fun helping me decorate it while Christmas songs play on the background.

As for Reading, we are going to try and read 25 Christmas stories counting from 1 December until Christmas, at the moment, we only own about 4 Christmas story books so its off to the local library to get some more and hopefully every year we can build our stack to get to 25.

Starting from the 1st of December, it will be an everyday post counting down to Christmas. Keep coming back. Have a great Sunday!

its my party....

2009-11-03T12:08:00.000+08:00

okay, I didn't cry and I didn't want to, so we had a girls night out dinner and it was fun. And still, I forgot my camera and didn't have photos of my own so here are some photos from taken from Lyn's camera.

the party has begun

2009-10-13T11:42:00.000+08:00

The kids party every year seem to get bigger and better. The planning stage and preparation were a bit too much this year because I had a few photo shoots lined up as well. I also decided to make it a little bit different. So here are the party details

*this year's theme is 'colour me happy' which means it is just a colourful party

*I set up a cupcake station for the kids to decorate their own cupcake

*a bouncy castle was hired for the afternoon, saved me time to think of games (*wink*)

*the garden was decorated with fabric buntings and paper lanterns

*of course, pass the parcel was still a part of it

*Josh had an ice cream cake (made by muah) and Tara had the butterfly cake (made by Emily)

*Each guest went home with a crayon roll and colouring page as well as the lolly bag.

*My kids enjoyed the party especially opening their presents

*we finished off with a BBQ for the adults while kids play with their presents.

The photos are taken by a friend in the party, I didn't get the chance to take photos of the party as I was busy getting everything ready, oh well, I have the memory of it in my mind.

lazy day skirt and extra

2009-10-12T12:45:00.004+08:00

Yay, I am inspired to start sewing this morning and started my lazy day skirt that Mel organised for the sew along and here it is.

I don't have the ribbon to go on the hem so I decided to just use a contrasting colour to be the ribbon. I finished it in 15 minutes so I decided to keep sewing and did a peasant dress for tara as well. I made a few mistakes but hey they are not very obvious so it works well.

Sew-along starts today

2009-10-12T08:19:00.005+08:00

I joined a sew along that starts today to sew a lazy day skirt for my girl started by a good friend Mel. She is one of my inspirations in sewing as well as crafting with the kids. I first got to know her in scrapbooking and then started to follow her blog. This lady is amazing at what she does.

The sew-along goes for the whole week and since I don't have much fabric and can't get to a fabric shop very easily I can only do one or two skirts but still fun to do it knowing we got about 60 ladies sewing the skirt around the world. You can go to Mel's blog to see all the ladies who are doing the sew-along, she puts them in her sidebar. We are following this pattern here.

And what's a post without a photo, so here is my cheeky little monkey.

The real update!

2009-10-12T07:38:00.016+08:00

Ok, I know I have been trying to post some photos of the things we have been doing for the last month or so and really, it hasn't been easy, but here they are. This is about 2 weeks before the school holidays here as well as during the school holidays, as tomorrow term 4 starts.

Some new fabrics have arrived and here is just one of them that I adore.

And this is the finished product from the jelly roll, isn't that adorable for a little girl. I gave this to a friend's daughter for her birthday along with some scrapbooking stuff inside.

And here is a smaller version that I plan to give to little girls about tara's age.

We had fun building a Lego land as well as Josh's new lego machines.

Then, as school holidays come, we were busy with new books to read, playing in the garden, painting, and cooking. Here are some highlights.

And Josh has read his first book, I will share the book when I get the chance to take a photo. He read it one chapter a day and finished it in six days. That is something. So proud of my little boy.

Updating and Day to Day

2009-10-06T09:46:00.005+08:00

Sorry, I haven't posted for so long, I miss updating this blog but work opportunities and loads have come and pile their selves in front of me the last month and I am still trying to catch up.

It is amazing how my photography have started and flourished to where it is now and I am so thankful to everyone who has supported me. I still do enjoy planning a day with the kids and there are a few that we are currently working and when things begin to settle I will try to share as they happen. I really do like to share them day by day, but sometimes times are not long enough to do all we want to do for the day.

I will post some latest creations and update this more often, but right now, we are celebrating. This month is a month of birthdays as three people in the family celebrates their day so as you can imagine its a busy and expensive month for us as well as the most favourite of all of us.

Will update soon, as I have joined a sew-a-long with mel to sew a lazyday skirt for Tara. More details soon.

MIA in blogland

2009-09-18T19:08:00.002+08:00

Dear Blogworld,

I am writing this to say I am sorry for neglecting you for a long while from the creative juices of this family. I have been inundated with lots of shoots that I have to sit and edit photos and finish each and every shoot. Although, the normal friday sewing day is still happening, it has been really hard to sit down and blog about them. I have finished a few projects and lots more coming soon.

I hope to post more from now on.

Sincerely,

Judith

2009-08-25T16:56:00.008+08:00

The novelty of my new machine is not wearing off very quickly, although there is just too little time to do the actual sewing, unless of course, I decide to disregard my business and photography (which I love too much to say goodbye), I have been getting everything ready for the next project the night before. My fabric stash,on the other hand, is growing and having discovered the delish fabric world, I can't get enough of all the yummy, scrumptious fabric out there and I'm trying my hand on them, even just the scraps.

These ones are from this etsy shop that I found, and they are half yards, and fat quarters. These are the David Walker Oh Boy collection, with some Alexander Henry fabric

And these are Riley Blake Just Dreamy fabric .

And these are my favourite, some japanese fabric from Zakka and they are canvas, oohh can't wait to play with them.

I made Tara a really quick quilt for her dolly from one of the fabric above.

She is enjoying the doll quilt.

And did I say I am impatient with my sewing, I did this in half an hour before we went to the library to get some books. And here it is with books from the library that the kids picked themselves.

Sorry for the crappy photos, I just had to take some photos of the stuff in very poor lighting and just couldn't bother to wait for the day. I took them last night. Till then, I'm off to cut some fabric for my next (very quick) project.

I just realised....

2009-08-22T15:41:00.012+08:00

I recently just got into sewing maybe just a couple of months ago. I am really just a beginner and the first time I had my sewing machine, it was for scrapbooking, then just for mending bits and pieces, but after perusing some sites with sewing and crafts, I have decided to give it a go again. I was doing book keeping job for a friend and decided to use the money to buy my very own new sewing machine (the first one was a second hand), and here is my new machine.

But I realised I am actually a very impatient sewer. I needed to make sure that I finish anything I started and just wanted to see the finished product at the end of the day.

So yesterday, I started to make this quilted basket and eventhough I didn't have all that I needed, I improvised a bit and just tried to finished it.

It is quilted, and using a different fabric on each side.

And here it is in Josh's room.

And today, I did this very quick quilted wallets for Josh's cards, which we now call the card keepers.

One for his Pokemon cards.

And the other is for his Bakugan cards.

And so, I took a very well deserved rest from sewing after seeing the results of my quick labour (which is just so good... more of this sort of sewing I suppose until I am ready to take on a bigger project).

Anyways, I went out to take Josh to ride his bike, and Tara her scooter in the afternoon. I love the weekend!

some more things

2009-08-20T17:38:00.006+08:00

I have actually finished these last week but as soon as I did, the kids have grabbed them and used them already before I get the chance to take photos of them, so if you notice the little drawstring bag is a little bit dirty already.

This drawstring bag is from this tutorial that I love because it is reversible, but its actually smaller than I thought so it is in my to do list now to try and sew a bigger bag, maybe just double all the measurements.

This is the patchwork side of the bag, and they are from the scraps that I already have around.

The other side is a "Dick and Jane" fabric that I really love.

And this one is a Pyjama bag from Homesewn magazine. I made a mistake while sewing the casing strip but it doesn't really show here so thats good.

And I love the little applique I added to the pocket. The template is from the mag as well.

celebration and giveaways

2009-08-17T13:22:00.003+08:00

I have recently just found this wonderful blogs and have been reading her blog and even going through her archives, just beautiful and lots of inspiration.

And guess what, the quilt shoppe is having a birthday bash and rachel at her blog here is just so generous at giveaways, so head back to her blog and read about it and join in the fun and celebration.

Click on the picture below to go to the Quilt Shoppe.

Fabric Weekend

2009-08-16T16:47:00.008+08:00

We just got back from a weekend in Karijini, more about that, but I am very excited to show what came in the mail friday afternoon just before we head to the outdoors.

So the minute we got home and all unpack, I opened my parcel and just can't wait until I get to play with them.

Some Amy Butler fabric

Michael Miller ones

These ones are for Josh's new quilt.

Some more lush fabric.

More tomorrow from our trip.

My Creations so far....

2009-08-13T21:20:00.014+08:00

Since I started this new venture in sewing nearly 2 months ago, I was instantly hooked although I do not really know anything about it. It started when i was surfing the web one day and came across a lady selling patterns for little girls and i really really loved it. I went to her etsy shop and bought the pattern, it seemed really easy. So after getting some fabrics from Spotlight (whilst down in Perth) through the help of a friend, I was set to start and lo and behold, here is the results.This is actually the second one (with minor adjustment from the help of a great friend, Ange).

Here is from the back.

This is a patchwork basket I made from a Ayumil's tutorial here. The original basket is much smaller and change some measurements and did a bigger version. This one is for Ange.

Here is another book from the library that Josh is enjoying.

We decided to try the drawing tutorial, and this is what he chose.

and the result....

Till next time. See ya!

our week so far

2009-08-12T07:33:00.000+08:00

like all intentions, i meant to add more photos here in the weekend but time flew so quickly and the things to take care first kept piling up in front of me, before i knew it, its the middle of the week now.

We have been busy with a shoot last Sunday, check it out on my photosite. I am also finishing a collection of Christmas cards to offer to everyone after the shoot, so I can't wait until that is finished.

The kids have just become members of the local library and have their own library card, yay! My boy is a very good reader, and already favours books from Pamela Allen saying that if we asked him to read another book, he'd say "No, I'm not reading that, it's not by Pamela Allen".

Tara has her own writing book and likes to fill it with her hand drawing making hi-5, but hey she also tried copying her name on the pages which is cool.

Sewing is taking off quite nicely with some small patchwork done. I can't wait for my fabric to arrive. There are some really cute ones and I am excited to try some quilting as well.

Here is a dress just finished for Tara from a pattern I've got a few months ago. Yay!

My boy is now learning how to skateboard, my sk8ter boi!

These are the books we got from the library yesterday.

I can't wait to try some of the things in this book.

I got the kids home yesterday, Josh has mild asthma and tara with colds. Josh loves taking tara's quilt. I am yet to make one for him.

And one of my cheeky monkey.

NOTE: All photos in this blog will be taken by my point-and-shoot, Canon IXUS80 IS.

{Welcome to my newest blog}

2009-08-01T09:05:00.002+08:00

Hi, I decided to have another blog to showcase all my other creative journey apart from photography and the business, this will be more on the personal side and what is happening to us as well as any news and updates on my other creative endeavours, which is scrapbooking, sewing and arts and crafts with the kids.

I think that a different blog should showcase one that is not so much related to the business side of my photography to keep it separate, so to speak. I am so excited to share to you what we are upto and what creativeness is lurking around the house.

I am off to get tara to her ballet lessons but will be back for a showcase of photos. Till then.