camping cot quilt - babyroom9

So i made a mini quilt for the cot to match the larger one i made before. Boy, am i getting bored of sewing these shapes!! lol!

This one will sit in the cot beside the other one on the bed...the camping room is coming together so well!!
Free-motion quilting, you are the bane of my life....i never want to see you again!!!

vw camper II - babyroom 8

So i made two vw campers, as i'm going to have 4 places to hang toys from on the baby gym. This one is made in the same way as the camper before, see the pattern here.

Again, i added a bit of stitching to the front grill to distinguish the front from back.
A different numberplate and he's ready to go.

mini caravan - babyroom7

This is the 3rd of the camping softies patterns, the mini caravan.

Made in the same way as before, see motorhome post. This time you only need one wheel axle, but there is the tow bar to sew up.
I cut the towbar out of felt and just sewed it together right-side-out, as i didn't fancy tacking and turning such an awkward shape.
And then, it's just attached at the front to give the little caravan something to lean on!
And of course you can add some details to cute-sy it up a bit!

vw camper - babyroom6

So this is the 2nd of the little camping softies patterns, download them here if you like! This is the little vw camper. Made in exactly the same way as the motorhome. Cut your templates, cut material to tack around the templates, sew on windows etc, then tack, then sew all together.

Again, leave a gap for turning, as below, then snip all tacking stitches, remove card templates and turn and stuff.

I added some stitching to the front grill of this camper, as the back and front are pretty similar!!
Attach the wheel axles in the same way as before.

I added the number plates and this time, put white lights on the front and red on the back to distinguish front from back.

rapunzel's hexen haus

So again this year we were making the hexen haus. They have to be different every year and so this time we decided on rapunzel's tower. I apologise for the photos, it really wasn't an environment conducive to good photos, so we just tried to highlight the details so you can make them out!!

Lil'pill was responsible for the tree in full bloom.
poog was responsible for decorating the back gable wall around the stained glass starry windows (melted glacier fruits).

I was responsible for breaking the gingerbread every couple of minutes and having minor melt-downs every time i decided that i decided it didn't look very neat this year. Thanks to lil'pill for talking me down off the ledge a couple of times!! Can you see rapunzel's marzipan plait hanging from the balcony?? That was also responsible for a number of my break-downs...it kept snapping and falling down...seriously i was totally losing it!!

And then we put up a little fence, not likely to keep many valiant princes away, but maybe when they see the face of the evil witch standing at the side they'll keep their distance....or perhaps they'll just notice the crazy sagging of the precarious balcony on which rapunzel is balancing and decide that the tower isn't structurally sound enough to enter!!

That's either a very old building and is the balcony wall is settling into the ground, or rapunzel has been doing too much snacking during her long wait to be rescued...You can see the light through the star stained glass window in this one below.

Well it mightn't look so neat as usual but it disappeared in double-quick time regardless!!
Yay Christmas!

classic christmas cake

Well even with all the baby crafting i still managed to get a little bit of time to make my Christmas cake! Yay...look at that super-smooth icing, o i'm so proud!! And the two pieces cut off are going straight onto a plate for my breakfast!

I ♥ christmas!!

mini motorhome - babyroom5

So I intend to make a baby gym, no, not with mini dumbbells and pull up bars...it's what they call a baby gym, but really the baby just lies on a mat and looks at things that are dangling above him....yup, sounds like my ideal gym if i'm being honest.

Anyway, I'll need little camping related toys to hang from the bars to keep his attention, when i'm sticking him on the mat and rushing off for my daily craft fix. I designed 3 different softies in the shapes of the applique pieces that i've used for the quilts and assorted nursery stuff.

You can download the pattern for the motorhome, caravan and the vw camper if you feel like making them yourself.

They are made by paper-piecing in the same way that mamma matryoshka is, so check her out if you don't know what i mean. Except this time, i used thin card instead of paper just to give it a bit more stability when sewing together. So you need to cut out all your pieces in card, tack material around the card templates (attach your windows etc before tacking!) and then sew them all together round the edges, right sides facing in.

It should look something like this...you'll need to snip into corners etc to get the tacking step to go smoothly. Leave a hole for turning of course! I've left open the front bumper, as you can see below. Then you'll need to snip all the tacking stitches, and remove the card templates. Then turn and stuff firmly.

Do the same with the little wheel axles..they'll look something like this when inside out.

And there you go! Attach the wheel axles to the motorhome body by stitching round the wheels.

When sewing together, try and get the edges of the windscreen etc nicely lined up, so it looks more like one piece.
It's actually surprisingly stable on the firmly stuffed wheel axles.
I added a little numberplate and lights at the front and back as well just to add detail.
And off he goes..

christmas name baubles

So i didn't photograph these properly before laying them out on mamma's table so try and ignore the stuff behind! This year we needed quick and easy place-names for Christmas dinner - so i just wrote the names in silver marker on little mini Christmas baubles and hung them from off-cuts of branches into the wine glasses.

The work of about 3 minutes! Phew! now back to baby crafting!!

Giant Christmas Card II

So i was asked to do the church's communal christmas card again this year, after having made the gold and black one for last year. This year, not having a lot of time, i decided to go with a very simplistic design on mirrored silver card.

I cut out all the little pieces from black card with a craft knife and glued them on - easy peasy!

Again it's hard to see the size of the card without a bit of perspective so i've stuck my boot into this picture so you can see the sheer size of the card. Lots of space for all the people to sign their names and greetings!

superD's stocking

So when SuperD first came here to live and i discovered that he didn't have a christmas stocking - i knew i had a job!

I made it nice and fat so i can fit loads of pressies inside!

Yay Christmas!!

blanket bag - babyroom4

ok so this is the 4th camping themed craft that we've got for that lucky baby (lol!) it's a blanket bag to hold a couple of rolled up extra blankets for those colder nights in the nursery.

It just ties on to the cot bars in the same way as the cot bumpers and hangs nicely blocking the gap between the head and foot bumpers.

I used the same appliques and free-motion quilted the background as before (believe me, this is getting old now...i'm getting fed up with sewing these shapes!) It's hanging a little wrinkled here, because i still have to get some matching blankets to go inside.

The front panel was split after quilting and bias binding finished the open edges. See the blanket inside? Easy-peasy!

Although working out the geometry of the pattern was less easy because i didn't want any rough edges showing inside and i wanted to reinforce the base with interfacing which would be invisible....but i got there in the end!

camping frieze - babyroom3

so this is the 3rd camping-themed craft we've got in the baby's room - a frieze of happy campers! (Again, apologies for the horrendous photo quality, i really waited as long as i could for a bright day and to no avail...the winter days are so dull here that photos are always a disaster!!)

I scanned and enlarged the applique templates on the computer and cut out templates from acetate sheets.

These were then masking-taped to the walls and i got all the family round to help fill in the stencils by sponging on paint from little tester sized pots.

The little hippy vans, washing lines and the tents were bringing out the creativity in us!

We layered up the stencils so that we got nice clean lines.

Then when everything was dry, i outlined each piece with black permanent marker.

We were all choosing which camper we would choose to go on holiday in...

i think this one might be mine...it's heading straight to the beach after all!

I thought a frieze would be good because when i want to change the theme, it won't be hard to paint out just this bit.

That particularly shadowy van is actually a beautiful shade of cherry red! Stupid dim winter days!!

This one has got to be for mamma - it's her camper and it's also headed to the beach (before hitting the supermarket no doubt!)

It's seems they're all meeting at the same place...but really, where else is there to go on holiday??

Well that's the full circuit of the room i think...anyone dizzy?