T-shirts

After nights of sitting up embroidering my goods by hand I am pleased to say I have or had should I say a small range of t-shirts based around my "bird" theme, with a small range of sizes. Unfortunately now I am down to only size 12 as my beautiful children took to some of the shirts with scissors. Oh well, a couple of friends have benefited from this misfortune, as while the shirts are not to my standard to sell, they are still wearable, with only the sleeves missing.

My fault though, who leaves their work out with young kids who like to snip and paste? This idiot. In the end I am still happy with the designs and I like to be generous with my friends so I am happy the shirts will still see the light of day.

This is not the first time this has happened to me though. Years ago when we went through the "21St's" party stage I was making my outfits as the parties came up. I worked all night on a lovely shirt and only had to put in the zip the next day after work in order to make it to the party on time. My lovely (and extremely good sewer) mother offered to help by putting in the zip. I reiterated several times that she needed to sew off the base of the zip so the zipper foot didn't come off all together making the shirt a throw-away disaster. Yes, Yes, Yes I heard. But - you guessed it, she didn't do it....... Needless to say the inevitable happened and I went out to a flash party in my nice new pants and .... a plan white t-shirt.

Children's Craft

I have two very active children, and when a daytime sleep is just not an option, the next best thing to do is to sit them down with craft.  Generally it is a very pleasant experience, lots of sharing, and compliments flying left right and centre, but today was a little different.  My oldest has just started Kindy and as such is learning lots of new things - one of her favourite things to do cutting and glueing, which she is very good at for a four year old.  However, now the 2 year old wants to do the same thing.  I am a pretty relaxed mum and like my children to experience things rather then wrap them up in cotton wool, but the use of scissors is a little more of an anxiety builder - especially when combined with fighting.  However all in all it went well, until I found that my 2 year old had decided to do a little creative cutting on his clothing.... and his sisters.  Don't ask me how I missed this little slip up when I was sitting right next to him, but it happened.  Ah well.

Regardless of these little incidents I think craft can be one of the most gratifying projects a child and parent can do together.  It is fun, they kids are using their fine motor skills and problem solving skills, and they are using their imagination.  Another great project is planting seeds and/or plants.  Although you have to be careful with the combination of potting mix and children (potting mix is toxic), it is a great way to get kids interested in the environment and they are absolutely chuffed when they see seeds growing into seedlings, flowers emerging, and plants growing.  (It is a great gift idea for little ones too.  Instead of buying endless presents that I'm sure most kids don't even give a second look to, try giving a potplant holder and a packet of seeds, or seedlings ready to be planted).  Check out this site for some more great info on kids and gardening: http://www.global-garden.com.au/gardenkids_grow1.htm

We would love to hear more craft ideas of kids - let us know your favourites.

Kids and Food

Being the mum of two under four I fill my life with my beautiful friends and their wonderful kids.  It saves my sanity and give the kids a different focus from drawing on the carpet or making new and improved colours from my make-up.  So today was lovely, with 8 mums and double the amount of children running around.

One lovely mum thoughtfully brought a delicious chocolate cake, which the kids swooped on.  Being from 1-5 years of age, cleanliness is never a major issue is their lives, and therefore there was chocolate from top of the head to the feet.  Not only was it all over them, but all over me, the walls, the floor and the carpet.  (anyone know how to get chocolate out of the carpet??).  Nevertheless, as the ad goes, life is meant to be messy, and there is nothing sweeter then seeing the kids having a wonderful time together.  Ah motherhood.

Beautiful Things

We are in our first week of blogging! It is a whole new world out there for us in the bloggging community. We are mums of two (each) small children, which we find incredibly rewarding, although we do each have a strong addiction to chocolate and coffee! However being a mum, you do tend to lose your identity somewhat, which is why we decided to inject a bit of creativity into our lives and start our online store www.shimi.com.au. It has proven to be a great labour of love - and our sanity.

Our theme at the moment is "things of beauty". I have a funny story to share which I am sure we can all relate to doing at one time or another. My family and I spent last sunday with friends who have been impacted by the Victorian Bushfires. We spent the morning pulling wire from burnt fences on their property to prepare it for re-wiring. While we were working away, we had a conversation about how it's sad that we need to lock our houses up like fort-knox these days - even when just going down the paddock..
After a good day's work and being away from my home (in town) from 9am - 4pm, we pulled up at our front door. To my horror, as I walked up to it, I found my screen and front door wide open! No, I hadn't been broken into - I had left it open! Just walked out the door that morning and completely forgotten to close it. Ha! What a relief to see that all of our goods were just as we had left them. But even better, the realisation that our quiet little street in the suburbs is fairly safe as well! It was quite liberating to think of what could have been, but didn't happen! Phew!
Have you ever done that? Share your similar stories..