Button Initial

Having seemingly been bitten by the craft bug I found no sooner had I finished my Crayola Crayon Art that I was looking for my next project. As I’m currently in the middle of decorating my daughters bedroom ready for her transition from her bassinet in our bedroom, I decided on this button initial. I think it is quite literally cute as a button.

Again, this is an idea I found done a few times online, but here is my version of it.

For this you will need:

• A cardboard initial of your choice (I chose the letter ‘S’ for Sophia, my baby girl)
• Coloured poster paint
• Assorted pink* buttons
• PVA glue
• A paint brush

All of the above I found at a hobby and craft store.

*I chose to use assorted buttons of one colour to go with my daughters bedroom colour scheme. Obviously this is interchangeable depending on who or what it’s for. You could try all different colour combinations. What ever you think is best.

Because the ‘S’ I purchased was a brown papery sort of colour, I decided to give it a couple of coats of pink poster paint. This made a nice background as I knew there would be a few little gaps between the buttons. here and there

Once that had dried I got to work gluing on the buttons. I wasn’t too systematic in doing this, I simply worked on small sections at a time; applying the glue to a small section of the ‘S’ and completely covering it with different sized buttons.

I found I could cover the complete front face of the ‘S’ in one sitting, but had to do little bits at a time when tackling the side edges/curves and allow the glue to dry. The buttons fell off when I was in too much of a hurry and having to hold it at different angles.

Initially (no pun intended) I had planned to leave the bottom free of buttons so it would stand. This was because I had wanted to have it displayed on a piece of furniture in Sophia’s bedroom. However I decided against it because it would be within her little chubby grasp when she becomes mobile. I didn’t want to risk her being able to pull off the buttons as this creates a potential choking hazard. So, I covered all but the back face of the ‘S’ and will hang it on her bedroom door.

From start to finish, this took a good few hours to complete; though a lot of that was drying time. It is simple to do and I think the result is just lovely. Thank you Pinterest for another great idea. Go on. . . give it a go.

xx

Crayon Art

I was aimlessly perusing pinterest just the other day (as you do) and stumbled upon crayon art. Now this was completely new to me but apparently not to a lot of other people. When I googled it, there were quite a few results showing various versions of the same thing. It looked so bright and colourful and vibrant it immediately spoke to me. I had been in dire need of a creative project and after a little research in to how this was done, I knew this was for me. It’s super easy to do. The results are great. . .and best of all it’s fun. My daughter is only 4 months old so way too young to help, but I imagine this would be something great to do with older children.

Here is how I created my crayon art.

For this, you will need:

• A canvas – I used a 20″ x 20″
• Crayons – I used 3 boxes of 24
• A glue gun
• A hair dryer

Begin by removing the colours you do not wish to include in your art. It’s totally up to you but I just wanted to use the colours of the rainbow so I got rid of the browns, greys, whites and blacks and then lay out the remaining crayons above the width of the canvas. This allowed me to arrange the crayons in an order I was happy with as well as being sure I had enough.

Next, I ran a thin line of glue along the length of the first crayon and set it in place. I decided I wanted the brand name ‘Crayola’ displayed in my art so made sure to glue the reverse side. I continued this step all the way along the width of the canvas. Having never worked with a glue gun before, I didn’t realise just how quickly you have to work. The glue cools and sets pretty fast so you can’t really dither during this process. I soon got the hang of this and got a good pace going.

I feel it’s worth noting/pointing out the obvious here that glue guns are very hot, so use with caution.  Children will need to be supervised or have to sit this step out whilst a parent takes over. We don’t want any nasty accidents after all.

Now comes the fun bit. . .melting. I set my hair dryer to the highest heat setting but low/medium blow setting so I had more control over the direction of the wax. It takes a little bit of trial-and-error to work out how close to the crayons you need to be, which direction is best etc but it is really dependant on your hair dryer and your vision. I did find it best to work on sections of colours as opposed to just running my hairdryer backer and forth over them all. I was shocked at just how quickly they melt. You’ll find they go shiny and then start to drip and before you know it you have a beautiful running stream of colour that trickles down the length of your canvas.

Something else worth noting, in choosing your work area, the key is location, location, location. I chose to work in the kitchen and placed black bin liners under and around my canvas. You could also use newspapers. I found the wax did splatter a little further than I’d planned, but the great thing about wax is it dries super quick and the tiled surfaces in my kitchen meant it easily scraped off or could be removed with warm water. I wouldn’t recommend doing this in an area with carpet or curtains near by.  

From start to finish this took me approx 90 minutes to do. I was really pleased with the end result and couldn’t believe just how easily it could be achieved. My lovely 3 year old niece Isabelle, is now proudly displaying this in her bedroom. Will you be giving this a try?

xx

Down Under Dilema

I originally hail from the UK and for the longest time felt cheated, when I visited the US, at how cheap everything was by comparison. . .especially cosmetics. Then I came to Australia. . .$#%&@?!!! Oh how I long for the days when I thought £13.50 was a lot to spend on a MAC lipstick. $36AUD more than stings. Let me just do the maths for you because the whole currency thing can be confusing: £13.50 converts to $20.66AUD. That’s a difference of almost $16 and the bit that really hurts? Is that, that’s nothing compared to the whopping $21.80AUD more than what they pay in the US. Okay, Okay so MAC is an American brand. . .but Australians pay more for European cosmetics too. YSL Faux Cils Mascara for example is just less than $30.00AUD in the US. It’s approx $35AUD in the UK and for us lovely folk here in Australia? It is *drum roll please* $52.00AUD. It’s definitely not a just higher end thing either. It is right across the board with drugstore/high-street products too. A Revlon Lip Butter will set you back $21.00AUD here in Australia as opposed to $12.25AUD in the UK and $7.30AUD in the US. Seriously, I could go on and on and then on some more about this subject. Do the research; everything from Rimmel to Nars, from Maybelline to Benefit and just about everything in between is much more expensive Down Under.

I know I’m not the only one feeling a little hard done by. It became apparent whilst watching a few of the ‘$20 make up challenge TAG’ video’s on YouTube that this is an issue a lot of cosmetic enthusiasts living in Australia hold a bit of a grudge about. Obviously I understand that geographically, Australia is pretty far away from just about everywhere, so understandably there are costs involved in getting the products over here. . .but I’m not sure the prices reflect this fairly.

So I’ve made it my mission lately to research websites that can offer me my most beloved brands without Mecca, Myer or  David Jones’ price tags. Here is what I have found:

Feel Unique - This was a very pleasent discovery I made whilst watching Louise and Zoe AKA Zoella and Sprinkle of Glitter’s Summer Obsessions TAG video. It offers free delivery world wide and sells skin hair and body products, makeup, fragrances and more offering a wide range of brands from high-street/drugstore to high end.

Crush Cosmetics – Doesn’t offer a wide range, but has some well known UK and US brands such as NYX, Barry M, ELF and Beauty UK with free shipping on orders over $60

Hot Cosmetics – Offers a wide range of cosmetics, fragrances and skincare specialising in high end brands. Delivery is $9.50 flat rate for any size order to anywhere in Australia.

Strawberry - Sells discounted skincare, fragrances and makeup and offers free delivery world wide. Stocks a good range of brands.

PLEASE NOTE: This is not a sponsored post. These are my own opinions and any links are just great finds.

xx

7 Things

So, I’ve decided to get involved with Louise from Sprinkle of Glitter’s interactive blog post ’7 Things for 7 Days’ because procrastinating seems to be my bag and I hope this might just motivate me enough to jolly well achieve some things I deem worth achieving. I am not naive enough to think this leopard can change its spots overnight, so you will note I am just calling this ’7 Things’ and dropping the ‘for 7 Days’ part. Plus one or two of the things on my list are more longterm.

So, let’s dive in shall we?

1. GROW MY NAILS – I admit it. . .”Hello my name is Helen and I’m a biter”. As a result, nail varnish never looks good on my chewed down tallons and I get real nail envy, which funnily enough brings me to my solution. I’m going to start using ‘Nail Envy’ by O.P.I. in the hopes of strengthening them, as they break easily when I’ve grown them in the past.

2. SCRAPBOOKING - Or at least make a start. I was feeling particularly inspired last week and purchased a LOT of materials to put together a scrapbook of my daughter. . .but life got in the way and it worked its way down my list of priorities. So I’d like to sit down this week and at least make a start on it.

3. BAKE – I spent almost all of yesterday cleaning the pantry and discovered we have an abundance of cooking chocolate, flour (both plain and self rasing) and desiccated coconut. This needs to be put to good use.

4. EAT BETTER - I really need to focus on the neglected food groups e.g. fruit and vegetables seeing as I definitely have the cakey, chippy and biscuity food groups covered. Sadly, no matter how hard I try to convince myself, pineapple on a pizza cannot be counted as part of my ’5 a day’. We do have a juicer, so I’m going to make it my business to start each day with a yummy blend of fruit juice as well as getting more green stuff on my plate.

5. SKINCARE ROUTINE - Being a new mummy often means some things just get forgotten about. My skincare routine was definitely compromised in favour of spending time with bub or lets face it. . .sleeping! It got reduced down to the bare minimum of washing and moisturising. . .and sometimes not even the latter. I have noticed my skin has suffered as a result. My birthday is fast approaching so I may treat myself to a facial to kick-start my journey to better skin.

6. MUMMY NETWORKING - I always said when I was preggo that I would join a ‘Mums-and-Baby’ group. Since moving away to Australia away from a lot of my friends who have babies I think it’s important for my sanity to develop friendships with other mums. It will also get me and bub out of the house more.

7. WATCH SOME MOVIE GREATS: Not even necessarily greats. You know how there are some movies EVERYBODY (over a certain age at least) has seen? Like Grease. . . ? Well I’m in my mid twenties and I haven’t seen Grease in its entirety. I always get funny looks and exasperated “You’ve never seen Grease?” comments when people find out. This and all of the above shall hopefully, in the not so distant future be rectified.

xx

A Little Box of Sunshine. . .

 

I was sad to learn that a good friend of mine was having a rough time due to personal/family issues so I wanted to do something for her to cheer her up. I got the quite brilliant idea from Happy Money Saver. Basically you get a box and fill it with yellowy goodness. I filled my box with a combination of silly/fun stuff and things I knew she’d use. I got pretty in to it and as I couldn’t find a yellow box I painted a white one; I added some yellow tissue paper inside and even made my own gift tag which I tied on with yellow ribbon. I had so much fun putting it together that I was quite literally giddy with excitement. I love putting thought in to someone’s gift, and while flowers are lovely. . .I just felt this little box said so much more.

The boxes I made included:

• Original Source shower gel in ‘lemon and tea tree’
• A yellow shower puff/spongey thing
• Little Miss Sunshine the movie on DVD
• Little Miss Sunshine the book from the Mr Men and Little Miss series
• Starburst
• Carmex moisturising lip balm
• Rimmel I Love Lasting Nail Finish polish in ‘Sunshine’
• Tea-Sub – a yellow submarine tea diffuser
• Twinings loose leaf in ‘Earl Grey’
• Caramel Tim Tams (very Australian)
• Fanta
• Maybelline Colossal lash mascara

And for my bestest friend who lives back in the UK I made a compilation CD of all the songs that remind me of her or funny times together. A nice personal touch.

Oh and of course my friends absolutely loved it.

Try it; brighten up someone’s day with a Little Box of Sunshine.

xx

[Re]discovering me. . .

Well hello there, glad you could drop in.

I am a twenty-something new mother to a scrumdiddlyumptious 3 month old baby girl. After being caught up in a whirlwind (quite literally) of dirty nappies, night feeds and baby vomit I feel confident enough in my multitasking skills to start pursuing a renewed sense of me-ism.

As I am sure every new mummy knows, there is always a little conflict once baby is sleeping soundly between what you’d like to do and what you probably should do. In the early days, every friend, relative, cat, book and website tells you when your newborn is sleeping so should you. Despite feeling desperately tired, that ‘Leaning Tower of Laundry’ that seems to have sprung up overnight weighs on your mind. You go back-and-forth in your head so much that by the time you’ve convinced yourself that sleep is tantamount to you being the best mother you can be, the baby is awake and needs your attention now damn it! As time goes on, sleep in the above scenario might be interchangeable with reading a book, having a cuppa or just screaming in to a pillow (if you’ve had a particularly tough stint and your little one has been adorably difficult) and you’re perhaps a little bit easier on yourself and allow yourself to indulge. Well this is the stage I am at right about now.

So who am I?

LOVER – to my wonderful partner Chris.

MOTHER – to my beautiful baby girl Sophia.

SISTER – in the literal sense to my pretty awesome elder siblings Caroline and Laura but to use the term a bit more loosely to my amazing friends old and new.

OTHER – This is the side I’m looking to explore. To find out who I am outside of the other labels. Motherhood is definitely an adjustment and I know I can never fully go back to the person I was pre-baby, nor would I want to, but I don’t want to lose my former self completely. She wasn’t that bad after all.

This blog is to document my ‘other’ side in those stolen minutes while my baby sleeps soundly (and the dishes mount up).

xx