Maternity shopping

I had a morning to myself last week, Andy had gone into work and I got the cleaning done as soon as I could manage just to get out. I am not big on shopping and am more than happy not really bothering. But, I just felt it was something I needed to do.

Thank goodness I did.

The sale was awesome! I got 2 maternity tops, white linen trousers, a dress and a pair of sunglasses. For £25! Now you might be noticing penny pinching is a common theme on this blog........ I love bargains. I love not paying as much as you would expect. Maternity clothes have always been bitter sweet for me, I am more comfortable in them but the cost for the amount of usage has always put me off.

But a pair of trousers for £4. YES PLEASE!!

Ahh, charming faces, you'll have to excuse my scraped back hair like I said.... cleaning, dodgey hips and general lack of effort in the pretty department was the order of the day :D

I didn't get this dress because it just looked ridiculous on top! It wasn't maternity but was a jersey type of material that would have been perfect except there was just too much of it. However, I had to take the picture because I liked the colour! Plus, how big is my belly now! Pregnancy is certainly amazing.

Nursery Series - 4. Crochet heart garland

As part of my nursery series I have already shown how I make the hearts. This garland is really simple and yet super sweet.

I chose to use 2 colours of hearts.

  

Then I added a darker brown crochet chain to pull the garland together. I started with 40 single crochets and then added the heart, in between each peak create 3 single crochets. Once the heart is on I used a space of 12 single crochets between each piece.

The finished project looks so good, I am so pleased with it. This one isn't for my nursery but a friends. For our nursery I used grey, yellow and green with a brown chain. 

Scrap book ideas

Scrap booking was my first creative outlet, I got into scrap booking when I was about 16 - maybe a bit younger. I have so many good books that I made between the ages of 16 and 18. I love looking through them and I love that I will have them to show my children.

I have wanted to record our wedding photos in this way for the longest time and never kicked my butt into gear. I have one page done. In the almost 3 years we have been married. Useless.

Never mind, to try and get me a little more enthused with it all again I thought I would find some layouts I liked and see where I ended up.....

The above are from a variety of creatives from the UK Scrappers forum, I love this site for sharing layouts, templates and general creative projects. 

I could definitely loose hours there.

My latest interests #2

So for this weeks interests I have the best round up of innovative tutorials and craft tips. With a little of baby thrown in!

• I love love love this idea, I am actually going to hopefully purchase the bits soon! 
• It has always been a goal of mine to teach our children baby sign language to enable them to communicate with us as early as possible, studies have proven that children who learn baby sign are much more content because they can communicate their needs. Personally I believe that the time spent teaching your child helps you to understand that child as well as the signing. 
• I really wish I had found this brilliant tutorial for a roman blind before we just brought the one for the baby room. I would have loved to have made ours rather than just adding to it - coming up in the nursery series. 
• This is a really basic tutorial but I love the effect. I did look into how much the paper mache letters were and at £2 I am determined I can make this craft for less... so then I found this tutorial! and now I am collecting cereal boxes to be able to do this craft!! Now just to decide whether I do 'Baby', wait until we know the name of our child, or just for around the home. 
• Looking around this site I think this lady has some really good ideas. 
• Christmas is going to be so exciting this year! I am just really looking forward to having new touches around our home that we will pull out for years to come :)

I really enjoy sharing my findings from my internet searches, I think having the ideas all in one place will also help me in the future when I need to find a project!

Making family traditions

I have always really wanted to have silly little traditions Andy and I create for our family that are special to us and hopefully encourage the kids to spend time with us even when they grow up. I have been worrying a lot lately about not being enough for my baby and I actually realised I need to use that worry to make efforts, after that I think things are going to be as good as they can be. I mean, children grow up and then it will just be Andy and I again and then we can continue the little traditions to reminisce and love the life we have lived.  Some of the traditions I have found I want to include as many family and friends as possible, others will be kept just for us but I am sure that all will be treasured.

So I thought I would share my collection of ideas of things we might like to do as our life with our children grows.

• New Year Fondue's, I would like to include our families on this one because I think that New Years is for big groups of fun. It is also a good environment to discuss new years resolutions and hopes for the coming year. I am tempted to start this one this year even though baby will be only 3 months old. 
• Family Olympics! I think this sounds great, like a good weather days activity with friend and family :)
• Games night, one evening a week the (one day 4) family play games instead of having the telly/electronic devices on. Hopefully we will have an evening a week free outside of clubs and commitments etc, I would like to say a Friday so that the kids can go to bed a bit later as a treat!
• Christmas ornaments, this is something my mum has already done for me and I would like to pass this on to my children. I have already made the first one and I am going to set aside a special tin for our child to keep their ornaments in. 
• Sunday biscuits in bed, I really love the idea of having everyone in our bed on a Sunday morning and just lounging around having fun with each other. I'd like to think we can make a biscuit recipe our 'sunday biscuits' that the children always get excited to hear about. 
• Birthday scrap book, I want to take a picture of my child every year in the same place in the house and I want to write down what we do for their birthday, who was there and their favourite present. 

I think that this will be enough for now and definitely gets me thinking about the years to come with our children, I am really keen to spend quality time and make memories with our children and I think that making these conscious decisions only encourages me to think outside the box and stay positive.

Nursery Series - 3.Baby print

Andy and I first saw this idea back on a random day trip to Fowey, its such a quaint little Cornish village that its nice to take a drive and just end up somewhere different for lunch. The main change I have made to the ones we saw is added some colour. Andy has yet to see this so I might be redoing it in the black and white, however I think for the baby room the point of this artwork for me has been to make things interesting and stimulating to look at.

I couldn't decide on a colour to start with so I had to lay them out on the pallet of colours we have agreed for our baby.

I quite like how it looks over the selection of colours and was tempted to even use it as above. However, I wanted to give what I had in mind a go first.

So I stuck the letters - printed on photo paper - on a yellow background with about 1cm border for that little hint of colour!

Next I marked the size of the piece of paper from the frame on the backing paper I wanted. 

This is me placing the the finished pieces together.

I am once again really happy with how the frame turned out, sorry about the background - its part of my wedding scrap book I have spent the last almost 3 years working on!!!!

So this is what having time feels like.....

I am experiencing a strange feeling today.

I received the news on Friday that I will definitely be graduating in November, I am so pleased with my result and excited that I get to graduate with my friends..... and a new born?! It is going to be interesting that's for sure! Baby is due in September and graduation is November so I am sure (hope) I will have some sort of rhythm by then so I think it will go ok, plus my parents will be there and Andy should they be needed whilst I am on stage :)

So thats my schooling done, I have a few professional things I would like to do once I go back to work but at this moment in time I don't have any desires to be starting anything else... Which is strange for me, I have always been about the next thing. Maybe I am accepting that having a baby is going to be enough for me for the moment!!

In terms of our home I have a few projects I am working on which I will no doubt share on here soon.

I have been finding time to sit and read which is another unheard of for me - when I was studying I wouldn't read because if I get into a book I just wouldn't be able to put it down.

The hypno-birthing reading is coming along and I will be practicing that every day once I finish work in 3 weeks (wahhhoooooo)

Our lovingly designed nursery is coming along lovely and I think I will be putting the arty bits on the wall soon. Which is going to be exciting! Even though baby wont leave our room for at least 6 months I am keen for the baby's room to be ready to move into whenever that time does come. I think its because I like my space that it seems important for that baby to have space, like psychologically seeing the room we have made that space in our life. 

Therefore, today. I find myself with time. Time for me to do what I feel like. Quite honestly, its sleep or shower!! But I had 2 day time naps yesterday so I am trying not to get into that habit just until I finish work. Which means I think I will do some internet/blog reading. I will shower after we are done for the day because surprisingly its quite warm today and I don't want to waste my energy showering when I will only be hot again afterwards