Baby's Room

With 10 days now until my due date the Baby's Room is pretty much ready to go.

In reality, there is still lots more to do in here, it's still fairly empty but the stuff to fill it up will come with time. Time and getting to know the personality of the new little one that will be joining our family.

All I can say, for her sake, is that she better like yellow (and that the Doctor's got it right and she really is a she!).

Before -

After -

Before -

After -

Her new lamp, courtesy of our crafternoon.

I love these bamboo clocks, I got them from here.  Matilda got the squirrel.

Here are some of the things I see in her bedroom's future...

A special doll, like this one. Matilda got hers for her first birthday and I think that might be on the cards for Number 2 also.

I love this print, hopefully it will be available in the online shop... maybe a first Christmas present? 

One day I will also make her a quilt, at the moment I'm thinking something like this.

Hopefully I will get around to making this playmat, before she's too old to use it.  I would also like to make her a mobile like the one I made for Matilda's room.

Oh and the electrician came yesterday, so we even have the new light fittings in the girl's rooms now - yay!

My bags are packed and I'm feeling pretty organised... not sure I'm ready for the oncoming chaos but still probably in a state of blissful unawareness of what it's going to be like with a baby and a 2 year old to contend with on a daily basis.

Crafternoon

Yesterday our little craft group spent the afternoon making lamps and eating tea cake (and Anzac biscuits).

Mine is the yellow and white one, which is actually for the baby's room.  And now that I've made the lamp her room is kind of done (well I think as done as it's going to be before she's born).  I will try and take photos of it tomorrow. 

We even wired them up all by ourselves and they seem to work.

Quite proud of ourselves.  Particularly for having a crafting session where we actually finish something.

The only thing is we forgot when you turned them on our fabric cut at the top and bottom would be silhouetted, so we should have made sure our cutting was a bit neater.  Oh well, you don't notice that during the day time!

We used this tutorial.

Matilda's Room

I've spent most of the long weekend in a pregnancy induced cleaning frenzy. Seriously, I've been going a bit mental and driving G well and truly mental in the process - and even though I know rationally that it's a big pregnancy induced I have to have it done and done properly!

Part of the process has been finishing Matilda's room and the baby's room. Matilda's is pretty much done now although the electrician is coming on Wednesday to put a new light fitting in, but apart from that it's pretty much there, so I figured it was photo time. Plus, I thought if I don't take photos before the baby is born it might be a long time before it happened otherwise (and I know there is no way it's staying tidy for longer than 10 minutes once little miss has been in there). So here goes with the before and afters...

We didn't really use this bedroom beforehand, it was kind of a spare room/junk room and we had never really set up anything in there properly since we moved in so it was a big mess.

Before -

After -

I am completely in love with my white walls and I am pretty happy with how my old bed turned out too once it got a coat of white paint.  I am also really happy with the chest of drawers, they were made by my Grandpa for he and my Grandma's bedroom when they were younger and he gave them to me a little while ago (together with the bed that is going to go in a spare room/office once it's finished too).

Don't look too closely at the quilt because it's still not finished, but I had to put it on the bed to see what the final product would look like.  I really will finish it soon.

Before -

After -

I think changing the blinds from natural wood to white made a huge difference to the room.  I am still trying to decide whether or not to put curtains up as well.  The other thing that I think made a big difference is changing the crappy old plastic handles on the cupboard doors, I know that's what all home improvement/real estate shows tell you but I can't believe how much of a difference it really does make for about $10.

Before -

After -

Some details -

When we moved Matilda into this room and her 'big girl's bed' we also gave her this doll's bed from Ikea so her baby could have a big girl's bed just like her.  I gave it a quick coat of paint (I figured she needed a little bit of pink in her room) and made a new little mattress for it and it was all pretty and ready to go.   The doll's bed sheet is an old cot sheet of Matilda's that I cut up.  One day hopefully I will make a cute little doll's quilt to go with it.  When the baby is born she is going to give Matilda a baby born for a present so soon Matilda will have her own new baby to put into bed too. 

My Grandpa made this push along penguin for her too, she is quite taken with it's flippy floppy feet and the sound they make on the floorboards when she runs it around the place.

On her shelves... little bits and pieces she's been given and my mum's old toy sewing machine.

It feels really good to have a room actually done the way I had imagined it in my head, so much fun... can't wait to get the rest of our house painted and sorted now.

Other bits and pieces in Matilda's room -

Wall decals are from Holly's etsy shop.
Her animal photos are from Sharon Montrose and there's also this Belle & Boo print on her wall.
The doll on her bed is from Tiny Concept, her name is Anouk.
Shelves are from Howard's Storage World.

There's a few more photos on flickr too.

And that is that.. one room down.

Busy Busy

Life has been a little crazy for the last week and a bit...

We catered for a wedding for 140 people.

It was fun, but also a bit crazy and we've spent the last couple of days recovering.

Now it's time to get life back on track and sort out 2 little girl's bedrooms.

Easter Egg Hunt

We had our Easter Egg Hunt on Saturday morning with all the little kiddies.

It was crazy and chaotic but also lots of fun.  We ate, played, crafted, raced and of course hunted for Easter Eggs.

I didn't finish making Matilda's easter basket or her outfit, but that's ok.  We'll try again next year :) 

All the food on the list made it to the table.  Matilda did have an Easter Bonnet (that she wore for approximately 10 seconds).  There were prize ribbons for the egg and spoon race and pretty bunting for decoration so that's pretty good in my book.

Don't you wish sometimes you could just pause everything while you're in the middle of it, snap a few photos and then get back into it.  It was a bit too chaotic for that but luckily G was snapping away for me.

We've spent the last day and a half lazily recovering but tomorrow it's back to work.  Time to put our freshly painted bedrooms back together.

Hope you're having a fun Easter weekend also.

Julie and Julia, by Julie Powell

This post is harder to write than my last one because I'm still not really sure what I thought about this book.

I did kind of enjoy reading it, I think I was just expecting to enjoy it a lot more than I actually did.  And that makes it harder, because I'm not sure if the book really was just a little disappointing or if I had unrealistic expectations for it.  Most of my book club felt similarly though so I think, unfortunately I'm going to have to go with a little disappointing.

I think it would have been much more enjoyable to read about this project as a blog rather than in a book format - in little sections every few days rather than big chunks like you read a novel in.  There are little bits of story that just seem to be dropped in there and people that you never here about again that probably wouldn't matter in a blog but when you sit down to read the whole story they seem to not make sense. 

I spent the whole time waiting for something 'big' to happen and it never really got there. 

After I finished reading the book I did watch the movie and I enjoyed the movie a whole lot more.  The movie seems to have a more coherent story line to it, and much more about Julia Childs which I found more interesting then the other story line. Thinking about it after though I suppose the movie has been 'hollywoodised' a fair bit and maybe the everydayness of the book is a good thing. 

Not sure.. I just wanted more.

People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks

I loved loved loved this book. 

A friend of mine lent it to me ages ago and I had never got around to reading it until one day I was in the mood and had nothing else to read so that was that.

It's a really interesting story and told in a really interesting way.

I want to buy it for about three other people to read because I think they'll really enjoy it too.

Add it to your list of things to read I say.

Easter prep and other stuff

We've had another crazy week, but I feel like I say that every post so maybe I should just accept that that's how my life is.

The painters have been and gone so my previously yellow, grey, green and purple upstairs is now all pretty and clean and white.  We haven't begun to move things back into the rooms yet so I think it's going to be another week or so before you get to see before and after photos.

In the mean time I've been busy getting ready for Saturday's Easter Egg Hunt.  I've made up some pretty bunting to decorate with, which will then get moved into the baby's room.

I've been growing some bird seed to hide some little eggs in amongst (yes, I am a bit crazy).

And I've been working on a Easter Bonnet for Matilda to wear.  It's currently in a pretty ugly state but I am not convinced that there actually are ever any nice Easter Bonnets.

It was my turn to host my book club last night too and since we had read Julie and Julia I felt like our supper needed to be a little bit french.  Raspberry Tarts and Chocolate Eclairs.

My chocolate eclairs were a bit messy and last minute but they tasted ok.  Anyway, I figure for Julie and Julia last minute and a bit messy is in keeping with the theme.

Tomorrow is baking day and maybe I'll finish Matilda's Easter Basket which I've also started but not got very far with so far.  I also really wanted to make her this outfit for Saturday, I've had the pattern for about 8 months now but I think it may be time to accept defeat on that idea. 

Hope your Easter plans are going well.  Have a good Good Friday!