The Small Forest Shop, handmade Gippsland sweetness

Wendy Hill is a lovely friend of mine and an amazing creative. Right at the end of last year she opened up a gorgeous little shop in an almost-hidden arcade in Warragul, in the Gippsland region of Victoria. It was really fun watching Wendy's Instagram updates as they prepared the shop for opening!

Here are some shots from opening night, which was a really fun party with clothes to try on and people to meet :) If you happen to visit the area, you'll find The Small Forest Shop at Shop 2, McLennan Arcade, Warragul. You can also find Wendy's lovely wares on etsy - https://www.etsy.com/au/shop/smallforestshop

Into the woods!

It's La-la-land around here

Or should I say, Lalaloopsyland... Sienna started collecting mini lalaloopsy dolls a year ago, with the first eight released, and now has a bit of a collection of mini dolls, two big lalaloopsies - Lady Stillwaiting and Blossom Flowerpot (who has been sadly decorated in permanent green texta by a certain little brother) - and one little sis' - Specs Read-a-Lot (from Auntie Kell). Mini Pillow Featherbed has a broken (missing) leg and Dot Starlight had to have a funeral after she was beheaded by Cedar. Sienna decorated a cardboard box very prettily for the occasion.

Sienna also has the mini lalaloopsy treehouse, and my parents recently bought her the remote control mini lalaloopsy car, plus she has bits and pieces from playsets, like the bath tub (from Auntie Hayley), the bed and the cafe table and chairs. All quite itty bitty and cute. She has the DS game and loves playing on the website. She draws pictures of them and makes up her own picture books about them. She dresses up in similar outfits on the weekend, layering clothes that she has in the 'right' colours for her chosen character ;) In true Asperger style, she's either not that interested in something, or she's completely obsessed!

 

 

At the moment she is working towards some new mini dolls, plus the school bus, as part of her 'positive reinforcement' for occupational therapy. For each week where she does all her homework - 3 times a week - and her OT session itself, in a cooperative fashion, she gets one mini doll. At the end of the 6 week block she gets the bus if she's checked every box on her chart. But my point is, she's been collecting them for awhile now but it's only really the last two or three months that she has become really obsessed with them. Ash and Cedar each have two mini dolls and a big one too, they love them. Not as much as Sienna, but still. Ash has all the 'Patch Treasure Chest' pirate ones, not surprisingly, and Cedar has the big 'Sir Battlescarred', the mini 'Forest Evergreen' and the mini 'Ace Fender Bender'. These ones below are on the shopping / wish list....

So, anyway, when informed on Friday that she needed a pencil case, I thought we'd make her one with a bit of Lalaloopsy flavour. I'm not generally one to buy branded things like clothes and pencil cases, but I'm happy to make one, LOL. It was quite fun to ignore my to-do list and do some stitching for a change. This was all using stuff I had around, though I did have to cut up an old hoodie of Cedar's to use the zip. She requested the owl - Bea Spells-A-Lot's pet - be included to suit the school theme, so I made it a zip puller.

 

 

 

 

It made an 8-year-old girl very happy, though, so it's all good :)

I wanted to link up with 'Pin it? Make it!' on Kell's blog, but the truth is I searched pinterest for pencil cases and there were barely any at all. So I just started from scratch and made it up out of my head. Maybe someone else will pin it and make it one day!

Upcycling with Ants

If you read the Artsy Ants blog you will already know they had an awesome series last week about 'Upcycling' clothing. A couple of my projects were featured, including a lamp shade I made from an op-shopped pillowcase and my use of an iron-on (from a scanned illustration) to embellish a plain tshirt...

My favourite ideas are the 90-minute-shirt Sylvia made in this post, and I do tend to keep Ben's old tshirts with the intention of making pyjamas or tops out of them for the little boys... but I never seem to get around to it! Sylvia also featured in one post a book of Sukie iron-ons that Kell and I have had for ages and ages but not gotten around to using. I'm feeling a bit more motivated to get them out and use them now! The artsy ants girls are very inspiring, though, check them out :)

Foxie in the Forest

Anyone who has been around Sienna lately knows she is obsessed with foxes. I'm not sure where it comes from, exactly, though I do remember she had a thing for them last year it has just increased in intensity over the last couple of months. We now have the movie The Fox and the Child on dvd and she just loves the little things. Anyhow, I made her a library bag for this year for school with some of the lovely thick felt the gorgeous Viv sent me, and it just had to have the fox theme, of course!

I pretty much made it up as I went along and am quite happy with how it turned out. Pretty ordinary photo, I know, the bag was full of scrap supplies when I took it, I was showing it to the girls at a craft group I'm in, as I had started making it while there a few weeks back. Today she has taken it to library and will bring it home with books to read :)

The winner...

of my 400 post giveaway is comment number...

Kayla Renee! Email your postal address to danielleq@gmail.com to receive your surprise package :) When you do, don't forget to let me know if you'd like 1. something creative by me, 2. the chance to have me create something for you, or 3. a selection of creative supplies.

For a creative share, here is my layout from the latest Scrapbook Creations, for this issue we were assigned pink, black and white as a colour combo. There was no doubt in my mind who to feature - my favourite, gorgeous, 'looks way too grown up for 5' niece Alannah. She's just turned 6 but these photos were taken back in March.

I also made a gift last week for the Teacher's Aide in Sienna's class, she spends a lot of time with Sienna (particularly during emotional outbursts!) and is just so sweet. I made the notebook cover inspired by a project in 'Meet Me At Mikes' and used an embroidery pattern by Elsie Flannigan for the bird.
And, since every post needs a Cedar fix for Auntie Hayley (etc), here is the photo I took for the Huggies Jeans for Genes day photo competition

Stuff I've been making

Layout just for fun - using Elle's Studio tags from the Q Tea Baboushka Baby kit, and a few items from Kiti Q, such as this Sass Lass paper.
Check out the funky stamp, one of Lusi Austin's designs for Buzz & Bloom. This journaling spot is from this stamp set.
The layout also features a couple more Sassafras Lass papers from Kiti Q, some new Hambly (from the RAK I got from them), and some Pink Paislee alphabet stickers. Photos are of Viv's girls and Sienna eating gelati at Noarlunga in March.
I did this layout last night for ScrapBoutique's April cybercrop challenge. One of the challenges was to use a new technique you've not used before on a layout, and I've never used wire before. I got a cute little spool of red wire in a RAK from Emily F, so was glad to try it out :)
These PJs for Ash. I *thought* I was making them a generous size, actually they are exactly right just now. He is always bigger than I think he is. Size 3 now, and very little difference between him and Sienna. I made Sienna a top (below), but am still playing around with getting necklines right on stretch tops. I keep trying different methods - Ash's PJ neckline was more successful. I also made Sienna a vintage-y embellished cord skirt, will hopefully photograph this week.