All Dolled Up

Little L recently acquired a new doll which needed kitting out with a wardrobe. It is an 18in girl type doll and while I have lots of patterns for baby and fashion dolls, most of which were ones that my mum used for mine and my sisters dolls, I had nothing to fit this kind. After nipping in to my local wool shop and finding none there I popped on to my favourite on line site for sourcing patterns, Ravelry. There are absolutely loads plus a lot of them were free and Little L had fun choosing which designs she liked.

The coat and hat pictured below are both free patterns.

The following two designs are from patterns which I bought off Ravelry and both are designed by member Jacknitss.

While searching the internet for this type of doll I came across this site, A Doll For All Seasons , full of clothes and accessories ideas to make for a little girls friend.

Soaking Up The Sunshine

The weather here this week has been fantastic and after abit of nagging by the children I put the paddling pool up today ( I'm always slightly reluctant to fill the paddling pool only for it to rain the following day ).

Little L had a great time splashing about but after awhile was feeling a tad lonely on her own. She loves her brothers joining in with her even if its only to splash and jump all over them. My eldest boy couldn't join in even though he wanted to sit in and cool off. He broke his wrist on Monday at school playing football and he has to keep his cast dry.

It doesn't affect his school work much as they hardly seem to use pen and paper these days with most of the school work done on a computer. What he can't do at school is his favourite subject, PE. He's not to keen on just standing in the sidelines, watching everyone else.

Yesterday my sister was in the area and paid me a visit. While Jay was here she put these little doo dahs ( I can't remember what they are called ) on the chickies. The naughty things have started to eat their own eggs. The doo dahs stop them from pecking but they can still eat. We had already tried to put mustard filled eggs in with them to put them off. Initially they were put off by them then they ate those too. Also two of the chickies are broody at the moment so I bought some hatching eggs and popped them underneath them so hopefully we will have some new additions here soon.

Wood Effect Pendants

This afternoon I was busy with my craft knife cutting out pendants from some wood effect vinyl sheets. My husband is always bringing 'junk' home from work after they have been having a sort out just in case I can find a use for it. The wood effect vinyl is taken from an old sample book which was used in the show room for customers to choose which type of wood they wanted for their kitchen.

Yesterday while looking through crafty blogs I saw this post for making paper pendants and thought I'd give it a go using the sample book. I wasn't sure if my craft knife would cut through but it did manage after going around about 4 times.

It was quite relaxing just sitting and cutting and made a change from using fabric or wool.

Feeling Abit Off

My blog posts have been lacking lately due to feeling not quite myself. I did have a little debate with myself as to whether to ramble on about my aches and pains but I thought I'd explain my posts aren't as frequent.

 My hands are painful at the moment so that is limiting what I'm up to craft wise. I'm finding I can hardly do anything these days as they just seem to hurt with doing everyday things. I'm still going to physio and wearing whatever gloves and splints they give me to try and help.

 I also have been seeing a doctor with leg pains. It started almost four months ago with a pain at the top of my leg so I thought maybe I had pulled something and was trying anti imflamertries for a few months but when it didn't disappear and seemed to spread down my leg and cause me to limp I thought I'd better visit the doctors. She thought it may be nerve related and gave me some tablets. I took these for a month and by now my knee had started to swell. I went back yesterday and she said she doesn't know what it is and to take paracetamol. Well I can't take paracetamol indefinitely, still don't know what the problem is so I'll have to see another doctor to get to the bottom of things.

To top all that I started with a stinky cold. Anders took yesterday off work because it was our wedding anniversary and had bought me a camera for an anniversary present. The plan was to go out and take some snaps but I should know by now not to plan things as it rarely goes smoothly because I spent most of the day on the sofa, under a blanket with a box of tissues.

This camera cost £79 in the UK Lomography shop but I found mine in the sales section on Modcloth for $44.99, a massive saving. I was really pleased when I found it for that price.

On Saturday I made these cookies from a recipe I'd seen on A Spoonful Of Sugar blog. They were lovely, one recipe I'll definitely be using again.

Also at the weekend I made these little ewoks at the request of my son. As soon as my youngest boy saw these he asked if I would made him one then heard Little L piping up 'me too, me too'. Never mind she didn't know what he wanted, she does not like to feel left out.

The pattern for these can be found on the Wild Olive blog.

Things Are Looking Brighter

With parts of the UK being issued flood warnings and other regions still facing drought conditions, the weather here has been pretty messed up lately. All it has seemed to do for weeks is rain. Yesterday and today (so far) has been rain free so I popped out to take some snaps of the garden.

Two days of Little L being able to play out and not come in caked in mud and the chickies not having muddy feet.

Two days of pegging washing out. I've been running round the house like a mad woman, washing anything I can lay my hands on.

The lawn is in desperate need of mowing but the ground has been too soggy lately and the bottom of the garden is like a field of dandelions

These are what I have been up to craft wise. One is going to be a picture for Little L and the tray cloth is for my Dad.