New Arrivals, Decorations and Gift Ideas

Well, it's been a month and a half since my last post. A busy month and a half, mind you, with such happenings as a baby being born and what-not. He is a very lovely little person and tends to make my heart melt at least ten times a day. However, he did not come gentle into this good world...and I am still feeling the effects of his rugged journey. The slow recovery is tiring and if I am not careful, I can end up feeling rather frustrated at being stuck at home for so long. I do try to see the positives in this, having a nice long time to get to know our little man, and plenty of time for our girl to adjust (she needs it, her world has changed in a big way). However, I feel that I am muchly in need of a project to focus on.

In the weeks before baby was born, I was nesting like crazy. I wanted to keep myself busy, and thus started and completed several craft projects, such as some Christmas decorations I was wanting to make (see pics to the right). In the weeks since baby was born, I have often wished I still had some projects on the go that did not require too much thinking, such as the above-mentioned Christmas decorations. Hmmm. I have slowly managed to get my head back into craft mode, with the motivation of making presents for my kids (that's plural now! ha!), and my niece and nephews. I think the projects I have in mind are probably a bit ambitious for the time and energy I have left before Christmas, but we'll see.


I plan to start with a project for my 2-year-old girl, as we are not buying presents for the kids this year. We have just spent too much money renovating their playroom, meaning we can't afford much else, so I guess we are considering that their main gift. But I can't not have something for her to unwrap on Christmas morning! So after much thought, the project I have in mind is a personalised quiet book to help keep her occupied when we are out and about, on car trips, in doctors' waiting rooms, and so on.

I have drawn inspiration from Pinterest once again - or rather, from blogs I have found through Pinterest. This is one I particularly liked. What a gorgeous quiet book, and I love the philosophy behind the blog as well ('How to live in poverty and still have it all').

So at first I was going to make a very similar quiet book to the one mentioned above, but then I had another idea...to do a personalised story-format quiet book for Eliza, about Eliza. I have chosen a morning routine theme, with activities based around things she does each morning (or things I want her to learn to do!). I'll keep you posted as to the progress of this rather involved and fiddly project. Hopefully now that I've got a clear idea in mind, and have done some sketches, I'll get some momentum going and tackle this project with all the angst of a stuck-at-home-because-I'm-too-sore-to-go-out-mother-of-new-baby!!