Getting Ready for the Crafting Season !!

I am getting pretty excited about all the things that are being created by me right now! I am on a roll for sure!

 Lots of new colours for my knitted cowls for the A/W. Just had some labels made for them as well.

I searched ebay for these vintage cases for my craft table display. I wanted to keep with the theme of my new logos colours grey and yellow.I thought it would look great to have my owls and dolls displayed in them.

I am also working themes in for my owls this year too.The owls in stores will still be a mixture of what the store requests but I wanted to try something new for the craft shows. This is my favourite combo so far with the chocolate brown wool, the vintage plaid and the mustard yellow fleece. 

My labels for my Evie Dolls have also just arrived so will be posting pics of my kokeshi dolls very soon. There are also going to be doll prints, cards and other little items to go with that theme. If only I had a craft room! that is one dream that will have to wait a little longer.

Paper Craft Workbook from Idea to Reality

I am a mum and a yoga teacher and a yoga teacher trainer for Kids. This means having ideas for crafts to do with them in class and sharing ideas with others in my community teaching kids is also a must.

I had this idea a while back to create pdf books of my crafts and illustrations that others could buy and use. For example, you are hosting a fairy party or you are a yoga teacher teaching a yoga party for a huge group of 5 year old girls. You want a fun craft but you don't know what, or perhaps you just need to be budget conscious?! This workbook is super easy to use. You pick the page (we have a fairy one too) and then you either print it out or go to staples and they print it out. It has all the instructions on it and you can use it as many times as you want.

Here are some samples below :

You can email me or buy direct from my site Big Ocean Little Fish. There are 25 crafts in this book. Watch out for Book 2 and my holiday craft book.

Yummy Chocolate Pudding with a Secret Twist !!!!

So of course I had heard of making chocolate pudding with avocados and until yesterday that was all it was....here say. I found myself in a situation where I had too many ripe avocados and I guess that has never happened to me before! I needed to rustle up dessert for the kids and I am always on the look out for ideas to sneak in a few veggies. I looked at a few ideas online and then decided to make my own.

This recipe is good for about 4 decent portions. You could double up and it would keep in the fridge for a few days.

Ingredients :

4 ripe avocados

1/2 cup coconut milk (full fat)

3 tablespoons agave or maple syrup

1/8 to 1/4 cocoa powder

a pinch of salt

a bar of dark choc ( 80g) or mint dark choc

2 tsp vanilla essence

Put all ingredients in a processor and blend. You can add more syrup for sweeter taste and more cocoa for a stronger chocolate flavour.

When blended put in glasses and put in the freezer for 30 mins. The either eat and enjoy or keep chilled in the fridge.

You want owls your way ? ok!!

We love making owls and especially when you give us special things to make them out of. Here are a few we did lately.

These 4 beauties came from a kids bed cover fabric. Super cute and sentimental.

 This big guy we made out of a dad's sweater for his son.

This little brown owl was flying off to a little 2 year old who needed a 'rocking' owl from her very rock 'n' roll parents.

Let us know if you have a special owl request and we will be happy to make one just for you.

It's my party and I'll fly if I want to !!

So even though I told myself no more big parties, my inner party planner said yes let's do this!! I was informed by my youngest that it needed to be fairies this year for number 5 and so fairies is what she got.

 Rose petal plates and blossoms and butterflies added to the table cloth. Each glued by hand....yep couldn't help myself. I also like to do parties on a budget.

Toadstools set up ready for the activity part of the party. instead of musical chairs of course it was musical toadstools.

 The birthday girl herself embodying flower power fairy. Each fairy got wings, bracelets, a flower headband and a flower necklace. Most courtesy of the Dollar Store and the bracelets I found a big bag of about 200 for $3 at Value Village (thrift store). I bought the flower leis at the Dollar Store and then cut them up and re-threaded them on ribbon for the necklaces and on elastic for the head pieces.

Mini pancakes and chocolate bliss balls. The bliss balls were cocoa powder, dates and nuts blended together. A healthy treat that the kids thought was a naughty treat.

Cupcakes for birthday cakes with heart sprinkles and little wooden ladybugs. I bought the vintage cake stand from the thrift store a few years back. Perched on top are 2 little love birds.

Fairy photo booth. Even my son wanted to try it out.

 Looking for fairies.

Craft time. We made fairy wands and jewellery boxes to house all the sparkling bracelets that the fairies had won.

Let's celebrate turning 4 with a little sparkle!

So having left my design job many years back, I secretly or not so secretly love throwing my kids parties and spending weeks on the little details and trying to make as much of it myself.

Evie wanted a princess party and that is what she got. This was her little character below that I drew.

For each child I designed a little character that looked like them.

I made little fabric party bags. Each had a little tag with their name and character on.

I had found these gold stars on ebay so I added tulle and ribbon to the end to make princess wands.They also had some sparkly jewellery for dress up, a larger picture of their character and a glass pebble magnet again with them on it.

Pinterest helped me find a tutorial on tissue paper pompoms which we hung all over the garden.

The cake was a royal pink cushion with the glass slipper on it propping up Cinderella and Prince Charming Lalaloopsy dolls (E's favourite).

Ezra was a knight standing guard and only letting the guest list in. He was so in character !!

 We did face painting, dressing up in heels and jewels, making crowns and of course lots of eating yummy vegan treats.

Looking for a quiet birthday next year.....but we'll see.

Picnic Season is almost here!

I have been wanting to make a big picnic sheet for a while for our ever growing family and finally this weekend I got there. It also grew from there and once the sheet was done, I made a bag for it, some napkins and a bag for those too!

The sheet was a funky duvet cover that I found at Value Village over a year ago for $4.99. I opened it out and kept one edge sewn so we can double it or open it out to make a really huge sheet and then I hemmed all the way around.

The big denim bag was made from a pair of my hubby's jeans. The smaller bag was made from the leg of my jeans and finally the napkins I made from you fabric my friend just donated to my craft supply. Thanks Robyn!

So pretty happy to complete the whole project for $4.99 and a day of sewing.