The perfect present for a 6 month old...

When my husband was looking for his next cross stitching project he saw this kit and just knew that he wanted to sew it for our daughter who has just turned six months old.

My husband dedicates a lot of time to reading our daughter books of every kind but she especially loves the Mr Men books. So when he spied a height chart with mr men he simply had to give it a go.

The hardest part was trying to find the right place to start as finding middle of such a long project was not easy... But once he started on one the rest fell into place.

He has probably taken about a month to complete the project by completing a bit every night...

When he finished the pattern he also wanted to dedicate it to our daughter... Her nickname is 'little face' hence why it says 'for face'. My husband was particularly pleased with this as he didn't follow a pattern and did it freehand.

The piece is now waiting to be stretched and framed and hopefully will be enjoyed for years to come...

Under the sea...

When I told my husband that we were expecting our daughter the first thing he wanted to do was get the baby's room ready by painting a mural on the wall.

I left the design up to him and, because we didn't know the sex of the baby, he needed to find something that would suit either a boy or a girl.

He decided to do a sea scene...

As I have said before me and my husband are a bit batty about animals so he chose animals which we both like...

He drew the pattern on a piece of paper first all before tracing the pattern on the wall in pencil.

He then worked out what colours he needed and also looked through the half used pots of paint that we had left over from decorating the house when we moved in.

He then set to work.

After painting he then outlined the pictures in sharpie.

I love what he has done... It was a labour of love... What do you think?

Pull yourself together...

Most people when they go through the 'nesting' stage of pregnancy start cleaning out cupboards, painting skirting boards or just generally blitz their homes.
I made curtains.

 In the weeks leading up to my daughters birth I set about making two lots of curtains - one set for my baby-to-be and the second for our dining room. (I am going to add that our dining room leads to a conservatory so doesn't really need curtains... But as my husband learnt - never argue with a pregnant woman!) As these were replacing existing curtains which were already up when we moved in three years ago I used them as a pattern for the new ones. I pinned the material to the existing curtains to get the length and hung them up to make sure I was hanging it straight. The same was then done with the lining which was blackout material for the baby's room and just a cheap cotton lining for the dining room. In the baby's room the blackout material was quite easy to work with (although I needed to adjust the setting on my sewing machine so that the extra thickness didn't jam it).

 For the hanging loops I unpicked one of the existing ones to check for size. I cut out the desired amount (remembering a seam allowance), pressed and then sewed. The loops were attached to the top of the curtains between the main fabric and the blackout material to make it look a bit neater.

 In the dining room it was not quite as straightforward. The material that I had bought was not quite long enough for the proposed windows so I decided to lengthen them with a strip of black material attached to the bottom and use the same black material to make the curtain loops. The bottom piece was measured umpteen times as I wanted it to be straight and to look good. It was a tense moment after sewing everything on and hang inning the curtains for a final time ... But ultimately it was a success. As I had some of the main fabric left so made a couple of curtain ties using an existing one as a template and used bias binding to tidy up the edges plus a curtain ring as the finishing touch.

 Thankfully the curtains were finished in plenty of time for my daughters arrival - I doubt I would have had the patience after she had been born!