Will I make it in time?

Winter is coming and the perfect time to snuggle up on the couch and do some knitting.

I finally finished my pillow project, a pillow pattern based on a picture I saw online of the quatrefoil pattern. Using about 5 skeins of cotton yarn from Søstrene Grene on 2,5mm needles (I think it was).

finally done

Now over to my new project, Marius dress for both SweetieS and SweetieL before they take kindergarden pictures.

Earlier this fall I went to my local library and borrowed the book “Marius strikkebok” with lovely knitting patterns with the popular Norwegian pattern Marius. This time I desided to modify a vest pattern into a dress for the girls. Colors were choosen by the girls and yarn was ordered from Garnius (pst! Drops alpaca yarn is on sale till the end of this year!)

 
in the starting pit of SweetieLs dress

The dates for kindergarten pictures has still to be announced. But since I am making not one, but two dresses. I hope I make it in time…

- what are you doing these cold Autumn days?
- what’s your latest knitting project?

Another weekend with Teddy

The past weekend we got to have SweetieS kindergarten mascot Teddy for a visit.It’s been about a year since we had him for a visit. (in case you missed it, here is the post)

Sine we last saw him Teddy has been “upgraded” with new clothes and a new buddy, Little Teddy. This time SweetieS put in a request for a new hat for Teddy. With temperature rapid falling these days, SweetieS felt Teddy need a warm hat. So I was put to work. I did a quick Google search to have a base to start with. I found this pattern. Starting with 68 stitches I knitted until I felt it was big enough.

I’m still looking for Lille Teddy. He went to bed with Teddy and SweetieS and has yet to show up…I’ve emptied the bed (SweetieS has “a few” stuffed animals) and still no sign of him…

These days the windows in our house are being changed. So the weekend was spendt clearing and getting ready for the upcoming renovation, while the girls had a sleep over at the grand parents.

- how have you spendt your weekend?

I “heart” NY

Just a few days ago I wrapped up my annual New York (US?) trip with mummy dearest.

This time around we actually had time to both do some sightseeing and shopping. Not like last time, were my suitcase suit case tok a few rounds extra around the world (read its story here).

I had in advanced ordered the New York Pass. These passes are great if you plan on doing some sightseeing over a few days, or even just one day. If you download the app, you can plan in advance. The app had a nice feature for setting up an agenda for the day and gives a calculated savings overview. Great to check if it is worth investing in a pass at all. I recommend starting out early the sightseeing day(s), a lot of time is wasted in ticket queues and (airportlike) security checks. Oh and pick up your pass in advance! so you don’t waste time queing for the pass. The pass is activated upon the first attraction.

A sunny day

Summer is slowly coming to Oslo, Norway. On this this beautiful sunny day we went for a longer drive and visited a friend DaffyM in Bødalen (Norwegian for boo-valley). Mostly because SweetieL is very intimidated by dogs, and my friend has a cute little jack russell terrier called Bella. We planned a longer visit for SweetieL to warm up to Bella. A few hours later SweetieL isn’t runing after dogs, but she doesn’t run the opposite direction either. So some progress. We might have to give it a few more rounds before SweetieL warms up to dogs…

Part of warming up for our visit, I have been showing SweetieL pictures of Bella. And this picture on the Garnstudio website is a nice picture of a jack. In this pciture there is a very nice coat for dogs. So why not make it for little Bella? well just a few days before our visit I dug out the necessary yarns and started. After making a major mistake (I misread the pattern) I had to almost restart this project. But with a few hours less sleep this weekend I finished in time for our visit…

sweet little Bella

I followed the pattern called “The lookout” by Drops design. I did however make it shorter than the measurements for the medium size. Bella is on the petite side of Jack Russells. I used 3 skeins of Drops karisma In the color Lavendel – 074), I had some left over from a My sister & me project, where I made matching tunicas for the girls. Luckily Bella tested the coat long enough for a snap.

- how have you spent this beautiful day off?

The month of May

The month of May is a hectic month at CasaR. With Norways national day just passed, I have my hands full with planing and getting ready for the birthday of SweetieS and SweetieL. As they both are born on the same day it’s double the trouble fun.

As part of getting CasaR ready for the hoards of family and friends coming over, I have tried to organize our hallway. After SweetieL began kindergarten…it has been a constant mess…well some of it anyways…the shoes to start with…

before	after

I upgraded our existing IKEA setup. The old setup was two Tjusig shoe racks combined. I just added a third rack (remember to secure them together) and on top a Elvarli shelf on top. I added a few Grundtal hooks on the top rack so the girls can hang their jackets when they get in the door.

May 17th is Norways constitution day…so we all dressed up and went out. It is a tradition in my neighbourhood to have a May 17th parade….so we joined that. The girls mood was not dampened by the few raindrops that came falling down.

SweetieS	SweetieL

This week is full of events @CasaR. So when I get my head over water I’ll post an update on the girls birthday celebrations….

No way back now…

Yesterday the invites went out to SweetieS birthday celebration with her kindergarten friends. Am I the only one a little nervous when sending out 17(!) invites? I have been researching and doodling around what theme. After checking with SweetieS we landed on My Little Pony theme.

I had fun making last years invites. (the post about last year “happening” is here) So again, thanx to Pintrest I got hold of a template I wanted to use for the invites. The original door hanger is available here. I did some editing on the originals to make it more “invite friendly”. The backside is mirrored and with party details.

Last year we had the kids over for 2 hours. Those are two intens hours….but worth it. SweetieS was very pleased with everything. The difference this time is that we are also inviting “the boys”. Hopefully it won’t get too out of hand….

Still two weeks until the event…so until then no more pictures. I know some of you mums attending read my blog, so no spoilers.

- how do you plan your kids birthday parties?
- do you have any smart tips to share?

Busy bee

First of all Happy Chinese New Year to all my readers in “Bloglandia”. Or Gong Xi Fa Chai for those whom understand Chinese. In the lack of massive amounts of energy, this year we opted for just cleaning house and not decorating for the Chinese New Year as we have done earlier years. Out new year dinner was as tradition entales, steamboat. Yummy!

The year of the Monkey ended with bumps and scratches for all the girls in CasaR. The last day of the year was a cold one and resulted in icy streets and super slippery. If you happened to be in our neighborhood Friday afternoon, you would have seen the three of us scattered over the sidewalk as we all slipped on the icy sidewalks. To this day, my” mummy heart” still hurts a little when seen SweetieLs face…Hopefully the year of the Rooster will be better…

poor little one

This weekend I did some repair work on SweetieS winter coveralls. Just before the weekend I saw that the seam had started to fall apart. Rather than wasting a perfectly usable coverall, I looked into how to patch it up.

So Saturday I took a trip to my local fabric store Stoff og Stil and looked for fabrics I could use. My requirements for the fabric were “simple”, it had to be durable and semi-waterproof. I found some waxed (I think it’s waxed) and a cool Paw Patrol fabric. SweetieS was superhappy with the result. Now to see how it holds up with the daily wear and tear SweetieS puts it to…

I also finally finished my second Skappelgenser. Well this one has a twist to the original pattern. I had knitted it one size too small. Rather than starting over I added cables on the sides. This sweater is knitted with Drops Big Delight in the color Rosehage (01) and Drops Brushed Alpaca Silke Lys beige (04) on 7mm needles. For this project I used about 7 skeins of each.

finally done…	close up of the cable along the sides

Now of to play with my latest toy, the Gyro-cutter. I bought this cutter iwth plans to kiss cut stickers for my planner. So far my first impression is that it works great. I bought mine of Ebay, from this seller.

Here I cut out the text “April” from a printed label sticker.

- How have you started your year of the Rooster?

A “quick” DYI

This DYI project was quick to assemble but not so fast when it comes to the accquering of the supplies.
With kids in house we buy raisins on a regular basis. One day when I had an empty box at hand I though these might work…for a bottle rack for all the drinking bottles the girls have.
So we went from this…

a small chaos of drinking bottles

to this…

using these…

They are simply glued together using a hot glue gun. Still need a few more raisin boxes. Happy with this solution.
-have you done any DYI projects lately?

Shake, shake, shake

Last years Christmas card from CasaR was a shaker card. To make the card I used the We’r’memory keepers Fuse tool. Bitten by the shaker cards bug I thought I would make more….but I want the shaker bits to be personalized for the recipient. So no mass production of cards to have at hand.

I made a shaker card for my nieces birthday, but of course I forgot to snap a picture.

Well this weekend I made one for one of the girls in SweetieS kindergarten….Happy birthday Dina! I had some postit shaped like an iphone, so inspired by a card I saw on pintrest, I made this…

I just love my Wink of Stella pens, they as such a nice shimmer. I used the clear pen for the iphone background. For the bubbles I used a sky blue and a purplish pen. Not sure if the picture does the shine justice….

I tried taking a picture of just the background…

I think I’ll just link to a video by Jennifer Mcguire here. In the video she shows how she adds shine to cards using the Wink of Stella pens.

-have you made shaker cards?

New year, new possibilities

A belated Happy new year dear readers. Hope the new year has been good to you so far…

The past weeks I have been playing a stay-at-home-mom. Kuddos to all you stay-at-home-moms! You are doing a wonderful unappreciated job! Having that said, it’s good to be back to work.

I had a few extra days off work, to complete my latest projects….reorganizing our home. I’ve had time to think over the past few weeks, and concluded that a clean organized home equals a happy home. I started writing a list (me and my lists) over what I wanted changed. And the wishlist wasn’t very short….I started with moving the girls toys from the living room to the attic/play room. Over the holidays we got tired of constantly tripping/cleaning/stepping on toys all over the living room. The girls still have the Expedit in the living room, just with way less stuff. I’ve keep things like beads and coloring stuff. But clearing storage space and making a play area in the attic was the biggest task. The attic has, until recently, been a guest and office room. So it took some time to just repurpose the space.

After an inspiring read on a storage solutions post by Estella (love that she is from Singapore and into much the same things as myself….) and this post to be exact, I was inspire to redo the girls clothing dressers also. This way the girls can quickly get an overview over what they have in the drawers and get the clothes out much more efficiently. As an added bonus, the clothes take up much less space!

before…	after…

I great tip I got from blog reading was the “random cubby”. My OCD prefers that everything has it’s place when being put away. So the random cubby is for the quick clean ups. For when you are in a hurry and don’t have time to find the corresponding parts/place for everything. Just need to find a cute and handy cubby….guess I should plan for a trip to IKEA soon. The list of handy stuff to get is getting longer and longer as I progress in my reorganizing.

After this first wave of reorganizing I have decided to take a break. Let the dust settle and see how well my chosen solution works in real life…

-how to you organize your kids toys?
-have you come over some supersmart organization tips?