Postcards for Tama

Tama and I have spent a LARGE amount of time watching heavy machinery of various sorts and types and in various locations. I wanted to be able to do something with all the great photos I had taken. Something that both allowed him to enjoy them and also to build on the knowledge that he already had. It needed to be heavy duty to stand up to his attention and I wanted the option to be able to add to it. Hence the project Postcards To Tama was born. I printed a batch of the photos we had so far as 8x6 photos (Hooray for Harvey Norman specials!). I then glued them onto some medium weight thick cardboard. Each week I try and write out 2-3 cards and then post them back home to Tama one every couple of days.

He talks endlessly about the Po-post (Postman), the Ma-may (Mail), and his le-lers (Letters).

Tama knows when the mail is for him-

"T- Tatum" (T is for Tama)

We race inside and he opens them up.

 

  I try and keep to the same format in my text each time:

Dear Tama,

Something about what we saw. 

A question that will lead to some discussion.

Love Mum xo

He opens the letter... checks out today's picture and various conversation ensues about what it is and what it does. Then he turns it over and 'reads' it: 

"Dear Tatum. Luff Mum. Tiss, Ta-tuff"

 

Dear Tama. Love Mum xo

After he's done savouring I punch a hole in the corner of the card and add it to a book ring with all the other cards on it- by the time we're done he'll have quite a collection.

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Woven

So I have a bit of a sentimental attachment to the kids baby clothes. Woven into the very fibres are my memories. The size of their little bodies. The softness, the smell and so many adventures. Specific items bring to mind certain babies- even Saskia is in there. I have got a least one key outfit  in each of their memory boxes- a item that just screams "Will" or "Kieran" or.... And I did manage to move some of it on to the Op shop. But the stack above remained. I don't want to hold onto too much stuff so I came up with a plan, and on my recent day off I started to execute it.

When I went through the stack there were a few more items I realised I couldn't bring myself to use for this project so these went in their memory boxes as well.

Then I cut the rest up.....

  
And now I have a pile of what was the largest square or rectangular piece or pieces I could cut from each item. And some time in the not too distant future I'm going to sew them all together and make myself a quilt. So long after my babies grow up and leave home I'll be able to wrap myself up in the memories of them that I cherish.
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Horsin' around

The Stick Horses from Will's school needed some tender loving care. Three of them managed to get away with minor repairs but the other three needed a complete facelift. I've never made anything like this before which makes me even happier with the results which I think are pretty darn good. All in all with a little recycling, op-shopping, and stash busting I think they cost about $12 for all three.

If you want to have a go I used the tutorial here at Mad Mim.

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Recycling

Our shire has what they call a verge side collection every six months. Much like the inorganic in Auckland- only it's pretty much everything. I spotted the notice board below as I was going past some ones pile the other day on the way to grab the kids. Then on my way back past I didn't see it and figured someone had scored it. A week or so later and I see it again so stopped by and grabbed it.

As you can see the notice board is mouldy and mildewy but other than that it's in pretty good condition. I stripped it back to it's bare bones and left it out in the sun as the week long sit outside had left it a bit damp.

 Then when I had my 'day off' I dug through my fabric stash for something suitable. The only piece I had that was big enough was a piece of amazing red silk which I am totally in love with and wish I could find a use for. It wasn't the best choice for this project but it was the only choice without having to waste precious time on a trip to spotlight.

30 minutes and a bunch of staples later... done!

(I ran out of black ribbon but I actually like the green here anyway and may look at replacing all the black if I can find a similar colour ribbon some where.)

Then I installed it in it's new home.

 

And I love it!

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Makes Me Happy #1....

 
We recently (finally) got our canvas printed!!! We got a groupon for $19 that got us 70% off and if we spent more than $100 we got free postage... so we got a second canvas with Saskia's Balloons to take us over the $100 mark!

Even better it's already on the wall and I can look at it from where I sit to feed Tama and watch the telly... love, love, love!


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Photo Books!!

I'm super excited because last Monday I uploaded the pages from our 2012 and 2011365 projects to Snapfish to create a couple of 30x30cm Photo books. I honestly wasn't sure we'd ever get these printed because the full cost of doing so was quite prohibitive. But since Snapfish introduced this size at a reasonable cost and with the added bonus of 50% off the books and extra pages it wasn't so bad (about $45 for a 54 page book). It's certainly a heap better than it would have been had I done this as a paper scrapbooking project. It will also take up a whole heap less space. They extended the deal till today I am hoping that mine will be ready for pick-up today so I can check out the printing and quality and order the other three books before it finishes. These are the covers for the books I have loaded up. You can see all the inside pages here.

 2009 Intro Page

 

5 years of Will: Will's monthly pages are in this one and a selection of four '9:38 photos from each year as an intro to each year. I'll do one for Tama when he is 5 as well- super cool!

 

Back cover for each book.

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Advent 3

Handmade Gift

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And Create I did!

So after yesterdays read/write/create conundrum (oh poor me spoilt for choice). I raced off and gathered together the above from my fabric stash. And made these.....

 

I made the pinwheely one first before I  had to go grab the kids from Kindy.

It's a pencil roll based loosely on the design in Soulemama's Book, The Creative Family.  The Brown one is for Will and the other for Emily (and then eventually the baby) to go in their 'Netball Bags' which is a kit (books, pads, stamps, stickers and pencils) that we take to Netball Practice to keep the kids entertained when the weather is crappy or they are just too tired to play on the playground.

If you are a scrapbooker and you think that fabric looks familiar that's because it's the Basic Grey Figgy Pudding line which they do in both paper and fabric.

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St Patrick's Day!

St Patrick's Day presented an easy opportunity to do something nice for Merenia's teacher this term. I threw together this bag topper (a modified pre-made one from the Daily Digi) and decorated up a Starbucks Cup. (Miss Yap drinks a Long Black- which comes in a short cup- cheaper than a venti- bonus!) I also put together one for Les as well. Will and I dropped them at their respective work places for Morning Tea.

For some reason I was thinking that Jaffa's were orange and they were my 'gold' but they're actually red- duh!   

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Been Busy

I don't normally share scrapbooking stuff on here (rather on See.Share) but I thought it might be helpful to give an indicator of why the blogging has been a bit lax of late. This past Saturday was our team prize giving for Rugby and each of the boys got their own mini album to commemorate the season and a certificate as well. Sounds nice but in practice that is....

1100 photos.....

Laid out in order and sorted into individual albums....

2000+ Photo splits applied

2000+ photo split tabs pulled off and then photos stuck together back to back....

Which leaves a bunch of rubbish....

Which people gone mental from pulling tabs off then turn into faces....

20 bindings, 20 tags and 20 ribbons.....

All makes 20 albums....

Complete with a scoreboard for the season and a comment for each player also written by me. :-)

The parents in attendance all took some time out from the pool to have a really good look through and talk about them and such which was cool for me.

But here's the best part I took 6 boys (including my own) up to the Waiwera on Saturday and the first thing they ALL did when they got back in the car to go home was pull out the albums and look at them and talk about them and talk about the season and talk about their comments and just plain enjoy them for a really long time.... and that's exactly why I did it.

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