London Mummy

Craft Fix - Turning a thrifted skirt into a girl's dress

What I hear you cry, two posts in one week, can it be true?  Yes folks and not only that but I've managed to dig my sewing machine out from under dust-sheets and the boxes of contents from  Livvy's bedroom  in order to do a little sewing - hooray!

So I had a little go at my own upcycling fashion re-make - a dress for a friend's 20 month old daughter from a thrifted skirt.

I love to visit car boot sales, although since giving up having a car in London a few years ago, don't get to many of my old favourites anymore,  but there is a fairly large one held once a month quite near us which Livvy and I tend to visit along with our local Farmer's Market - I bribe Livvy into getting up and out at 7am on a Car Boot Sunday with the promise of a delicious treat :)

As a complete fabric addict I do like to rifle through the clothes sometimes looking for interesting looking prints and when I spotted a huge box pleated skirt for £1.00  couldn't resist.  After unpicking the pleats, removing the waistband etc  I ended up with a good 3 to 4 metres of fabric:

I sort of used this pattern which Livvy and I found while sorting out some boxes of ribbons and patterns but ended up making a fair few changes - probably would have been easier and quicker just to draft my own pattern!

I didn't want sleeves and I thought the skirt part looked too full,  although in hindsight it would probably have been ok.  I also wanted to line the bodice part with some plain pink cotton from my fabric stash.

I used some satin binding from my stash which to be honest am not too sure about - but then that could be because my stitching looks pretty awful - I didn't have the right match for the thread and was too impatient to wait until I could nip out to the store to get some! 

Anyhow, end result seems ok, just hope my friend likes it and that it fits ...........

 

Strawberry Luna - Original Hand Screen Printed Art - for babies, kids and grown-ups

I don't know about you, but I love to follow a Flickr trail, you know when someone adds a comment or one of your photos to their favourites.  I like to take a look at that person's photos and then their favourites which often leads me to some new things for me to love :)

Which is exactly how I came across the posters and Alphabet Prints of talented designer and screen printer Allison of  Strawberry Luna

I have always loved this colour combination and as we all know, I have something of a penchant for houses too :)  Everything about this composition just works for me.

Or how about this one:

Now in real life, I'm not a cat lover but even I have to admit that this one is cute!

Allison also designs and hand screen prints some lovely limited edition Alphabet Prints which have a wonderful nostalgic feel to them, here are a few of my favourites, although I had a tough time choosing as there were just so many that I like. 

Priced at $15 each plus postage - my fellow Europeans will be delighted to hear that Allison does ship internationally - I think these are tremendously good value. 

These would be an adorable addition to any nursery or playroom and would be a very welcome new baby gift I'm sure.

 

Actually I know a fair few adults who would love this on their walls ........

How could I resist when we all know just how much I love owls, be they Festive Ones for Christmas or just normal everyday fun ones.

Birds in a tree, yep that works for me too!

 

To see the rest of the collection and purchase any of  Allison's prints and posters, visit the Strawberry Luna website.

Do let me know what you think and you can also check out Allison's Flickr Photostream.

Bushcraft in London for kids, well and grown-ups too

As always the summer holidays seem to be flying by at an alarming rate.  I've now got a couple of weeks away from my paid employment so trying to progress Livvy's room and have some fun with her too.

Yesterday we took part  in a Bushcraft event at the wonderful Gunnersbury Triangle Nature Reserve which was organized by the London Wildlife Trust.  The trust is the only charity working throughout the London area  to help London's wildlife.  As well as managing a whole range of nature reserves, the Trust campaigns to save green spaces from harmful development and provides information about wildlife and works with schools and local communities.

Image courtesy of  London Wildlife Trust

Being a huge fan of Bushcraft expert, Ray Mears I was really keen for Livvy to give this a go, particularly as I was  pretty keen myself  and judging by the high proportion of other adults there, I wasn't the only one :)

Our ranger for the event was a lovely Spanish guy called Enrique who was blessed with infinite patience.  He showed us a variety of natural tinder,  which can be easily harvested from the wild without causing damage to the natural environment.  With just a small bundle of silver birch bark, a firesteel and a knife, he very quickly impressed us - by running the blunt edge of his knife quickly along the fire steel an array of sparks appeared, reminding me somewhat of fireworks - "Wicked!" exclaimed the 11 year old boy sitting next to Livvy and from that point on he was absolutely riveted.  Apparently the silver birch bark contains an oil which makes it a great natural fire lighter, once it ignites the flames will last long enough for you to build up your fire.

Enrique also demonstrated how to create a portable ember using a cramp ball fungus or King Alfreds Cake, these are the fruiting bodies of a fungus which decays the dead wood of an ash tree.  The inside can be ignited by a spark from the firesteel and it then burns very slowly, somewhat like a briquette used in a bbq, it can then be used to light some tinder to get a fire started.  Apparently they make good hand warmers too, as the exterior is warm but not too hot to handle.

Another ingenious piece of kit was the fire piston which works on the principle that when the air within it  is suddenly compressed, the heat in the air in the cylinder is concentrated enough to ignite a small piece of tinder which has been inserted into the lower end of the piston - magical!

Anyway, after the demonstrations, it was our turn.  Enrique led us to another part of the reserve where there were several silver birch trees and showed us how to gently peel the bark - this doesn't harm the tree as silver birch naturally shed their bark. 

This was the point that we all realized just how easy he had made it look!  Several attempts with the knife and firesteel and I couldn't even produce any sparks - Livvy, who was using a pair of scissors in place of the knife, as you need to have a fair amount of strength to hold the very sharp knife very still, was producing some very impressive sparks .  Even when you have mastered creating the sparks you've then got to get them to land where you want - i.e. on your tinder!  It took some time but we all managed it in the end and the sense of achievement was absolutely wonderful, even though it had started to rain again at that point!

Needless to say, after the event we went straight to Blacks and purchased a firesteel, cannot wait to put this new found skill into practice on our next camping trip - I really really want to go here!