Bottle tree planted

 Exciting news, Ray got the post hole digger out so I could plant this bottle tree! Well exciting for me, especially after planting my blueberry in what is the hardest ground I've found so far.

This lucky tree even got a rock edge from the fire pit I've been disassembling. The mulberry tree that you can see in the background, just behind the trampoline hasn't been too happy so it will need to be moved, but I'll wait for it to go dormant in winter. Things just do not grow very fast here, the weather and the soil aren't ideal.

Fingers crossed it will be happy in this spot and will give some shade when it's bigger, I feel like everything I plant here is an experiment!

Leilani dresses

 For Lily's birthday this year we are doing a chicken theme, so I got some gorgeous fabric and the Leilani pattern from Vintage Little Lady.

The first one I made in the simpler version as a trial run in this cute bunny fabric from Audrey's.

I did find sewing the elastic back awkward so when I did the chicken dress, I left the elastic out until after attaching the skirt at the back. I just sewed the back panel in place between the channels for the elastic. After I had gathered and attached the skirt at the back only, then I added the elastic and topstitched the sides down. Then continued gathering and attaching the front and sides of the skirt.

This was the first time I have used pom pom trim and it ended up being a pain trying to use the zipper foot. But I found using this clear foot along with poking the pom poms under the foot using my seam ripper worked best at getting it to stay put!

Now that the dress is finished I better get started on everything else for her party!

Potted grape and trellis

 So I made a decision recently to only buy more plants if I had a place ready to put them. Then we went to Bunnings where they had a grape vine on clearance...

Now to be fair, I put it back, then changed my mind and went back to get it again before actually buying it. So then I spent the drive home trying to figure out where on earth I was going to build a sturdy trellis for these grapes. By the next day I settled on where I want them, and the trellis I'm planning... but that is really low on the priority list.

After some more research, I made a quick, rustic stick trellis in a large pot for now. Future plans are to build a trellis along the side of our house that gets full afternoon sun, and where we store a whole lot of untidy junk for everyone to see as they drive past! I'm thinking I'll have shade cloth between the house roof and the grape trellis so I can use that space for my orchids and ferns. When the grapes are dormant I'll grow peas on the trellis to keep the privacy and shade.

Until then, I'm learning how to care for the grape vine, and will be able to propagate using cuttings when we have their future trellis built.

Toddler wrapping paper

 Toddlers, well mine at least, love painting! I've been getting her to paint useful things as Ray is getting quite the stack of Lily paintings on his desk.

This one was just from a roll of brown kraft paper that I normally use as wrapping paper with some pretty ribbon. But this time I put blobs and swirls of paint on the paper (cut to size for the intended present) and let Lily do whatever she wanted with the brush or her fingers, then repeated with the next colour.

For the cards and envelopes we do the same thing, but let it dry in between.

The kids presents for Christmas were painted and stamped the paper grocery bags, and we have done the blob and swirl technique on them as well, but they weren't big enough for this gift.