Jack Goes Into A Spica Cast

We had to report to Christchurch Hospital at 7am Monday morning, so we went up the afternoon before and stayed with some lovely friends in Kaiapoi. Jack was allowed his last bottle before his theatre date at 4.30am, so we all woke up at 4.20am and gave him a bottle. A very  long day that was. I was already tired by the time he went into theatre at 8.30am.

We arrived at the hospital just before 7am, got to the ward and shown to our room, and by 7.15am roughly had met our nurse - Andrew. He was lovely, but my gosh they work some long hours on the children's ward! 12 hour shifts. But we had Andrew for both days we were there, and he loved Jack, and for the most part, Jack loved him.

We also met our anesthetists on the ward about 7.30am and then the second one followed about 7.40am - they were lovely guys too. Next followed a surgeon I think, then another one. They drew on Jack's left leg so they would know exactly which one to work on.

We were taken up to theatre at 8.30am - so glad they weren't running late at all! Where Jack was still full of smiles, and I then donned a heap of blue to look something like a smurf, and Daddy took a blurry picture because he was a bit nervous to hold the camera steady. I accompanied Jack into the anesthetic room, and held him while they popped the mask over his face, he was really good, just a few cries before he started snoring and got moved to the bed. A quick kiss and I was off to join Edward. We went and got coffee and food, and then up to the family waiting room opposite the theatre, where we waited for 2 hours, but found another lovely couple to chat to the whole time, until the surgeons came out and told us he was done, no real surgery - YAY! They were able to just pop his hip back in and then release the tendon. They were casting him as we spoke and waiting for him to wake up. We'd get a phone call when they were ready for us.

That was the longest half hour of the whole process! But we were allowed in to recovery, where he was fair crying the ward down out of hunger...and we didn't have a bottle with us! Edward had to rush as fast as the lifts would take him, back down to the ward and get him one...at least we'll be prepared next time! But he was happy once he got one. Then it was straight back to the ward once he finished that. A quick nap, a visit from Aunty Sonia, another nap, he pretty much napped all afternoon, refused sleep until 9.30pm that night, was woken at midnight when the nurse came to take his stats, got him back to sleep at 1am, woke at 6am for the day.

But the smiles were back about 4pm on Monday! We spent all of Tuesday waiting...for the MRI - that finally happened at lunchtime, then for the OT, she came at 1.45pm, then for the Dr to tell us he was happy for us to go. Then just to get the discharge stuff from the nurses. We finally got to leave the hospital just after 3pm.

Jack has been such a star! We picked up William, from mum's when we got home about 6pm and the two of them were chatting away to each other right from the start. I think they had missed each other, even though they'd been happy individually as well.

Water!

William is so busy these days, he's always got to be doing something. And he doesn't walk anywhere, nope he has to run! My latest way to keep him entertained for long period's of time?

Give him 2 or 3 buckets, and the hose, only just turned on. He will spend ages filling the buckets up and watering the garden, concrete and everything else, including himself. For some reason he loves to try to drink from the hose too. Good thing its Summer!

Notice Board

Every time I go to a fair or something I see these lovely notice boards. But me being me, I won't buy something that I know I could make really cheap.

The sort of notice board I see everywhere

I've been making some cards in advance for this month and next month's birthdays etc and was getting sick of sitting them on my desk, to get knocked over. I was thinking how handy it would be if I had somewhere to put them once they were done, before I gave them away.

Then, I remembered that a few years ago someone had given me this canvas picture as a birthday present - not my cup of tea at all, and even if it was my kitchen has no space to hang a picture like this.

The picture!

And...I  have so much fabric its not funny. I found some that was big enough, and just happens to be the same as the blinds in my craft room, so this will tie in nicely when its hung. Cut it to size and used a staple gun to attach it to the canvas. Then I found my longest length of ribbon - blue - and added diagonal strips of ribbon, staple gunned at each end. And to finish it off, I found enough blue flower buttons, a similar shade to the ribbon and sewed them on at the crosses of ribbon.

Here's how it turned out:

As you can see...I've already put it to work, even though its not on the wall yet. I'm pretty happy with my efforts.

Jack Update

We took Jack through to Christchurch for his specialist appt on November 19...ages ago it seems now.
He got his harness off, and xrays taken. We were told that he'll need to come back in 4 weeks - December 17th for either an open or closed reduction on his left hip, and then put into a hip spica cast for 3 months.
We get 4 weeks (and him) of freedom. He's loving it, being able to kick those legs, like he's never done before, stretch out, get up and try to crawl, and move forward occasionally.
But we're already down to the start of the last week....and I've still got to organise another car seat for him, and think about what we need to pack to take with us next weekend when we travel to Christchurch again.

Busy Busy Busy

I didn't realise it had been so long since I had blogged!

I've had such a crazy busy week. MJ's is starting to take off a bit now, so the first part of the week was spent sewing up over 20 bibs.

I've also made some cards, which I haven't had time to take photo's of.

Made a mermaid tail for a friend through MJ's.

Been to playcentre...not sure about that one

We've spent hot sunny days outside, wet ones inside, played with the playdough and trains.

Had early starts all week from Jack - 4 and 5am is just not a cool time to start the day!

Hoping for a quieter week next week, so I can get more photos and more blogging time!

Funfetti Cookies

I have over 30 cookie recipes pinned to a board on Pinterest. Really need to start using them. So I thought I'd make funfetti cookies the other day. But the recipe called for box cake mix...I don't keep box cake mix in my pantry so I found another pinned recipe for banana chop chip cookies yum started them then realised I didn't have bananas anymore and the boys were asleep! So off I go to hunt through my pins to find another recipe that has the same amount of butter and sugar, seeing as I'd already creamed it.

Found a recipe for lemon cookies....no lemon. So I used that recipe and made up my own funfetti cookies.

Here's how you do it:

½ cups butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
½ teaspoons vanilla extract
1 whole egg
¼ teaspoons salt
¼ teaspoons baking powder
⅛ teaspoons baking soda
1-½ cup all-purpose flour
sprinkles

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease baking sheets with non-stick cooking spray and set aside.

In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Whip in vanilla and egg. Scrape sides, add sprinkles (as many as you like, I used about 1/4 cup) and mix again. Stir in all dry ingredients slowly until just combined. Scrape sides of bowl and mix again briefly. Roll a heaping teaspoon of dough into a ball. Place on baking sheet and repeat with remaining dough. Flatten slightly with a fork.

Bake for about 11 minutes.

Chocolate Coca Cola Cake

This was another Pinterest find....and this was a must make.

We're going to stay at a friends place tonight before Jack's appointment in Christchurch tomorrow and I wanted to take a bit of baking with us to say Thank-you. This is going to be perfect!

 The photo does not really do it justice, it looks like a really dense cake, but when eaten warm (the only way I have tried it so far) it is really soft. Its like the most perfect chocolate brownie with a hint of coca cola.

I didn't have enough icing sugar for the glaze so thickened it with coconut = perfect.

The hubby said it was ok, he'd like to know what it tastes like with fanta....might just try that for him.

Try the recipe out for yourself.

Aprons for Toddlers

About a month ago, I got around to setting up my own wee Facebook business to sell a few of my things that I make, bibs, cards, taggy's etc.

I've been trying to think of other things I can add to draw more people in and was given the idea by a friend to make up some aprons, so this afternoon while both boys had HUGE sleeps I set about finding and tweaking an apron pattern suitable for a toddler.

I came up with these, you can tell which one I started with and what my 'standard' will be, should I make more.

 If you want to come and see what I'm selling, visit me at MJ's Creative Corner

No longer a Baby

My little baby Jack, is a baby no more.

This week he's started to hold his own bottle, which is actually quite handy at times.

He's also started moving! He's still in the harness for his hips, but that doesn't seem to stop him from pushing himself up onto his knees and pushing back and going across the floor, slowly, but backwards across the floor. What's he going to be doing in a couple of weeks when he's allowed out of the harness for a short break before going into a cast??

Did I mention he's still not 6 months old? Or on solids properly yet? And he's doing all this.

They grow up far too fast.

Nearly Summer Fun

I've been loving this summery weather we've had this past week. It means that William can just be sent outside, all slathered up in sunblock to play. The house doesn't get toys all over it, and he's just super happy.

This week we've washed the car, weeded the garden, played with the hose, played in the sandpit, played in the paddling pool, with buckets, with the hose again, and played with the chalk on the concrete etc etc you get the idea - its ALL been outside just about.

Jack's New High Chair

I don't know if I've mentioned it before but Jack has hip dysplasia, which makes it tricky now that he's 5 months old and ready to start solids. He's going to more than likely - we find out next month - need to go into a spica cast. Which means he's not going to be able to use either the wooden highchair we used for William, or the clip on highchair we bought for William. So I hunted and hunted and found this "anywhere chair". Went out and bought some fabric and batting for the grand total of $31.50 and sewed it up in about an hour or so.

Finally put the velcro on, and the only chair in our house that the anywhere chair fits on happens to be one of the kids chairs, but Jack couldn't care less. He loves it, its a new view of the world for him, and he ate his solids so much better tonight with being fully upright than semi laid back in his bouncer.

He looks pretty chuffed with himself, don't you think?

If you want to make your own anywhere chair pop on over to Made By Marzipan

As you can see in her tutorial she made the pattern to fit a chair with slats, hence why it doesn't fit our chairs, I'm just going to whip up an extension strap that attaches to the velcro end so Jack can also sit on our chairs at the dining table, and so the chair is more versatile when we're out and about.

Craft Room!

My own little space to get crafty...and leave a mess if I want to.

I spent the whole of Labour Weekend painting this room, walls, trim and ceiling, I am never putting my hand up to paint a ceiling again. Then I spent Tuesday and Wednesday nights putting together my new desk and bookcase. Thursday was moving everything in day. Tuesday I also scrubbed the floor, on hands and knees to get the paint off - that job is still not finished.

I've just spent a couple of hours in my craft room for the first time today - I love it! Can leave projects half finished when I get interrupted without having to tidy up after myself.

New Baby Card

A friend of mine just recently had a new baby boy. I got to meet him yesterday, and of course I had to make a card for them. I was getting a bit, bored? of just doing the same old cards so thought I'd find a new fold to try out. Stumbled across an Upright Z Fold card on another blog, and from there went in search of instructions on how to make one. And so I came up with this:

I used Stampin Up's So Saffron, Baja Breeze and Bashful Blue. I haven't long bought my card through Stampin Up, but I love how the colours just go together, didn't even have to think too hard about what colours to use. The duck stamp is also from Stampin Up - its from the Easy Events set...which I'm starting to like all over again.

Love this card, definitely a fold I'm going to keep for special occasions.

Busy Busy Busy

I gave myself the task of using up the fabric I had sitting on the table before my new fabric arrives. So last night I pulled out the last of the toweling and cut it into bibs, got 8 bibs out of it. Then started cutting the fabric from the table up into bibs, got through most of it. But I did give in and put the last of the polar fleece away. Think I've used it enough at the moment and there's still quite a bit there, will find another project for it. Also cut out a few taggy's awaiting more ribbon for sewing up. Then I was looking through my fabric drawers and was able to throw out a whole lots of scraps that are no good for anything, AND found some decent sized bits of fabric I'd forgotten all about, so out they came....now my pile is bigger again, but my table is tidier, and I've sewn up 5 bibs so far and a burp cloth.

How cute is this fabric?!

On the hunt for some fabric to make into a highchair for Jack yesterday, I stumbled across the sale table at the fabric shop, and found this super cute fabric. Made up a bib and burp cloth in it last night...isn't it just so so so cute??

Ages and Stages...

I've heard the question asked before "what's your favourite age?" (for babies/children of course), well pondering on this for some unknown reason this morning I thought, you can only really answer based on what you've experienced...obviously.

So far, there are things that I've enjoyed about each and every age and stage my boys have been through, and things I have equally not enjoyed...but could be convinced to go back and do again.

Newborns
I enjoy the snuggles, the fact that they need you, they're relatively easy - they just feed, burp, poo and sleep pretty much
I don't enjoy the sleepless nights

6 Weeks-ish on
I enjoy that you've got your feet on the ground a bit more, can start to form a bit more of a routine, if you so desire, they're starting to smile and laugh and they sleep longer at night
I don't enjoy that the guessing games begin - has teething started, is it wind, are they overtired, are they hungry etc etc

5 Months-ish (where Jack's at now)
I enjoy that he recognises us, readily gives us smiles and laughs, is making new, louder noises every day just about. His smiles can't be mistaken for wind anymore. Most of the time he's sleeping all night. He's still just on milk, no food yet. He's starting to explore his environment a bit more.

6 Months
Solids start, they're even more interactive.
I don't enjoy that the questions can begin any time from now on "is he crawling yet?" etc etc

12 Months
Their birthday!
They can eat anything you see fit pretty much, they're starting to come out with real words, they're starting to walk.
I don't enjoy the questions that continue "is he walking yet?" "is he talking?" etc etc

18 Months plus (where William is at)
They're so helpful, they just want to do everything your doing! They're coming out with more and more words all the time. They go from crawling to walking in a matter of days, to running a couple of weeks-months later. They're so busy, but they can entertain themselves.
I don't enjoy the tantrums that can be turned on in a split second and stop just as quickly for who knows what reason?!

See I really do enjoy every age and stage for different reasons..and I'm sure I'll have reason to enjoy every other age and stage thats yet to come.

Taggy Blankets

Last year, I made up a couple of patchwork taggy blankets for William. Then I set about making taggy blankets as gifts for friends who had babies. So it seemed a pretty easy decision to make some to take to market too. They don't take long. The hardest part is choosing which colours and fabrics and ribbons to put together. I think I've picked pretty well. I've made 8 over the last week or so. Along with 6 burp cloths, and 2 pairs of shorts.

 

I don't really think I have a favourite. I didn't like the cow print one to start with, but its grown on me, I like how the ribbons have turned out.

I've just ordered more fabric so that I can make up some sets of bibs, burp cloths, taggy's and whatever else I can make out of a fat quarter.

Banana and Choc Chip Pancakes

Its a horrible, wet day today. I decided, at about 9am, that I wanted something yummy for lunch, and something that William would eat. So I thought to myself "I'll make pancakes!"

Then to add to the flavour, instead of having to top them, William isn't so keen on toppings and sauces just yet, I decided that seeing as William LOVES banana at the moment we'd have banana pancakes....then I thought, why not add some choc chips?

So I took the good ol' Edmonds Pancake Recipe, and changed it a bit to suit the flavour I wanted today.

1 cup Flour
pinch Salt
1 Egg
1 Banana, mashed
1/2 cup Choc Chips
150ml Milk

While I was waiting for my little helper to tip the flour into the bowl, I put the salt, egg, banana and choc chips in, and mixed it up with a fork. I think this worked better than putting the flour in first like normal, the egg gets spread through the flour more. Then the flour got tipped in, more mixing with the fork. Then my little helper helped to pour the milk in, and I mixed and left it to stand for 15-30min (I didn't time it). Then came back and cooked them in a hot buttered pan.

They were eaten too fast for a photo, but were seriously yummy.

I had mine with maple syrup. William had his plain.

New Furniture For The Boys' Room

Jack doesn't have a set of drawers, William does, but Jack doesn't. That could pose a problem when he gets too many clothes for the hanging organiser and plastic drawers that his clothes currently occupy, also where William's clothes first started.

William's current drawers are a set that my twin sister fixed up a few years ago, and somehow we got them. They look great and serve the purpose well...but...I like things to match.

So I began the hunt on Trade Me for some cheap, matching drawers for the boys. Found an auction for 2 sets of drawers and a bookcase, not quite matching, but close enough. $1 reserve. Got the lot for $47. Figured even with some paint to do them up they'd make a cheap set.

How they started

 They sat in the hallway for a month until I decided it was time to get onto them. Took a trip to Mitre 10 and picked a paint colour...Resene Mantis, and got Mum's sander off her to give them a sand before painting.

I started with the big set of drawers first, did one at a time in full. Sand, and 3 coats of paint. Replace the handles and start the next one. One day per item.

1 down, 1 to go

I thought the bookcase needed to tie in with the drawers more than just being the same green. I knew I had some blue metallic card in my cardboard drawer so I printed out two sheets of stars and got the hubby to cut them out. Then I stuck them on when the paint was dry. He didn't think it needed the stars...I'm glad I put the stars on.

Second set of drawers with the bookcase next to it. I think it ties in nicely.

 I'm more than happy with how these turned out...now to get them out of the hallway and fit them into the boys room and switch all the clothes over! That's a big enough job in itself.

Fruit Bread

Ever since I've been making my own bread I've been dying to make a fruit bread. Yesterday was the day, but I couldn't find a fruit bread recipe in my cookbooks, so I just used the Edmond's Hot Cross Bun Recipe...but I forgot that last time I made it up it didn't rise well, which I put down to my yeast...not this time, yeast was fresh with the last groceries, its just the recipe I've decided. So after leaving it most of the day to rise and it not getting far, I gave it its punch down and knead, divided it into four equal parts, kneaded again and rolled into long sausages. Once I had done that with all four, I put them on a floured baking tray and plaited them together. Something went wrong with my plait at the start but it came right after that. Baked it for 30min like I do my white bread and then glazed it with the Hot Cross Bun glaze.

It looks good, tastes ok. Its a bit dense. But then I toasted it this morning, and apart from losing a couple of wee bits in the toaster, it tastes almost like bought fruit bread...but better, because I made it.

I am going to hunt out a better recipe though and try again...or modify my white bread recipe which doesn't seem to fail and try that as a fruit bread.

To Market...

On Facebook a couple of weeks ago I saw a market day advertised for the first weekend of November. I'm pretty good at humming and haaing about things, so I hummed and haa-ed about this too, then finally decided that I'd put it to Mum, and ask her if she would do a stall with me to sell our cards. She was up for the challenge, and the paperwork has been sent off.

This past 10 days or so I've spent every evening that I've had free making card's to sell at this market day. I've made roughly 25 so far, and have about 10 more to make before I'll call that enough.

It also means I get to try out some new techniques and some new stamps that I've bought recently. I'm pretty happy with what I've come up with so far.

I've started on the next project for the stall...bibs, figure I'll make about half a dozen or so of them and then move on to something else.

Now to get back to the creating of cards.

All Thing Red Velvet

Last week I found a recipe on a friend's pinterest for Red Velvet Fudge Brownie, and I HAD to try it, especially seeing as I had all the ingredients in my pantry. It was to die for! Just the perfect chewiness, redness, yumminess, especially when paired with a cream cheese icing.

The picture, does not do it justice. And I should have let the icing set first, but I was so impatient to try it. This is where you can find the recipe to try it for yourself.

So then, this week when I wanted something to bake, I decided I'd make cupcakes, and as I was flicking through my cupcake recipes I found....red velvet!...thank you to my sister Sonia, who sent me that recipe last year, so once again, with cream cheese icing, I have red velvet to eat. They're good, but a bit overcooked on the bottom, and uneven, could have done with a bit more mixing. I did have a helper, who wanted to lick all the spatula's as I went.

And then...just to top it all off...I made some red velvet and white choc chip cookies, which are SO good, the perfect cakey texture. I do think I would add more choc chips next time though.

Here's the link for the recipe for those.

I am now out of red food colouring so for now my red velvet adventures are over...but I still want to make red velvet cheesecake, and an ordinary red velvet cake....next payday perhaps...

Sewing, sewing, sewing

With all this lovely summery weather we're getting so early on in Spring, I realised William had only one pair of shorts, and all my casual skirts had been worn through two pregnancies and since binned. So after a trip to the fabric shop, and a morning at the sewing machine, I'm now half way to this weeks mission of sewing 2 skirts and 2 pairs of shorts. And the bonus is, they both fit!

 A simple A-line skirt, with a zip at the side, in a quilters cotton, picked up on the clearance table at Spotlight for $10/m. Total cost of the skirt was approx $17 incl zip.

William's first pair of shorts, again fabric picked up on the clearance table at Spotlight, this time $6/m, and I probably only used 0.25m of it, so only $2-3 for the pair of shorts.

Much cheaper than $60 for a skirt and $20 for a pair of shorts in the shop...now just to find the time to get the rest sewn up.

Homemade White Bread

I've taken to making my own bread lately. I just got completely over buying bread, at minimum $1.50 a loaf when we go through nearly a loaf a day. I used to make all our own bread, when we first got married...with the help of a breadmaker, which subsequently died from overuse. With the price of breadmakers now, and our budget looking a bit sad, I decided that I'd make my bread the old fashioned way. Who needs a fancy machine to do all the hard work? Not me! And you know what?! It doesn't take all that much work after all. Mix it all up, give it a quick knead, leave it to rise, knead again, split the dough, pop into a loaf tin, leave to rise again and pop in the oven for 30min and Bob's your uncle you've got yourself a loaf of bread...and gotten rid of any frustrations you may have been harbouring with all that kneading. Plus, you don't have to wait around during the rising time, just get on and do the housework, or do something else, check on it 30-60min later and its fine. Just don't leave it til you really need bread to make the next loaf. I had planned to try a few different recipes, but so far I've only used the recipe out of the Edmond's Cookbook, it rose so nicely and has a nice taste that I haven't bothered to look any further yet, plus I've made 4 or 5 loaves now and it hasn't failed yet. I also like that homemade bread fills you up a bit more than shop bought stuff.
If you can't get your hands on an Edmond's Cookbook, here's the recipe so you too can give it a go:

5 cups Flour
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons yeast
3/4 cup cold water
2 tablespoons oil
3/4 cup boiling water
oil

Eggwash -
1 egg yolk
1 tablespoon water

Combine 2 cups flour, sugar, salt and yeast in a large bowl. Add cold water and oil, immediately followed by boiling water. Stir to a smooth paste and stand 2-3 minutes. Gradually mix 2 cups of flour into the yeast mixture.
When flour is mixed in, turn out onto a lightly floured surface, using part of the reserved cup of flour for this. Knead dough until smooth and elastic. If the dough is still sticky, add a little of the remaining measured flour, kneading until smooth and elastic, or until dough springs back when lightly touched. Lightly brush large bowl with oil. Place dough in bowl. Brush top with a little oil. Cover. Put in a warm place until double in size. Punch dough down in the centre. Carefully take dough out of bowl and turn out onto a lightly floured surface. Knead for 5 minutes. Divide dough in half. Shape each portion into a ball. Place the two balls side by side in a greased deep 22cm loaf tin. Cover. Leave in a warm place until double in size or until dough reaches top of tin. Brush surface of dough with egg wash. If wished, sesame seeds, oat bran or poppy seeds can be sprinkled on top. Bake at 200 degrees Celsius for 30minutes or until loaf sounds hollow when tapped on base of bread.

Eggwash
Combine egg yolk and water.

Choc Chip Cookies

This has to be THE BEST Choc Chip Cookie recipe ever!

Seriously, my 1 year old can't get enough of them, I'll give him one and he finishes it and goes back to the pantry and tries to get it open to get another one, when I don't let him have another we get a tantrum....all for a cookie! When he saw them cooling on the bench and I wouldn't let him have one, because it was just before dinner, we got a big tantrum too. We got giggles when I pulled a tray out of the oven....until he realised he still wasn't getting one.

They're just the perfect texture, perfect vanilla flavour.

Here's the recipe:

225g Butter
3/4 Cup Packed Brown Sugar
1/4 Cup White Sugar
1 packet Vanilla Instant Pudding Mix
2 Eggs
1 teaspoon Vanilla Essence
2 1/4 Cups Flour
1 teaspoon Baking Soda
1 Cup Chocolate Chips

Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius
In a mixing bowl, cream butter and sugars. Add pudding mix, eggs and vanilla. Sift in flour and baking soda, mix well. Fold in chocolate chips.
Drop teaspoonfuls onto baking sheets. Bake 10-12 minutes or until lightly browned.

This made me 48 biscuits.

Spiced Fruit Muffins

I was looking for something to bake, that didn't use much butter and stumbled across this recipe.

Its really tasty, I think quite healthy, and super easy to make.

To make:
1 1/2 cup Flour
3/4 tsp Baking Soda
3/4 tbsp Mixed Spice
pinch salt
50g Butter
1/3 cup Sugar
1/2 cup Sultanas
1 cup Stewed Apple
1 Egg

Sift the first four dry ingredients and stir in sugar and sultanas. Warm apple and butter. Stir til melted. Beat egg lightly. Add to dry ingredients with warm fruit and butter. Stir with a few strokes til just blended. Bake in muffin tray for 15min at 200 degrees C.

Teacup Pincushion

I saw these on pinterest and wanted an excuse to make one, I thought they looked really cool. But there's no point me having one, I'm sure William would some how get hold of it and there goes the tea cup.

A morning out with Mum led us to visiting a second hand shop where I found a single tea cup, with no saucer that looked pretty. It was harder than I thought it was going to be to find that. Then I came home, put the boys to bed and set about making it.

The hardest part was getting the cushion the right size, took three goes. I think it looks greats, personally.

And it had now been delivered down to mum, with some pins in it, as a get well present. Perfect for her wee place.

To make your own, follow this link