Fabulous finds for Munchkin #1

 
I’ve spent a fair amount of time browsing the interwebs of late. Looking for inspiration and ideas for Munchkins wardrobe and nursery (we hope to find out what flavour we’re having at the next big scan in a couple of weeks). I’ve found so many fabulous things! I just have to share a few of them with you!

I may have tried to convince DM that Munchkin needs one of these gorgeous wool felt coats now…

I failed. I did see his reasoning, but why shouldn’t a 3 month old (in December) have one? I did get a commitment to order one next year though!

I found these beautiful items on the Petit à Petit and family blog. They’re handmade in the United States and each one takes about 15 hours to put together. They’re available in the states from Little Goodall and from Coaters in Europe.
 

From Precious Knit Blankies for Baby, this gorgeous blankie instantly made it’s way onto my ‘todo’ list. I’m going to need a knitting machine if I’ve any chance of getting through them all! Available from Amazon here.

 
 

Check out this amazing tutorial! I’d thought of using Spoonflower to create bedding. But this is genius! Jen from A Thousand Words traced her sons artwork onto his bedding. She’s created a tutorial here if you’d like to do it too. This is something I hope to use in future. I’ll just have to be patient and wait until Munchkin is old enough to be artistic.
 

Sarah Trumbauer is a paper cut artist who makes these wonderful creations. I think they’d make splendid baby announcements. You can buy prints of her work on Etsy or she does work on commission. I may have added a custom commission to my future wish list (once I work out just what I’m doing to Munchkins nursery).
 
There are a ton more wonderful items I’ve stumbled across. I’ll list more of them next week. But now I’ve got to get back to work to finish the tutorial I’ve been trying to put up on the blog for the last few days.

 

Free Christmas Printable Gift Tags

It’s that most wonderful time of the year…. The time when you feel like you’re running late (and you are) for about 3 weeks straight. You’re prepping for guests or for travel, hiding Christmas presents from loved ones (and trying to remember where you hid them later), making fruit cake and trying not to consume the alcohol for the cake… before it gets into the cake. And in amongst the chaos that is the festive season, you need to wrap presents!

And if most of the people I’ve discussed this with are anything to go by, you get to the night before the big day in question and the stash of wrap you grabbed as you raced out of the store but didn’t really look at properly taunts you. And you make do. Or you get to the gift wrap section and anything that is half decent is gone. All that’s left is the paper covered in gaudy glitter. The wrapping paper equivalent of a Christmas sweater featuring Rudolph with blinking nose. The one that doesn’t fall into the so bad it’s good category. It’s just bad.

So I’m here to help. I’ve come across so many gorgeous printables that you can use quickly and easily and I want to share them with you. They’ll enable you to present perfectly polished presents! So go grab a roll of brown paper, some bakers twine and your tape. Print and cut these out and you’ll be set!
 

These are some of my favourite this year! By Kelli Murray Art and Design.
Click on the images to link through to the respective printable post.

Read more

Foldify…

Ok, so it’s not often that I see an iPad app that has me bouncing in my seat with excitement. But this one did!

Foldify is an awesome app currently going through the Apple approval process that allows you to create your own paper toys on your iPad, print them out and make them *cue riotous happy dances here*.

This is going to keep me very entertained over Christmas! My robot army may have quite a few new members soon!

Sign up here to be alerted when it’s available for download.

Gorgeously different

During our flying trip through London (we always seem to be taking flying trips through London, one day we’ll really have to stay for longer than 3 nights!) on our way back from holidaying in Egypt, we caught up with our newly engaged friends, Jen and Alex.

My husband and I met Jen and Alex in 2007 at the end of their working holiday through India, Asia and Australia when Jen and I were working for the same company for a little while. Then when Jen and Alex found themselves needing accommodation for a few nights before they made their way back to the UK, they stayed with us for a few nights.

Our friendship was cemented over a love of the absurd, tea, cake and Miyazaki films.

Photo of Jennifer Roberts via The Style Scout

Read more

Etsy Switzerland #1- Cute creations

When I first arrived in Lausanne in 2009 I did an Etsy Shop Local search and what I found was abysmal. There was next to nothing available in Switzerland and what was listed was definitely not to my taste.

So when I did a Shop Local search recently on Switzerland I was pleasantly surprised! There are masses of fabulous, cute and creative products out there. I’m all for shopping local and for encouraging the support of local artists/ creators; so I thought that I’d try to highlight a few every now and then. Starting with Maripili and Bibuki, both of whom create fabulously cute creations.

Maripili

Elia from Maripili makes these sweet brooches out of felt. At between 10 and 13 USD each they’re very reasonably priced and beautifully made. They’d make a wonderful gift for that little lady in your life or to add a bit of whimsy to one of your favourite outfits. They’d also be pretty fabulous as goodie bag gifts for a little girls birthday.

Read more

Kinetic Rain sculpture.

This gorgeous sculpture is made up of 608 rain droplets. Constructed out of aluminium and coated with copper they’re suspended from steel wires above escalators in the Departure-Check in Hall at Terminal 1 of Changi (Singapore) Airport.

Using computer controlled choreography they ‘fall’ and ‘float’. It’s absolutely gorgeous! I almost can’t wait to fly back to Australia to get a chance to see it on the stopover.