Knitting for Munchkin #2

 

We’re really excited. I had a 21 week scan last week and we now know that Munchkin is a little girl! As far as they could tell she’s healthy. They counted her fingers and toes (as well as a whole heap of other things) and she has the appropriate number so all is going splendiferously well.

This has however thrown me into a bit of a spin. I now need to get my act in gear to get the nursery finished before I grow to whale-esk proportions. We’ve gone through the spare room (soon to be nursery) and have de-cluttered and culled. We sold the spare bed and we’ve ordered new wardrobes and bathroom cabinets; all to be delivered in a week. We’ve been living in this apartment for over three years but we’re finally ‘moving in’.

We have commenced serious research into all things baby and took our first trip to the baby store. We were the shell shocked and very lost ones wandering aimlessly. We did succeed in buying Munchkin’s first outfit. We’ve spent countless hours researching baby gizmo’s, gadgets and furniture since. Goodness all of it is elaborate and confusing!

I’m still trying to find the exact shades I want for the nursery. But the design is firming up and we’re planning expeditions into France to find furniture etc.

 

 

We do have some things though, one of which is this little cardigan I made from this kit available from La Droguerie. It’s made of gorgeous 100% alpaca yarn and is just so gloriously soft!

The kit came with everything I needed to put it together, including knitting needles! And as we bought it before we knew what flavour Munchkin was, it is a perfectly practical colour. I’m now looking for some cute little additions to add to make it a little more feminine.

If you’re new to knitting, it’s a perfect item to start with as it’s very easy.

 

 

It’s sized for a three to six month old, which is perfect as Munchkin will be 3 months in December and after visiting family in Australia for Christmas, will experiencing a very chilly Swiss winter!

You can order the kits from La Droguerie via telephone but you’ll need your best French. Otherwise you can head to one of the many stores they have dotted around France and Japan.

 

This post is unsponsored.

Tea Party Invite & Envelope Printable

Mad Hatters Unbirthday Party Themed Invite/ Notecard

 

A couple of years ago DM and I decided to host one big party per year, to celebrate Summer and well… just because we wanted to! The first year we held an Unbirthday Themed Party. I made a cake and decorations and sent out letterpress invites I’d made. We gave away gifts to all of the children who attended, had a piñata including gifts for the adults, and ate way too much cake whilst quaffing alcohol laced lemonade.

Unfortunately we don’t have many photos of the table or event as we had so much fun we forgot to take photos! Last years event was a little more sedate and adult in nature. And this years will be even quieter as I’ll be 7 months pregnant when the time comes.

But since the first party, I’ve often looked at the letterpress invites and have wanted to do something more with them. So I’ve decided to create printables so you lovely people can use them as invites or note cards.

They’re really simple to put together, just cut out, fold and add a little bit of glue to the envelope. You can download each of the templates below. You’ll need A3 paper for the envelope and A4 Card stock for the invite/ card.

 

 

Click Here to Download the Tea Party Suite Envelope
Click Here to Download the Tea Party Suite Invite

  Please do not link to my templates directly, if you want to share my work, please link back to this blog post.

Thank you.

 

 

Tea Party Invite and Envelope Printable by Next to Nicx by Nicola Pravato is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Hexagonal gift boxes

 

 

If you live in Australia, New Zealand, the United States, Peru, Switzerland, Canada, Belgium or Brazil (along with a host of other countries) it’s coming up to Mothers Day. Stumped as to a gift idea? Why not make or bake your mum something sweet and nestle it in a cute hexagon gift box?

 I’ve had a bit of fun messing around with watercolour splodges and have come up with a couple of templates for you to download and make up. Or you can download the blank template and decorate as you wish!

 

For this project you’ll need:
Adhesive or double-sided tape
The thickest A4 card stock you can put through your printer (mine takes 200gsm, but check your printer for details)
Scissors, scalpel or exacto knife
Some decorative ribbon (I’ve marked cutouts to allow for 10mm wide ribbon)
Some paints, crayons, pencils or other decorative materials (if working with the blank template)

 

 

The templates make up 2 sized boxes 72mm wide in diameter (point to point) x 60mm high
and 90mm wide in diameter (point to point) x 43mm high

 You could easily scale them up and print on A3 card if you required them to be larger.

 

 

For the ones above I did some quick watercolour scribbles and added handwritten notes in white pencil (white charcoal pencil to be exact). But the sky is the limit. You could bedazzle, embroider, paint, draw… whatever you’d like! This would be rather a lovely project to work on with a small child as you could cut it out and they could decorate the box as they wish and with a little help from you, assemble it.

 

 

Print and cut out your desired template. I cut my templates out using my Graphtec cutter/ plotter but it’s not a difficult template to cut out by hand.

 

 

If you’ve printed out the plain template, now is the time to get scribbling and decorating to your hearts content!

 

 

Fold along each of the dotted lines and glue the edge tab to the underside of the opposing panel to create the hexagonal shape.

 

 

If you need a ‘base’ in your gift box for heavier gifts, glue one set of the top tabs and gift box lids together for extra support as shown (I used strong double-sided tape).

 

 

To attach the ribbon, glue the ribbon to the underside of the tab shown and thread through the ribbon slot as shown.

 

 

Then thread through the corresponding ribbon slot in the lid, pulling though and aligning the lid and tabs. Repeat on both sides and tie into a pretty bow.

 

 

And there you have it. Pretty hexagonal gift boxes ready for your gift!

 

 

Download the 72 x 60 patterned gift box here (67mb)
Download the 72 x 60 plain gift box here (67mb)
Download the 90 x 43 patterned gift box here (112mb)
Download the 90 x 43 plain gift box here (112mb)

Apologies for the large size files and so slow load times. I am still trying to find a way to reduce them further.

 

 

 Please do not link to my templates directly, if you want to share my work, please link back to this blog post.
Thank you.

 

Hexagonal gift boxes by Next to Nicx by Nicola Pravato is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

 

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.

 

Knitting for Munchkin #1

I’ve found myself at a crossroads with the nursery. I just can’t go forward any further with my ideas until I know what we’re having. But hopefully that should be rectified in the next couple of weeks at our next scan. In the meantime I’m doing what I can. We’ve found someone to take the guest bed (as the guest bedroom is going to become the nursery), I’m looking for a wall of wardrobes and am mentally Spring cleaning the room. It’s accumulated a ton of clutter over the years!

I’ve a few other projects in progress. One of which is a baby blanket I’m knitting for the chilly Winter Munchkin will experience not long after it enters the world.

 

 

Made out of the softest 100% alpaca yarn and with a gorgeous Liberty Print binding to go around the edge, I purchased the kit from La Drougerie last year when I was in Paris. I’ve been knitting it at the Stitch ‘n’ Bitch I go to on Wednesday evenings as it doesn’t require counting. I find I end up undoing most of the complicated work I do on Wednesdays as I’m too busy chatting and listening to focus properly. It comes in a gorgeous tin and it fits in my handbag. So it’s perfect!

I may change the binding if it turns out I’m having a little girl, for something that brings out more of the purples and pinks in the blanket. But otherwise it’s coming together perfectly and I love it!

You can order the kits from La Drougerie via telephone but you’ll need your best French. Otherwise you can head to one of the many stores they have dotted around France and Japan.

 

 

Easter Eggs

Due to illness and lethargy, I’ve not made any eggs this year. But for the many of you who have found next to nicx over the last few months, I thought I’d share some of the eggs I made last year.

They were very easy.

I made stencils out of sticky backed plastic on my plotter cutter (but you could easily use store bought stickers).
I then carefully applied them to the blown and cleaned eggs.
Painting the eggs and over the stencils with matt acrylic paint.
When the paint had dried, I run a scalpel along the edges of the stencil to make sure the edges were nice and clean.
Very carefully removing the stencil and then cleaning up some of the messier lines with a scalpel (you can etch into the egg slightly).
I then ran ribbon and a bead through the holes in the top and bottom of the blown eggs for hanging.

I was really happy with how they turned out.

Here’s the Star Wars egg I made for my husband. I hope eventually to have made him an army ;)

I hope you’re all having a wonderful Easter weekend!

Nicx

Origami Easter Bunny Basket

 

It’s been a tough couple of months. Pregnancy for me has been a bit of a trial. It’s meant that I’ve been unable to do much more than vegetate on the couch. There is now a Nicola shaped impression permanently pressed into the couch cushions. But I’ve just ticked over to 14 weeks and the nausea and chronic illness have started to abate. I’m now able to eat small meals and my energy levels have slowly increased. The munchkin is in good health and according to the ultrasounds he/she is having a fabulous time doing somersaults and jazz hands, not affected by my lethargy at all! All of which have made me happy.

But something that truly made my day on Tuesday was opening my post box parcel shelf to discover this gorgeous little Easter gift! My friend Sandra had made my husband and I an origami easter bunny basket and filled it with delicious little chocolate Easter eggs! It was such a sweet little gift to leave and positively made my day!

I did a bit of googling and found a fabulous video tutorial that shows you how to make them, so you can have a go at making them too. It’s the wonderful work of Leyla Torres. Enjoy!
 

 

Paper Tea Cups #1

I’ve been messing around with paper. I’m not sure exactly why I decided to make paper tea cups, but inspiration hit over the holidays and I couldn’t find one online. Hence the gauntlet was thrown down! I had to make one. It took me a lot longer than I anticipated. But I’m ecstatic with the results! This is by far and away my favourite template/ tutorial so far. AND I’ve got another version of it almost ready to upload next week.

These would be perfect as use for cupcakes, biscuits, little presents, used as gift boxes or just as gorgeous packaging. Paint them, embroider them, bedazzle them… The options are endless! I created a lid template so it becomes a very usable gift box but I had a lightening bolt moment last night and I’m now sure I’ve worked out how to make a lid that sits inside the cup so that the pretty outer lines of the tea cup aren’t ruined. I’ll include it with the other version of the tea cup that I’ll upload next week.

 

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