"Kiwi As" Biscuit-pop Invites...

Still suffering from the guilt of throwing Master J the laziest "party" for his first birthday, I decided to be a little more pro-active this year.

I decided on a Kiwiana theme just before Christmas (but don't mistake my eagerness for actual organisation), for Master J's 2nd birthday in mid-April.

So here are the invites which I am delivering today.  I have seen cookie pops everywhere lately so I decided to make them into invites - a little "sweetener", if you will.   I used this recipe and it's a good one - delicious and easy to work with.

I made the paper part of the invitations using Word - kiwifruit on the front and the party details on the back.  It's my aim to learn to use Adobe Illustrator this year - particularly so that I can create some templates and freebies for my readers which is something I have always wanted to do, but for now Word does the trick.

I made the stick tag by printing out black squares with "Kiwi as", backing them with more kiwifruit, and then cutting them using a 2" circle cutter and small hole punch.

Now for the party planning - I have a load of lollies (candy) on their way from NZ - milkshakes, pineapple lumps, Jaffas etc, and can't wait to plan the party food!

Speaking of which, I am suddenly reminded of one of my favourite NZ ads, hope you enjoy it!



If you have any questions about cookie-pops etc, please leave them in the comments below and I'll be sure to get back to you.

LM xx

A Softie Family's Journey...

Here are my five softies for Christchurch, all packaged up, ready to embark on the long journey to New Zealand.

It's been a lot of fun making these, and I have learnt a few tricks on the way, as to be honest my sewing skills are fairly basic - cut it, sew it, turn it inside out and stuff it - that's about the extent of my repertoire.

I also apologise for the lack of posts lately. I have to admit that since around the time I got back from my holiday in New Zealand I just really haven't been motivated to do creative stuff - you might call it a slump. I'm really not too concerned though - I find these ups and downs all part of the process.

Not to mention my kids are going from one illness to the next - this week was a double bout of conjunctivitis.  Poor things.

So I'm off to the post office tomorrow morning to have that awkward conversation with one of the people there where I use my terrible German and they try and be polite. :)

I've got some organising to do for Master J's 2nd birthday party which will have a Kiwiana theme, so stay tuned for some posts about that.  

My first two softies...

Here are my first two softies for the "Softies for Christchurch" collection.

I have a few others cut out and a few almost finished (including a robot which I am hoping will work out as I am just sort of making it up as I go along!)  These two are all done though.  Hoping to send the lot off later this week.

The knitted bunny has caused quite a bit of grief this week as he is almost identical to my son's precious "Dookie", the rabbit I knitted him just before he was born.  I used the same pattern and almost the same colour wool, so I've had to hide "Dookie II" to protect him from the kind of treatment the other one gets :)

If you're making softies for Christchurch I hope it's going well - I'd love to hear about what you've been making!

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6 March:  Just in case anyone was wondering about the patterns I used, I used a Patons pattern that came as part of a kit, which is available online in several stores and should be in most knitting supplies stores that stock Patons products.  I used the beautiful Sublime Merino/Silk/Cashmere blend in shade "Pebble" that I used previously for my newborn hat and mits project.  The gingham bunny was a free downloadable pattern from here.