Craft room plans

 My doll/sewing/craft room hasn't eventuated yet. In fact, I've kind of been taking a break from doll stuff. I've still been doing a little bit of sewing, but mostly for Tiny.

 At the moment my room is on hold until I get my tax refund. And then, of course, I'm going to be on a budget. Ugh. But since we bought so much new stuff when we moved, there's not really any household stuff that needs replacing, so my whole refund can go on my space. Theoretically anyway.
 Of course, I'm being completely insane. . . I mean efficient and practical about it. Planning exactly what I'm buying, how I'm storing stuff. It's possible scale drawings are involved. But it's hard to plan what to store how and where, since most of that sort of stuff is still packed from the move, so I don't exactly know what I need storage for.

 I've spent a lot of time looking at craft rooms on Pinterest. Which I have to say is frustrating. There are a lot of lovely craft rooms but they require unlimited funds, or unlimited space, or custom built ins. None of which are in my budget.
 Or the entire room is designed around an antique desk, or card catalogue, or curio cabinet that was gifted to the crafter by a mysterious stranger, in a forest, by moonlight. Something beautiful, but without an easily obtainable equivalent.
 I'm also finding a lot of storage ideas. At first I'm drawn to the pretty, artistic, storage. But I'm not really inclined to go that way. I've got a feeling a lot of things I've seen would be inconvenient or impractical in real life. Or only look good until you used any of the stuff, or bought more stuff.

 I've actually had a Dream Craft Room for a while. In my dream room, the walls would be lined with white cabinets, like kitchen cabinets, with shelving above them, floor to ceiling. All the craft stuff could be stored in the cabinets, where it doesn't matter if it's pretty, because you can't see it. And there'd be dolls on the shelves.
 I'm not going to be able to afford to do that, besides the room is the wrong shape, and I would have nowhere for the dollhouse. But I am going to sort of replicate an adapted version of this in one corner, with a modular kitchen counter from Ikea, with two three by three storage cubes from Bunnings on top. We'll probably find a way to bolt the cubed to the cabinet. The cubes will store craft supplies, not display dolls. And the cabinet has a shelf that would be perfect to store my sewing machine and an overlocker (or serger  if you prefer), if I can afford one.

 The big issue with the furniture I've chosen is that everything is white (Which I wanted) but the table I'm getting for the house, only comes in black. I'm considering ways to make it white. I could spray paint it. But the table is coated in melamine, which makes me worry spray paint would scratch right off. Or maybe I could cover it with white adhesive vinyl, contact, stuff. But I'm worried THAT would look messy or peel.
Sigh. I might just leave it black.

Do you guys have a craft room? Or a Dream Craft Room? Or any ideas for storage? Or what to do about the black table?

Four years with a Giant Baby!

I should have written this post six weeks ago. But six and a half weeks ago, I was worried sick that Tiny still had no teeth and Karma decided to throat punch me. Now Tiny has SIX teeth and has spent the past six weeks looking like this -

Especially at 4 am. And the trouble with the baby not sleeping is that I'm not sleeping, which means the Giant Baby isn't getting as much attention as he'd like, which means he's acting out. Basically I had just gotten the kids into a decent routine, and now it's all gone to crap!
 On top of which, when we moved, we inherited two outdoor cats. The cats gave our little dog fleas. And that's how we discovered that our dog is allergic to fleas! I have never even heard of that before! But she managed to scratch herself so badly that she got an infection and was a very unhappy, expensive doggie for a while there.

 Our Giant Baby turned four last month. I can't believe he is so big already. But he wasn't always a Giant Baby, this is his story.
 When the Giant Baby was born he was nine pounds, the midwives commented that he looked bigger than that, even his placenta was enormous, they told me.
 After he was born, I got a bad infection. I don't remember anything about the first six weeks, but I do know that by the end of those six weeks, I was actually thinner than I had been before I got pregnant!
 As I got better, two things stood out to me. One - he cried. All the time. Two - he threw up. A lot. All the time.
 I mentioned it to our doctor. He laughed and told me all babies cry. All babies spit up. It looks like more than it is.
 I mentioned it to the maternal health nurse. She laughed. All babies cry. All babies spit up. It looks like more than it is.
 At first, even though I was dubious, I accepted what they said. And then the Giant Baby stopped gaining weight. Over five weeks he gained less weight than he should have been gaining each week!
 I was going to see the health nurse every week, and she said the same thing she'd always said. When he stopped gaining weight, she said babies do that. Some weeks they gain a bunch of weight, some weeks they don't.
 The Giant Husband called the maternal and child services help line and was told the same thing. They added that his age meant he was in the "Peak crying period" for babies and he'd cry less after about twelve weeks.
 We were dismissed as hysterical first time parents, everywhere we turned.
 And then at the Giant Baby's twelve week check up, he not only hadn't gained any weight, he'd stopped growing too. For the first time, the health nurse looked mildly concerned.
 Completely by coincidence she saw him get a feed that day. Which wasn't particularly interesting. But it meant she got to see what happened after the feed. She was horrified by how much he threw up! She wanted to know why I hadn't mentioned it. She pointed out that he must be starving and must be crying a lot. Why hadn't I mentioned that!?
 On the bright side we were already going straight from the nurse, back to the doctor. The nurse gave us a note for the doctor, and the Giant Baby actually did another vomit display for him. The doctor recommended trying the Giant Baby on formula, he clearly had reflux and possibly had a breast milk allergy. The doctor said formula was heavier, so harder to spit up, but it could also be mixed with a special thickener that would make it even harder to spit up.
 We were never successful in getting him to drink formula with the thickener in it. But with the change to formula he gained over a kilogram in the next week! I made the nurse weigh him on two different scales, about a dozen times before I belived it! By the time he was six months old, he was bigger (in height and weight) than his sister is now at nine and a half months old!
But I still wonder how big he'd be now if that hadn't happened!
 And off topic - I hate baby bottles! So much! This isn't "breast milk is better than formula" snobbery. Formula isn't bad for babies (unless you live in one of those places where it has ground melamine in it, then it's super bad!) But it is so inconvenient and inefficient! If you're breast feeding, it's two seconds to get a feed ready and that's all you have to do. Bottle feeding - ugh! I hate waiting forever for bottles to warm, especially when it's four am and freezing and the baby is screaming! I hate the whole washing them, sterilizing them, boiling water for them, scooping, scooping, scooping nonsense! It's a pain in the bum!

 Just before he turned three, his hearing improved enough for him to start talking. And now he never stops talking. He says talking is his favourite thing and he can't stop because his heart makes him talk and he can't make his heart stop.
 Even though there are times I wish it were socially acceptable to gag him (I wouldn't really), I love, love, love hearing his silly jokes and songs.

 Since his baby sister joined us, he has grown up a LOT. He has learned to use the toilet, and dress himself, and get his own drinks and do so many more things that he always refused to do before. He still refuses to wipe his own nose though.
 He has also decided that helping Mummy and "keeping after" his baby sister are both fun things to do.

 Even though he has, more than occasional, fits of jealousy, he's fiercely protective of Tiny. If the Giant Husband has the baby and she cries, you can bet the Giant Baby will run into the room to shout "Don't you make my baby cry!"
 And now that he's bigger, he's finally starting to like his daddy more. It used to be that he would say "Don't want you! Only want Mummy!" Now, sometimes he will even tell me to go away because he's playing with his dad.

 I feel bad that there aren't more/better pictures for this post. But all his baby pictures are on a flash drive that I haven't unpacked yet and now that he's bigger, he either asks me not to take pictures or makes very silly faces.
 I love my Giant Baby more than life. He changed everything and he needs me so completely. I swear he needs me more even now than his sister ever has or will. It's exhausting but very special too.

Birthday rebellion

 I have started an Instagram for my dolls. If you're on Instagram it's poppyandthegiant. I'll still be posting her as much as I ever have (which is NEVER as much as I mean to) but will probably update that more often. . . Unless I forget it exists, which happened with my old doll Instagram and now I can't even remember how to log into it! Sigh. I plan to do better this time!

 I still don't have a doll room. In fact I've started making this face whenever the subject is raised.

So this week, in a fit of rebellion, I unpacked a bunch of dolls and did this on our loungeroom shelves. . .

It's not finished yet. There's a few things that shouldn't be there (like the witches), I don't know what I'm doing with the chair and there's a space next to the Wellie Wisher for a special girl, that's coming in the post.
 Having them out is making me plan things. But whether or not those things happen is going to depend on whether or not I can find my fabric stash before I burn out on the idea.

 Yesterday was my birthday. I didn't want much. We've gotten so much new stuff over the last few months already. I did get two Our Generation sets. An outfit with a scooter and a sewing machine set. Unfortunately I can't show you because I forgot to take pictures and they're currently somewhere in this chaos!

The doll I have coming, is a doll I've always dreamed of having but never expected to get. I bought from my doll savings as a birthday present to myself and hopefully she'll be here soon, so I can show you.

*UPDATE*

Here she is!

An 18 inch Ann Estelle! Unfortunately the lady I bought her off, forgot to send her glasses. Will have to see if I can sort that out but I'm not sure I even mind. The same lady has a whole bunch of 18 inch Ann Estelle in EBay! I have wanted one of these for years but when they were available, I had no money and buying stuff internationally was complicated. I never thought I would find one, in Australia on the secondary market! I haven't had a really thorough look at her yet but she has real heft to her! Clearly Tonner quality vinyl and clothes, an adorable face and some of the most beautiful doll eyes I have seen! Now I count the seconds for the kids to go to sleep, so I can have a real proper look at her!

Playing

Wanted to share a video of the kids playing together today. But couldn't work out how to, not even sure if you can do that on blogger. And too tired to try to figure it out.
So here's some pictures I took during the same game instead.

Tiny

 Tiny is seven months old today. It feels like forever, and like five minutes at the same time. This week she's finally sleeping through the night, kind of. (She wakes up between eleven and one for a feed. If I'm lucky the Giant Husband is still up and takes care of it.)
 She is the happiest baby I know. She smiles and laughs all day, although we have recently discovered she can cry like an air raid siren if she's hurt herself.
 She can crawl now. And sit up for a while, especially if she has something to hold on to. At the moment she spends most of her time trying to stand up, and falling over.
 I'm making ninety per cent of her food. Not because I'm naturally that kind of person. But because when the Giant Baby was toward the end of his baby food days, I discovered that almost all baby food if it's fruit, is pear, if it's vegetable is sweet potatoes. This wouldn't bother me if it said that clearly on the package.  But it never does. The pack will say "Pineapple, orange and pear" but if you read the ingredients, in teeny weeny print, it turns out it's 99% pear with half a teaspoon each of pineapple and orange JUICE. I don't like that. It's hard to explain why. If the pack said "Pear with a little pineapple and orange juice", it wouldn't bother me. But the trickiness makes me not trust commercial baby food. And I'm pretty sure that was terrible English.
Anyway, baby picture spam. (It's way too early in the morning for stringing words together.)

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And some pictures of her new bedroom because while it's not fantastic or Pinterest worthy, I love it. And I'm really pleased with how well it came out given how little money we spent. Just try to ignore the washing line in the background.

Limbo

 So when we moved into the new house, I knew it wasn't all ready. I'd been told the two back bedrooms (which will be my doll/craft/sewing room and the Giant Husband's "Office" - a weird name for a room that will be used for playing computer games and watching Star Trek) needed painting. What the Giant Husband had "forgotten" to tell me was they were both full of junk that the owners were storing there. The kid's bathroom and the laundry also both needed painting and we're still full of someone else's stuff. The dining room still needed painting and had someone else's enormous dining table in it. The en suite had a shower that didn't quite work and the towel rail was in pieces on the counter.
Ugh.
I'm exhausted just thinking about it.
A LOT of progress has been made since then. But it is happening SLOWLY  Now the back hallway still needs painting and the two back bedrooms are half cleared out for painting. Otherwise it's all done (I'm not going to mention the large amount of crap that isn't mine in the backyard that I really want to go away) but a lot of stuff was supposed to go in those two rooms, and will eventually, but for the moment they're still in boxes in our room and our wardrobe. Including my dolls and my paints.

I managed to dig out enough sewing stuff to finish these two pinafore, I started before Tiny was even born.

I wish they were an inch or two longer but I'm not sure if I can fix that without making them look awful.

I'm also making Tiny a dress out of this fabric

It matches my coffee cups

And my keyring

Other than that it's chaos here. Tiny started crawling the week we moved in. Now she's using the furniture to stand up . . . And fall over backwards, most of the time. And going through that phase, all babies go through, where they look like that bad guy from The Princess Bride.

The Giant Baby is having more difficulty. He wants to be a grown up. He's jealous of his sister. He's not sleeping. He's tired all the time. He's terrified if bugs and spiders - which are things he's never really had to deal with before. He's lonely. And he's bored.

And I've fallen in love with Spotlight. Spotlight is a shop. I've always thought of them as a sewing shop. And I've never really gone there because they just weren't convenient to my old house. But they have EVERYTHING! Sewing stuff, craft stuff, party stuff, kitchen stuff, bed linen, towels and random household stuff. A lot of the stuff I wanted for the new house, I got there (actually from their online shop) because they had sales on and I could get good quality stuff for Kmart prices! I have a feeling that's where all my money is going to go for the foreseeable future!

One question I had when we moved was "Will we be out of bushfire land now?" And that finally got answered this weekend. Nope. Nope. Nope. (Although since we're in the middle of a housing estate, it'd be pretty tragic already if our place was burnt.)

Hopefully I'll be able to get to more fun stuff to talk about soon. If not you'll just get more rambling periodically.

Vintage kids clothes

 Something different today. Some vintage toddler clothes. Once upon a time I collected vintage clothes. Most of what I had, more or less fit me but has since been given away. These things were overlooked, because they weren't kept in the same place and I completely forgot I had them.

 I found these in a Salvation Army shop. They hung on the wall for weeks. Originally there were three little dresses and a coat and every time I went in, I admired them, but I never thought about buying them. That is until one day, one of the dresses was gone. I thought it was heartbreaking that these little dresses that looked like they'd been together for decades were being seperated, so I bought what was left, just to make sure they stayed together.

This first dress, is blue nylon with silver lace and soucatache trim. It's labelled as being Spinney brand, which I know nothing about but googling the name shows lots of clothing advertisements from the 60s and 70s. It's  size 20, assuming that's the chest measurement in inches, that's about a size 2 by my estimation. Somewhere I have a matching hair ribbon or sash. That sounds vague but it seems to thick and huge to be a hair ribbon for a two year old, so that doesn't make sense. But the dress has an attached sash, so another one makes no sense either.

It looks like something is missing from the bodice. Bows maybe? I like the idea of bluebirds there for some reason.

This second dress, with cute little embroidered toadstools, is labelled "Rio Frocks by Betta Bonnets". The grand sum of information I've been able to find out about this label is that Betta Bonnets was an Australian company, that ceased trading in 1978.

But this dress has a cute little matching bonnet.

And a patch of discolouration on the front that I wouldn't be brave enough to try to remove, even if I knew how.

Next is this gorgeous, cherry red coat.

I don't think the fur trim is real? Unless maybe it's from some kind of wild felt teddy bear? But I can't really say for certain. The back of my brain suggests it's Australian but I'm not even a hundred percent sure what that is so wouldn't bet on it.

This one is labelled J.Oshlack. I couldn't find any trace of that company at all.

But I have two favourite things about this coat. The first is the intricate labelling to create the right shape on the back. I can't imagine any company bothering with that these days.

The other thing is that the collars are separate! The actual coat looks like this

But then there are three extra collars. A matching cape collar. A soft, lacy knitted collar. And a weird little fur collar.

They can be worn in various combinations, or left off altogether. The red one clearly belongs to the coat. The coat has little buttons under it's collar to button it on.
The little, creamy, lace collar, really looks too perfect to be home made, but I prefer to think it was the handiwork of some clever, loving mother or grandmother.
The fur collar is clearly commercially produced. It's tagged "Made in Japan" and even has creepy, little animal heads attached.

To top it all off, there's a (filthy) nylon parasol.

That's all for now.