Kids Rugby World Cup Swap : : What we received and what we sent

We had lots of fun with the Kids Rugby World Cup Swap hosted by Megan at Mouse House.
You might have seen the sneak peek of the Memory Card Game I made for our parcel on Thursday? Well here's a picture of everything that we sent in our English/Scottish themed parcel to Hana and her family...

Our parcel included:

• Tunnocks Teacakes - from the UK food shop
• Scotland and England car mirror covers - from New World
• Union Jack tissues - from a gift shop in Palmy
• Memory game - home made and featuring English and Scottish pictures
• Tartan and Union Jack pencils - from the UK food shop
• Love Hearts Lollies - from the UK food shop
• A Keep Calm and Carry On greeting card (with a message from us inside!)
• Scotland stickers - bought from my local scrapbook store a while ago
• Some Union Jack cupcake flags - from the UK food shop (for the Royal Wedding)
• Some home made Union Jack mini bunting that I made for the Royal Wedding
• Some glittery stickers featuring a Union Jack flag, black cab and red double decker bus - from Accessorize in the UK
• Some home made English and Scottish flag rubber stamps (see below for close-up)

For the hand made rubber stamps I bought some plain rectangular erasers and used my craft knife to cut out the shapes of the Saltire (Scotland) and St. George's Cross (England) flags.
My first attempt at the English flag didn't have a border and it just didn't look right so I made a new one with a slim border around the edge.
The insides (scooped out bits) look a mess but they don't show up on the paper so I didn't tidy them up too much for fear of accidentally chopping off a bit I did need!
I'm pretty pleased with how they turned out and made a little tag (with each one stamped onto it) and put them in a little bag to keep them together...

And here's a peek at the parcel we received from Hana and her family...

I had a big grin on my face as soon as I spotted the box in the mailbox and saw the black and white washi tape decoration!

I was very good and took photos as I opened it...

Here's a list of what we received: 

• New Zealand balloons
• Inflatable New Zealand mallet
• RWC Sticky plasters
• Some New Zealand stickers
• a Rugby ball shaped biscuit!
• Sky Tower coaster
• Pukeko magnet
• New Zealand pencil case 
• Some little kiwiana notepads (the picture on the front is repeated faintly on the pages inside) 

There was also this awesome pen which has a little button you press and the rugby ball springs off. I honestly couldn't wrestle it off him to put with the other things for the photo...

We blew up some of the balloons on RWC final day, put the fern stickers on our faces and blew up the mallet to knock the balloons around :-)

It was lots of fun and I really enjoyed participating in the swap!

Many thanks to Megan for hosting and Hana for such an awesome swap parcel :-)

The Christmas Challenge

Have you seen that Stacey at Polka Dot Daze is hosting a Christmas Challenge?


The details:

The challenge will start on Tuesday 1 November

• On your blog post your list of what you would like to make in time for Christmas
• Link your post to Stacey's blog on the special page "The Christmas Challenge Team" so we can all see what you are hoping to achieve and who's joining in
• Then each Tuesday post on your blog what you have completed
• Link your post to this blog under the correct week update i.e. "Week One" so we can all pop around cheering each other on

If you are hoping to get organised early for Christmas and plan to make some gifts, why not join in?

The great thing about signing up is I'm already thinking about what I want to make and who I need to organised presents for :-)

Giveaway Winner

Thank you to those who entered my giveaway and for the lovely comments. I wish you could all win!
I wrote down all the names of those who entered onto little pieces of paper (with extra entries for followers) and hubby chose a winner...

The winner is Jennifer Rose! Congrats :-)
I'm going to email you but if you see this first please email your postal address to me at katie (at) mummy-adventures (dot) com so I can post off you prize :-)

Also - just a quick note to everyone else that entered - if you would be interested in purchasing a crochet bag I could make some for my Felt shop. I can give you a range of colours to choose from and each bag would cost $15 plus postage. Let me know if you're keen :-)

My Creative Space: Memory Card Game

I finally got my Rugby World Cup Swap parcel sent this week. I'll share everything that was in it in a few days once my swap partner has received it. And I'll also share what we received from Hana and her family - lots of fun things and it was very exciting opening the box when it arrived :-)

But I thought I'd share a sneak peek with you today...

I offered to send an England/Scotland themed parcel to a kiwi. I was able to find some things to send at our local UK shop and even around town but I also hand-made a few items too.

One of them was a Memory Card Game. Do you remember the game from when you were little? There are pairs of pictures and you lay all the cards face down and take it in turns to flip two over. If they match, you win a point and if not you flip them back over and remember where they are for when their pair comes up.

I found all the images via my lovely friend Google :-) And printed 2 to a 6x4 photo print. I cut them down and matted them with some pretty scrapbooking card on the back. 

I then wrote some instructions and printed them out as well as a key to what all the pictures are so that the players can learn about England and Scotland while playing the game.

Finally I found a box to up-cycle to pack the cards into. It was a velcro dots container and I covered it in the rest of the card from the back of the cards to match (cutting a circle from the front to match the window on the box).

I'm really pleased with how it turned out and will probably make another version for my wee man soon - maybe for Christmas.

I've copied the instructions I wrote out below in case anyone would like to use them to make their own version :-)

Memory – 2 player game

Lay the cards out on the floor or table face down.

Take turns to flip first one card over, then a second. If the two cards match you get 1 point, remove the cards from the game and get another turn. 

If they do not match, turn both cards over and the other player gets a turn.

The winner is the person who has the most matched pairs once they have all been matched. 

When the cards are turned over it is important to remember where they are for when the matching card is turned up later in the game.

Linking up with Our Creative Spaces.

30 @ 30 :: the list

I'm changing things up a little for my 30 @ 30 list. I'm still planning to do 30 things aged 30 but I am prioritising certain things by giving them more bullets on the list and I'm also allowing flexibility for adding/removing things as the year goes on based on what is current at the time.

Here goes...
30 @ 30

1. Lose 1 kg
2. Lose 1 kg (2kg total)
3. Lose 1 kg (3kg total)
4. Lose 1 kg (4kg total)
5. Lose 1 kg (5kg total)
6. Lose 1 kg (6kg total)
7. Lose 1 kg (7kg total)
8. Lose 1 kg (8kg total)
9. Lose 1 kg (9kg total)
10. Lose 1 kg (10kg total)
11. Summer blocks
12. Autumn blocks
13. List 5 items for sale on Felt
14. de-clutter and sort out office
15. learn to crochet hats
16. makeover another cushion
17. make mini albums for my 30th and baby's 1st birthday
18. scrapbook at least 10 photos from each month (if I continue with Document 2011 and go on to do it in 2012 this should be covered by that)
19. Summer 2011/2012 seasonal project 1 - paint the front door
20. Summer 2011/2012 seasonal project 2 - revamp the toadstools in the back garden
21. Summer 2011/2012 seasonal project 3 - de-clutter/clear boxes from dining room
22. Autumn 2012 seasonal project 1 - to be decided
23. Autumn 2012 seasonal project 2 - to be decided
24. Autumn 2012 seasonal project 3 - to be decided
25. Winter 2012 seasonal project 1 - to be decided
26. Winter 2012 seasonal project 2 - to be decided
27. Winter 2012 seasonal project 3 - to be decided
28. Spring 2012 seasonal project 1 - to be decided
29. Spring 2012 seasonal project 2 - to be decided
30. Spring 2012 seasonal project 3 - to be decided

So as you can see - I want to lose 10kg but rather than list that as one item I've made each kilo a point on the list. I really want to get healthier and losing weight is a big part of that. To lose weight I need to eat healthier and exercise more so healthier living will come gradually as I tick each kilo off the list. I'm also hoping that by breaking it into bite-size pieces it will be more achievable. With this taking up a third of my list I'm trying to keep reminding myself how important it is (for all those times that I start to lose sight of why I'm doing it and want to give up).

The next 8 things on the list are things I want to achieve over the course of the year.

And the final twelve things are split down by seasons (although the dates will be slightly different from the actual seasons to fit around when my birthday falls. The summer list will be from November to January, Autumn from February to April, Winter from May to July and Spring from August to October).
Each season is 3 months long so I am aiming for 3 projects each season (i.e. one each month although I don't have to spread them out like that) which may be season dependent (i.e. involved being outside so need to be done in warmer weather or involve being inside a lot so better for the colder months) or just something I decide I want to do at the start of each season. It also means I can review things as the year goes on and add things rather than thinking "I'll have to wait for my next list to do that!"

So a bit different from my past attempts but I hope it will be successful. 

(You can see what I did for my 29 @ 29 list and how I did here)

29 @ 29 - the final review

I'm gonna caption this one "Keep on Swimming"!

I am now officially 30 so it's time for a final review of how I did with my 29 things to do aged 29 list...

Colour-coded for colourful reading! PINK = complete, RED = not completed.

29 @ 29

DONE 1. Paint my toenails 

DONE 2. Scrapbook at least 12 moments of baby’s first year

3. Plant sunflower seeds/grow sunflowers

 DONE 4. Eat tiramisu

 DONE 5. Get my hair cut

 DONE 6. Summarise/scrapbook our first year married

 DONE 7. Read a novel

 DONE 8. Lose 5kg

 DONE (and I'm back at work!) 9. Decide if I’m returning to work or not

 DONE 10. Participate in a Christmas ornament swap

 DONE 11. Write a Christmas newsletter

 DONE 12. See Harry Potter 7 (part 1) ...and as a bonus I saw Part 2 as well :-)

 DONE 13. List 29 reasons why I’m a good mother

 DONE 14. Blog at least 29 times

 DONE 15. Email at least 50 photos/videos of baby to family

 DONE 16. Finish rainbow crochet blanket
 DONE 17. Get a nice photo of all 3 of us

 DONE 18. Take baby swimming
 DONE 19. Send 10 postcards or letters (with photos of baby maybe)

DONE 20. Buy at least 10 bunches of flowers

DONE 21. Try 10 new recipes

 22. Create a photo wall (in the dining room?)

 DONE 23. Make bunting for baby’s bedroom

 DONE 24. Have a picnic or tea party

 DONE 25. Find ways to celebrate each season

 DONE 26. Give away at least 29 things

 DONE 27. Try to take at least 1 photo every day

 28. Write my birth story

 DONE 29. Have 12 ‘dates’ with my husband

And some notes on the ones I didn't complete...

• I was disappointed I didn't manage to plant sunflowers. I bought seeds months ago but when it came to this month I couldn't find them to plant them - what a silly hold up. I even looked at the DIY store for some more but they had run out!
• The photo wall got put on hold when we put the house in the market because I didn't want to make too many holes in the wall if we were moving. Then when we took the house off the market I never quite got round to it. I might still look at doing this in the future.
• Writing my birth story didn't happen either. Over a year on from the event it's impossible to remember the details. It's too woolly. I should have done it in the first few weeks after the birth but lack of sleep and complete shock of our much our lives had changed were keeping me too busy :-) Maybe next time!

26 out of 29 is an awesome achievement and I'm pleased with how much I got done. I also think I did the right thing by picking lots of fun and one-off items as it was a pretty full-on year and it was a good balance of things I wanted to do and other things that make life better :-)

Look out soon for my 30 @ 30 list - I've mixed it up a little from previous lists so fingers crossed it works!

My Creative Space: Ripple Progress

I feel like I'm making significant progress on my ripple. Although I way over-estimated the width of my pillows so it's not going to be a pillow case...it's another baby blanket! Now I just need a baby to give it to :-)

When I posted about the ripple at the start of the week I only had 1 lonely ripple...a little while later I had 7....

I think I could happily crochet rainbows forever without getting bored of the colour combination!

This is how my ripple was looking yesterday afternoon....

And here's some ruffled ripples...

It really is quite a soothing stitch to sit of an evening and do. A nice wind-down at the end of the day.

I am hoping to do at least 3 rainbows (so 21 ripples) maybe 4 (28 ripples) but I might run out of yarn! Hopefully the yarn shop still has some if I need to replenish supplies :-)

Linking up with Our Creative Spaces.

P.S. Don't forget to enter my giveaway to win a crochet bag and some other goodies :-)