Last Minute Halloween Bunting Tutorial

This week Miss 4 and I made some quick paper bunting for Halloween, using just materials we already had at home.

This is a really simple and expensive option for decorating the front of your house.

What you'll need:
- a few sheets of A4 orange paper (we used neon orange)
- a few sheets of A4 black paper
- string (ours happened to be black string from IKEA)
- glue
- stapler (optional)
- ruler, pen, scissors

Fold one piece of A4 paper in half, as shown.

Then fold that piece of paper again, into thirds.  To make sure it's folded evenly in thirds, you can mark a dot at 7cm and 14cm and fold to them.

Once folded into thirds, find the middle of the panel, which should be 3.5cm.  Make sure you mark the end of the panel that has the open edges, not the folded edge as this will need to be at the top of the bunting so it sits over the string.

Draw a line from the 3.5cm dot down to the corner of the panel on either side, so you end up with a triangle that looks like this.

Next, cut along the lines with scissors or a knife.  I used a knife to make sure all the pieces of paper underneath didn't move around while I was cutting.  But if you don't have one, you can use scissors.

Repeat these steps again on the other pieces of A4 paper until you have enough triangles for the length of bunting you'd like to create.

Miss 4 drew 'halloween faces' and triangles on our orange pieces, while I cut out the black ones.  We ended up with 15 triangles from 5 pieces of A4 paper, but the quantity is up to you.

The triangles can then be slipped over the string, folded bit at the top.  Once on the string you can glue the two sides of the triangle together so keep them secure.

We decided to staple the top of the triangle too, for added security, but they would probably look better without.

Space them about 3cm apart, or whatever spacing you'd like, and leave a length of at least 40cm at either end to allow for tying.

This method can be applied for any event of course just using different coloured paper.  A great option to have on hand if you find yourself in need of last minute decorations!

Rainbow Streamer Garland Tutorial

I've had a lot of people ask about the rainbow garland I made for the table backdrop at the 'Neon Rainbow' party, so I've written a quick tutorial.

As mentioned in my previous post about the party, I had a rough idea in my head about the look I wanted to create, but had no idea if would work until I started making it.

I started with a packet of 6 rolls of crepe paper streamers, which I cut into lengths of approx 1.4 metres.  I cut one length first then used it to measure the rest of them.

Next I grabbed a length of ribbon roughly 1.6 metres in length, which was the right width for the amount of streamers I had as well as the width of the wall space it would hang on.

I tied each end of the ribbon on my washing line, then started tieing the streamer lengths to the ribbon starting from the middle.  

Now, tieing paper streamers is not that easy.  In hindsight it may have been easier to make this out of ribbon lengths, but I already had the crepe paper streamers, and I haven't come across many neon colours of ribbon.  Depending on the colours you want to use for your own streamer garland, you may want to try this with ribbon.  And if you do, please let me know how you go.

I just tied a simple knot around the top of the ribbon, keeping it really loose so the paper didn't rip, but tight enough that it wasn't going anywhere.  To keep the appearance of the garland uniform, it's important to ensure all knots are facing the same way when you tie them, so they all have the small end sticking up to the same side.  Mine all stuck up to the right simply because that's the way I tied the first one, and did the others to match.

Continuing to tie the streamers from the middle out to the edges, the finished colours ran red, pink, yellow, green, blue, purple.

The garland needed some finessing, to space the streamers all out evenly along the ribbon so they had enough space and were on the right angles to sit flat.

All I did to hang it on the wall was stick a couple of 3M adhesive hooks to the wall with the recommended waiting time, then the garland was hung proudly on the wall.

The hardest part of the whole project was discouraging cheeky Miss 4 year old from running through the garland and pulling on it while I was making it!

If you have a go, please share your photos and feedback with me.

Neon rainbow party!

I'm sure you're curious about how we put together parties for our own kids, given we've now been catering for kids parties for 4 years now. So I thought I'd share some photos and details from my little girl's 4th birthday party with you.

Last weekend we celebrated my little girl's 4th birthday, with a 'neon rainbow' themed party. She wanted a rainbow theme for her party, and with neon / fluro being so on trend right now, we decided the rainbow should be neon!

Lots of very bright colours everywhere!

Aunty Dani made all the food, including pink iced cupcakes with neon edible glitter, and a pink gradient / ombre birthday cake. Miss 4 requested a 'rainbow' of pink for the inside of the cake, and wanted it to be banana flavoured. Dani thought it would be too intense if the whole cake was banana flavoured, so it was a traditional vanilla butter cake, with banana icing on the top, sides and in between each layer of cake. 

I made a cake topper to sit on top, with a rainbow coming out of a sparkly gold 'A'. The cake looked amazing when it was cut as you can see from the photos. It tasted fantastic too of course!

The cupcakes were vanilla butter cake as well, with vibrant pink icing which was dusted with amazing neon edible glitter that caught the light perfectly in real life, yet was hard to capture in photos.

The savoury food was all our usual favourites, petit pies, cocktail sausage rolls, mini hotdogs, veg samosas, and caramalised onion quiches.

Home made marshmallows were on the menu of course, this time they were vanilla bean marshmallow dusted in pink and purple sugar.

The kids also had a large bowl of orange quarters, and individual mini water bottles as it was a hot day.

We had 1kg of 'Happy Birthday' rainbow rock candy to fit with the theme. These were displayed in a glass jar, a glass bowl, and popped in cello bags in the take home party bags, along with fun brightly coloured sunglasses, neon giant balloons, neon slinkies and a few other little things.

The backdrop of the whole table was a garland I made the day before, using EXTREMELY neon crepe paper streamers. It was so bright it practically glows in the daylight! I had the idea for this in my head, but couldn't find any images or tutorials online about how to put it together, so I just made it up. It was really easy, so I'll try to put together a tutorial soon to share with everyone.

We had giant neon balloons as well, but unfortunately due to the heat outside, they popped when they went in the sunlight so we ended up with them all taking over our lounge room. I also found some neon pink round lanterns, so we hung them outside along the front of the shed. They looked so pretty I wanted to keep them up permanently but I think they colour would fade too fast if we did that.

It was great how easily this party theme came together, and surprisingly even with all the items I made it felt like very little effort was required on the actual day. I guess a lot of that is to do with having the food catered!

The birthday girl said she had a fun party, so looking back at all the photos I'm glad we put it together for her.

If you have any questions about where I got anything from, or how I made anything, please comment below and i'll let you know :)

Just catching up

It's been a while since I last posted.

I've been working more hours each week, while also working on getting my 9 month old sleeping longer in the day. I'm trying to stay on top of the housework and garden, investing time in my 4 year old's reading and settling her into a new Kindy (daycare). There's been another venture taking up time and headspace, but I won't be able to share that with you for a while. 

The last thing I felt like doing at the end of these long days was sitting at the computer, or doing anything at all apart from 'loosing myself' in front of TV. The 'me' has been lost in trying to keep everything else afloat! I've had no time (or energy) for sewing, blogging, or any sort of social life. I can't remember the last time I went to the hairdresser, and I still haven't spent my birthday money from July! Getting woken around 5am every morning also hasn't helped with fading energy levels as the day progresses. 

But with the warmer Spring weather, baby sleeping well during the day, and not having to drive to Chippendale and back for Kindy 3 days a week, I'm starting to feel on top of things again. And as a bonus I had a night out with a dear friend this week, and truly let my hair down for the first time in a long time. Thank you lady! 

I have decided now, starting from this very minute that I will make more time for 'me'! I will continue sewing and my plastic-free / chemical-free conversation of our house, but more importantly i'll make time for working on myself.

Oops I just fell asleep mid thought! (I'm writing this on my phone) Time for bed. Next post will be something more interesting I promise.

Phasing out plastics...

As we gradually work towards a more sustainable living for our family, I'm also attempting to phase out plastic where possible, especially when it comes to food.

Today I started tackling the pantry cupboard.  I went to IKEA and bought some lovely (and affordable) glass jars to replace the plastic containers I'm currently storing dry ingredients in.

The first pile I need to sort.

I won't be throwing away the old plastic containers though, as that won't help our carbon footprint either!  I'll find another purpose for these away from food.  And I will choose to use glass instead of plastic going forward.

While Mr 8 Months sat in his highchair next to me chewing a rusk, surprisingly I managed to achieve a bit.  I wrangled this pile of chaos out of the pantry to sort through, washed the new jars ready to be filled and started reorganising the section of the pantry this all came from.

I quickly realised I don't have enough jars and that I will need more of certain sizes to transfer everything across.  But hey, this is a work in progress, and the jars always look like a different size in the store than what they do when we get them home.

Most of you know what it's like when you attempt to tackle a job like this when you have kids.  You have the idea, but it's days before you get the chance to do anything about it.

Then the opportunity popped up when my oldest was at daycare and my baby was happily occupied and NOT IN MY ARMS!  That's the moment I got motivated and started.  I got into the swing of it, and had a massive pile out on the table which was partly sorted.  Then Mr 8 Months started to get bored, threw his rusk down on the floor started 'hinting' he wanted Mummy cuddles.

So the pile was left on the kitchen table until the kids were in bed and dinner had been made.  By then, I was over it so packed it all back into the pantry in whatever stage it was in, and retreated to the lounge room for the evening.  I WILL get back to it again soon though, maybe on the weekend...

An update on the potatoes

Happy potato plants transferred into the larger tub.

So, we've had success with our potatoes!  They have actually grown into plants, much to my delight.

After just a couple of weeks, little green plants sprouted up out of the potatoes in the soil.

Since then I've had to transfer them to a larger pot with much much more soil as they filled the tiny pots.  As I was transferring them I discovered they had already produced some tiny brand new potatoes.

I have no idea how to tell if the potatoes are ready to eat or not, and I'm sure we learnt this all at school, but can't remember any of it now - I blame 'baby brain'.

Now I had better do some research about when to harvest them etc... If anyone knows, let me know :)

The random tomato plant that has popped up under the fence is thriving.

A little bit of Dirt Girl in our backyard‏

Today, we planted potatoes. 


My three year old and I have been planning this for quite some time. I find the kids TV show, Dirt Girl, very inspiring. She has a fantastic veg garden and has all sorts of projects happening in her yard. And today, we wanted to bring a little of Dirt Girl into our day.

A while ago, maybe about 4 weeks back, we popped a handful of potatoes in a bag into the back of the bottom shelf in the pantry cupboard. I could only vaguely remember the process of getting potatoes to turn into potato plants, and I didn't Google a method for our project. I figured it would come to me as we did it.

So after about 4 or 5 weeks in the dark, our potatoes had all sprouted lovely little knobbly beginnings of plants. I must admit, today was the first time we'd actually looked at the potatoes since putting them in the pantry, so I was a little nervous about what I might find! Luckily they were perfect and ready to go in the soil.

We took the baby outside and popped him on a quilt in the grass to wiggle about, and we sat on the path with some pots filled with soil, the plastic toy spades, the potatoes and a knife. I had memories of cutting the potatoes near to the sprouts so the sprouts could be placed individually in the soil right side up. So I cut the potatoes, and Ava planted them in the pots with her plastic spade.

Next, I made sure they were all covered in soil and we gave them a splash of water.

I don't know for sure if we've done it right, but we'll soon find out when we see them grow (or not).

Considering a tomato plant has just popped up out of the crushed granite in our backyard, I figure these sorts of plants must be fairly hardy and easy to grow! And I'm sure it didn't require much effort when I grew potato plants as a kid.

If they grow, I'll let you know!

Guerilla Knitting comes to Tempe

Just as the last of the DIY Rainbow Crossings get washed away by the rain, a new wave of colour hits the streets of Tempe.

Union Street

I can imagine they take some time to put together and then install. There seems to be about 3 – 7 days between each of these splashes of colour going up. It has been over a week now since the last one appeared, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed for another one popping up any day now.
On many street signs around our suburb we now have art installations made from knitted wool. Often referred to as Knit Bombing, Yarn Bombing or Guerilla Knitting, I have seen this form of colour installation many times around Newtown and Surry Hills over the years, but this is the first time it has reached Tempe.

Brooklyn Street

As you can imagine, the locals are loving it. Again, we’re all getting out there with our phones taking pictures and posting them on Facebook. The first one appeared in Brooklyn Street, and when a photo of this was posted on Facebook we all asked the mystery Knit Bomber to adorn the poles in more of our streets with these fantastic colourful installations.

We were lucky that our street was next, followed by Stanley Street behind us, Edwin Street around the corner, and then Nicholson Street.


I’ve found a UK website for a knitting collective, Knit the City. As yet there doesn’t seem to be an Australian equivalent, but there is this great Facebook page for Australian knitters and knitting fans: YarnBombing Australia.

Stanley Street

Most residents seem to be enjoying the splash of colour, and hopefully the knitting is allowed to stay on the poles indefinitely so the enjoyment can continue. If one day they do get taken down our photos will provide some happy memories.

Edwin Street

Edwin Street

Celebrate 2044, Sunday 19th May

The community spirit was high yesterday at our first ever community festival, Celebrate 2044. I love the name of this family oriented festival, as it truly represents the vibe of the day.

Whether the festival goers were locals from the 2044 postcode, or other areas of Sydney, we were all there to celebrate everything that is great about Tempe, St Peters and Sydenham.

The area is fast becoming known for the community spirit and involvement, and this festival is a way of enhancing that and sharing it. Tempe Public School had a sausage sizzle stall to raise money for the new playground, and the sausages supplied by Louise Mitchell from Agency by Glen Regan were delicious.

Speaking of Agency by Glen Regan, their team was there in fantastic black polo shirts with the 2044 postcode on the back. They are one of the biggest supporters of our community, and I believe they made a generous donation to the Tempe Public School playground fund, in addition to their support at the event yesterday.

The kids were kept busy with a plethora of free activities including an animal petting zoo, bouncy castle, face painting, SES demonstrations, Self Defence demonstrations, giant Lego, giant Jenga, Serendipity ice cream truck and of course the Tillman Park play equipment.

The newly refurbished General Gordon Hotel in Sydenham had a stall with some tasty food options including the beef burger and chips which looked phenomenal and apparently tasted brilliant.

The music on the stage set the mood, with The Ukes of Today being my personal highlight.

Everyone we spoke to seemed to be having a relaxing enjoyable day, and hope to see the event happening again every year. From what I saw and heard, yesterday was a success so I can imagine Marrickville Council will look at Celebrate 2044 becoming a regular event.

More DIY Rainbow Crossings in Tempe

The DIY Rainbow Crossing movement continues on the streets of Tempe.  And in my opinion, the latest in the series of chalk rainbows is by far the best!  So I thought it deserved another post.  After seeing photos on the Tempe Facebook page of this fantastic rainbow crossing, I had to get down there and see it for myself.  So when my 19 week old needed to go for a walk in the pram yesterday, I used the opportunity to check it out and take my own photos.

DIY Rainbow Crossing, Samuel Street Tempe.

Kim's Daughter, Hayden on her DIY Rainbow Crossing.

Kim Skildum-Reid created this fantastic DIY Rainbow Crossing across Samuel Street in Tempe.  Samuel Street is probably the widest of the residential streets in Tempe, and is a lovely quiet street, the perfect canvas for a Rainbow Crossing.

As Kim created her crossing out of chalk to achieve this vibrant rainbow, I asked her to share the recipe / technique with us.



"For each stripe, it required:

* 4 cups (600g) Cornflour

* 800-900 ml water

* 1/4 cup flour

* LOTS of food colouring (most batches required a whole bottle)

I mixed each colour in advance in six x 75 cent Kmart buckets. You need to stir gently, as it goes all hard and clumpy when you stir hard. If that happens, just stir gently and it will once again play nice.
We applied it with a paint roller, but it could certainly be done with a paintbrush.
It's a bit subdued at first, but gets really bright when it dries."

IKEA Tempe Rainbow

We also spotted a rainbow on the floor at IKEA Tempe this week.

I'm not sure if they installed it as part of the movement or if it was just a coincidence, but either way I like it.

Chalking the Streets of Tempe

The path across the road from us.

After the removal of Taylor Square's Rainbow Crossing caused so much dismay in the community, the resulting "DIY Rainbow Crossing" movement has created such a wonderful atmosphere around Sydney.

While it hasn't brought the original Rainbow Crossing back (yet), it has already brought about small positive outcomes on a grass roots level.

Adults, children, young adults and families of all descriptions, have come together as a community and hit the streets.  Weeks on we're still seeing colour around the neighborhood, on the Internet and in the newspapers.

Chalking DIY Rainbow Crossings has brought people outside, and working together.

Those who haven't created their own rainbows have been delighted when coming across them, having their photos taken with this chalk art and adding to the community “rainbow” spirit.

The big kids started the drawing, while Ava watched

The timing has been perfect too, with the NSW school holidays coinciding with the movement taking off.  Another positive outcome I've seen is that it has re-invigorated the simple activity of drawing with chalk on the pavement.  "Back in the day", kids didn't have game consoles, iPhones, iPads or laptops.  They played on the footpath with their friends, skipping, playing hopscotch and drawing with chalk.  I hadn't seen any if these activities since I was a kid. But now with all the chalk we have left after drawing our DIY Rainbows, the kids are spending their afternoons together drawing.

When they started out the front of our house.

An impromptu 'chalking' session happened in our street last week.  It started with the Teenagers and Tweens across the road, then my Pre-Schooler wanted to join in as well as the 18 month old and 7 year old from up the street.  After they'd filled the path across the road, they came across our side of the street and covered our path and driveway.

It was wonderful to see such a broad range of ages all playing together outside on a sunny afternoon.  I'm looking forward to seeing the colour on the ground every time I look out the front of my house (until it rains).

I hope this 'chalking' trend continues amongst the Tempe kids, because it's a fun, timeless activity that brings them all together.

De-Cluttering Techniques

This is a follow-on from last week's post about the places that I donate to or where I sell the unwanted items from my quarterly clear-outs. I thought more detail about my system for de-cluttering may help others facing this task.

I'm more comfortable in a minimal styled space, and get stressed put when I'm surrounded by clutter.  Most of my friends and family are aware that I am eternally clearing out.  I've inherited this trait from my Nanna.

In the past I have actually been asked by a couple of friends for my suggestions of where to start, and most recently by my Mum when they moved house.

So below I'd like to share my top tips.  Some will be obvious, but it doesn't hurt to see them in black and white to help get you motivated!

In the process of de-cluttering the kitchen dresser, so I can sell it.

*  Look at your clutter from a purely practical point of view.  Put aside emotion for just a moment.

*  You get to keep one "box of memories".  A box of keep-sakes, treasures etc.  Buy a nice box that seals well to keep the dust and silverfish out, and find a spot to keep it which is out of the way but easily accessible.

*  Set up a cardboard box marked 'charity', one marked 'rubbish', one marked 'keep', another marked 'sell' and any other relevant labels.

*  Ask a friend or family member to help.  This gets the job done quicker and also helps you to stay on track and motivated.

*  Start with one room at a time, or if there's a lot of clutter in one room, work with one cupboard, drawer or box at a time.

*  Try to remember when you last used each item.  If it has been longer than 3 months, it has to go.

*  If you're holding onto an item 'in case' you might need it in the future, put it in a cardboard box, write today's date on it, and the date in 3 months time.  When you come across the box in your next clear out, sort through it and if none of it has been touched it has to go!

*  When possible, try to bring your items into an area with natural light to sort through them.  Sitting in a dark space will make the job even harder.

*  With everything you do keep, try to put it away in an organised way so you avoid it becoming clutter again in the future.  My favourite way of storing things in cupboards is in boxes.  Particularly the clear plastic SAMLA series boxes from IKEA.  They stack well, come in multiple sizes and you can see the contents easily.  Labels stuck to the front help identify the contents too.

*  Find a picture of a room that you would love your finished room to look like, and keep it in view while you're sorting.

*  Set a deadline for achieving your end goal.  If it's a room be realistic and allow a few sessions.  If it's one cupboard or set of drawers it should be achievable in one day, especially with the help of a friend.

*  Clear out regularly.  If you frequently do small amounts of clearing it won't mount up to a mammoth task.  I suggest starting with a quarterly clearing session.  Use the start of each season as a reminder.

*  And last of all, try to enjoy it.  You'll feel cleansed and satisfied when you finish, so focus on the end result if you start to feel overwhelmed.

I could probably go on and on for pages with more de-cluttering techniques, but I think this is enough for you to get stuck in!

Quarterly Clear Out

Some people have a yearly "Spring Clean".  Others, like the people on the TV show Hoarders, never clear out.

Personally I like to clear out at least one area of my house quarterly.  The change of the season always makes me feel like culling and reorganising.

The crisp Autumn air has just arrived and already I've started clearing out the vintage dresser in our kitchen, all the kitchen cupboards, sorted through the kids clothes, and all my maternity clothes.

When I clear out, I always like to ensure that I sell, reuse, recycle, re-home as much as possible to reduce landfill and give items a new life.

There are a lot of great options I utilize to clear out my house, and I thought you might appreciate me listing them in case there are one or two you haven't come across.  I've included the obvious as well.


Places to sell your goods:
eBay
Gumtree
KID size Living Community Garage Sale
Tempe Buy Swap Sell
Tempe Yard Sale Trail - annual event happening again in September this year.

Donate your goods:
Salvation Army
Marrickville Council Collection
Little Wonder - donate your baby clothes and equipment her to help premature babies at RPA
Reverse Garbage - donate excess materials, stage props, paper, fabric etc
The Bower - donate windows, doors, furniture etc.
Local Nursing Home - donate your unwanted magazines and books to your local aged care facility

If you don't know about the Tempe Yard Sale Trail, I'll be publishing a post about it on here soon, or visit the Facebook page for more info.


And of course a lot of these places are also fantastic for buying as well, just try not to fill the space you've just created from clearing out!

I hope I've inspired you to clear out your own home, and at the same time give as many of your items as possible a second life.

DIY Rainbow Crossing

Our backyard DIY Rainbow

Unless you've given up your phone and computer this past week, then you would have seen your Facebook feed and Twitter feed full of chalk rainbow images.

As a peaceful response to the Taylor Square rainbow crossing being removed, multitudes of people have hit the pavement drawing their own colourful rainbows with chalk.

Started over at the DIY Rainbow Crossings Facebook page. the trend has gone global as you can see by the images posted on their Facebook page and as reported by The Australian.


On Monday, I took the kids out into the backyard with a packet of chalk and we created a mini rainbow on the path.

Work in progress on Union Street
Photo: Helen Pentecost

Littlies chalking in Union Street
Photo: Helen Pentecost

As we started our little backyard rainbow crossing, I received a message from a neighbour across the road who had just bought a load of giant chalk to embark on a full size rainbow crossing on our street.  She invited us over to be part of it.

Union Street DIY Rainbow Crossing

The rainbow crossing on the street was a lot trickier as we had cars occasionally coming through, so we had the youngest kids colouring at the side of the road out of harms way and the adults / teenagers doing the middle.  Luckily we're on a small one way street so there wasn't too much traffic.

Union Street DIY Rainbow Crossing Complete!
Photo: Helen Pentecost

Station Street DIY Rainbow Crossing
Photo: Ellie McNamara

With such a warm and welcoming community in Tempe, there were a lot of us who wanted to get involved and spread the message of 'love is love'.  So about four or five streets in Tempe got on board and created there own DIY rainbow crossings. 

Toyer Street DIY Rainbow Crossing
Photo: Bettina Kaiser

Toyer Street DIY Rainbow Crossing
Photo: Bettina Kaiser

Brooklyn Street DIY Rainbow Crossing
Photo: Selina Martin

Another lovely example of the young families of the area working together for something they believe in and having fun with the kids at the same time.