Bad Elf

Sooo long time away. That makes me a bad elf already,  but what I had in my mind was to declare the

 SEASON OF THE

Bad Elves

OPEN

The bad elves are those who 

1. Make so complicated gifts that at some point of the production swearing is needed.
2.  Then covet the gifts they have made.

You can add more criteria in the comments and/or join the club here.

As the season is mostly about gifts and they cannot be showed for a good while, I will show you things I have made while I have not been blogging.

I feel this is an old hat now, but it is one of those birthday gifts I make in hope of getting children to appreciate handmade and at the same time avoiding to add to their pile of plastic.
The picture above is a PE bag. I added two pockets on outside for the sand shoes. She also got a pencil case.

 

Actually I think i could easily use these things....hm... Bad Elf vibes again. Luckily these items have been gifted away long time ago!

As it would be awkward not to mention it, our family unfortunately became a part of 1/3 statistics; the adoption we were working on broke down. We have worked hard to get ourselves up from the floor again and are left with sadness and hope and also great respect for those who adopt.

Dolly

First apologies for the mess the blog lay-out is in. I just don't seem to get hang of the new system and don't know when I have time to try to sort it out.

When adopting the adoptive parents are encourage to buy one toy for the child to have with him/her during the whole transition phase, moving from the foster home to the adoptive home with the child. Being me I made one. I chose to make a Waldorf style doll with our daughter's hair and eye colour. I believe that a toy made with love and thinking of the recipient carries a different energy from a toy purchased from a shop.

The doll is filled with sheep wool, in true Waldorf style. I used an excellent book "Making Waldorf Dolls" by Maricristin Sealy as my guide. The book has very "homemade" looks, as the illustrations are drawings. It is not a hip lay-out at all, but the contents are great. I have used several patterns from it and it is herewith declared as one of my treasured sewing bibles.

This is what Elf Daughter's Dolly gets up to:

 
Dolly is a free spirit!

Sorry

The blog looks a mess! I should have never pressed the new designs thingy as I don't have time enough to get it looking nice. So please be patient.

For our Daughter

Is there anybody out there.....? I have had a long break from blogging, but not from sewing. The reason being that we adopted a daughter. The process of pre-adoption interviews and courses was quite busy, but nowhere as taxing as I thought it would be. On the other hand the post-placement life has been hard and we are still getting used to each other. Our daughter is a six year old munchkin and an amazing survivor of a bad start. She is also moderately deaf, which impacts her development. I thought that I will show you some of the things I have made, that is things I managed to photograph. There are new things under way all the time, so there should not be a lack of blogging material. I just have to have time and energy to do it.

So here is Elf Daughter's bedroom as it was just before she moved in. This is the little room I was making things for. You might notice both the quilt and the pelmet here.

You can see the applique pictures I showed before and the  bed got a whole lot of cushions sewed by me, naturally.

The bedside table doubles as a play table and I painted a wooden box pink for keeping her hearing aids when she is asleep.

This is for the toys. As you see I used some of my "scrap book" paper to decorate the boxes.

I painted one of our old IKEA organisers white and added colourful fabric on the drawer fronts.
                                                                                                                                                                    

I had some old IKEA photo frames, which I spruced up with paint. And as the frames were on the windowsill to begin with I was noticing the very ugly backs every time I came home. Well, you know me, I had to prettify them with my papers again. Not that it matters now that they have moved on the wall next to the window.

 

 And the very wonky notice board job...

The wardrobe handle, painted just like my kitchen cupboard ones.

So there you are, the little room all finished. We do actually have a couple of cotton mini rugs on the floor,  but I forgot to put them there  before I took the pictures. Now there is also an additional play bench in the room for Elf Daughters kitchen and shop games. See you soon!