Colour Me In

Inspired by the Stella's Little Project contest I recently decided to print t-shirts for Ava featuring some of her  drawings.

After going through what seemed like a tonne of Ava's drawings I decided to merge a few aspects of several drawings together rather than using just one. The fairy, heart and flower in the final design below have been taken from three different drawings.

Rather than messing around with printing in full colour I decided to print simple black outlines of Ava's drawings ready for her to colour in herself with fabric crayons (Pentel Fabric Fun Pastel Dye Sticks).

I printed the t-shirt design using my amazing Print Gocco machine. I love that thing! It turns even the finest print (1mm I believe) into a template ready for silk screening onto fabric, paper etc. If I had to make the template using traditional silk screening techniques I'd still be at it. Ok, let's be honest... I'm far too lazy for that so I never would have even started!

The design printed onto a t-shirt ready for colouring

Happy Mother's Day

Well today was Mother's Day and I was treated to lots of yummy delights.

For lunch Kim and the girls took me to Just Tickled Pink for a Mother's Day High Tea. Lots of little sandwiches with the crusts cut off, shots of soup, tiny cupcakes, scones with jam and cream, brandy snaps, chocolates, champagne and, of course, tea.

Delicious!

Mother's Day Photo Shoot

Mother's Day is fast approaching - only 2 more sleeps - so today the girls had a photo shoot for Mother's Day cards.

I decided to put my floristry skills to use and made floral headpieces out of chrysanthemums for the girls to wear. It's not Mother's Day without chrysanthemums! Ava's headpiece was a wired mass of pale pink and white blooms which I clipped into her nice, thick hair. Lola, however, does not have a lot of hair so a wired headpiece was a bit much for her. Instead I just poked a few stems under a soft head band. I also made a small bouquet for the girls to take turns in holding. This ended up going to Ava the majority of the time as Lola delighted in pulling out petals by the handful! And then eating them!

I had decided to take photos out in the backyard as, for once, our lawn is actually looking pretty good. Lola was happy enough outside and smiled for the camera, however Ava did not stop whinging - the grass was itchy, the sun was too bright, blah, blah, blah... So after a few attempts at getting nice photos we moved inside. Ava was happy with this but Lola was NOT! This meant that I ended up with outside photos of Lola smiling and Ava looking grumpy, and inside photos of Ava smiling and a snotty nosed Lola screaming at the top of her lungs!

We did eventually get there in the end and I've just finished turning the photos into a card for the Grandmas and Great Grandmas. Here's a sneak peak...

Mother's Day Card 2011

Prize Winning Artist

Another day, another winning entry for our little artiste Ava!

Today Ava's drawing "The Tooth Fairy" was chosen as the monthly winner in Hello Hanna's Kid Art competition. Woo hoo! Hello Hanna design and sell gorgeous kids' stationery and party supplies. They also have a great blog full of inspiring ideas.

The Tooth Fairy

Ava wins a $25.00 Hello Hanna gift card to spend in their online store.

Hmm... what to choose? Here are a few things from Hello Hanna that I think Ava will like.

Stella's Little Project - The results are in...

The Stella's Little Project contest came to a close today and I'm very pleased to say that one of Ava's pictures, Alien Goo Goo made it into the top 100. It came in at number 67!

Alien Goo Goo

Dinosaurs

Last week we took Ava to see Walking with Dinosaurs: The Arena Spectacular at the Entertainment Centre.
Ava absolutely loved the dinosaurs, especially the baby t-rex (he was very cute for a carnivorous monster) and was mesmerised by the lifelike performances and special effects. She came home wanting to dig for dinosaur bones in our backyard. She's so sure that there must be some in the vegie patch!


I don't know what it is about dinosaurs but all kids seem to go crazy about them. I remember thinking dinosaurs were pretty cool when I was a kid and being jealous of my brother for having a collection of stegosauruses, tyrannosaurus rexes and diplodocuses!


One of my favourite movies as a kid was Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend, a film about a paleontologist who discovers a baby brontosaurus in the jungle and tries to find its family. At the time (some time in the mid eighties) I thought that the dinosaurs in the film were so incredibly life like. Of course, since then animatronics have improved *slightly* so I'm sure that if I was to watch it now I wouldn't be so impressed - especially if the reviews on IMDB are anything to go by! I might have to try and find a copy for Ava to watch. It's a little more child friendly than Jurassic Park!


Ava has been interested in dinosaurs for quite some time now and they feature quite regularly in her drawings. Not quite as regularly as fairies and castles but they're up near the top of her "must draw" list. 
I thought I'd share some of Ava dinosaur drawings on Little Hiccups.
I love that no matter how scary the dinosaur is supposed to be Ava still draws it with a smiley face :)

Apparently this is the Daddy and kid dinosaur.
These seem to be a cross between a t-rex and a stegosaurus!