DIY Minion Softies

Earlier in the year when the second Despicable Me movie was released, naturally my niece (4) and my nephew (6) fell in love with the characters all over again. I have a bit of a history of softie making for my nephew (and trust me alot of the toys are DODGY) but he loves all of them regardless of how they turned out. 

Not long after the movie was released it dawned on my nephew that I could make him a minion softie. He begged and begged, and knowing it would not be an easy task I kept putting him off and telling him I was too busy hoping he would forget, but of course, he did not. It didn't take long before my niece caught onto this and of course she wanted one too. So a few months ago I thought, what the heck, I'll make minions for Christmas. 

I scoured the internet for softie patterns because my history of toy patterns is far from polished. I came across this AWESOMELY great tutorial and based my creations off of it!

For the hair I found this neat wool at Lincraft that was all curly and knobbly looking. I threaded it through on the tops of their heads and knotted the strands into place. I think they look neat!

Mr 6's name starts with an S and Miss 4's name starts with a B so I wanted to make sure their minions were personalised so that there could be no arguments or confusion as to which minion belonged to who. So that is how the idea of the little logo got changed to the blue & pink letters on the overalls! At the end when I was adding the buttons it only seemed natural to match them to the letters and I love how they look!

And then it dawned on me there are different kinds of minions! So I was able to adjust the pattern and made the both the shorter two eyed minion and the taller one eyed minion (I have NO idea what their names are???). 

I decided to put in a lot of effort into making small, close stitches to make sure each element was ridiculously secure. I know the way  my niece and nephew play and careful and delicate is not their forte! It took me a long time to get all the elements completed but I think that gives the minions an overall more polished appearance which I'm pleased with.

The mouth's. That is always my least favourite part to tackle on any softie. More times than not they just look weird. I'm so pleased both mouth's turned out on these. It was one major "PHEW" from me!

And here are the finished products. Don't they look great? I know they will be happily received and loved on Christmas morning.

Have you made any Christmas presents this year? I'd love to hear about your creations.

Ruffle Tree Skirt

Look at my Christmas ruffle tree skirt!! I am so excited that I finished it!! It took me 4 days to complete from start to finish. I based the skirt off of this tutorial. 

I made my base slightly larger because I have a large Christmas tree. If I recall correctly I did it 50 inches in diameter. The only fabric I could find in my stash big enough to make the base all one piece of fabric was a soft pink fabric. At the time I thought it wouldn't matter cause you wouldn't see it. I was wrong.

The ruffles are so full and delicious that they stick up, revealing my ghastly pink mistake. I have decided to just get over it and deal with it. I thought I might tack down some of the bulkier ruffles to hide the pink but by the time I finished the skirt I just couldn't be bothered!! Maybe it will bother me another year and I'll do it? Maybe not... 

When I was sewing on the last row of ruffles hubby asked me if I'd checked that all the fabrics I had chosen matched the tree ornaments. I hadn't. And for a moment there I doubted my matching skills. But I had nothing to worry about. It matches perfectly with our colour scheme & my mismatched, eclectic style.

It feels wonderful to have ticked off one of my biggest Christmas craft projects EVER!! And I get to enjoy it for years and years to come! Now onto gift wrapping & my Christmas tree!

This year I went with super dooper simple gift wrapping. Who doesn't love brown paper? And hemp twine? And Kraft boxes? If you answered no to any of those questions, then you need to change your ways, because they are amazing!! The Kraft boxes are Stampin' Up! beauties. The larger boxes are found in the Seasonal Catalogue and they are $6.95 for a pack of 3 boxes (#132147) and the smaller boxes are found in the main catalogue and they are $4.95 for for a pack of 4 boxes (#124106). You can read more about the boxes here. I found an idea a few years ago to just use monogram tags to label Christmas gifts and this year I got around to doing it! Every member of my family has a different coloured letter to match in with the beautiful Christmas colours. I love how it has turned out. To make them I just punched out a 2-1/2" circle (#120906) out of Very Vanilla cardstock (#103550) and then cut out the letter I needed through the Big Shot (#113439) using the Typeset Alphabet Bigz Dies (#127553).

Now to finish the 4 other projects I have started and not yet finished..... In the meantime, here are some of my favourite tree ornaments!!

Merry Christmas!

Thanksgiving Celebrations 2013

I prepared for this special meal for weeks! And oh boy did it pay off. It was the BEST Thanksgiving we've ever had, and I'm not just saying that. It was an epic day, and this is going to be an EPIC blog post showing you all my favourite elements, displays & DELICIOUS food from our gathering. A little background story in dot points: 

• I lived in the USA for 1 year where I met hubby.
• He moved over here to Australia, we got married and this is where we live permanently.
• We decided from the beginning we didn't want to let his family Thanksgiving tradition die, so we started our own tradition. 
• Because there is no official holiday/day off for Thanksgiving in Australia, we just figure out a Saturday in November everyone in the family is free, this year it happened to be 2 days after the real Thanksgiving!
• We are getting better and better at it, and have mastered the traditional dishes! 

Now when I put on an event, I put a lot of effort into it. I think that anyone who has attended any event I have put on, can attest to that. I spend weeks making bits and pieces, planning dishes, planning decorations, making decorations, gathering supplies... I did lots of sneak peeks on Facebook, Twitter & Instagram. It was funny, because for the most part everyone was ooooo-ing and aaaaaaah-ing over what I was getting up to, but there were a few comments that "not even American's go to that much effort"... Well, guess what? I'm not American, I'm a Franklin, and this is how Franklin's do Thanksgiving!!! Yeehaa!! 

So here it is. Sit back, get cosy, and be ready to scroll through some seriously large amounts of amazing photos!!! :) 

The decorations are so important to me. They create the mood, atmosphere & environment that contributes towards a successful event. The part I love most about these particular decorations is they only cost me $10. I was able to make the paper bunting using cardboard & DSP scraps from my stash. The majority of the table decorations were from nature. The spray paint I used on the pine cones was from my stash. The glass jars were from my cupboard. The ribbon from my stash. Mini pumpkin decorations from my stash.  So the $10 was spent on a set of beautiful white candles from Ikea... and that's it! 

I also didn't want to use a fabric tablecloth. Firstly because I don't have 2 matching ones, but secondly because I didn't want them to get stained or wrecked! So my next thought was brown paper. And I love how it looked. I taped it down and off I went with decorating.

Now for the table settings. I saw an idea on Pinterest where someone drew place settings with Nikko in a square and I loved it. I took it a step further and instead of just a square I drew little frames. My sister has the fabulous retired Silver Setting Stamp set which I stamped onto the brown paper using my Staz On Ink Pad (#101406). Then I was able to write people's names on the table so everyone knew where to sit! 

The napkin settings I made from scratch. I made up a little template which I'll be able to use again in the future. Decorated simply with some string, ribbon & twine in all different colours for a rustic look. The "Thanks" text was handstamped in individual ink colours using my Simply Serif Mini Alphabet Stamps (#126360).

Brown & white striped straws from Lille Parti. 

The food, oh my, the food. This is why Thanksgiving is important to us haha!! We only make these dishes once a year to keep them special and I have perfected recipe's over the years. I get my mum and sister to help with cooking each year. This year we had some extra friends join us so they were all given dishes to make also! Everyone did a superb job and everything was to die for delicious! 

I made all the little food signs using cardstock, ink pads, washi tape & some punchouts & die cut outs.

My brother Ben in the checked shirt & our friend Shem about to sit down at the end.

I love these two photos. It's not often I share photos of my niece and nephews on here, but even at 4 & 6 they know good food when they see it. My niece (Miss 4) likes to think she's an adult and uses her knife and fork together haha!! Then my nephew (Mr 6) is the fussiest eater you'll ever meet. So he had 2 platefuls of turkey and 2 bread rolls (he NEVER eats that much)! He sat next to me and was soooo cute. Every time he would finish using a utensil he would slot it back into the napkin holder. 

Now onto dessert....

Are you salivating? I am just looking at these pictures again! 

We had such a wonderful chat about all the things we are grateful for in this world and in our lives as we ate and it there was such a wonderful feeling in the room as we shared, laughed & cried together. So that is another year done & dusted. I can't wait until November rolls around again. 

Remember us over here at A Christy Production if you have an event coming up and need custom paper goods made to decorate with: paper bunting, cupcake/food toppers, food signs, place cards, napkin holders.... you name it, we can do it for you!