LilyfieldLife Kids Singlets

I love decorating little singlets. I've been making them for years, selling them and giving them as gifts.  I currently have the following singlets for sale and am happy to ship anywhere worldwide.


These singlets are the perfect gift!  They can be worn under a shirt in winter or with a pair of shorts/bloomers/skirt in the summer......

$12 AUD each plus postage

From left to right the details are:

• Size 0,  (age 6 to 9 months) Pale pink singlet with pink Liberty Print heart (the colour is actually not correct in photo, it's actually the same colour as the second photo on left)
• Size 1, pale pink singlet with Liberty Print heart and little heart button
• Size 000 (age up to 3 months), pale purple singlet with pink and purple striped heart,  
• Size 1, Pink singlet with demin heart and ribbon stripes
• Size 6, boys navy singlet with 2 frayed blue camo patches.
• all made using genuine Bonds singlets, 100% cotton, Made in Australia. 
• $12AUD each
• Postage is $3 within Australia and $10 for international orders.

Please email me or leave a comment below if you are interested or want a different size or colour.  My preferred payment is via Paypal but I'm happy to provide bank details for direct deposit. Email me for details.

Crafternoon - Pencil Drawings

It's a rainy day here in Sydney for our last day of school holidays. The children and I have had such a beautiful time together the last few weeks, that I'll be so sorry to see them back at school tomorrow.  I could so easily home-school these gorgeous kiddos...

This morning we had "Crafternoon" (ok it's the wrong time of day but that's what we call it around here). The kids read a book and then drew their interpretation of it. Today they did pencil drawings and also used some watercolour pencils.


I'm a big believer in having lovely art supplies - it really promotes nicer art work when you are working with beautiful materials. It also teaches kids to take care and treasure their pencils and craft supplies when they are beautiful to begin with. We bought Sasha this tin of 72 Derwent pencils for Christmas. She really takes care of them! She still has them in colour order!  I won a set of Derwent pencils in a colouring competition when I was in 4th grade and I still have them 35 years later - most of them are well used and much shorter but it goes to show what teaching kids to treasure their art supplies can do.

This morning I just set the art supplies up and left the kids to it. Here's what they came up with themselves with no help from me. I love their creativity!

Jonty (who has just turned 6) read his book "When I'm Feeling Angry".  He's written "When I'm feeling angry, I feel like there is a boiling hot volcano in my tummy that is about to explode!"

Sasha (who is 8 and a half) read one of our favourite children's books "Edward Built a Rocketship". This is a seriously delightful book and we can all recite it from heart.  

 I love her mix of pencil and wash for the sky and how she's left the clouds white. 

We are still hoping that it clears up enough to spend the afternoon in the park but it's not looking hopeful.  I was also hoping to finish the 2 milk paint bedside tables that I started at the Porter's Paint class on Saturday but I need to sand the second one before waxing and as it creates a huge amount of dust I need to do it outside so I need some dry weather. I can't wait to show you the finished product and tell you all about the course. Hopefully tomorrow!


cheers from one proud mummy,
Fiona

Lilyfield Life Discount at Whiteport!

Over the past few weeks I've been contacted by several companies about running advertisements on my blog. Most of them I'm not interested in as I want my brand to stay true to my style, however when I was contacted by Jennifer McCabe, founder & owner of Whiteport, offering a 20% discount for my blog readers I was delighted.  I have often drooled over the Whiteport online store, especially the table linen section.

Whiteport offers a unique range of premium and affordable bedding, furniture and homewares, all themed around a stylish white palette. The online store is a one-stop shop for inspirational home décor, bed linen, gifts and furniture.

I also covet a tufted ottoman!

I'm so excited to be able to offer you all a 20% discount at Whiteport.  All you need do is enter the coupon code "BLOG" at checkout and make sure you click on the "Apply Coupon" button which will apply the 20% discount to your order. The discount is storewide and also applies to already reduced items.  

Leave me a comment if you decide to purchase anything. I'd love to hear from you on what you decide on. There's a lot of gorgeous things to tempt you.


This offer is valid until next Friday so hop to it!


If you are interested in decorating with white you might like to follow my White Spaces board on Pinterest.


Cheers 
Fiona

Handmade Laura Ashley Quilt

It's much cooler in Sydney this week so we have brought out the snugly home made quilts and throws.


This quilt below was a long time in the making.  I started the patchwork when I was 17 out of some Laura Ashley scraps my mother gave me.  For some reason (probably that I was a teenager with the beach and boys and some study on my mind) I didn't finish it.  20 years later I found it all carefully stored in a box and finished it.  At the time I was pregnant with my son, so my mother had it quilted for me.  My mum is an amazing quilter herself (I'll share some of her quilts later) and she was going to quilt this for me but at the time her husband was dying so she paid for someone else to quilt it for me. It's done in a multicoloured thread and at first I was very unsure about it but I love it now.

It is all hand sewn for the patch work. I cut out little square and triangles in cardboard. I then folded, ironed and tacked the material onto the cardboard and then sewed the pieces together. This is a very simple method of hand sewing a patchwork piece and a great way to teach kids to patchwork.


I used wool batting inside the quilt so it's very snugly and warm.  This normally is on my daughter's bed but I've photographed it on our bed so you can see it properly.


Our bedroom walls look quite purple in these photos but they are more a pale blue/lilac. It's Northern Star by Taubmans.

  The painting above our bed is one I did of all the amazing buildings in Prague.  It doesn't live above my bed normally but I'm in the process of changing the paintings around.

 The back of the quilt is a blue fabric with a delicate floral pattern. (sorry for the bad iPhone photo, my camera battery dies as I was taking these photos)

A close up of my little white hand stitches

I'm so proud of my younger self for starting this quilt. I am actually quite surprised that I even did this and was so neat and careful as a teenager. 

Do you quilt? Have you come back to a project many years later? Amazed by something you did as a child? - please share!


cheers 
Fiona

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French Louis Chair Makeover (for Sale)

I was lucky to buy a set of 11 French chairs a while ago. The guy selling them had been planning to restore them himself but ended up moving overseas for work and decided against transport them to Germany.  I had them sitting in my shed for ages as it seemed a bit daunting to upholster all 11. Then I had an email from a woman in Far North Queensland looking for a set of French chairs that she could refurbish herself.  So I on-sold 6, and suddenly had a much more manageable number to makeover.  I have decided to reupholster and sell separately.  

If you are interested in buying this please send me an email.

Here is the first that I have finished.  It would make a beautiful desk or bedroom chair.  The damask is beautiful - a lovely muted bluey grey with a pale gold background.  The chair is solid and sound. You can tell this is not a modern reproduction as it is heavy. It has beautiful carvings on it for a very French flair.  


Here are some close ups of the details:

  

 The back

Here is a photo of the chair in natural light to show the colours of it. This was before I added all the braid.

I'll add a before photo tomorrow when I can find it but the chair was dark brown wood with red velvet upholstery. Not in very good shape.

cheers Fiona

Woven French Chair Tutorial is coming

I've had a lot of feedback on the woven French chair I did recently. I think you all like it as much as I do!

It's been featured on a couple of big US blogs - Thanks Wendy and Judy! and welcome to everyone coming from the links of their features. I hope you stick around to enjoy my blog and projects.

So I know I promised a tutorial on how to weave plain old drop sheet into a lovely upholstery for a chair but as I didn't take photos while I was doing this chair I actually need to do another chair to do the tutorial.  And it's school holidays here in Australia at the moment and I'm VERY BUSY taking my kids to the beach and making the most of this divine Sydney weather!!  

So instead of photos of upholstery, I've only got these photos of the beach today....enjoy and I promise that the chair tutorial and other furniture projects are coming soon....

and I had to share these photos of my kids. They said they were showing how much they loved me and the happy day we had shared...
These two kids melt my heart!

 

cheers 

Fiona

Happy

Worth sharing.

I hope you are choosing to have a happy day!

Out and About at Easter

We had a lovely Easter. Phil also took Tuesday off work so we had 5 days of family, friends, beach, and other outings.

Shark Beach at Nielsen Park on Good Friday morning. 

Divine sunny weather so we swam a lot.  That's my kids in the middle of the photo below digging in the sand.  They were so engrossed I was able to swim 1 km while they were playing on the sand.  I found it much harder to swim at the beach than in the pool but I thought as I'm training for an ocean swim with my friend,  Jen, that I may as well get used to it.

Much sunnier than this Instagram filter below suggests. 

But what a lovely spot to moor your boat.

  Beautiful patterns in the Sydney sandstone

 Then it was home to prepare a big seafood lunch shared with Phil's sisters.

Fish, scallops, prawns, calamari, home made chips and salad. Followed by baked peaches and nectarines in a caramel sauce.

Saturday we went to the markets early and then back to the beach for almost the whole day. It was wonderful. Sydney really had a late summer.  The beach was much less crowded on Saturday and we scored a nice position under a tree just above the sand. I swam 1.5 km and found it a bit easier as the swell was more gentle.

 Saturday afternoon was spent making hot cross buns (that then got stored in the fridge ready for baking Sunday morning) and sorting out home dyed eggs and cards for the Easter bunny.  We made the nest using brown paper shredded by the spaghetti attachment on our pasta machine (idea thanks to Pretty Handy Girl) 

Sunday morning the Easter bunny had left some beautiful bowls and a few chocolate surprises.

 Easter Sunday and Monday we spent at another beach. We decided to book a hotel deal for a night - at Bondi - (just 15 minutes drive from our house). Even though it wasn't far it was lovely to spend a night in a hotel, go out to dinner, walk along the beach and swim at Icebergs again. Although it was much colder at Icebergs than when I swam there last week!

Tuesday the weather turned and now it's suddenly autumn. We took out bikes to Bicentennial park and rode for hours around the parklands and along the river. We found a great cafe (the Armory Wharf Cafe) and an amazing playground. We'll definitely be heading back there. 

I also squeezed in time to read Anh Do's memoir "The Happiest Refugee".  What a beautiful man and family. I was laughing and crying throughout the whole book.

So that's our Easter. What did you all get up to? I'd love for you to share something special you did.

cheers

Fiona

BTW I used Instagram for all my photos today. Did you hear that Facebook bought it? What a lot of money to pay for a business that's never posted a profit.  Crazy times we live in!

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