Monday Motivation

“Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love."  - Mother Teresa

How to Make a Great Beanbag Floor Cushion

(Click here for how to make a child's beanbag)

This post is possibly less about how to make a beanbag floor cushion, (since that is really quite easy), than it is a testimonial about how very useful they can be in your home! :)

                                                                                                                                                                                                   






I first made two large beanbag floor cushions for our home about 15 years ago -  I had found a couple of tapestry pieces I liked at the time and was looking for a way to use them.  With our large family, (7 children plus 2 parents = 9), plus many assorted friends on occasion = not enough seating for everybody!  - it seemed like a good idea, and the rest, as they say, is history! :)

We have kept the two cushions stacked one on top of the other in our family room, so that they are like an extra seat.  We use them flat, on their own or in a stack of two; flat or upended onto their side - and among other things have found them useful for:

...    extra seating.  They take one or two, and up to three or four bottoms at a time, as needed :)
...    somewhere to put up our feet!
...    something to lay back against while lounging on the carpet
...    a safe and comfy nest for a new baby
...    a great way to elevate a broken toe or sore feet
...    something for the children to jump on - especially from moderate heights :)
...    a great recliner to sleep somewhat upright with after dental surgery
...    as padding on the bedroom floor of a toddler learning not to fall out of bed!
...    easily portable seating to take into the lounge room as needed, or even to loan out to friends for parties :)
...    something to lay over for postural drainage or, more usually, to drape over to read a book or watch a movie

In recent years I have made a set of these beanbag cushions for three of our married children, most recently as a Christmas present for Bethy. Here's what you need for each single cushion if you would like to make these for your home:

• 2 x 93cm squares of a light and strong fabric for the inner lining/insert.  (I usually use a poly-cotton fabric.  This fabric won't be seen.)
• 2 x 93cm squares of outer upholstery fabric.  (I used a light corduroy for the cushions I made recently.)
• 1 metre of medium to heavy-duty zip
• polystyrene beanbag filling (about 120 litres for each cushion?  The beans flatten over time and I have added to our cushions probably about 4 or 5 times over the years.  I haven't replaced beans, just added them.  It's nice to have a bit of 'squish' in your cushions, but you might like more beans if you like them sturdier.)  

Directions - 

To make the inner lining/insert:  

• With right sides facing, sew the two pieces of fabric together along three and a half sides (leave a gap of about 30cm (1 ft.) in the centre of one side.)  Use a 1.5cm seam allowance throughout.
• Strengthen and finish the seam well, with at least one more line of sewing about 1cm. from your first.  (You don't want the beads to escape from a popped seam.)
• Turn and fill with beans through the hole you left.  Hand-sew the remaining seam closed by folding the seam ends over a couple of times, and sewing well with double thread.  I use a brightly coloured thread so that it is easy for me to unpick it when I need to add more beads.

To make the outer cushion cover:

• With right sides together, sew along one side of the cushion only, using a 1.5cm seam allowance and a long basting thread that is easy to unpick.
• Turn over and open out and flatten the seam allowance.
• Pin your zip (I used continuous zip), all the way down the seam line, matching the centre of the zip to the centre of the seam. 

• Sew the zip in once all around, and then once more, about .5cm-1cm away from your first line of stitching, to strengthen it.  Unpick the basting line - you should find that the seam lines up perfectly over the zip.

• With right sides together, sew remaining three sides of the covers, then sew again 1cm away, to reinforce.

Insert the cushion into the cover, taking care to push it all the way into the corners. 

You're done!

Really, the only ticklish parts to doing this are:  1. filling the bags with beans.  (I challenge you to not let any of them escape!  You ought to do a good vacuum when you have finished to make sure little fingers don't put them into little mouths and perhaps inhale them), and 2.  Sewing the thicknesses of fabric, if you are dealing with upholstery material.  Especially over the zip might be hard.  If so, I suggest you just sew what you can and finish near the zip with some hand-sewing.  

(Don't you love this patchwork floor cushion?  You can find a tutorial for it here.  I love the colours! :)

Of course, you could also go larger!

This Time 'Round' (Pregnancy Perks and Pains)

And I do mean 'round' :)

Last time 'round

I am pregnant with baby number 3.  I do not sail gracefully and beautifully and glowingly through my entire pregnancy.  I think I do that for maybe a week somewhere around month 5.  The other 39 weeks are more of a challenge.

Here's how pregnancy #3 has gone for me... 

The first trimester:

• I thought that I would die.  Morning sickness feels like death.  Or at the very least, like you're heading that way!
• How did I do this twice already?
• It must be much worse this time!!! (James assuring me it was exactly the same)
• I can't eat ANYTHING!!! - wait, except an Aussie burger from Hungry Jacks... right now.. I'm not kidding James, right now.  Why am I not eating it right now?  Sob, sick.
• My poor children!  I'm putting on that Hi-5 DVD again!
• Yes, I'm pregnant - but you're not meant to be asking me that yet, I'm only 8 weeks, we're trying to keep it under wraps!  The weight I'm putting on isn't 'baby' yet - I just can't stop eating or I'll be sick! Yes, I know I look 14 weeks.  It's the 14 Aussie Burgers I've eaten in the last 2 weeks, that's all.
• James, don't get uni holiday work! - We'll survive without money!  I just can't get out of bed to look after the girls!  Or get myself food to cover my cravings and make me not be sick for 2 minutes   Skip class while you're at it please!  And skip basketball!  Skip everything - just stay home and help me not die!  You really have to go to that exam today?!  Okay, okay, I understand... Can you drop me at Mum and Dad's on the way??

The second trimester:

• When James asked me what I wanted for dinner, I didn't burst into tears! - I think I'm okay with anything!  I'm healed!!! :)
• Sick again.  Pregnancy feels like death!
• Better again today!  Finally pulling out of it!  :)  
• Wow, the world is a happy place!  A lot has happened while I've been 'under' for the last 4 months!!  I am so, SO excited to be pregnant!  YAY!!! :)  Wow, I put on SO much weight eating 24/7 to help me get through that!  But I'm still a little feeling fragile, and still can't stop eating.  That's okay - it's about survival right now... I wonder what we're having!  Bet it's another girl! :)
• It's a boy!!!  I can't wait to buy something blue!!!  It feels so real!!  I can't believe it!!!
• Come on time, hurry up - I want to meet this little guy!! :)  This trimester is taking a whiiiiile!!!

The third trimester:

• I have 12 weeks to go!!!  I'm not going to fit into any of my maternity clothes if I keep growing at this rate - cut junk food, feel HEAPS better!
• This is so exciting!  Planning, planning - ordering new bassinet, picking up bits of blue here and there :) 
• The girls and I are SUPER excited!  They can't wait to meet 'the baby brother' - we talk about him all the time, they give him lots of hugs.
• Lots of cramping, lots of sciatic nerve pain, lots of random pains, feel faint a lot.  Am assured by the doctors with a smile that this is all completely normal.  Reassured, but still in pain.  Again I say - I must be MUCH worse this pregnancy.  James telling friends I'm doing much BETTER this pregnancy.  Really?  It was this bad the other times?!  
• Am barely getting bigger since cutting junk food - think the baby must be eating the fat I'd already grown.  I feel good about this! :)
• Baby's too small!  Booked in for ultrasounds to plot growth!
• False alarm - baby's a great size.
• But baby's breach!  Unless he turns will have to try painful procedure with 60% chance of success to turn him, or book me in for a caesarean!  
• Prayers.  He turned!  Yay!! :)
• 12 days to go.  Over the moon, SO EXCITED!!!  Getting excited and gooey looking through 'the day Ana was born' photos.  Hospital bags packed.
• Falling asleep halfway through sentences at 6:30pm - barely making it from the dinner table with my eyes open.  Roll my eyes anytime poor James mentions in passing that he's feeling tired or sore from something.
• "Oh, you've dropped!  You'll be having this baby any day now!!!"
  "Wow you're still carrying really high! - Baby must still be a long way away!!"
  Obviously nobody as a clue when he'll really get here :)
• I can't believe we get to meet this boy soon!  Praying that everything will go 'well' with this labour.  Sick of leaning forward, but terror of posterior childbirth (first pregnancy) keeping me at it.  Dreaming of lying on my back within the month!
• Mixture of indescribable excitement and terror waiting for 'something' to happen!  Trying not to be afraid of labour.  It's not working.  
• Made dinner last night.  James surprised and grateful.  He is practically Mum and Dad while I'm pregnant.  I think he may be looking forward to baby's birth as much as I am! :)
• I really, really love my children.  I can't think of anything in the world I'd do this for, aside for another beautiful, perfect little addition to our family.  

After giving birth to Maggie after a 3 day posterior ordeal that was worse than any of the nightmares I had imagined (and childbirth has always been a huge fear - I imagined as bad as I could!), the first thing I remember saying, was "Oh James I would do it all again right now!  I love her SO MUCH!!!".  I was deliriously happy.  There is NOTHING like that feeling in the whole world.  And there is NOBODY like your very own child!!  Someone you can cuddle, and teach, and love and look after!!  And you get to watch them grow, and learn, and 'try you', and no matter how badly they're misbehaving, every day is full of perfect moments :)

So despite the last 9 months, and the very huge ordeal of childbirth, which will spring itself upon me any day in the next 4 weeks, there's nothing in the world that makes me happier than this:  

We're having another baby!!! :)

Happiness

I've been thinking a lot about happiness lately.

(I know, I know - what a touchy-feely thing to say! But I promise not to hold your hand and sing kumbaya!)

I think it's just the whole 'new year' thing.  You start to think about your life, and what you're happy with and what you're not, and after several split-personality discussions with myself I've arrived at the following:

1) Tammy, are you happy with such and such?
2) If you are, great. Now try and remember that, and be happy.
3) If you're not, can you change it?
4) If you can, do.
5) If you can't, or if you believe that now isn't the right time to change it, then you can either
      a) keep being unhappy, or
      b) you can chose to be happy

And I guess it's the 'be happy' and the 'chose to be happy' that's had me thinking. I'm not a particularly unhappy person or anything, but I'd like to do more to be consciously happy - because life is so much better when you are!

Several years ago, right before I went away overseas, mum gave me a little card with a picture of a flower, and the words 'bloom where you're planted'.  I liked it.  That idea that you may not always have control over where you are or what's going on, but you always have control over what you do with it, and you can almost always decide to 'bloom' regardless of where you're planted.

And I've realized that reminding myself that I really do enjoy a lot of the wonderful things in my life, and then finding ways to be grateful for all of the wonderful things in my life and the wonderful things that are all around me, is definitely a great place to start.  And then smiling and laughing, and loosening up, and making time for people and not just things. And then smiling and laughing some more.

So, just a little thought today really.  How's your 2013 looking?  And what things are you doing to be happy?

“There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy. 

By being happy we sow anonymous benefits upon the world.” 

— Robert Louis Stevenson

“Like swimming, riding, writing, or playing golf, happiness can be learned.” 

— Boris Sokoloff

xo Tammy

Guest Post From Rani - Kids' Art

We are so happy to welcome Rani again today as a guest Blogger!  I've been to Rani's house and love the way she has displayed her children's art in their home.  Are all children this talented?  Yes or no, there is something about the way a child draws and paints that seems impossible for us to replicate when we are older.  So - we ought to take advantage of it while they are young, and that is what Rani does so well!  You can read more from Rani here, here and on her Blog here.

Thank you Rani! :)

In grade 12, I painted a large canvas for an Art class assessment. What started off as an ‘abstract’ soon changed into a hibiscus flower, then somewhere along the way it turned into a waterfall. The thickly textured waterfall cascaded off a rocky cliff, with palms and shrubbery here and there, and the piece de resistance was a peachy colored sky accenting the yellow sun setting behind the top off the fall...

I hated that painting.

Oh, how I hated it! I was so utterly disappointed at how it had turned out, I was humiliated when I was forced to hand it in for my final end of year assessment. But what made it worse was that, to my horror, my mum thought it was great! And she hung it up in our house! *Shame!* Every time I walked past it, I only saw the agony and stress I poured over it and all the mistakes glaring back at me, mocking.  But mum loved it. She loved the colors, the textures, and the grand size of it. And somehow, despite the humiliation of having it displayed in our home for everyone to see as they walked toward the bathroom, I actually liked that my mum loved it so much. Even though it would never be a family heirloom, I liked that my mum found pleasure in it (nevertheless there were no tears shed when she moved house and it safely hung in the spare room…phew!)

Well now, it’s my turn. I display my children’s artwork all over my house. I just love it.  For a while there I was finding it frustrating competing with the kids’ toys and furniture, and found myself wondering how to incorporate my own grown-up interior design style with my kids’ junk things. It started when my oldest daughter was old enough to hold a crayon. I framed her first scribble. I was in love with her work. Of course, to everyone else they were just messy lines on a scrunched up piece of paper, but to me they were priceless.

Over the years, especially once my oldest daughter went to kindergarten, the paintings, collages and drawings came in droves. I wanted a better place to put them than hidden away in a box or on the kitchen bench for a day before they went into the bin. And so I bought more frames. And now, many rooms in my house display kiddy art.

I also made an Art Wall using two pieces of skirting board. I spray painted them black, attached bulldog clips using small screws, and I have the perfect place to hang up all my kids’ work. The best part is that I can alternate as more art comes in. Since I have them displayed for often weeks at a time, I find that I don’t feel bad when it comes to throwing some of them away. However, there are some favorites I keep up all the time, and one day will probably frame them too. We use it to display Family Home Evening art, photos, and this Christmas we used it to display cards and other decorations. 

I feel happy that I have found a unique style in displaying my kids’ art. I look around my house and I feel that I not only have my own personality in furniture, cushions, chairs, rugs, and decoration, but it’s a house where you know kids live and they are welcome to be themselves. The artwork makes it very colorful and bright and, despite loving many different looks and interior designs, I’m embracing this right now. I’m sure it won’t always look this way, but for now I love my house because I am surrounded by beautiful paintings and drawings of our family and things my girls love at this precious stage in their life.

(Rani hangs her frames using  removable 3M hooks, which you can read more about here.)

Monday Motivation

Another fresh new year is here . . .
Another year to live!
To banish worry, doubt, and fear,
To love and laugh and give!

This bright new year is given me
To live each day with zest . . .
To daily grow and try to be
My highest and my best!

- William Arthur Ward

The Nativity :)

One of all of our favourite parts of Christmas Day this year, was our new tradition, which the grandchildren are finally old enough for - the acting out of the nativity! :)

It's actually a re-vamp of an old family tradition, which you can read about here.  

Jessima had picked up some of the costumes just at Big W, our angel was wearing a  princess dress up, and  one of our shepherds decided to go with a cute red Christmas dress, but as you can see in the post I just linked, sheets and towels over heads can be just as effective!!

The children met together on Christmas Eve, and Tammy helped them practise, which they had a lot of fun doing, if nothing else ;)  On Christmas morning, Tammy helped the children remember their couple of little lines, and remember when to do things like walk to Jerusalem...

...and give your gifts to the baby Jesus :)

It was so much fun, we all loved watching it, the children LOVED doing it, and it brought the real spirit and meaning of Christmas into our home :)

I can't wait for next year!! :)

A Little Drama Queen

This little story is from my personal blog on Christmas Eve - the first day of James' official holidays.

***

James is excited to spend quality time with all of us over the holidays, but he wants especially to spend some special time with Ana, who gets a little shy when she doesn't see enough of someone!!  So this morning she went on an outing to the fruit market and shops with Daddy!! :)  

Here they are all ready to go!! :)  Ana's waving 'goodbye', and James is telling Maggie he's sorry but this time (like, the first time ever for her with James!) she needs to stay home...

They left, and from the little phone conversation we had, it sounds like they're having a lovely time out together! :)

Meanwhile, Maggie has been sitting exactly like this since they left, about an hour ago now.

She won't eat her breakfast, and she is carefully closing her eyes just the right amount and doing little sobs every now and then (with periodic weeping on my shoulder) to express her wallowing state.  Every now and then she chokes out an 'I miss Daddy and Ana so MUCH' between pathetic sobs.  It's very impressive.  She can't touch her food - obviously it's lost all taste.

After I took these pictures - for which she good humouredly faced the camera - she looked at me with a twinkle in her sad little eye and chocked out "Can I see them, Mummy?".  I showed them to her, she grinned for half a second, and exclaimed "Oh Mummy! - She looks so saaad!  That girl is sooooo sad!!!".  I laughed my head off at her delight in her own great dramatic misery, and she allowed herself a cheeky grin or two before getting back into her zone :) 

xo

My Super Power

You know how you sometimes have an idea - a great idea even - and you get kind of excited about it, but then the execution of the idea results in an outcome that's completely opposite to the way you sort of saw the thing going down?

Well that happened to me recently.

(Who am I kidding, that happens to me constantly. But here's just one example...)

My legs have been really, really white lately.  Like 'woah, I'd better put on my sunglasses' white.  And since it's summer, and I'm wearing slightly shorter skirts and even bathers from time to time, I'd decided during this Christmas break to find a way to make them a little less white.

Spray tans were out, because I've seen that episode of  Friends where Ross keeps turning around at the wrong time and ends up with 8 layers of tanning spray on the front and none on the back, and I know (deep down, in that 'voice you should really listen to' place) that such a thing would somehow happen to me:

 

So I decided to do things the old fashioned way.

 

I was in Perth for a few days, and since they're in the middle of a (terrible - I almost died!) heat wave, we spent a good part of the first day in the pool. Perfect!  I put sunscreen on my face, because I didn't want it to burn, but I didn't really worry about my arms because I've got a bit of a tan there anyway from work, and I figured I'd just keep a close eye on them in case they started to burn.  And then I spent most of the day floating around the pool with my sunscreen-free legs propped up on a floaty for maximum exposure.

 

Had a lovely time, didn't feel any burning.

 

Got out a few hours later, and almost instantly realized that my arms and shoulders and back were heating up.  Then they turned bright red and caught on fire.

 

*sigh*  That's when I started to vaguely remember that sunburn doesn't show up till later *double sigh*  Luckily my face was fine (turns out sunscreen actually works) and had just gotten a light tan (obviously should have gone with that approach on my shoulders, arms and back).

 

So over then next 4 days I had a new best friend, Aloe Vera (which some kind person somewhere had turned into a gel and popped into a bottle for me. THANK YOU ALOE MAN!)

 



So here's the final result:
1)  Lots of pain
2)  Not able to go swimming again for the rest of the trip
3) 80,000 more freckles than I had before I went out in the sun (which is not actually an exaggeration)
4) And I've now moved to the nuclear holocaust section of the cycle, with huge slabs of skin peeling off my arms/shoulders.

Interestingly -

5)  My legs are still completely bright white.  Completely! They saw more sun than any other part of my body, but here they remain, completely impervious to the affects of the sun. It's like they have some kind of weird super power!

At least we know if we one day find ourselves in one of those Armageddon movie plots where the only way to save the earth from the asteroid is to send someone closer to the sun than any human being can actually withstand, to set off an explosion that will change the asteroid's course and save the world.... 

...we can send my legs.

Special Time - An Idea For Mothers of Young Children

It's a simple idea, but one that helped to keep me and our children sane and happy through some of the young growing-up years.  Our first three children were born in under two and a half years, so home was pretty busy for a while there.  (When our eldest was four, I also looked after three other children each day, making six children aged four and under altogether.) Special Time was kind of how we coped and had fun along the way.

http://fayettewoman.com/decorating-childrens-art.html

Every morning I was up early.  After dressing the children and doing their hair and teeth, I liked to clean up the kitchen right away, then clean the house through: vacuuming, sweeping, beds, dusting, washing, scrubbing out the bathroom, etc.  While I did all this the children were mostly great about playing with whatever toys I had put out for them.  I mean - I was constantly there, but they were very good about allowing me to get onto my morning jobs fairly uninterrupted..   And why would they do that, you might ask?

Special Time!  :)

After breakfast I usually had a couple of hours to get all my jobs done, in time to then spend a couple of hours each morning, from about 10am - midday, just playing with the children.  They knew I needed to get things done so that we could have Special Time, so they were willing to play happily while they waited for me to finish.  We didn't have a television or video player back then (although we usually had on some music to enjoy or dance along to).  If we had we might have watched Playschool or Sesame St.  Instead, I tried to create our own fun learning time.

Every morning I would have to come up with a different activity.  From 10am - midday we might do any of the following: bubble painting, string painting, water painting, finger-painting, cutting out and making a collage, collecting leaves and 'rubbing' them on to sheets of paper, using fabric off-cuts to make pictures that we would glue with home-made paste, cooking, making salt-dough jewelry, making and playing with play-dough, making cubby houses under the dining table or other furniture, setting up a shop/obstacle course/ dolls' hospital/ school, making and playing home-made instruments, making paper mache, putting on a play, etc, etc, etc, etc.  We painted eggs, did crayon rubbings, made pipe-cleaner animals and potato stamps, and learned how to enjoy one another.  If we could afford it I might do something like emptying a can or two of shaving cream into a kiddie's play pool and add food colouring for the children to paint themselves.  Mostly we didn't have too much money to spare, but most things didn't need it.

After we had cleaned up from the morning fun, it was lunchtime, then nap-time, then bath-time, then dinner-time and Daddy-come-home time and story-time and bed-time.  And there went the day!  Happily, for the most part  :)

And our kitchen cupboards were covered in art work that the children loved to see on display, and that I loved to see too  :)