Paper Doll Nursery

I had the pleasure of putting together an {Inspiration Board} for a lovely lady who was looking to set up her little girl's nursery. She had seen some of the other rooms I had put together [here] and wanted me to do something similar for her. Um yes please!
She wanted something pretty, feminine but not owls, birds or princess! A Paper Doll theme immediately sprung to mind, inspired by the amazing pattern botique Oliver + S. Even if you are not a sewer, do yourself a favour and head over and check out their beautiful site and creations [here].
Here is my {Inspiration Board} for the Paper Doll theme, complete with links where to but all of the goodies listed below. I always include Porter’s Paint colours in the boards to help clients with colour choices for the walls and other features in the room. Check out their amazing range (and paint names too!)[here].

Pompoms: Little Spunky Monkey  | Wall Decals: Mae | Personalised Print: Kathy Panton |
Cot Quilt: BabyRoo | Crochet Beanie: AnK Bowtique | Lamp: Carousel Designs |Softie: Mulberry Road

Cushion: Kido Store | Rug: Kidzone | Basket: Kido Store |
Rebecca ox

Practicing Handwriting

With all the back to school excitement, the kids are right into the idea of homework (well, this week anyway!) so I'm embracing this enthusiasm and have been searching for some cool websites with worksheets that will suit both of their ages (5 and just about 4).

This site proved to be fabulous! You can enter the text you want and it makes your words into tracing dashes, puts them on writing lines and also includes starting point dots. It's brilliant and there are lots of variables you can play around with like single words, sentences, sizes, cursive fonts and prompt arrows.

I had Molly practice her full name

and Ned asked me to type in "Fred is a lovely cat"

It certainly made for a cool activity that they loved, and asked to do again tonight.

I promise my next post will be nothing to do with education, and be far more pretty to look at :)

Rebecca ox

"Twas the night before school started, when all over town, parents were cheering...It was a riotous sound!!!!, by 8 the kids were washed and tucked into bed..... where memories of homework filled them with dread!!!! New pencils, New folders, New notebooks too!!! New teachers, New friends, their anxiety grew!!! The parents just giggled when they learnt of this fright and shouted down the hallway, go to bed it is a school night!!"
I did have a chuckle at this doing the rounds tonight. I will miss Ned terribly (and Molly with be completely lost without him around), but Ned is excited about returning to school tomorrow and thats the best part.

Another thing doing the rounds tonight on Pinterest, is the "Back To School Interview" questions. A lot of the links I found were for paid files, so I thought I'd ask a couple of the mums out there what they would like to ask their child on the eve of returning to school, and make one up myself. I also wanted to accommodate a photo, and I will do this interview at the start of each school year (until they will let me lol). I think it will be a hoot to look back on in years to come.

Please feel free to download the file and I'd love to hear and see some of the replies!

Please email me at info@littlespunkymonkey.com.au if you have any trouble with the file.

Enjoy tomorrow, those with kiddlets returning to school, and enjoy even more your quieter coffee straight after that ;)

Rebecca ox

Well 28 days into the new year and I am finally getting to my new year's resolution of reigniting my poor poor blog. I missed her. I missed sharing ideas with people. I missed rambling.

I guess the fact that my tardiness is due to getting back on track after a super busy end to last year, means things are a good busy. Already this year promises many new products, new party themes, new inspiring customers and hopefully a new exciting venture.

In the lead up to Christmas I offered some free printable 'Reindeer Feed' bag toppers and instructions (here), and after emailing out over 100 copies to customers, I was so happy to hear that they bought so much happiness to so many families. The many messages of thanks I received were so lovely, and were what spurred me on to get back on the blogging bandwagon (that coupled with the fact I can now blog from my phone in the car, doing a middle of the night feed or while making dinner, sure does help when you don't have to be in front of the computer!).

Many of you said that my projects and posts inspire you to try new things and give new recipes, craft ideas and party ideas a go. I love and live DIY, and am throwing myself into up-cycling at the moment. Thats a whole other post though.

SO... with a busy couple of weeks ahead (3 parties this weekend, butterfly/garden party next weekend, balloon party the weekend after that, then Molly's 4th party to organise and then a couple of weeks later Archie's 1st birthday to get my head around) I am kicking of this exciting time with the {Inspiration Board} for the butterfly/garden party next weekend.

Its a 1st birthday to be held in a park, with lots of kids of all ages and a pretty fun theme to work with!
I had a lot of fun with the invitations, which can be viewed here.
Hope you enjoy it, and hope you have recovered from the shock of this old lass being fired up again.

Till next time, take care,
Rebecca ox

As promised, the FREE printable Halloween Cupcake Topper file- print, cut and cupcake till your heart's delight!

Well this little blog has been terribly neglected, but its the best place to give you access ot the free files for the AFL Grand Final Cupcake Toppers!
Here is the PDF of the COLLINGWOOD one:

and the GEELONG one:

You can either use a scalloped punch or a rounded punch or just cut them up as squares, stick on to toothpics and voila!
Go Geelong!!!

DIY elements of the Pony Party

Following on from my post about the Pony Party yesterday, I thought I would follow up today with some of the DIY elements of the day. I had lots of fun playing around with the beautiful fabrics I found and different things form all over the world (thanks to my best mate etsy :) ).

The fabric backdrop turned into a labour of love, cutting fabric strips and tying them onto a piece of dowel. Very simple and very effective. I really loved how it turned out and now want to hang it in Molly's room!

To match the fabric backdrop I also made a 'scrap' wreath for the front door...

To further tie in with the fabric backdrop I made some cake bunting out of just one of the fabrics to adorn the cake...

Finally I covered a 'M' with the same fabric as the bunting to add a personalised touch to the table. Again this is heading straight to her room!

To personalise the hobby horse party favours, I ordered some initial badges from etsy and attached them to some rosettes I made out of scrap fabric, lace and buttons...

The Happy 3rd Birthday sign hanging from the dessert table was another easy DIY using doilies (soon available to buy at Little Spunky Monkey) and printed card, pegged onto jupe with mini clothes pegs...

I had sooo much fun making all of these little elements for the party and am so happy that they all tied in together so well. So many of them can be used as either decoration around our home or in Molly's bedroom.

I hope I have inspired some of you to have a go at making similar pieces for your upcoming parties- please do not hesitate to contact me for any further informatio on any of the above mentioned ideas.

Rebeca
ox