Herbert and Friends - Handmade Softies by Torunn

Today I wanted to share with you some super awesome work by designer/crafter Nicole, aka The Land of FIg. She makes the most stunning greeting cards and art prints, combining illustration and embroidery - hand-stitched papery goodness as nicole puts it. I highly recommend checking her work out here, and as luck would have it, she'll be at the Finders Keepers market in Sydney this weekend!!  

This morning as Leo, Ella and Ferris were playing a game of hide and seek, they came across a serious problem - the kitchen cupboard (prime hiding spot!) was so full of plastic bags there wasn't enough space to hide! 

Leo said passingly that he'd once seen a tube that you could store plastic bags in so they were out of the way. Suddenly, the answer was staring them in the face, they were going to have to make a plastic bag tube! 

Ella and Ferris did some research. 

While Leo chose the fabric and collected the necessary materials.  

As you can probably imagine, using scissors isn't easy when you're only 23cm tall and have no thumbs, so cutting the fabric became a two critter job for Ella and Leo. 

Once the cutting was done, Ferris took on the ironing (also not so easy for a small turtle, but pushing the iron from behind did the job). He then pinned the top and bottom seams, as well as the piece of fabric that would become the hanging loop. He thought it could make a rather nice belt, but after trying it on he had second thoughts. 

Next on the list was choosing the best thread and threading the sewing machine.

Figuring out how the machine worked was a bit of an ordeal, but they got there in the end. 

Ferris fed the fabric through as Ella guided it from the back and Leo stood on the foot pedal. 

Once the seams had been sewn it was time to feed the elastic through the top and bottom of the fabric. 

Ferris, now the expert pinner, pinned the fabric in preparation of arguable the most important seam, the one that joins the two fabric edges together. Once it had been sewn Ella turned it inside out. 

Now the end was in sight! They just had to sew on the loop. 

Taddah! Pastic bag tube complete!!! 

Time to free the cupboard from plastic bags, which was actually funner than expected! 

The cupboard is now the hiding place it was always meant to be, and they could all fit at the same time! 

They were very proud of the day's achievements, they feel that appart from reclaiming an awesome hiding spot, they've also contributed to the aesthetic pleasingness of the kitchen.

Leo, Ferris and Ella are all available in my Etsy shop.

Leo the Raccoon

Ferris the Turlte

Ella the Red Panda

Tomorrow we're heading down to Melbourne again for our first ever Markit @ Fed Square. I hear it's great so if you're around come by and say hi! 

In other news, a new stockist of Herbert & Friends, Fine and Sunny in Mildura, have done a super cute blog post about the new critters that arrived this week, check it out here! 

Some of you might remember I made a few fruit baby rattles late last year. Here are some more I've been working on. 

The fruit are based on patterns from this book below. The whole thing, including the patterns, are in Japanese so there's some guessing involved and some altering. it's a super cute book and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in felt making fruit! 

Yesterday the creatures decided it was Cake Day! Cake Day is a day where you eat as much cake as you like even though it isn't anyone's birthday. But first they needed to make a cake, so they all got together and decided that carrot cake would be the cake of the day. 

The owls took on the role of recipe readers and general cake directors, while everyone else ran around and busied themselves in the kitchen.    

Once the boring-but-essential buttering of the cake tin and lighting the oven was completed, it was time for the proper cake making to begin! The raccoons decided the flour and dry ingredients would be their thing. 

While the red pandas dealt with the eggs and other liquidy ingredients (the hardest and most important job according to them).  

And the Brian the wombat fastidiously took on the role of carrot-grater (an exhausting job!) and walnut-chopper (actually funner than it looks). 

When it came time to combine the mixtures, the excitement in the room was palpable, they could just about see the finished cake in front of them! 

While the cake was happily baking in the oven, a decision had to be made about who would take on the all important job of icing-maker. At that moment, as if out of nowhere, the yetis appeared and insisted they would definitely be best for the job. Everyone agreed they probably would be best, and despite the fact that they ate several spoonfuls of the icing before it made it to the cake, they did an exceptional job!  

Team Carrot Cake were all very proud once it was finished, and rightly so. Cake Day was a huge success! 

Here's some weekend inspiration from Etsy...

1. Yellow, red, orange and white twin airport coffee and tea server, by Hobart Collectables
2. Yellow picnic basket, by Gina's Boutique
3. Tin picnic basket with an assortment of utensils, by Looking for Yesterday
4. Picnic blanket / handmade with vintage 1970's scandinavian fruit fabric, by Sewn Natural 
5. Retro picnic in the park vintage decoware metal cake plate, by Claudette's Vintage
6. 4 cloth picnic napkins, by Peppermint Pinwheels 

Frida woke up this morning feeling a little under the weather. There was nothing for it but to rug up on the couch and watch an episode of Adventure Time! 

While Frida was getting her dose of Adventure Time, Rufus and Rosa made her some lemon and honey tea. 

By mid-morning there was no doubt about it - it was definitely time for Burt's Family Feud the boardgame!! 

Followed by a round of Pick-Up Sticks. 

Pick-Up Sticks is never a quick game with Yetis because they're not particularly dexterous and are notoriously clumsy. Nearing the end of the game it was clear that Rosa would be the winner (she felt a little bad that she hadn't let Frida win but not so bad that she didn't enjoy her win at least a bit!).    

These three furry friends are available in my Etsy shop! 

Rosa

Frida

Rufus

I had a trawl through Etsy today and got stuck looking at kitchen things so I thought I'd share some with you... 

1. Vintage kitchen tools sunny yellow by 4th Street Market
2. Vintage 1970s avocado green Chadwick kitchen scale by Turner Vintage
3. Danish aqua pot by Box of Hollyhocks
4. Orange you glad 70s butter dish and napkin holder by Oopsy Girl 
5. Vintage orange coffee kettle pot by Euro Vintage
6. Set of vintage enamel mugs by Dairy Farm Antiques  

Today it was agreed that Sam the squirrel could choose the activities for the morning, it was after all her half-birthday (if you're unfamiliar with half-birthdays, it's the exact day you become something-and-a-half). It isn't often Sam gets to choose the activities because her friends feel they've outgrown most of the 'childish' games she likes to play. As it happens just about everyone involved had a great time (Flint the wombat was a bit overtired because it was way past his bedtime)! 

There was hopscotch to start the day off. 

Followed by skipping (only Sam had a go because she insisted she had to skip for an hour!)

After a full hour of skipping, the only thing Sam could manage was naughts and crosses. She lost pretty much every game - she blames the exhaustion. 

Sam is a custom order so unfortunately not up for grabs, but if you're pining after a squirrel send me an email!  

Marcella spent the morning stalking a snail and trying to conceal herself behind a slightly-too-small lemon tree. She eventually lost interest because the snail was super slow and she came to realise it knew she was there all along, and didn't actually mind her being there! 

Marcella then positioned herself on the doorstep and waited for something really exciting to happen... she's still waiting...

Marcella is a custom order so unfortunately she's not for sale. She's also the first cat I've made in softie form! It took a few goes but I got there in the end and I reckon she's pretty cute.