Macaroni Beef

Here is one of my first Thermomix Conversion.  Macaroni Beef from bk5 of the Symply too good to be true cookbooks.

Enjoy!

A Perfect Fit

My dear sister in AU send me these lovely photos of the ironing board cover and table cloth I sewed for her recently.  She even went as far as setting her table for the photos :)  

The colours match perfectly with her tableware!

Sewing Lesson #1

My dear sister in AU has this sewing machine at her home that she's never or barely ever used.  So, as we were trying to keep her awake for the remainder of the day (after a whole week of a nursing night shift) I gave her a quick sewing lesson.  Nothing better than to sew a cute little bag.  I think the hardest part was picking the colours from the stash I have at home!  Any beginner could sew this bag!!

A Travel Chair

Never mind the look my little muffet is giving!  She's not happy that she is tied down on the chair!  I have been trying out the Travel Chair pattern from this lovely site.  Unfortunately the sizing is a bit out of wack for it to work on my little chubby girl....so I am going to have to find another little girl who could try this one out, just a girl who is littler than mine!! 

She never figured out how to undo it all

and she also didn't get out, despite it being too small!

The photos where done in a rush due to the grumpiness, therefore a little dark and blurred.

Meal planning

Meal planning is important in our home.  Every week I make a plan on paper as to what we will eat for dinner.  Lately, meal planning has been left somewhat to the last minute, so, I have made a meal plan, a big one....for 4 weeks, with shopping lists attached for each week.  I plan to re use this meal plan every month, and then I don't have to rewrite the meal plan every week again.  I only shop at the big grocery stores once a fortnight - it saves lots of money that way!!  I think this way I could even shop once a month, knowing in advance already what I am needing from the big shops.  Dear hubby does visit our local fruit & veg shop every week for fresh bread, milk, vegies and fruit.  My meal plan is done in such a way, that some recipes I double (ie bolognaise sauce), so that I can put the extra batch in the freezer and make a lasagne or shepherd's pie the following week with it!  I have made wednesday our fish day (its mostly Tuna so very easy!)  and made it so we never have the same type of meat twice in a row... This past week it worked great, and tomorrow, all I need to do is check my list of with my pantry and fridge and then pop by the local fruit & veg shop.  Simple!  I am off now to make some homemade chocolate paste in my lovely thermomix :)

Tablecloth

An easy project.  My big sis in Australia had this fabric laying around, and when I asked her what I could sew for her she asked me to turn this piece of fabric into a tablecloth for her.  It was very simple hemming all the edges, a quick iron and voila... a new tablecloth for her lovely dining table :) 

Job List

We've been working on some routine with the kids.  To help us with that I created a job list for them to do each day.  Just the simple tasks such as getting dressed, eating breakfast, brush teeth, put schoolbag away after school, help set the table, put your pjamas on etc.  We then laminated the job list so that the boys can tick of the list with a whiteboard marker when they have completed a task.  We can then wipe it clean again for the next day.  I just need to add a magnet to the back so it can hang up on the fridge. 

They have been having fun with it already, they like to tick things off so things have been getting completed soo much faster :)

A Passport Cover

I have siblings all over the world.  I asked my little sister in Canada what I could sew for her.   So here it is....a passport cover.  I used the tutorial from here, and made a few changes.  I used interfacing for extra strength, I added a velcro tap so it could be closed (and so the pages won't get crumbled in my sister's over full bags ;) ) Instead of sewing around the whole rectangle thing and have two lines of stitches on top of each other, I did the two small sides, and then I folded it and then stitched the longer lines.  I also embroidered 'sweet home', the arrow and the little cross.

I thought the fabric was rather fitting :) and with the words "sweet home" it was intended to make my little sister homesick and return home ;)

I thankfully remembered to take dear hubby's passport out...I used his as it had the most stamps!