Two birthday cards using a handmade paper background, printed papers, buttons and a wee bit of sewing.

I like to think of myself as an organised person, but in fact I am an amazing procrastinator and have many, many unfinished projects hibernating in boxes or stuffed into the back of a drawer. The problem is, I can’t stand a mess. I can’t seem to think clearly if there are dishes in the sink or a pile of papers on the dining room table so I just have to clean it up before I sit down to do something I really want to spend time on. But then, one mess leads to another mess and before I know it I’ve spent an hour decluttering and it’s time for bed.

And then I stumbled across FlyLady. FlyLady recommends taking little steps to declutter your home, setting a timer for 15 minutes and spending that in one room, before moving on to the next. I particularly like her Crisis Cleaning system, where you tackle your whole house in 15 minute intervals. I find this particularly useful when the house looks like a tip and there are visitors arriving the next day!

I have only just started with this system, so my house is by no means sparkling but I do feel much more organised already. And if you think you can’t do this with a baby, check out the member tips for Flying with Infants.

I’m off for a couple of weeks soon and since I can’t take my sewing machine, I’ve got a couple of projects that are a bit more portable:

1. Bunny toss
2. Knitting practice

I’m a very newbie knitter, so my knitting is going to consist of casting on, knit, purl and casting off. After that I may try a scarf or something similar with straight lines.

When you don’t have time to blog yourself, you may as well link to someone who does. And as a beginning blogger this page seems a great place to start: 15 Must-read Blogs for Blog Writers. I mean to read all of these, I really do, just as soon as I have a free moment. The site ProBlogger features a Blogging for Beginners page that looks a good place to start. Now, if I didn’t spend so much time reading other people’s blogs, I might have a chance to properly start my own…

Our little miss was 1 year old today. She’s into Lift The Flap books at the moment so I made a birthday card with a door and a window to open. I originally wanted to take photos of her favourite toys and place them behind the flaps – but our printer was low on ink. So the pictures came from a JoJo Maman Bébé catalogue instead.

I ordered this from eBay the other day and it’s here!!! Many exciting felt projects to be started…

For this year’s Mother’s Day card I sat down to do some fabric flowers, as per the Wise Craft tutorial. Unfortunately, my fabric was too floppy so I decided to make them with paper instead. My paper stash is more sophisticated than my fabric so I had more choice of colour and patterns. It folds down flat for the post and the petals can be re-fluttered on arrival to the recipient!

OK, so it’s not Sunday morning but I’ve been a little slack about posting. This was actually a Sunday about two months ago. Some friends from the States sent us some maple syrup from Vermont so I just had to make some American-style pancakes in a big stack with layers of fruit in between. There were slices of apple in the bottom layer, bananas in the next two layers, then blackberries… and left-over bananas with a BIG drizzle of maple syrup over the top. Yum.

I’m currently trying to create a good stash of different fabrics to encourage me to start sewing. While I was in Australia I went to my favourite Old Bus Depot Markets in Canberra and found some fantastic fabric. I could have bought the whole stall, but settled on these three fabrics. Now the dilemma of what to make??

Recently I read about the ‘treasure basket’ concept for babies – a basket filled with real life objects (not plastic) that are great for babies’ brain development and generally learning about the world around them. I had noticed that my daughter spent a lot more time playing with a zipper on my jumper or a pair of shoelaces than any of her toys. So I immediately searched the house for some interesting baby treasures. This is what I found:

• Ribbons
• Champagne cork
• Make-up mirror
• Leather ring box
• Pastry wheel
• Suede purse
• Kitchen whisk
• Old watch
• Wooden egg cup
• Collection of plastic cups and lids (plastic, I know, but great fun to bash together!)

She will literally spend an hour or so pulling these objects out of the box, throwing them on the floor, picking them up again, examining them, chewing them, waving them around. They’re the best toys ever!

More about treasure baskets at Contented Child and on this treasure basket website.