My pre-Christmas Day Diary

It is the day before Christmas and having a day off from work and Dress A Girl Australia. As early as 6:30 in the morning and avoiding traffic jam and parking chaos I decided to go to Coles for some prawns and flowers for my Dad. Indeed I had so many choices as to where to park. :-) 

On my way back to the parking lot I thought about making a dress for my 10-year old niece (youngest girl in our clan). Since I started Dress A Girl Australia I kind of made it a point to sew a dress for her too and usually at the end of the year. She had a pillowcase dress and last year she received a t-shirt dress which was a bit too small for her that I think after 2 months it hardly fitted her. I learned a lesson then and this became my standard of distributing dresses. I should give at least 1 or even better 2 sizes bigger than the actual age of the child so they could wear it for a longer period of time as this could be the only decent dress they would own. 

So I went back to K-mart but could not find a proper t-shirt for her. Most of them had kind of open or plunging necklines and the t-shirts for girls were too small for her. Maybe the dress was not such a good idea after all this year and was on my way out when I saw school uniform t-shirts on sale at $2.00 each. Well, why not! I just wanted to make my niece a dress so she will be the last girl in the world I will dress in 2013 and I don't really care if she wears it to sleep. So I bought 1 yellow-one size bigger t-shirt and I also bought 5 extra t-shirts to start my Dress-A-Girl t-shirt collection for 2014. Here are the 5-tshirts I bought to start my collection -

and here is the dress I made for my niece using a material from my personal fabric collection. And I think it is about 2 sizes bigger this time.

Then I decided to  give her a couple of the simple treasures I make for Dress A Girl which I sell from my e-shop to raise funds for postage. Actually I did not get a chance to post my decoupaged pendants but they were bestsellers in my last market. Simple treasures of a decoupaged pendant/necklace and my 'Girl's best friend' charm bracelet in a heart-shaped tin.

and bundled them all up in a biscuit tin with a five-dollar note inside an envelope -

Then I decided to make one for one of my nephews to represent the boys who received t-shirts and pairs of shorts this year. Since I did not have the time to sew a pair of shorts anymore (I don't even think he would wear it) and forgot to buy a t-shirt for him I thought I should just give him a 'Love our Earth' necklace (another fundraiser - now you all would really think I have such weird ideas! LOL!). My nephew is at an age (12?) where he wants to wear something or anything that makes him look cool. :-) Well, he gets an earth-friendly bicycle and recycle charms to wear to remind him to love our earth for his future.

and again I bundled them all up in a small tin (from my soy candle supplies) with  a $10 dollar worth of coins so he can buy his own t-shirt hopefully with the print of 'I Love the Earth' ( this would really be funny and great)!

And with less than 3 hours to go before our traditional family Christmas dinner (and I had to wrap up my other presents for the rest of the kiddies/family + Kris Kringle present) I managed to make last minute clear ball decorations filled with M&M's. I also was able to finish my Christmas cottage ball.

Seems like I accomplished a lot during the day. I had a great time making these items the same way that I had a great time, fun and enjoyable 2013 with Dress A Girl Australia. 

Am off for our family dinner, wait for midnight to sing a happy birthday for another niece whose celebrating her birthday on christmas day (that is why we call her Chrissie) and I hope you all have a very lovely Christmas!