We ❤ Ruffles!! | Our Market Stall Re-vamp

After almost 2 years our little business is getting a market stall makeover! We wanted to inject our love of fabrics, patterns and colour into our stall and show our faithful followers (the ones who know what people mean when they say "the table with the blue and white polka-dots") how much we have "grown up". We are big kids now!! 
It has certainly been an A-mazing time we have added a baby to the mix, juggled a hubby who flys in and out for ridiculous amounts of time, as well as a shift working hubby, toilet training children, tantruming toddlers, first time school kids and pre-pubescent boys! We have been lucky enough to meet some incredible people along the the way and learnt a heck of alot about ourselves, each other and the business world that is work-at-home hand-crafting mums!! So the time has definitely come to have a market stall that reflects how much we have changed from those 2 clueless first timers to where we are now!

Inspired by this lovely creation at Bella Studio, we started searching online for where we could purchase something similar. All the ones we found were $200-$400 and no where near as nice as what we envisioned and didn't quite meet "The Owl and the Elephant" criteria, so of course we decided we had to make our own! This meant it was time for one of our all time favourite things -  fabric shopping! And that was where the fun stopped..... next came the not so fun part MATHS! It was certainly an interesting time figuring out how to get the right amount of each fabric, how many strips of each fabric we would need to sew together to get the right length of fabric to go all around the table, and then getting the ruffle ratio to look pretty. What a flashback to high school algebra! You should see our 'working out' sheet. Josie was TOTALLY the brains behind this one *cough* she sucks at maths and Nat had to work it out pretty much single handedly whilst Josie entertained the m&m's (Max and Mischa!) with various forms of "spalarkaly" stuff *cough* copious amounts of snacks.

So for those of you wanting to play at home...here is a 'semi-tutorial' for figuring out your fabric requirements:

Trestle table = 180cm wide. We wanted to ruffle the front and sides and leave the back open for stock access and to avoid bulk and weight. So our overall length that we were wanting to ruffle was 330cm (75cm side + 180cm front + 75cm side)
We had 7 fabrics we wanted to use. The length of our table from top to floor is 75cm. So 75cm ÷ 7 = 10.7cm. We then added allowance for the top of the ruffle seam and an overhang so each ruffle covered the next one slightly, and made our strips 12cm 'deep'. 
After purchasing a ruffling foot (best....thing.....EVER!!!) we did many trials to find the perfect number of ruffles and the perfect depth that gave us the look we wanted. This worked out to just under a 2:1 ratio, meaning for every 2 metres of fabric we got just under 1 metre of ruffled fabric. So our 7 gorgeous fabric prints were cut into 12cm strips and we used 6 full fabric widths, sewn together to make around 6m per fabric type.

 Sooo bearing all of the above in mind....all up we have 42 metres of strips ready to ruffle!!
Here are some pics of the during stages...

All our strips joined together and edges overlocked (or serged) ready to put through the machine with the ruffling foot. 

Some closeups of our fabric combinations...

Feeding the strips through with the ruffling foot attachment. Best money ever spent, would have taken DAYS to sew gathering and gather them all up by hand...

Close up of the ruffling foot

Ruffly goodness glinting in the sunlight....sigh!!

And that is not all! We have more pretties in mind for our stall! Think lace canopies, Anthropologie inspired ruffle backdrops, patchwork logo-banners, shabby chic frames ad more....ahhh its is going to be divine! Can you smell it???? See us at the next Market Girl and Perth Upmarket.


If you love ruffles, be sure to check out one of our favourite Perth designers, Alana from Yuminess Textiles. Her ruffles are sought after nation-wide and we are so proud of how her business has grown. She puts the awesome in amazing!

Thought of the moment: 

Sewing: A creative mess is better than tidy idleness.  ~Author Unknown

Sometimes people are just plain lovely | Little Brown Owl

Sometimes its so easy to get caught up in our own little worlds and focus on the negatives. Who can blame us? Turn the news on at night and count the "happy" stories (and no I dont mean the one token oh look a cat got caught in a drain pipe lets finish the news on a high kinda story!)


But sometimes,there are moments which just make you smile, and sometimes people are just plain lovely...


Here is one of those stories.


A week or so ago I posted a link on our Facebook page to a tutorial to make a coffee cup cosy with of course another moustache on (yes, we ❤ moustaches at The Owl & the Elephant and aren't afraid to admit it!! See here for more moustache lovin'). Now I would have LOVED to have added it to my projects list and found the time to make it, but let's face it...I am having a BABY in 6 weeks!! Prioritise!!


Anyhoo, a number of our lovely likers commented on it and one of them was Lori from Little Brown Owl. This gorgeous lady offered to MAKE ME ONE!! YES!! I was so blown away with such a gesture. Now Josie has been known to refer to me as the Ice Queen, in the most affectionate way possible and I fully acknowledge I am not one to show my emotions and aren't the 'huggy type'...but this offer actually made me get a little misty-eyed! I was totally blaming the pregnancy then thought, nup...you know what? That was a REALLY nice thing for a stranger to do! So without further ado...I hereby present my lovely gift that arrived in today's mail...

So thank you Lori!! I love it!!!!!!!

Thought of the moment: 

Kindness is like snow - it beautifies everything it covers

I actually made something I pinned on Pinterest! | Nursing Cover Tutorial

Here is one of the best (and simplest) nursing cover sewing tutorials we found (and used) on the wonderful world of Pinterest. It comes courtesy of Sew Much Ado who has a gorgeous blog with some wonderful patterns and tutorials.

Now we aren't ones to re-invent the wheel...so for the full instructions and tutorial, click here

I have been feeling the nesting/sewing urge rather strongly as these last few weeks pass by before the next girl-child arrives, and have pinned numerous sewing projects that can (hopefully) be completed in an hour or during Miss Almost 2's naptime! I can honestly say, from start to finish including cutting out and a 'no, naptime is NOT over its only been 40 minutes...back you go!' style interruption, it took 1 hour.

Here is my finished nursing cover.

I used the gorgeous Michael Miller Delovely Damask fabric purchased from the lovely Sandy at Wrapped in Fabric

And if this baby comes a week early, you may even see me wearing it behind our stall at Perth Upmarket!!

What do you think? Now I can say...

See? It's NOT just a time waster to make you feel more creative than you really are ;o)

Thought of the moment:

Breast Feeding should not be attempted by fathers with hairy chests, since they can make the baby sneeze and give it wind.  ~Mike Harding

Who loves a good tutorial?

Nat and I lead VERY exciting lives...between loads of washing, dirty nappies, light switch covers, markets and cooked dinners we love nothing more than kicking back with a cup of tea, a piece *cough*block*cough* of turkish delight chocolate and a good ol' tutorial. Here are a few of our current favs:

 Love Making It  have taken some papier mache letters (which you can buy at Spotlight) 

and wrapped them with brightly coloured wool...such a simple idea but so effective!

Take a look



Another favourite and good one to keep in mind next time you have to wrap a present is this cool gift bow tutorial. Infact we kinda think a box of these bows would be an awesome present in themselves!!! Check them out at  How About Orange

This is one which we both can't WAIT to try with our 3 year old daughters...ALPHABET ROCKS! (get it? hehe)  Check them out over at More Mom Time

Are these  little bird cages from The Brides cafe not the cutest thing ever?

What are some of your fav tutorials?

Thought of the moment:
There is no trouble so great or grave that cannot be much diminished by a nice cup of tea.  ~Bernard-Paul Heroux