Public apologies, thermomixes puberty and more....

We would like to start this blog post with a public apology - We (well mainly me, Josie, chief blog writter) are sorry! We are sorry that whilst we have maintained our love of all things handmade, all things The Owl and the Elephant and all things Pinterest we have neglected our blog. So we ask you faithful followers (if there are any of you still lurking in the shadows!) do you forgive us? Our mid year resolution is to get back on top of this blogging business and provide you with far more tutorials, awesome pics, lovely links and occasional hilarity! Starting..............

not yet.....
not yet....

NOW!!

In the past couple of days *cough*months*cough* since our last blog post ALOT has happened!!! You all met Baby Scarlett when she was just a weeeeee little thing - well look at her now!

We just love this kid!!!

Now because Nat hasn't got enough on her plate with 3 gorgeous girls, a house to run AND The Owl and the Elephant, her love of all things Thermomix has led her to become a consultant! You can check out her OTHER blog (this blog has gotten over the jealousy factor and decided to up the anti!!) here and also follow her on facebook here .

I myself have been busy dealing with a pre-pubescent boy  - no one told me what THAT would be like.... hold on to the terrible two's people - you aint seen nothing yet!!! As well as gearing up for birthday MONTHS in our house. Place into that the wedding of a sister, some volunteer work with premmie babies that is... well.. in the works, my obvious need to procrastinate about EVERYTHING and my love of moving furniture around and you have the story of my life to date! But I will throw in a wee recent photo of my brood just to make it seem more exciting!

They do keep me busy but how cute are they? Hmmm... they must come from an AMAZING gene pool.....


Now The Owl and the Elephant whilst being absent from the land of Blog has been busy busy busy re-designing our market stall:

So tell us... what do you think? We cannot help but look at the ruffles and *sigh*

So as you can see dear neglected followers dispite our bad behaviour and lack of blog posts life has continued on! We have some awesomely awesome new products in the works which we CANNOT wait to show you but for the moment we shall leave you with this......

A photo of our lovely lovely luffly vintage inspired printed canvas art. Love them so much you NEEEEEED to have one at your place? Or perhaps you know somebody who would want nothing more than a moustache on their side table? These are available for purchase here - we can't wait to see which one you choose!




Thought of the moment:

Absence makes the heart grow fonder.  (we hope!!) 

Thomas Haynes Bayley 

Ladder Love

I (Mrs Owl) have an addiction. Ok ok I have MANY addictions, doilies, owls, turkish delight chocolate, that little bit of froth in the bottom of the coffee cup, throw cushions, sarcasm (pretty sure that counts as an addiction) and many more but today... today's addiction is brought to you by the letter AWESOME and is all about these.....

The ever lovely never outdated wooden ladder! Infact I am SO in love we have a Pinterest board dedicated to them!


When I first met Mrs Elephant I told her of my ladder love (hey nothing to be ashamed of - ladder lovers unite!!) and how desperately I wanted one to put in my loungeroom  and she told me about this gorgeous wooden ladder her mum used to have. Her mum gave it to her (so much better than any other form of love!) and get this - when Elephant demolished her house SHE LEFT IT BEHIND!!!!  Like a little abandoned puppy, void of love, out in the cold. Her father-in-law went and got it (love a man with heart) then 6 years later when they moved THEY left it behind at their old house aswell!! What is with these people?? Ladders have feelings too!!  I was GUTTED!

Fast forward to a couple of months ago. The Elephant clan decided to do a drive by of the inlaws old house on the way to school and guess what was out for roadside pick up (hard rubbish, garbage collection whatevs!! Elephant laughs at me when I call it hard rubbish - is that an eastern-stater thing??) MY LADDER!!! Well... their unloved ladder... NOW its MY ladder!!

It was waaaaay too tall to stand up in my loungeroom so needed the bottom chopped off. Mr Owl was away (which is always the best time to raid his power tools) but I could not for the life of me work out how to use the damn power saw. Reverting to the good ol fashion hand saw I got so excited I actually set the ladder on fire. True story. Gave up and called on my hire a hubby (Mr Elephant) to come and finish the job and well... look at it now!!!!

*sigh* Archibald my Owl ladder LOVES his new home. How great does he look? All he needed was a lil love..... don't we all???


Thought of the moment is brought to you by the fact I am one of those weird people who gets songs stuck in their head constantly triggered by a single word!:

All you need is love.... do do do do do

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

Pure Design

The time has come to show off the newest team member over at The Owl and the Elephant.... she doesn't do much except sleep and create odd smells and make little puppy dog like noises but sheesh she is sure fun to look at and she smells DIVINE!!

Welcome to the world lil Scarlett Mae Elephant....

My hand! My hand! I can see my hand!!!! - (I swear that is what she is thinking in this photo!!!)

The thinker... planning our next product line!! Ok ok no more running commentary .. promise!!

We think she is an absolutely marvelous addition to our team and so incredibly cute!!! (going to go a little soppy on you all now!! BUT there IS a newborn involved so its ok and I  promise not to do it again for a loooong time, I'm not normally the soppy type!!)

What is it about newborns that makes them such amazing time wasters?
And why has no one managed to bottle that newborn baby smell yet?
And why does it have to go away?
And why do they get bigger?
And where on earth do they get that attitude from??

*sigh* We are hoping this one does not grow up too fast! It is such an amazing thing just how much love you can feel for these little people in our life. Just looking at her brings goose pimple heart popping indescribable *love* and I (Mrs Owl) feel 100% entirely blessed to be a part of it all and so incredibly proud of Mrs Elephant for her obvious ability to produce totally delicious children (well I suppose Mr Elephant MAY have had something to do with that one as well!)  To love someone elses kids equally as much as you love your own is a pretty amazing thing! I love that as my kids grow up they have someone else in their life they can turn to if its one of those moments when mum is just not the right person and hope that the little Elephants will do the same with me. Got to love a bit of unofficial aunty status!

For those of our lovely likers who are in Perth if you would like to check out our newest team member in the flesh you best be popping along to Market Girl on the 25th of March where Scarlett will be holding the fort and taking your custom orders as well as selling our goods! Well... maybe just kicking back in the pram (If Mrs Owl manages to put her down!!) but she will be there none the less! There is no stopping Mrs Elephant - she is a wonder woman!


How beautiful are these photos? They where taken by the AMAZING Niki at Pure Design and Photography. She is also the mastermind behind our gorgeous logo! If you want some professional photos taken or a logo designed, or invites or flyers or or or or we cannot recommend her highly enough! Head over to her website and see for yourself (you will even spot the four owl babies if you look carefully!)

Thought of the moment:

Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body. -Elizabeth Stone

Free Printable Owl Calendar | My Owl Barn

We love a good Owl here and there...and especially a FREE PRINTABLE!

Over at My Owl Barn you can design and print your own 12 month owl calendar, selecting your favourite 12 images (there are 45 to choose from!) and starting with whichever month you choose. Here is an idea of what they look like

Get creating!! And leave them a comment saying The Owl & the Elephant sent you!!

Thought of moment:

I've been on a calendar, but I've never been on time.
Marilyn Monroe

Smile

For everyone out there who ever has "one of those days" this one is for you!!!

Babylove | A baby shower for an Elephant

So - want to know what a baby shower for an Elephant looks like? With a little girl on the way and a nursey decorated in red and white (with a splash of blue) it looks a little like this....

Recycled repurposed book decorations......

A few (million) doily "puffs"

Doily bunting......

Helium balloons (which the Owls LOVED inhaling afterwards - does that make me a bad mother? Squeaky voices are so funny though!!)

Plenty of food! Chocolate coated strawberries made just for Mrs Elephant by the eldest Owl child, cupcakes from Kustom Cupcakes and more!

My present to Mrs Elephant? A vintage style pram hunted down and kept secret for weeks
(which near killed me!)

As promised - a "forced" photo of a very pregnant elephant - she looks so happy don'tcha think??

Also from the Owl - a handcrafted elephant by the VERY clever Emma Maker 

and an "I don't have a sewing machine" handsewn quilt and pillow (dont look toooo closely!!) to match baby's own cot set. Look how beautiful this little elephant is!

Gosh those stitches look extra dodgy on camera! Lucky it was made with so much love!!

Also wrangled up some handcrafted name blocks...clever (and modest) much?! :oP 

Gorgeous gifts from gorgeous friends...

Lots of chit chat and laughs....

A more natural "hahaha I just took a photo of you and you didn't see it coming" style preggo shot - how lovely is that baby bump??

More presents.....

Including this BEAUTIFUL handcrafted gift from the very lovely Shelley who will soon be opening her own business. For more information email us at sales@theowlandthelephant.com.au and we will happily pass on your details. (and stay tuned - we will definitely let you know when she is up and running)

My favourite "game" by far was "Nat's hospital bag" - each guest was asked to bring something practical or fun to put into Nat's makeshift hospital bag. There where lollies, chocolates, condoms (tee hee) and one of our favourites....... cabbage leaves!!! (We love you Pauline!! And I love this photo hahahahaha)

What did I think was absolutely essential for Mrs Elephant's hospital bag? Well seeing she point blank refuses to let me in to witness the birth first hand 

(no way, when hell freezes over, all my bits, blah blah PFFT whatevs!!!) ....

A photo of me of course!!!! (I WILL be in the delivery suite - I WILL!!!) 

What would YOU have put in Mrs Elephant's hospital bag?

Thought of the moment:

If I had my life to live over, instead of wishing away nine months of pregnancy, I'd have cherished every moment and realised that the wonderment growing inside me was the only chance in life to assist God in a miracle.

Irma Bombeck