Toddler Tote Bag

I had such great fun this week with this little craft project for my niece's birthday. She is a brilliant, vibrant two year old and pretty sure to go nuts for anything with Peppa Pig on it. She also a big fan of bags, hey a girl needs to start young eh? And she needs something to carry around her Peppa toys, obviously.

These two facts combined left me wanting to make her something special that would be personal and super sweet so I came up with this, the toddler tote bag featuring Peppa!

I started by selecting some contrasting fabrics. I didn't need much as the bag is small enough for a little two year old to sling over her shoulder. I used thick curtain fabric for the bag to be sure it was sturdy enough to face the rough and tumble of toddler play and made the patch pocket in a floral cotton.

Here were my simple steps to making my toddler tote bag...

• I first cut the large spotty fabric to my preferred size allowing extra for seams. I cut it so that the fold is at the bottom of the bag and the two sides need simply to sewn together, but don't sew it just yet!
• I then designed the patch pocket. Using an embroidery hoop to keep the fabric taut I embroidered on my message using three strands of embroidery thread. I then cut the pocket down to size and stitched it along the top on my sewing machine. I then folded all the sides under and stitched the pocket to my chosen spot on the bag.

 
• I then designed Peppa. I started by drawing a template on paper which I cut out and pinned onto felt. I then sketched Peppa's features in pencil and embroidered them on. Lastly I embroidered all of Peppa onto a round piece of white felt to create a badge and stitched this on with contrasting green embroidery thread onto the bag.

• I then stitched my nieces name onto the fabric under the Peppa badge. An embroidery hoop wasn't needed here because the fabric was nice and thick so didn't warp.
• I then sewed on a bow made of pink ribbon for a little extra decoration.
• Decorations on I assembled the bag. To make the straps and neaten the top edge I added a line of herringbone tape to the edge of the bag (on the inside), tucked in the end of each strap and stitched a double line of stitching to secure the straps nice and strongly to the bag.
• I then turned the bag inside out and stitched up each side. I finished by neatening the seams. This is optional but will hopefully make the bag last longer.

And that's it! Such brilliant fun and can be adapted to any child's current favourite. Sure to be a winner!

Signing Off (for a little while!)

My sweet blogging family, I'm going to be leaving you for a little while.

I am always so thrilled to see my little visits counter go up on this blog and I think of you all when I look at the little map telling me where people are reading posts from. The US, Asia, Australia, New Zealand (is that you Lynn?! *waves*) and closer to home in good ol' blighty.

Blogging is such a privilege. A place to process, a place to share, but most of all a community. I am most thankful for that. That you all stick around and read my ramblings. That is what has kept me coming back here for three years now. A great group of people who have grown with me and will continue to do so, I am sure.

But never fear, this isn't a mass Dear John Letter. As I mentioned in the last post I am simply signing off for the next four weeks while I embark on a little adventure around Europe. Being quite unable to not note down my thoughts in some way I will be keeping a travel journal on Off Exploring.

 

I'm not sure how frequently I'll do so, perhaps every few days, perhaps just once or twice but it will be evidence that we are still alive and hopefully having a wonderful time. You never know it might even be interesting, depending on how much Sangria I stumble across in Spain! 

 

The trip! Beaut!

I have one more post in the offing for you in my absence, a craft project that I have totally fallen in love with. It is currently shrouded in secrecy, MI5 style, as the finished article is a gift awaiting to be given. Saturday night it should be up on the blog through so do stop by then.

Anyway, with that I will say farewell, keep being brilliant, have a fabulous summer and catch you when I get back!

Adventures

July has brought with it some exciting events. I love the change of pace of summer and that, done right, it can give you some well needed time to reflect and, crucially, catch up with friends and family. It's also pretty nice if there is a little adventure thrown in there. This summer looks like it is going to provide all three.

Last summers adventure, looks great, was utterly terrifying!

Next week I'm going to spend some much needed time laying by a pool (albeit with some Greek verbs to learn!) and hanging out with my Mum, the perfect combination. Then follows a week in England before husband and I jump on a train to Paris and begin our European adventure. I've been working my little socks off to free up the time for this trip so I am absolutely thrilled it is finally here. We hit France, Spain and Italy, eat a lot of food, drink a lot of wine and generally just have a really great time.

A much more humane adventure, summer sun in Greece.

This trip also feels a bit more than simply a holiday though. After a brilliant but intense year I'm excited to be on the road with just a couple of good books and a beach towel. As much as training for ministry is a wonderful blessing it also leaves you very on show. People have expectations of you the minute you say what it is that you do, rightly so in many ways, and you are assessed constantly on every aspect of your being. This goes beyond simply competence at your role to who you are as an individual, again this is arguably as it should be, but it does make for a goldfish bowl like existence sometimes. For this reason I'm so excited to take some time to be anonymous. To be Nikki rather than a trainee Vicar and to have no objectives but to see where the trip takes me.

I'm also excited about embarking on an adventure. There will be so many things that I will see for the first time, so many new tastes and experiences, so much to take in. Whether it's walking the Alhambra in Granada at night or seeing the Eiffel Tower all lit up, I can't wait to stand and stare for a while. I'm so aware that it is moments like these that stay with you for a lifetime. Those moments where you need to sit down to take in everything that is around you and simply be grateful to be here and be alive. If life isn't punctuated with those moments I truly believe it is the poorer for it. You don't need to go to the other side of the world to have those moments, but if you can? Well, what a blessing.

And last but not least I'm excited about some time with the husband unit. When I got engaged someone said to me that marriage is like studying for a PhD in another person. Well five years in and I'm pretty sure I've got enough info to write a 70,000 word thesis! Still, the wonderful thing about relationships is that you can never truly get to the end of someone else. There is always more and even more so when you are making memories together. To learn more about each other and coax one another out of bad moods when the trains are delayed is all part of the experience and I hope we will emerge stronger for it.

So there we are! That is my next adventure. How about you?

Bye bye Driving Fear!

About twelve years ago I took my first driving lesson. I hated it. Everyone kept telling me that one day it would click and I would feel better about it but it never did. Nine months later and just before my theory test I was in a nasty accident when out practising with my Dad. My little car was no more. I had lost a lot of money for a 17 year old and all my confidence behind the wheel. I went home, in total shock and laid under my duvet all evening. I decided then that I would never drive again and stopped lessons immediately.

In the years that followed I was good to my word and never got behind a wheel, well, not in body at least but I certainly did in my mind. Driving still hung about constantly, popping up in dreams and nervous moments as a passenger. Nightmares about being forced to drive and feeling thoroughly out of control became a regular feature of my dream world. I built my life around not needing to drive, taking jobs in the city centre and living along good bus routes. Sure there were things I couldn't do but they were no way near as bad as actually facing my fear and getting back behind the wheel.

It was only when on yet another lift back to my house in the back of my father-in-law's car just over a year ago that the balance started to tilt in favour of driving again. It wasn't a need to get anywhere or some new job that I needed a car for, more than anything I was fed up of being afraid. Fed of being mastered by something that I could overcome. Fed up of making compromises. Fed up of doubting myself.

So the next week I started lessons again. I hated every minute. As I've written on this blog before, my circumstances changed, I ended up studying in the middle of the countryside and suddenly I needed to drive and yet it was so hard, so impossible, that I felt I would never get there. It probably sounds ridiculous to be so wrung out from simply learning to drive given some of the challenges people meet and overcome every day. All I can say is that it felt like so much more than a license and a freedom to get where I want, when I want. It was about whether I could really get over myself enough to succeed at something I knew I could do or whether I was going to be the sort of person who let fear dominate me.

After nine months of lessons I failed my first test. Two months later I took it again and failed for a second time. Despondent and thrust straight into the busyness of ministry training I put driving on hold again but booked myself into an intensive course and into another test for the end of the year knowing I would flake out if I didn't commit myself and some cash to the cause. That test was last Friday and much to my great surprise – I passed!

It is wonderful to consider all the things I can now do and all the restrictions that have melted away with this one landmark achievement. But more than this it is wonderful to have such a big, lifelong fear shunted firmly into the past. I am so tired and getting here has certainly cost me a lot emotionally and physically but the rewards are only just beginning.

So how about you? Any big fears you want to put behind you? If my oft winding tale towards being a fully licensed driver is anything to go by then anything is possible.

The Choice – Part 2

A while ago I blogged about summertime and story telling bringing to your attention a really exciting campaign that Tearfund are running at the moment. They have recently released the next video in the series, isn't it beautiful?

Beautiful boys from The Choice video (Photo: Tearfund)

Poverty is such a faceless beast. Those in need become an amorphous 'problem', but in reality all the statistics are made up of individual people, like you and me, and each 'problem' has an infinite number of solutions. Children can have more than the generation that came before them. They can go to school, their parents can experience the deep joy of seeing their children have more and better than what they have had. I've seen it happen and it is brilliant. More, more, more, I say!

Fresh from the IF campaign I am really inspired by even the title of this new campaign. Because it is a choice isn't it? To give or to hoard. To be generous or closed. To see challenges or problems. To hope or to despair. While we're on the subject of the IF campaign and getting a passion for the opportunities available to make awesome choices for the world at large, check on this video The Hunger Museum. Isn't it fab?

 

 

Choice, opportunity and blessings on earth. Happy Friday!

One year down!

With the shake of a lambs tail (or about 80,000 words, but hey, whose counting?!) here were are, at the end of the first academic year of vicar training. I really can't believe it is here. The pile of reading on my kitchen table leaves me under no illusions that the work is over for the year but it still feels like a huge achievement.

At the final service of the year at the crumbly old Parish Church in the village I found myself a little teary. Looking around that church I felt deeply content and yet so aware of how I felt when I first sat there nine months before. Walking in excited, yes, but also with a deep wondering if this was something I could actually do. As I've written about before my journey into the glittering world of full time ministry hasn't been conventional. I've not harboured dreams of working under a beautiful spire my whole life or even set foot in a church voluntarily until seven years ago. Rather than creeping up on me, this whole thing jumped out of the darkness and it scared me half to death.

 

Pretty lovely college

Being not exactly what springs to mind when you think 'Vicar' combined with having to learn my way round 'church stuff' as an alien in new lands has, at times, made me feel deeply under confident. Believing somewhere deep down that, at some point, someone might just walk in and say 'What on earth are you doing here?' and send me back to where I came from. When the first set of essay titles came through I couldn't even imagine understanding the titles let alone writing several thousand words on any of these subjects.

This year, more than anything else, I am deeply grateful that I have realised, really realised, what utter tosh all this is. The pile of essays on my desk, all penned by my own fair hand, attest to this. The services led, the confidence bubbling up, the feeling of contentment and satisfaction all point like neon signs to the same conclusion. I always suspected, but now I know it to be true, that each one of us has come to this place exactly because of who we are rather than in spite of it.

The only thing to lament is when we fail to live up to who we really are. That is all that is really asked of any of us. Being accepted for who I am, mocked a little (!) and encouraged a whole heap has made such a big difference to me. I have never been shy in coming forward but now I feel so much more able to do this with all I am rather than attempting to present a version of myself that is so much less than I have to offer.

I am really, really REALLY tired and very, very, VERY aware that there is so much more to come but nonetheless this year has been wonderfully encouraging and deeply satisfying and it seems right to celebrate that. To push yourself to the edges of all you are is something I would heartily encourage. It is there that we really begin to grow and that feels simply brilliant.

Optimism

I don't really know how to start talking about the last week. Perhaps it is best if I just begin with a picture.

From http://enoughfoodif.org/g8/london

Yes, that is 45,000 people in Hyde Park this Saturday making an enormous noise about the scandal of 1 in 8 people going to bed hungry each day in the world. This was how I ended my week.

The event came hot on the heels of another trip to London to catch up with a truly inspiring woman, Donata Kalunga. I've blogged about Donata before, that in fact was how my invitation from the lovely Build ItInternational found its way to me, but to see her in London on my home turf was tremendously exciting. We listened to Zambian music from the London African Gospel Choir (patting ourselves on the back for remembering some of the words!) and heard Donata's hugely inspiring story again.

 

The lady herself!

Coming to the UK was the first time Donata had ever left Zambia. She had never even seen the sea before and was overwhelmed with joy to be able to paddle in the waves. When I asked her how she was finding England she said 'it is like heaven!' and then squeezed me tight squealing 'my grandchild!' (she has well and truly adopted me!) She also went to see Mamma Mia in the West End and reportedly laughed for the entire thing, no doubt utterly bemused!

 

 

Seeing Donata again was my first dose of optimism for the week. Donata saw a problem in her neighbourhood and got to work fixing it, 'Disabled children are not being educated, well then I'll open a school'. No money, no problem. All these things that might reasonably be described as obstacles Donata, and many others in Zambia, described again and again as mere challenges. Something temporary to be overcome.

And all this in an environment where there are so many challenges that it must surely seem impossible. Yet, optimism they have and they have it in spades. On the bus back to Oxford the sun was going down and I said to my (long suffering!) husband, 'That's how I want to be'. God help me, one day perhaps.

Saturday, then, was another experiment in optimism but this time global optimism. I've been keeping up with the IF campaign but I have to say that on my way to the rally, partly through end of term tiredness and partly through lack of awareness, I wondered if the aims of the movement really could be achieved. Can we really see an end to hunger around the world? Sometimes I think we are so used to living with the man made, global disaster that is poverty in this world of wealth that we are numb to it. I am numb to it. In the face of such overwhelming need we freeze like a rabbit in headlights and fall into pessimism.

 

 

If this is you then my goodness get yourself to a rally! Feel the atmosphere, see the thousands of people that believe change is possible, bring your kids, bring your granny and just be encouraged. In my own life I live by the maxim that nothing ever gets done through pessimism. Game changers are people who see opportunities and possibilities and grab them. Who strive forwards for change and forget the voices that say it can't be done. Being at IF gave me a sense of global optimism in action. Nothing will change unless we believe it will. People who believe in change make change happen.

I don't know about you but I'm ready for that. Ready for it in my own life, as Donata has so ably shown me, and ready for it in the world. IF is going full steam ahead, there is so much more to do. As for me I'm going to be an optimist and be part of the solution, fancy it?