Fabric food

Stunning little sets of imaginary play food for cooking and tea parties! Life's a Stitch is a new discovery for me.

Sydney sisters and mums Sarah and Julia handmake all their gorgeously detailed fabric food in the Blue Mountains NSW.

The stitching creates beautiful detail of seeds and patterns in the food. I'm very fond of the biscuits too but the above is a nice healthy one for kids. I also love the sushi roll!

The above sells for $40 plus P&H. The fabrics and trims used are acrylic, wool, viscose and cotton. You can buy off their website. Happy shopping!

Spinning Tops

You might have noticed my penchant for toys of yesteryear!

This beautiful spinning top is a reproduction of a famous Bolz German top from 1880, rediscovered in 1948. The modern addition of a plastic foot makes it slightly easier for kids to use. Bolz tops are renowned and you'll remember them from your own childhood (see this video of a Bolz top for a 30 second trip down memory lane).

The image painted onto this top is from the fairy tale Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.

Toy Emporium is a Perth based business selling traditional toys - none of your flashing lights or buzzes and beeps. Very much a girl after my own heart! This top is selling for $26.95 off Toy Emporium's website.

You can find Toy Emporium on facebook too.

Le Petit Chef (junior chef) goody bag

This cooking-themed goody bag contains real wooden cooking utensils in a mini size and a beautiful handmade retro child-sized apron.

It consists of a clear PVC bag, tied with satin ribbon and a handmade tag, and containing:

• Handmade child's apron
• Wooden cutting board
• Wooden spoon
• Whisk
• Wooden pestle
• Wooden mallet (for flattening)
• Wooden rolling pin
• Wooden squeezer/presser utensil

This goody bag is highly visual, very chic, and a perfect gift for the budding cook or Junior Masterchef enthusiast! Available now from $25.90 from JordyandLu.com.au.

*Special Deal: JordyandLu.com.au is offering a free 4x rolls of cookie dough and free set of cookie cutters for each 10 Le Petit Chef bags ordered. .. Perfect for a cooking birthday party!

Matryoshka doll accessories

I'm kind of excited about these because I actually gave them their individual names! :-)

I adore those gorgeous Russian nesting dolls (often mistakenly called Babushka dolls) and they have become very trendy as children's clothing and accessory icons of late. There are other producers of such accessories around but I especially like these unusual, bright colours (the mint colour above is my favourite).

Joallie Petit calls them "Mamie clips" (click to her website to see their individual names). This one is handstitched felt at 5.5cm long and Jo has attached it to a fully lined baby snap clip. Jo is a Perth Hills handmade accessories crafter. She sells at Perth Upmarket, has a number of stockists or sells direct off her website.

Felt ball rugs

I really like these felt ball throw rugs for little ones' rooms. In fact, there is something distinctly edible about them.

These are made by Happy as Larry. They aren't cheap ($400 is the roundabout price) but you can see why - each ball handfelted and then colour matched and invisibly stitched together in a perfect pattern. I would say these are worth the money, if you can afford something so lovely for the kids' rooms. They are a firm feel floor rug (they look like cotton balls but are very solid) and the felted balls are imported from Nepal (yak wool, I'm reliably informed!). I'm not sure if the Perth woman who runs this store makes the rugs after importing the felt balls or imports the rugs complete.

You can order these online at her website and I've also seen her at the Handmade Children's Markets.

Ballerina hair clips

I can't believe the intricacy and tiny-ness of these ballet slipper hair clips made from grosgrain ribbon, in pale pink, bright pink or red. I believe she does custom colour requests too.

BOWtique makes them. They are only $8 which makes me marvel because clearly a lot of work has gone in!

The girl who runs BOWtique is very clever. She makes gorgeous korkers too (the spirally curled ribbon hair clips).

Little boy leather shoes

These little shoes (Grey Star is the model name) were very hard to choose out of a bunch of different kinds on the Nappyrapz website. They have an elasticised ankle, lightweight flexible sole and are made out of the softest natural leathers. They are for 6-12 months. Actually I fell in love with a little girl pair (pictured here) but I saw they were out of stock on the website and also I try to look for boy things because I am naturally drawn to pretty girly stuff (hair accessories post to follow LOL).

These ShooShoos baby shoes are $29.95 plus postage and you can buy them online from Perth company Nappyrapz. The website was quite slow when I went on it earlier so here's their facebook page if you're keen to order and hate waiting.