mummy made it

Old verandah lounge

2011-03-29T19:17:00.000+10:00

Lately I have been working on this old lounge. I pulled it completely apart and sanded it right back, painted it with Bondall and put it back together. I recovered the cushions when I first got my hands on it using this purple cord, it is quite faded in areas now and needs doing again! The verandah walls are also freshly painted in Hog Bristle, the deck needs attention too.

I have put my old tea towel cushions on it and have made a rule to sit on it 2 times a day and drink tea.

Before and After Concrete and Garden

2011-02-25T20:48:00.000+10:00

Some more before and after photos of our yard. Here is the back play area with the mango tree, tyre swing, tramp and sand pit. Stevo and I poured that concrete with our bare hands and a concrete truck!

And here is the before. Including the spare shed which we called the 'lean to'. You can just see a glimpse of it around the corner of the house in the pic above. That tree fern got ripped out and the garden and then we did the concrete.

Here is another before. Those were our baby chickens we got for Christmas.

and after... We made those big concrete pavers with the excess concrete, actually Mum did those. It's a bit hard to see, but we poured concrete with Mary River stone for the aggregate (think that's what you call it) and as we laid the concrete I threw in some big stones. Then after it set (more wrong terminology!) we ground back the top of the concrete to reveal the rock and a smooth surface, kind of riverbed-ish like. Then we sealed it and it still looks great.

I have a collection of Broms happening thanks to Mum.

With the excess concrete in the truck, we poured a nice footpath, slab area to the clothes line, made those big pavers, concreted the inside of the chook yard and the landing at the gate and made an awesome potting up concrete slab attached to the big sheds.

Super Cute Little Girls Art

2011-02-23T13:49:00.000+10:00

This was mine!

...and so was this.

Actually they are both still mine, but live in my Lilly's room and one day they might live in her daughters room. They are both in original condition, same frames as I remember and so lovely. My Mum had good taste, that 70's era. The little girl is actually a painting and I always thought it was me, it was painted by someone Mum knew. We just need to get Lill's room done and find a permanent spot on the walls for them. p.s. Miss Lilly took these photos.

Vintage Tea towel cushions

2011-02-21T17:53:00.000+10:00

I love love love these!

the backs are just as unreal as the fronts.

This calendar Australia map one is my favourite. I've had this tea towel for a while and finally figured out what to do with them. The year was 1977 on this tea towel.

Here is the back of my favourite. I put a zip through the backs under a secret flap. The zips are just as awesome, the one in this cushion is bright green.

This is a patchwork number using scraps of favourite bits.

this one is a mega map cushion. It was a small square tablecloth with native animals in each corner. The kids like learning landmarks when they lounge on them!

I've got my hands on a few more vintage tea towels to add to the collection and also some brand new souvenir tea towels which are equally as daggy as the older numbers. I am on the lookout for a groovy split cane lounge/daybed for these cushions to sit on for a non tv watching part of the house, a good spot to read I am hoping!

Tissue Paper Pom Pom's and a freshly plastered wall and Cake Pops

2011-02-20T19:29:00.000+10:00

I made these gorgeous decorations for Christmas and they are still going strong. Thinking about making a fresh lot. I used Martha Stewart's tutorial and changed it a bit to make it a bit simpler.

Here is a bit of house improvement action for you. Check out the awesome arrow patterned bricks!

They are now safely covered in plaster forever more. It was a dusty few days inside that's for sure.

After it was set, Stephen painted it in Taubman's white on white and hung his new tv on the wall. I still need to figure out lights. The only lighting in there is 2 'retro' wall lights and the funny old light on the bottom of the fan. The wall light switched on in the picture is staying but I need to choose a new actual light (really want chandelier sconces but not sure). The other wall light which is the black spot on the new wall might one day get in the way of furniture I might move to that wall, so I am thinking of getting some paper lanterns and wired in above this area. Who knows!

Just for fun, here is a pic of our first cake pops. Lilly got the Bakerella book for Christmas and my darling Aunty also gave me a copy. These were very easy and lots of fun, I think we made them too big and we really need to get our hands on some real 'candy coatings' instead of dipping them in melted chocolate. But these tasted pretty good and something different from the old cupcake.

Painting

2011-02-17T20:52:00.000+10:00

Here we are painting at long last. This is the back verandah part of the house.

We are using Taubmans all weather exterior in Hog Bristle. The trim is going to be done in Stone. Both Dulux colours. In this picture, they have painted the part of the wall in front of them and cut in around the windows. There is not alot of difference between the new paint and the old cream, but I think overall it will look much nicer, esp when the besser blocks downstairs are done too. In the far right of this photo, you can see the try out paint colours and obviously none of them are even close to Hog Bristle!

Our House Before and Our Original House

2011-02-08T23:05:00.000+10:00

Howdy, I'm still here!

Lately we've been working hard on the house. I have shown you snippets of what we've got going on here before. Here I showed you the before and after kitchen shots.

Here are a couple more angles of the BEFORE.

And I need to stress, this is the BEFORE we moved in shots. I took a stack on one of the inspections, renters (whom we nicknamed the SQUATTERS) were living here.

Here is an outside shot out the front. That besser block leaning over wall went not long after we moved in and it was replaced with a link brick wall. Much safer than this leaning over thing, although the amount of muscle it took to get down, I doubt it was going anywhere.

Come on, look at this!! This is the laundry window sill, who does this! Who has mess like this, yuck!! And check out the jungle outside. All of that jungle is gone now.

Another kitchen angle, the arch is gone, that stupid cupboard is gone, the brown tiles are gone.

Looking from the dining area towards the kitchen and the arch that is now gone. All the curtains and pelments went the day after we moved in, that was fun pulling them down.

Back to the laundry, which is downstairs and here is a bike in the downstairs bathroom! There was another actually standing up on its wheel in the actual shower!

That's probably enough for now!

I am hoping to keep motivated and show some AFTERS in my blogging efforts this year. To help keep us on track, cause sometimes this whole moving from picture perfect suburbia to daggy buying someone elses problem pretty acreage can get you down!

See pictures below for what we left behind...we built this house in 1999 and sold it in 2007.

My Mum and I covered this old lounge setting.

The photo above was taken from the cubby house that Stephen built. Gee we miss that cubby house.

The front door and my cat Pinkee nearby. Loved that house.

snippets of Christmas so far

2010-12-10T22:17:00.000+10:00

Christmas hexagon made on night shift, a tradition of mine now it seems- making hexagons on night stinking shift.

My best friend and I have sewed up a storm of Christmas singlets this year, which we have mostly sold!

Lots of Christmas singlets

The ladies version.

Lilly's Christmas dress and Christmas cupcakes.

This orange and pink turned into a bag for Lilly's teacher and matching zippered purse, the colourful fabric at the bottom of the pile turned into a wrap skirt for me and Lilly with enough left for Lill's teacher who wanted one too- just have to actually make that one yet!

Gingerbread Christmas trees, just for the fun of it. We also made gingerbread teddy bears, about 50 of them actually. They were pretty yum!

Pretty Christmas

2010-11-22T21:36:00.000+10:00

Here are my pretty Christmas decorations I've got happening in my busy kitchen. Rather than spend a fortune, I decided this year to work with what I've got! I've got quite a few cupcakes stands, so I put them to good use!

So beautiful, and with $3 LED battery powered lights from Kmart, they look super special.

a collection of good things made

2010-11-18T11:51:00.000+10:00

I've been busy lately, end of year approaching, working lots but fitting in time to make stuff!

I made this colourful button necklace for myself and I just love it.

this purply pink one was a gift

and this purply blue one was for my Mum.

new cupcake wrappers, really like these, these cupcakes went to kindy

decorating the dinner table with old china and doilies for fun

last week we made pikelets with melted choc and 100's & 1000's for afternoon tea-that's a treat

Fathers Day pavlova

made lots of beach towel shorts for fun

possibly the most awesome useful beach bag in the whole world with unreal Ikea stripes. This thing is lined with the same stripes, has a pocket, a key loop and extra reinforced straps. Fits everything we could possibly need at the beach and is easy to wash. Very happy with this bag, have needed one like this for ages.

a couple of cute appliqued suits for a little baby born recently

my favourite little bird.

Little Red Riding Hood

2010-10-15T16:39:00.000+10:00

Here is Lilly's bookweek costume from last month.

Little Red Riding Hood

We did quite a bit of recycling and reusing for this outfit.

The red cape was mine when I was a little girl and is in super condition considering its 30 years old! I lived in this thing, it was actually a super hero cape that my Grandmother made me and in later years she added the hood when I needed a bookweek costume.

We used the Handmade Dress Miss Madeline pattern again, but had to upsize it a bit to fit Lilly girl now she is a size 12. We also reused a favourite doily, that was on a Miss Madeline dress a while back.

We used some cute red embroidered ribbon on the hem too. And made a simple basket liner which Lilly wanted to fill with cookies for her classmates.

Pretty girl picking flowers from our garden bright and early in the morning.

Joey's 5th Birthday...party food, cake and scavenger hunt

2010-10-11T00:02:00.000+10:00

Finally here some pictures of the rest of Joey's 5th birthday party back in July!!

We had lots of yummy food, choc dipped strawberries, cupcakes, cheerios, raspberry coconut white choc chip muffins, fruit, special teacup biscuits and a few other things cause it was that long ago I've forgotten!

Here are Joey's version of the teacup lolly biscuits, no handles, smarties on top- something different from the girlie teacup.

A couple of years ago, Stephen built me a 3m not so wide trestle table esp for kids parties, it also doubles as my sewing table. Each year I make a new tablecloth for it using Spotlights spots and stripes. I get about 3.5m and just hem each end, and it makes the perfect tablecloth, this year I added a blue spotty one to our collection.

There were over 25 kids at the party, it was cold and to be honest am a bit over party games esp pass the parcel. My clever cousin suggested a scavenger hunt! I drew 8 items that you would find at a park (we did a trial hunt to test it!) and printed out 25 copies and glued them on brown paper bags.

It didn't take the kids long to gather the items. We scattered around a few feathers for them to find as well.

Here is Joey and Poppa scavenging at the park. The game suited all ages as the pictures helped the little ones who couldn't read.

Here is the line up presenting their bags and me checking the items. I think I gave them a freddo frog each for all items, some big kids were sent back to get the correct stuff!

Here is Lilly's collection of stuff.

And now the birthday cake, the brief was lollies, milky way tiny teddy cars, soccer, aeroplanes!

So I just made a number 5 cake and went crazy with all those things. Joey loved it and helped me decorate it too.

It was a cold cold day but very colourful!

Happy 5th Birthday big boy, love you lots.

Joey's 5th Birthday Part 1...making of the Pinata

2010-08-10T17:02:00.001+10:00

As requested I made a pinata for Joey's birthday party. This time, I allowed enough time to get it dry between layers of newspapers instead of putting the wet mess every night in the bathroom with the heater light on as I had to do for Lilly earlier this year.

I did this pinata properly, adding the rope to hang it between the layers of paper. p.s. I use newspaper and pva glue watered down to make the pinata over a big balloon and for the last layer, instead of the glue, I make a thick floury paste to coat the newspaper. This makes it really hard, you can see the coating of flour in the pic above. When its dried well, you cut a small opening and pop the balloon and do your best to remove the balloon bits.

Then add lollies, wrapped ones are best since they'll be heading for the ground!

This is a photo inside the pinata. Then seal up the trap door with some more paper and glue and allow to dry. Joey decorated his pinata with streamers and his sister made some cute signs to go on it, see pic below.

Here is the birthday boy in the park with his pinata.

He loved it! I loved it, so colourful!

You are too cute Joe boy! I love yoU!

Time to smash it!

All the kids got a go of giving it a good whack with the soft baseball bat.

Joey got the final hit making a big hole in the side.

Scavenging for lollies!

These things cost next to nothing to make and are way better to smash up than the bought ones, they do take time to make though but well worth it.

Stay tuned for the party food segment and the awesome party game segment...

Bunting and lots of it!

2010-07-02T23:08:00.000+10:00

I decided to make aprons and bunting to decorate our school fete cafe!

I think I am a little crazy!

The fete is not for a few more weeks, but Joey turns 5 this Sunday and his park party needs this bunting.

So, together with Lilly and Joey, we made bunting! Lots and lots, about 25 metres I think.

It looks awesome here in our lounge room. I moved the sewing station upstairs for the ordeal, too cold down in the garage at this time of year.

I need to thank a couple of people/things...Lilly and Joey for being so well behaved while I sewed and sewed and my bias binding maker for assisting me with the 30 odd metres of white bias we made together!!

I took a break mid-bunting yesterday, to make this cute cord skirt for Lill.

I sewed on a small granny square I had laying around, it looks very cute.

Today's Projects

2010-06-14T13:29:00.000+10:00

Today Kimmy and Wolf came over.

The kids played and we did a bit of craft.

I have been saving tins to mod podge so we did a little bit.

The conversations are unreal when we are doing this stuff.

Alot of laughing and stupidity.

We got a photo of us today, standing in front of the fabric piles and ironing board where the best work happens. Now she has gone over to her sisters to bake cakes, for no reason, just for fun. What a fun day she will have had! p.s. they are entering my kitchen rules as a sister duo, lets hope they get in!

Here is my latest crochet project, this one will see me through till next winter I'd say.

It's a Lucy inspired from Attic 24 Granny Stripe Blanket.

I thought it would be a good way to use up some wool. I am not thinking about the colour combinations, just using up wool but making sure there is enough to complete to rows in each colour at least. It's pretty long, so we'll see how quickly I get bored with it.

This is a crochet hat for Lilly. It is a touch too big.

I finished this off when the kids were fishing the other night. See where I ran out of light pink wool, nevermind I think the darker band looks ok. And the flower was pure scraps, which I made up as I went, the centre is a little dodgy!

Here is the little boy in his new crochet hat he had to have. His is plain blue 100% wool and fits like a glove. I've got his size and pattern sorted just need to perfect Lilly's.

Crochet Hat for Violet

2010-06-06T16:35:00.000+10:00

I paid 20c for this model this afternoon.

Cheap.

This is for cousin Violet who is 1 soon and since I'm into crocheting at the moment and its a bit cold and her name is Violet and I love her Mum lots and I've never met Violet yet even though I was given a chance, I made her this hat!

I tried it on a 7 month old baby boy today (a big boy for his age) and it was perfect on him, it is also pretty perfect on my boy above. I need to write down what I did, cause I think I have finally cracked it on a good shape that fits!

Warm winter things for newborn baby girls

2010-06-04T13:41:00.000+10:00

I have finished off the things for my friends new little girl.

Pink is easy!

A big rug/quilt (not really quilt but you know) made with beautiful flannelette and chenille and binded with pink spots. No handstitching went on here (binding) as this little beauty needs to be very washing machine friendly as I am hoping this gets used and used and loved and cuddled.

Some warm winter crochet hats for newborns.

Finally I can make these for someone where they will actually fit. I am determined to upsize this pattern to fit Lilly this year properly. Here is last years efforts.

There wasn't much in the way of cute flannelette at spotlight this week, I found the white owl print, which is pretty cute. I just hemmed it into a big bunny rug, can't have too many of them!

and I finished off my crocheted cushion.

Now that wasn't easy- getting that thing onto a pillowcase.

It turned out ok in the end. But it was tricky stitching it onto the fabric first, without pulling it all out of shape.

Back of the cushion.

It is going on my bed, not Lilly's!

Now I need to paint my bedroom and make it look worthy of this cute cushion.

My Creative Space

2010-06-03T11:23:00.000+10:00

Supplies purchased from the Light yesterday ready to make some snuggly bunny rugs for my friends new baby. I am backing the animal print flannelette with the light pink chenille. I splashed out on new scissors too!

Repurposing an already repurposed vintage doily! Is that possible!

This is Lilly's dress which she has outgrown, so I am unstitching the waistband to remove the doily (I slipped it in without cutting into it, knowing it couldn't stay in a dress forever) thank goodness I did this! Cause right now, that doily is exactly what my table needs, it is perfect, blue and red to go with the blue enamel jug on my table. The dress should be ok, after restitching the spotty waistband back down and some other little friend can wear it. Such a great pattern that Miss Madeline dress from the Handmade Dress.

Monarch Caterpillar update...other updates here and here...

Here we have one of the younger caterpillar's (not Munchie, who is huge now by the way and at school for the project today!) who has just shed its skin, the kids watched him wriggle out and I caught this picture just as he popped out. We noticed how bright the yellow stripes are immediately after this and we now know that's why some of the caterpillar's look 'dull' at times. You can just see the old skin curled up on the leaf behind him, now he is so bright and the black stripes are so glossy, we think they shed their skin about 4 times in the 2 weeks they are caterpillar's.

What a way to eat your breakfast! I can highly recommend having nature at the breakfast bench, cause as they are eating, they are studying and watching- not one ounce of fighting or bad behaviour goes on.

Here is Lilly, with her 'habitat' ready to present today. Munchie is on that piece of milkweed in the plastic bottle. We did up this poster using all our photos and things we have learnt about the Monarch Butterfly lifecycle and she is taking that in as well.

More Creative Spaces Here!

China Love

2010-06-01T07:05:00.000+10:00

Yes sir, I love china, heaps and heaps.

Think it's my Mum's fault.

I've loved it since I was a teenager.

And I especially love it when I get it for a bargain.

Like this selection above, which completely doesn't match, but that just makes it all the more special, cause one day when I find a random bit which does match a bit I've already got- that's like winning lotto (I think kind of, not really).

The blue/gold floral cup above is a new find from the weekend trip to Goomeri, we called in at the (expensive) Kilkivan Antique shop, this cup was $6. That's alot, for a random cup. It's a Crown Staffordshire and the saucer under it was also $6 and its Anysley and soooo cute.

When I find the cup that matches that saucer, that will be a winner!

But until then, I love it like this.

And check out this gorgeous gold Japanese Coffee set for 6 lucky people sipping coffee.

My Mum found me this at the Collectorama on the weekend. I mentioned that I was into gold china at the moment and she found this for $25. Now that is a serious bargain, it is mint condition and I can't wait to use it. Coffee at my house very soon for the local readers with scones too to try it out...actually, that will be open to the 'commenting' local readers only, hint, hint!! Thanks Mum, I love it.

This is what makes me happy, piles of this stuff!

This is all thrifted china, all english and all old and unmatching, I love it.

This is a few years worth at least, the op shop ladies are getting smart and pricing it high, not as many bargains these days.

I changed my kitchen hutch display last night, to a yellow theme, since I am loving the gold.

That is a very precious carnival glass bowl on the left that belongs to my husbands mum. I don't know alot about carnival glass, but I believe it is very precious and I really love it.

The plain yellow Royal Albert cup and saucer with gold rim belongs to Lilly, she let me get it out of the china cabinet to join the other yellow friends on the hutch! I gave it to her last year. She loves yellow!

And here is my efforts from yesterday's car journeys, nearly sewn up.

It will be a small cushion but so bright and colourful.

It is Lucy from Attic 24's pattern. With a couple of changes also known as mistakes. Never mind! But now looking at this picture, they are so obvious to me and making me a bit mad now the more I look at it!

Pumpkin Festival

2010-05-31T08:01:00.000+10:00

Today we went to Goomeri, to the Pumpkin Festival.

It was awesome!

On the way, I crocheted.

And on the way home I crocheted.

And now I am almost finished the front of my cushion!

Will be revealed soon!

We watched the street parade. This is the winning whopper of a pumpkin!

We saw horses, stock whips, drafthorses, working dogs, bands, old cars, pumpkin pagaent princesses...

Mum and I checked out the crafty section and saw some quilts including this gorgeous hexagon quilt, which was massive and the hex's were tiny. Now... I haven't made many quilts so I'm not really in a position to be too critical BUT I would never ever spend a trillion hours hand piecing something like this and then machine quilt it with a revolting bright green thread in a pattern that just doesn't do anything for anyone!

Machine quilting is def the way to go, but surely a nicer colour and pattern would have been better.

Here are the cute mini pumpkin themed quilts!

We ate pumpkin scones and pumpkin pie!

This is pumpkin pie, it was good.

They (the CWA type ladies) were very secretive about the recipe for pumpkin pie which kind of made me mad, cause I really didn't want their exact recipe, I just wanted to know if there was a pumpkin pie recipe in the special cook book they had for sale!

Me and my BFF Kimmy and the pumpkins!

Our super cute kids enjoying the fairy floss.

Kimmy insisted on going in the famous Pumpkin Rolling Competition and she entered herself and her son Kai. He chickened out (actually I think he realised his Mum is nuts) so my boy Joey stepped up to the mark. Here he is trudging up 'Policeman's Hill' to the starting line. All 680 of them lined up ready to roll their pumpkins!

And here they are with their tagged and numbered pumpkins getting marshalled!

It is big business and you can be disqualified for stepping over the yellow line!

Kimmy ready to roll, she was number 367!

And she is nuts, but I love her!

Joey and me waiting patiently, he was number 162!

The view down the hill from the starting line.

Somewhere down there at the bottom is our family dodging flying pumpkins that hit gutters and got airborne!

Joey's pumpkin went well, flying down the middle then hurtling off to the left...

...and came to rest somewhere around here. The policeman you maybe able to just see is standing nearby to the special yellow spot that marks $1000 if your pumpkin comes to rest right on it!

No one won the $1000 this year!

We picked up 6 pumpkins!

They are in pretty good condition too considering they were hurtled down a bitumen road. Actually everyone picked up pumpkins. I thought it was a bit wasteful at first, but every single pumpkin was taken away and we have pumpkin soup in the slow cooker ready for dinner tonight!

We loved the Goomeri Pumpkin Festival and have marked it in our calendar for next year!

Organising Craft (trying hard to)

2010-05-30T07:31:00.000+10:00

There is a million different options for doing craft/drawing/colouring here at this house.

I am always tidying it up. Here is the latest array of options. (there is another small box housing all the derwent pencils in tins and oil pastels and textas as well!)

I was running out of containers- upright sides, not sloping are the best to house pencils, crayons and textas. So I got the mod podge out and these cute scraps and made over a milo tin!

So I think I'll be doing a few more since it looks pretty good and works perfectly. These are Joey's chubby pencils.

She is only 7 years old and she can draw. I find these 'sketches' scattered all over the place.

I am pretty sure this one is a donkey. Clever girl Lill!

Monarch Caterpillar Update

2010-05-29T09:27:00.000+10:00

Munchie the caterpillar is growing!

He/she has more than doubled in size in 1 week and yesterday we saw him/her shed its skin! They do this a few times as they grow but we've never actually seen it happening before. You can see the skin behind him (look I am just going to refer to Munchie as a him ok!!)

And my 2 trusty caterpillar observers keeping a close eye on things. You can just see Munchie on the underside of a leaf nearby to Lilly who is on the right of the picture.

p.s. like I predicted we now have a total of 8 caterpillars, in various stages of growth on this one branch of milk weed! It is amazing how tiny the eggs are and all of a sudden if you study the leaves closely tiny tiny caterpillars seem to appear before your eyes. And as I also predicted, we will be needing another fresh branch to continue feeding these little guys which will in turn bring more eggs! So as soon as Munchie turns into a chrysalis and then a butterfuly, we will put the branches back at the milk weed patch so the rest of the little caterpillars can do their thing there!

My Creative Space

2010-05-28T21:48:00.000+10:00

Colourful spotty fabric cut in 3 inch wide strips, the width of the fabric, and pressed ready to become apron ties!

The finished product. A simple cafe style apron.

I am co-ordinating our school fete cafe this year in August. And I decided to make a start on the prettyness of the cafe since I still have a couple of months to go. I thought we'd all look matching and colourful in bright aprons.

I took advantage of Spotlights 20% off spots and stripes and $10 gift card to get 7 different colours in the mini dot. I am making 7 aprons at this stage (not sure how many people we'll have at any one time on the day working, but its a good start). And with the leftover I am making bunting to hang around the marquee in all these gorgeous colours.

More creative space!

Lemon Butter and Paper Craft

2010-05-26T10:05:00.001+10:00

Yesterday we had a day at home.

I made Lemon Butter using a recipe from Julie Goodwin's new book and the kids made flowers.

They made lots of colourful flowers using cupcake cases, pipe cleaners, paddle pop sticks and crepe paper.

Lilly was testing out ways to make flowers for table centrepieces at our school Fete Cafe I am helping organise.

I think they are beautiful.

Yummm Lemon Butter, best eaten straight from the jar!

Garden Dam Exploring

2010-05-25T16:47:00.000+10:00

This is my newest garden.

I really like cordylines at the moment. I got most of these from a grower up near Noosa for a good price a couple of months ago, they are doing really well.

I also got a couple of Brom's as well, I think this one was $10, its big and so glossy and green. You can just see my shell collection amongst the leaves. Thats where we dump all the shells that do not have a hole in them and we sit and fossick through them for something to do.

This weekend the kids explored the dam (thats the dam you can see, we drained it and are now in the long process of cleaning it up and filling again). It has a little bit of water in it with water lilly's and reeds and grasses and a few stray fish and other insects.

That you can catch with a basket with rope tied to it!

They caught about 10 little guppies, 1 or 2 very important Dragonfly babies (nymphs) including one that was shedding its shell, and some very interesting water dwelling beetles.

Here we are with the catch. The dragonfly nymph was taken to school, since that is exactly what they are studying at the moment in grade 2- the lifecycle of the dragonfly. And the beetles and guppies got released back to the dam today after a day of study in this container!

UPDATE: Munchie the Monarch Caterpillar is powering along and has doubled in size! There are 2 more tiny caterpillar's now in view as well and no more eggs that we can see left on the branch.

Monarch Caterpillar's

2010-05-22T21:41:00.000+10:00

It is that time again!

Time to watch caterpillar's change to butterfly's!

Don't worry, we look after them very well, we just watch.

There is hardly any milkweed around at the moment. We found a small shrub of it nearby to last's year patch. There were some tiny caterpillar's on it! Meet "Munchie".

After this little guy grows up and makes the transformation, we'll be putting this milkweed branch back at the milkweed patch so the other eggs and tiny caterpillars we can't see can have a chance. And this year, I am definitely going to try to grow a patch of milkweed, you'd think that would be easy given its a weed!

My Creative Space

2010-05-20T21:52:00.001+10:00

Making pretty bunting to hang in the kitchen/dining space.

...actually, I've gone too far and made wayyyyy too much. I don't know where I am going to hang it all, it will probably reach to Mum's house!

I enjoyed making the binding and finally am 'pro' at the binding tool- at last.

More creative spaces here.

Flowers, Tea towels and Cookies

2010-05-19T10:17:00.000+10:00

Flowers by Lilly, thanks little you are so sweet!

Tea towel by Mum. For my birthday a bit back.

Choc chip cookies by me. With a added 1/2 cup coconut for a different twist!

Masterchef Boy

2010-05-14T17:21:00.000+10:00

Joey asked for an apron.

So I finally did it today without him to measure, so I winged the whole thing and I think its pretty good.

Eating magic wands!

I put 2 little pleats in the front, might look a bit girly now but at least it allows for movement when you are 4 and cooking up a master storm!

Addicted, I tell you, they are addicted to Masterchef!

My Kitchen - Before and After(Better)

2010-05-13T23:26:00.001+10:00

Here is my kitchen BEFORE.

That is, before we bought this house, before when the 'squatters' lived here, very very before!

Actually this photo doesn't really tell the full picture. This house was a mess, a filthy falling apart mess but we loved the land and river so we bought it and we are slowly but surely making it beautiful.

Here is my better kitchen, much much better. Not exactly how I want it, actually probably not really even close, but better!

All we did was rip off the disgustingly filthy brown tiles with feature scene over the cooktop and retile with large white rectangular tiles standing up on the short edge. This way we hardly had any cuts and the grout lines are only vertical so it kind of looks like glass, kind of and only cost $60 since my clever husband did the tiling himself. I bought some new handles, long stainless straight handles keeping in mind I had to buy them to suit the holes in the cupboards. The old 'bow' handles were silverish with black happening through the wear on them. When we moved in here, that very day, I ripped down every stupid stinking curtain, pelment and blind! So the curtain in the before photo is long gone as is the arch over the bench (not in pictures).

I think it is a pretty good transformation for next to nothing in cost!

Lastly a picture of the Montville Rose by my 4 year old Joey. Yep that's a garden gnome, got lots of them and love them!

Cherry Hexagons

2010-05-12T11:27:00.000+10:00

I started stitching these at ballet then finished off the rest at homework time yesterday. Joey entertained himself arranging them and last night in front of the TV, I stitched them together!

Now what to do with this!

...

My Nanny would have turned 80 today. xxx

What we did on Mothers Day...

2010-05-11T13:43:00.000+10:00

We took some photos of Granma's presents after breakfast in bed.

We (me) are now addicted to making hexagons and don't know what to do with them all! Click here to check out my gorgeous dolls quilt that Nanny made me when I was little out of scraps and hexagons. It is very very special.

Back of the bag.

These are all Nanny's scraps and some of the pieces were already put together. I made some mini log cabin pieces and chopped up some more white and joined them all together to make the back piece of the bag. Cousins and Aunties who read this will recognise some of the fabric from items that Nanny has made into beautiful items for them. I think Nanny would be pretty happy that I am still using her fabric, esp to make something so special for my Mum who misses Nanny so much. (me too)

Inside of the bag with a special zippered pocket so Mum doesn't lose her stuff and a key loop. Here is a link to how to make that pocket, it was easy Mum!

We tried out Mum's other gift, a tea cup bird feeder.

We admired the only flower on my Just Joey rose and admired the blue hyacinth for Mum as well.

We went to the beach, gave Granma presents, cards and chocolate.

We did my most favourite thing: collect shells.

We had a Mothers Day photo, I love you both so much!

After lunch, we fitted in a slice of Mum's sponge, it was good as usual.

We came home, sorted shells, threaded shells and tied another string of shells and threw the ones with no hole in the shell garden.

The boys did some mowing.

We put the other teacup bird feeders in our garden to try out.

They don't match, but aren't they cute anyway.

And lastly, my little boy, found a bird ornament try it out. Looks like a nice sturdy perch Joe boy.

Mothers Day Creations

2010-05-08T13:11:00.000+10:00

This is what I am working on at the moment. A bag for Mum for Mothers Day. I got inspired to make hexagons after checking out Lisa's. I planned on using more of Nanny's scrap fabrics to make this bag so a few pieces became this hexagon. Hexagon tutorial from here. The reverse of the bag is patchworked scraps and you can see the handles below.

Now lets hope the sewing machine is in a mood for sewing plastic this afternoon.

And my other project are these vintage tea cup bird feeders, seen here. A great way to recycle old teacups.

Lastly, my 2 finds at the Antique Fair recently. This teacup would make a super duper bird feeder but I am a bit partial to yellow teacups at the moment so it will stay unglued for now.

Have a Happy Mothers Day!

xxx

Frog Pond

2010-05-04T18:14:00.000+10:00

Here is the first sighted inhabitant of our Frog Pond! Isn't he/she so cute!

My Girl Turns 7

2010-05-01T14:52:00.000+10:00

We had a beautiful party for Lilly on her Birthday this Anzac Day.

This is the gorgeous cake we made together. Yep, front cover of one of the Women's Weekly Cake books, I love it every time I get that book off the shelf.

I could not get plain green wrapping paper with hours to spare so settled for this colourful spotty stuff, I am too fussy. Lilly designed the tulip flowers on the fairy house with delicious sugared almonds in pastel colours and mini musk lollies. I esp love the marshmallow toadstalls, they are so simple yet so cute. This year I used packet cake mixes and I think I will be doing this again, too easy and they really are quite nice and hold together well for this sort of thing.

We also made a pinata! It was the most awesome thing ever (except for the hot pink pig pinata Stephen and I made for Lilly's 2nd birthday). Lilly and Joey helped me work on it all week prior to the party, adding layers of newspaper with PVA glue until the final coat where I used flour and water in a thick paste to really make it tough!

This is the inside of the pinata just after we tipped in lollies, toys, glitter and sparkles.

It was massive. I got the biggest balloon you can buy from Spotlight and it ended up very big. The kids painted it and Joey worked so hard glueing on strips of crepe paper to decorate it. We decided it looked like a jelly fish, so it ended up a Rainbow Jellyfish Pinata! It was so big, I had to wrap the rope around the whole thing to secure it. A better way is to paper maiche the securing rope/twine into the layers as you go but with only the week to get it done- I had to cut corners!! We dried it each night in the bathroom with the heater lights!

It took a bit of smashing! But everyone got a go and then scrambled for the toys and lollies!

For something that costs roughly $5 if that, plus the filling which you would buy anyway with a store bought pinata - it is such a good idea to make your own. For a crafty family we had a great time creating it and it ended up looking pretty cool and more intriguing to smash and bash since it wasn't your average 'character themed' pinata!

For an extra special surprise treat, we booked a balloon twisting clown who did magic!

This is the Lady Beetle she made for my wrist- so cute.

...and she turned this lot of balloons into...

...this so cute monkey up a tree!

She was very talented and kept the kids entertained for 2 hours with her magic show, tricks, magic cake cooking, juggling and balloon twisting. The jokes were pretty good too, I had sore cheeks from laughing and smiling for 2 hours! Thanks Miss Donna!

Happy Birthday beautiful Lilly xxx

What have I been doing?

2010-04-30T10:53:00.000+10:00

Making shorts for little boys that have grown and complain the old ones are too tight around the waist. A couple more in the pipeline as well.

I finished these last night and like expected I was woken by this little person wearing them telling me they are nice shorts Mum, not tight!

FYI the motorbike fabric was a pillowcase and the orange cord is stash = FREE shorts.

Making bags, not plastic coated. This is the perfect size and I don't know about you but I love the sideways old car once a pillowcase fabric! I did extra rows of stitching on the handles for a bit of something.

I like it and I'm using it! I've got a couple of other ideas for a key hook thing on the inside with the scraps leftover.

And lastly, actually not lastly, I've made a zillion other things lately but these are just the pictures I've got on hand for now! Pavlova birthday cake for Stephen.

We all love pavlova, especially ones with special jaffa's on top.

FYI, I use 8 egg whites (6 were cold and 2 were room temp cause I had to wait for the chooks to lay 2 more that morning to have enough!) and 2 cups caster sugar- that's it. Nothing extra special like vingegar, cornflour or whatever in my pavlova but I do take about 25-30 mins to beat the sugar in and cook it very slowly and then leave in the oven to cool with the door open. The marshmallow was nice and thick on the inside too!

I love Elliott Heads

2010-04-15T22:12:00.000+10:00

We spent a week at Elliott Heads for the school holidays, it is possibly my most favourite place.

Before we went on Good Friday, I sewed for 5 straight hours and only stopped because I ran out of overlocker thread!!!

I was so productive, not one unpick or mess up. I made Lilly the outfit above, which is made from a gorgeous op shop tablecloth (the orange piece at the front) and doily I scored last time we were in Bargara. I used lots of my bits and pieces on the skirt and got a bit fancy with the wasit band, adding belt loops and a belt. The waistband also has elastic but the belt is so cute. The heart appliqued singlet is part of the tablecloth as well, I love orange and pink!

This is an A line skirt with elastic waist and draw string for something different, using more of the cute orange tablecloth and another embroidered tablecloth I had. Joe boy is modelling for me, this was a gift for one of our friends. Lilly also got one of these skirts.

I threw in a fine lacey doily on the side and at the back there is a bit more doily poking out from under the waistband. Very cute. Lilly also got a pillowcase dress made with a blue and white floral sheet with a ruffle around the bottom. So she had lots of cool beachy clothes to wear that cost virtually nothing!

At Elliott I spent the week collecting shells, sorting shells, threading shells and tying shells onto fishing line to make long strings of shells which are now beautifully hanging downstairs from a piece of driftwood, this was my craft for the week.

Raining and Pouring

2010-02-09T21:53:00.001+10:00

We live on the river, lucky our house is way up high! Cause when we get lots of rain, up comes the river. These pics are taken from our verandah and normally you can't see the river flowing under the trees. The shed/aviary things to the right of the photo are our neighbours chook houses and also please note the myriad of young trees happening to the right of the photo planted throughout the grass. These have doubled in size, I put them in when we first moved here 2 years ago, they will be awesome one day.

Here is a zoomed in view of the kids and Stevo watching the water flow. Where they are standing is normally well clear of the river and the kids can play under the big trees.

This is nearby to where they were standing in the above picture and you can see a fence post sticking up in the water, this is our back fence between our yard and the river!

This is probably the 3rd time the river has come up this high since we have been here and the fence cops it each time! This is after 3 inches of rain then another fast 5 to 6 inches the next day!

So what do you do on a Sunday afternoon when it pouring and the river is coming up and you know the causeway 100metres down the road will be under...you go check it out and watch for anyone that may attempt to cross it! In the background you can see Granma and Grandad who were coming over for a visit and instead waved to us from across the causeway! At this point it was at 1m, which is probably the highest we've seen it, I can drive through here at 0.6m if its not running fast, no one attempted this level of water so there was no excitement. Lucky the water goes down really quickly here, only a couple of hours and its gone if the rain stops, plus we can get out the other direction.

On the way back up the road we stopped at our neighbours and this is their backyard, well a bit of it anyway. They back on to our river also but their place is flatter ground the river seems swell wider here. The line of trees in the middle of the photo through the swollen river is backing on to the horse track, to the right of these trees - the big trees is the actual normal river and there is a bridge in there we cross to continue on the horse track which takes you into town.

Our neighbours have the most unreal frog pond in an old tank, it is full of frogs in all stages from tadpoles to this size and bigger. We got inspired to make our own frog pond, so we are recycling our old bath tub into a frog pond, stay tuned.

And lastly, the cooking I did for the next few weeks on this rainy afternoon. Passionfruit Gems (a new favourite), Cornflake Cookies and Chocolate Chunk Cookies- all safely frozen in the freezer out of harms way and ready for lunchboxes!

Things for Kindy and School

2010-01-27T19:05:00.001+10:00

A big boy's new kindy cushion cover with lots of things to eye spy at rest time.

A grade 2er's pencil case in hand picked fabrics by the owner.

Singlets and Skirts

2010-01-19T10:16:00.000+10:00

Spotlight purchases turned into this cute skirt for Miss Lill.

It has a separate waistband which is hidden under that singlet but makes it sit much nicer than just folding over the top of the skirt and making a casing for the elastic.

and the same skirt style but for me in blue and white floral, again from the good old Light, I think this piece was $5, I only need a metre to make this knee length skirt. I also did 2 Bonds skinny strap singlets for me the same as Lill's just by sewing on some pre-gathered lace but left out the ribbon bows.

Crochet Project and a Sneak Peak at my Bathroom Progress

2010-01-18T20:48:00.001+10:00

As always when it comes to anything involving wool I don't finish stuff!

The bebop cardigan for Lilly is no further advanced than here and might get a bit more done next stint of night shift possibly.

So here I go starting something else! It only involved a tiny bit more in the way of supplies, white wool for the edges. I am making these cute little grannyish squares to make into a cushion for Lill's bed and I am going to edge them all in white, will figure out the back later, so far I am thinking a small print floral cotton.

This is Lucy's cute pattern, cept I didn't bobble the middle section, I just did clusters of 2 trebles or double crochets. The bebop cardi uses bobbles and to be honest I can't see that they are that bobbly! And bobbling makes me think too hard and crochet shouldn't make you think too hard, agree?

Next up I give you my bathroom, all but done! Massive cheers!

I am loving it except those wall tiles are not really white are they, they are supposed to be alabaster and in my books alabaster is almost white. They are gorgeous though and massive things. We have tiled floor to ceiling and those glass mosaic niches are just going to be the best. We are just waiting on the shower screen and mirror and taps to go on then its done!

Here is the super duper vanity. Designed by me and made to fit every spare bit of space available! There is a secret laundry shute in that first door in the middle and those drawers are so deep. I need to get some Ikea dividers cause everything will be standing up rather than lying down in the drawers. The drawers and doors are gloss white vinyl wraps and the top is stone, think it was called Torino, its all fairly boring colours but means I can have a shiny green plant on the bench and change my mind between chocolate, hot pink or even lime green accessories.

We also have a new toilet that has an easily removable lid and seat so I can clean it with bleach if I want, since we can't put anything like that down the drains (we have an Ecosafe sewerage treatment plant to look after!) Painting the toilet walls and bathroom ceiling is next up followed by choosing towel rails and drawer handles, so stay tuned for the finished product.

Pretty Little Girl

2010-01-18T10:26:00.000+10:00

Little Miss wearing her butterfly singlet and one of our crocheted flowers in her hair.

Singlet Decorating

2010-01-16T19:53:00.001+10:00

Today I have been making singlets, decorating them anyway.

I think this white one is my favourite. It's just a Bonds skinny strap singlet and I've sewn on some white lace around the neck and added a pale pink double bow-handstitched.

It is so simple yet so pretty and so cheap!

I really love this one too! Same singlet, blue ric rac around the neck and a cute old doily on the front from my stash. You just never know what to do with these things when you find them until moments like today!

Isn't it just gorgeous! I had pink and green ric rac but blue was perfect with the white. By the way I paid her a gold coin per outfit change for this photo shoot, the frangipani props were her creative input and made me smile when I saw her picking them.

3rd singlet and not happy anymore until I reminded her of the gold coin payment!

Strappy black singlet with cream broiderie lace trim sleeves and a cream double ribbon bow-handstitched. Lill didn't like this one so much and checked it out in the mirror- she came running out shocked "Mum one of the bows has fallen off!" Actually there was only 1, what do you think, does it need another bow on the other sleeve?

And lastly my little prince, "I want to be a model Mum"

I still haven't shown you all the sewing I did for myself pre Christmas. But here is some vintage goodness I found at Bargara on our camping holiday.

I love the orange and pink.

The doily has alot of work in it and a pretty soft orange crochet edge. Somehow I will make these two into something special, they go together nicely.

Singlets

2010-01-16T19:23:00.000+10:00

Lilly is not too keen on this yellow number, it doesn't look so good Mum! Yellow is her favourite colour and I love this fabric, never mind. It can go to another home somewhere! It's a Bonds size 10 just for my record.

I found this pink embroidered flower motif amongst Mum's lace stash when Lilly and I were rumaging together. I sewed on some pretty white lace around the neckline and added the flowers, she looooves this one thanks very much. This is a size 10-12 cotton Target singlet.

And this amazing work is todays crafty efforts by my 6 and 4 year olds! Lilly did the tortoise, not quite finished and the abstract number is Joe's colourful creation- a lamb and a caterpillar- use your imgination!!!

Crochet Flower Hair Clips

2010-01-16T19:12:00.000+10:00

I crocheted these a while back using this pattern and on our way to Dreamworld recently I stitched some clips to the back.

Lilly loves them and I filled in some spare time so everyones a winner!

First Project of 2010

2010-01-05T21:51:00.001+10:00

My little girl wanted to sew something, she dove in straight for the felt and the machine. She drew a butterfly and together I showed her how to trace the design in pieces onto the double sided interfacing or whatever you call it and cut it all out. She placed it all on the singlet and we ironed it on then I stitched it on and I could be as wonky as I wanted which was good because the machine is still playing up and hated going through the felt and was skipping stitches. I got really mad at it and had to walk away once! I love how it looks exactly like her drawing since I cut the shapes exactly as she drew them, no neatening.

Don't you think she has done a good job, all her design and colours.

This is a really good way of using your child's artwork, my little girl does some really good drawings.

My Busy December

2010-01-02T16:29:00.000+10:00

I didn't have time to blog in December, so here is a start at a few things I made...

a Glam Green Bag for our favourite kindy teacher. I found this cute Norweigian Birds print at Spotlight surprisingly and used some co-ordinating hot pink and lime green spots for the lining. My machine played up big time making this and then has continued to play up now when I sew PVC or felt, I NEED A NEW ONE!

I said goodbye (to the cupboard as a backup and keep for Miss Lilly one day) to this old girl, Mum gave this new retro model about 10 years ago and it is good but not fantastic and since I busted the big bowl (I know I could have got a replacement) and it spins like a maniac, it was time for me to get this little ripper....

It is a whole new world with this thing. I cannot describe how good it is. The colour is Ice Blue. We called her Gloria cause she is Glorious, sad but true. The kids love her too. I made my Aunty's secret recipe christmas biscuits in it with the dough hook, easy as. I've even used it whiz up scrambled eggs, fritters, pancake batter and of course meringues, macaroons, christmas cake batter, gingerbread houses, chocolate mousse. I am yet to make a pavlova.

I'll get back with some pictures of the clothes and gifts I made soon too.

Gingerbread House

2010-01-01T22:40:00.001+10:00

We are still here! We had a great Christmas, we made heaps of stuff including this unreal Gingerbread House using a special recipe that is guaranteed not to collapse and that it didn't! The kids decorated it after we did the roofing.

I will be back soon with pictures of all the stuff I've made, lots and lots including new stuff for me.

Happy 2010 to all my friends and family out there in blogland!

Table Runner

2009-11-26T23:10:00.000+10:00

I made this gorgeous table runner this arvo after school. Mum got the fabric in Bowral and the ric rac at the Remnant Warehouse. She got lots of other good stuff as well and I am very jealous I wasn't with her when she bought it all! My excellent Aunty was though, and took her to some really awesome places, you are so lovely Lydi!

I got that red and white stripey jug in Sydney so the runner and jug should feel right at home. It looks kind of Christmasy too so I'm happy with that on the table right now.

And this is the rest of Mum's shopping, a little bit of Love (another skirt in the making), some Kaffe Fassett, Anna Maria and some more of those table runner panels. The big dusty blue and strawberry piece at the bottom of the pile is for a massive tablecloth Mum is making.

How cute are these crocheted teapot cosies. The little one was $8, its hard to see clearly but there is masses of hours in them, the black background is all crochet as well. We love pansies!

Lastly my work in progress, Lill's next bebop cardi, one that fits hopefully.

x see you next time

I'm making one of these!

2009-11-16T20:08:00.004+10:00

I just love this! And I'm going straight out tomorrow after school drop off to get some rub on letters! I will have to get some beautiful scrap book papers as well I think and a couple more balls of Cleckheaton natural 8 ply cotton for the next cardigan that is already 1/2 done.

Click here for the link to this very sweet tutorial.

Cardigan

2009-11-15T17:39:00.004+10:00

I did night shift this weekend and I completed this gorgeous cardigan while I suffered it out at work, lucky it was not too bad at the hospital and I got lots of spare breaks to crochet.

I used this pattern after being inspired here- a new found blog I've found.

I made the size L: 11-12 years but only using a 3 1/2 hook which made things pretty tight, it has turned out really small. So I guess it will be a present or go into my Etsy store when I get that sorted!

Mummy Made Halloween

2009-11-09T22:04:00.004+10:00

Gee whiz I felt the peer pressure this year which could come from no where else but school since its not really my thing! Halloween... like you've never seen, how could I get through to her (Grade 1 age) that there is no way in this world we are knocking on our neighbours door and asking for, and I sooo hate this word "candy". One way or another Lilly did not let up and in the end I felt I was letting her down, denying her of Christmas or something!
So I compromised.

First of all we went shopping for "candy" and talked about what we could give back to people/animals/the planet and she decided to buy some dog and cat food and give it to the RSPCA bin at Woolies. Good start.

Then we came home, made a couple of ghost costumes, sacrificing a perfectly good queen size flat sheet in the process and invited our best friends over for dinner.

We dressed up, one child threw a wobbly bob cause he couldn't see properly through his ghost eyes, hence why he is a lying down ghost in the above photo.

We had a 'candy' treasure hunt instead of door knocking, and for tricks we threw about 50 water bombs off the verandah at Daddy and made sure we picked up every last bit of balloon to stop the sea turtles eventually eating them!

Then and I think this may have been a small mistake watched Ghostbusters as they are now hooked, had a yummy gardeny dinner and followed it all up with the most chocolate ridden, lolly, icecream, make your own creation feast you could imagine!!!

Shirred Dress

2009-11-04T13:22:00.003+10:00

I've had this fabric for a while, just a spotlight number, really light.

Yesterday I turned it into a shirred dress for me, after which I am not sure about the stripes and colour, so it can be a 'House Christmas Dress' I think!

There was alot of shirring going on and wider than normal straps for me, it is very comfortable and cool.

I'll make a black one next, not so home madey looking hopefully.

New Potatoes

2009-10-29T19:09:00.004+10:00

Freshly dug potatoes, the first of many more to come by the looks of things in that ground.

They were so white, fresh and delicious. We'll be enjoying many more of them soon.

Amy Butler's Love for Mum

2009-10-28T15:41:00.005+10:00

Happy Birthday Mum!She picked this gorgeous stuff out for me to make her a skirt, just the usual skirt!

We had a hard time choosing, Kelani have the whole range. Click here to see Amy Butler's website and the Love range, my favourite is the Soul group.
My BFF Kimmy ordered some today as well cause in her words "I just can't stand it any longer". I must admit that most of Amy Butler's fabrics don't grab me that much, but this is just so beautiful, up there with Farmers Market for me and that's saying something!
There was enough in the main skirt fabric leftover to squeeze a bag out, I have nearly put these things out for retirement (O.V.A.H. if you know what I mean), I've counted up at least 60 of these things I've made and am over it! But when I saw the exact amount needed for a bag leftover, it seemed a waste to fold it up for the shelf so I got the bag template out and did another. They are just the most useful bags and so lovely with gorgeous fabrics under shiny plastic! I am glad I did it now.

Happy Birthday to the best Mum

xxx

Yet Another Wrap Skirt

2009-10-24T22:49:00.002+10:00

It's probably getting a bit boring, but here's another Versatile Wrap Skirt made with another old tablecloth.

Here's a few pictures from my garden, starting with my happy entry petunia's that are growing under the massive gums on our driveway.

My recent Hippeastrum purchases, love em!

A new miniature rose, so sweet.
My old wheelbarrow of Petunia's is coming along nicely too.

Cooking and Eating from the Patch

2009-10-23T18:29:00.004+10:00

Lill picked this...
and together we made this...

...homemade canneloni (using fresh lasagne sheets) wrapped up with silverbeet, chicken breast mince, tomatoes, garlic, ricotta and then cooked in chicken stock, a little cream, ricotta and grated cheese.
This is how it turned out and was very yum!
With the leftover silverbeet, we wrapped up whole zuchini's and we also roasted some golden squash.

Vegie Garden Update

2009-10-18T22:28:00.005+10:00

Sunflowers just sprouted.

These little things sprouted only 2 or 3 days after we put the seeds in.
Green Cucumber
Baby Golden Squash, these were really good.

Everything is growing strong and fast!
A night's harvest! 5 eggs, some beans, lettuce, squash and silverbeet...all eaten up for dinner!
And finally, another Versatile Wrap Skirt I finished off tonight. Made from an old tablecloth, not too sure about this one though.

Pretty Stuff from the Garden

2009-10-18T21:59:00.003+10:00

Mum and I are into roses and hippeastrums at the moment and we have picked up a few miniature roses each from Big W surprisingly. I got a lovely mauve (above), cream and a tiny tiny hot pink one that Joey picked out and is now "Joey's Rose"! We bought cheap enough terracotta pots and now they look so beautiful in the sun at my front door, I think I might go back and get myself a few more...
This is my prized Hippeastrum which I have been waiting so patiently to flower to see what colour it is since I had forgotten.

Check out the before flowering pic! Tomorrow we are heading back to the Hippe Farm to get a couple more special ones.
And this is just something that is looking sweet at the moment, a couple of old tea pots with some holes drilled in the bottom filled with Heartsies. I am on the look out for some more old teapots.
And lastly, some fresh picked flowers from Mum's garden on my hall stand. You can just see some Blue Forget-me-not's amongst the bunch.

Next up I thought I would show you: an update in my vegie patch and progress on extending the chook yard, still to come: before and after pic's of our house

My Garden

2009-10-09T13:27:00.006+10:00

Since I have spent so much time outside this week, gardening my little heart out and I've loved every minute- I am going to share some pictures of what's going on in the garden at the minute- my favourite stuff!
This is my new rose "Just Joey", its a standard and I've planted it out the front of the fence in this little rocked section between the 2 driveway gates. This was Nanny's favourite rose. It is an orangey peachy goldy yellowy colour! Petunias in front of it.
This is something special! A gorgeous Hippeastrum, not sure what name, but def a named one. I bought 3 last year from the Hippe Farm nearby and plonked in, I love how they just come up amongst the other stuff. There is another really special one just about to burst out the bud, stay tuned for that!
Here it is ready to bust open!

And lastly a happy wheelbarrow of petunias, I pulled out the pansies, they were well and truly finished in here. I have made a pact with myself to 'flourish' my seedlings 3 times a week to give them the best chance.

Next up I thought I would show you: what my little piece of acreage looked like before we got our hands on it!

Mango Macadamia and Caramel Cheesecake

2009-10-08T19:08:00.002+10:00

This is really yummy, not sickly sweet at all and uses delicious fresh ingredients.

My best friend Kimmy makes this heaps, well she used to!

I have made 2 in the last couple of weeks since Mango's are good right now and we have a good supply of mac nuts too.

Mango Macadamia and Caramel Cheesecake

Base
1 pkt Marie biscuits crushed
125gm melted butter
Mix together and press into bottom of spring form tin (grease first). Refrigerate.

Filling
500gm phily cheese softened
1 cup cream
3/4 cup caster sugar
3 teaspns gelatine dissolved in 1/4 cup hot water
1 tin ready to serve caramel
1/2 cup crushed mac nuts
1 mango peeled and sliced up into wedges or you can use tinned mangoes
Beat phily cheese, add sugar and cream, beat together. Add gelatine mixture and mix well.

Assembly
Cover refrigerated biscuit base with a layer of caramel.
Sprinkle with 1/3 of the mac nuts and 1/3 of the mango wedges.
Pour over 1/2 of the filling mixture, add more caramel and swirl through
the filling with a knife lightly.
Sprinkle more mac nuts, add more mango wedges and then the remainder of the filling mixture.
Top with remainder of caramel and swirl through again, add remainder of mac nuts and mango. Set in fridge.

...and here is our lovely Mango tree, and again this year it flowered......look closer to see the flowers below...

...now look really closely (next picture) to see the baby Mangoes!

Yippee, last year the tree flowered but no fruit.

Lilly spotted the tiny green dots from my bedroom window, the tree is covered in them, lets see what happens!

This tree is also home to Mango Possum and Possum Cutie, our 2 resident Ringtail Possums. They have possum nests high in the top made of leaves and stuff, they look a bit like birds nests.

My Vegetable Paddock Part 1

2009-10-06T23:39:00.005+10:00

Welcome to my Vegetable Garden segment here at Mummy Made It...

Above is yellow zucchini and baby golden squash, which I'd say will be ready for harvesting next week.

It's taken us a while, but finally we did it, thanks to Dad! Before we went to New Zealand we had our dam wall dug out (still alot more work to do in that area) and while we had the big digger in, we got him to churn up the soil where our vegie garden was to go. Then while we were in NZ, Dad rotary hoed the area and formed up these beds, 4 in all .

It is awesome and this is how it is looking at 4 1/2 weeks after planting.

The vegetables were all seedlings when planted and fed with dynamic lifter and mulched with mushroom compost. We have hand watered daily. In the pic above, Stephen is watering the watermelon, which will grow down the gentle slope towards the River.
Above picture also has sweet potatoes and potatoes.

The garden gets just about full sun and the soil is absolutely perfect. We have a bore close by as well which has never looked like running dry, so this vegie garden should continue to thrive. Above is tomatoes (we have 2 types plus cherry tomatoes in the front garden) fancy lettuce, silverbeet and behind Lilly is garlic chives, 2 more types of lettuce, bok choy, beans and capsicums. Oh and cucumbers!

On the other side of the yard we have an area of pumpkins planted, I think there is 6 plants! I might need a stall out the front.

I need to put in a good patch of parsley, I use so much of the stuff, the original type, not the flat leaf, I think it gets too tough. Also need some basil and coriander.

Cherry tomatoes growing amongst the garden out the front, these came up on their own and we transplanted them to this sunny spot. We have been picking cherry toms for weeks, again thanks Dad!

Here is tonights harvest. I turned the cherry toms into Fresh tomato, prawn and bacon pasta: I can give you the recipe if you want ;)

And the silverbeet went into the lasagne for tomorrow night! I am on a bit of a gardening, cooking fresh food roll at the moment, so I hope you enjoy it!

Stay tuned for my next update: Mango Macadamia and Caramel Cheesecake including pics of my Mango tree.

Shirred Summer Top

2009-10-01T22:04:00.005+10:00

Cute little girl wearing her new Summer top, hopefully one of many more to come...

This fabric comes from an old pillowcase that was amongst my 'score' yesterday.

I used my rotary cutter to open up the pillowcase to form one big rectangle, trimmed off about 8 inches from one end to use as the straps then hemmed the top and bottom, sewed up the one and only side seam and shirred 4 rows at the top, made up the straps and sewed them on! I use my iron to steam up the shirring and make it shrink up nicely rather than pull up the elastic and risk breaking it. I also individually tie off each line of shirring in knots, both the cotton threads on the front and the elastic threads on the back, then trim the ends and stitch down over these knots and through the side seam so its not that visible but still secure.

One standard size pillowcase seems to make the perfect size top for Lilly who is 6 years old but wears size 8 to 10 clothes.

Sickeningly Gorgeous Wrap Skirt

2009-10-01T13:17:00.004+10:00

Yep, this is sickeningly gorgeous and all for the small cost of $1
A perfect condition tablecloth which I nearly didn't cut, but you can only have so many of these things.

I turned it into a Make It Perfect Versatile Wrap which you can get from Kelani, which I've done a few times before and love it as does Kimmy. I dropped off a car load of gear to the Op Shop yesterday and had a quick browse of the 'Vintage' linens, cause you just never know, sometimes you score big time. I scored yesterday, there is another 3 tablecloths downstairs, one is almost finished into another wrap the other intact.
If you are clever you can get away with the original hem on the tablecloth for your skirt and I decided this skirt didn't need the contrast band around the bottom so left that off. I used up every last bit of the tablecloth(almost, the scraps left were not even worth the scrap pile) making the ties, and I make my ties longer than the pattern says, the longer the better.

My New Favourite

2009-09-24T20:33:00.003+10:00

Sandi Henderson has released her new fabric range!

Meadowsweet...

I love it!

I am so sorry Farmers Market, but you are out and this is in! Actually you will probably work together, so you can stay. I still have 2 metres of Vintage Cherries in my stash, one day I will hang it in my bedroom when the bedroom gets built...

This seems a bit more grown up but still so pretty. I love this combination (below) which Sandi says she has a dress combination cut out for herself in.

I have got a couple of favourites picked out, but a bit tricky to describe which ones for now without single images. And I have just had a teleconference with my best friend Kimmy discussing which ones we love the best, so Kelani you had better get these in stock ASAP! Please!

All images from Sandi's blog Portabellopixie.

Happy Anniversary to Us

2009-09-22T13:57:00.001+10:00

I love you Stephen...

8 years ago today we got married!

It was a perfect day that day, as is today, as I woke up to Happy Anniversary wishes from you, Lilly and Joey! A bunch of flowers and card that you all chose together, how sweet!

Our wedding day was so much fun, esp in that wind at the beach. I'm cooking salmon for dinner and nutella crepes for dessert, hope you all like it...

xxxLeah

4th Birthday Boy

2009-09-21T23:46:00.004+10:00

My little boy turned 4 on the 4th of July.

I just love him!

I made him Very Hungry Caterpillar cupcakes to take to kindy.

and a number 4 chocolate racing car cake for his Maze Mania birthday party.

This is my gorgeous boy... post party, filthy dirty, sweaty and fired up ready for more cake. He is wearing a Joey appliqued singlet, he looked cute, he is cute, I love him, said that!

Quilt for Violet

2009-09-19T11:02:00.003+10:00

My cousin had a baby girl recently named Violet.This is a play quilt I made her, very quickly and very novicely!

I used Farmers Market, scraps from Nanny's stash including a little appliqued house she had made amongst it and some old embroidered doilies. I had to do a brick pattern since cutting the squares perfectly with the rotary cutter and being very careful didn't help when some of the fabrics were so loosely woven and put them all out of line!

The binding was again hand sewn down by Mum to get it done in time, thanks Mum! Oh and she also did the embroidered V for me and the roses since she is way better at embroidery than me.

giveaway prize!

2009-08-10T13:21:00.004+10:00

This is the singlet I made for my first giveaway!

Aimee from @T was the winning commenter and she finally received her prize, yay!

and this view is not some weird artistic angle...if you look closely you can see a male King Parrot in the Jacaranda tree behind the clothesline! This makes me sooo happy, they come fairly regularly, always in pairs and eat the sunflower seed bells we put out for them. We watch them from the verandah, they are so beautiful and wild and flying around where they should be, I love them, said that!

Soon I will show you the baby quilt I made, quickly made, for my new cousin Violet, 2nd cousin, something like that, a daughter of my beautiful cousin Bek.

giveaway winner

2009-06-27T19:57:00.007+10:00

Thanks so much everyone for entering, and for all the nice things you all said!

This week I have been busy with work but have managed to squeeze in a couple of gifts for little friends birthdays.

This 'm' singlet was for a little girl at kindy, dodgy photo of the back view sorry. I used some of the Sesame Street vintage sheet I've got left, I love this fabric so much.

Here is a 'b' singlet for another little friend using some Sandi Henderson Farmer's Market, a big fav of mine! That's the great thing about these projects, you can use your treasured fabric and still have heaps left!

So the winner is, with a very official draw from a container, since I had 18 entries I could afford the time to do this and I reckon its more fun that way:

@T, also known as Aimee I believe!

I've emailed you already and asked for details of what you would like!

I'll do another giveaway soon, I loved reading all the comments!

GIVEAWAY...first ever!

2009-06-21T23:35:00.005+10:00

Yep you read correctly... a giveaway, why not, I'm sharing the love!

Get in quick and enter!

The prize is an appliqued singlet, just like this one.

Or maybe like this pink one, as long as the name is not longer than 5 letters, in which case you could have an initial or another cutesy word! I've got a few more examples scattered throughout my blog! There is even a very cute crocodile singlet that someone might like.

...either way it will be very cute, you'll love it!

To enter my giveaway, just leave a comment by clicking on the comments link just below and tell me anything, I don't mind, I will enjoy reading the comments, I always do.

The winner will be drawn next Sunday the 28th, so you've got all week to enter, goodluck!
Make sure you leave me your email address or blog link so I can contact the lucky winner!

Birthday Sewing

2009-06-21T23:01:00.005+10:00

A couple of smocks I made for two little birthday girl friends this month.

This pattern comes from the stash of patterns in my Nanny's sewing treasures, it may have even been one Mum used to make up for me when I was little.

This pink one is reversible in soft pink cord and green polka dots for Eleni. The white applique piece on the front is vintage (op shopped!), I've got another ready to be chopped up. The green buttons on the front are not doing much for me, so I am changing them, yet another trip to Spotlight!

And this Sesame Street number was given to Kirsten, our adorable little 4 year old friend. The Sesame Street fabric (an old sheet I think or maybe even curtain) was given to me by Kirsten's Mum, she's a good girl. I made these shorts first up when she first gave it to me, thanks Mel!
The lining of this one is hot pink cord, it looks great over jeans with a long sleeve white top for winter.

my little artist

2009-06-21T22:28:00.003+10:00

I bought little miss a learn to draw book as a reward for something well done she did.

This is her first drawing after receiving the book.

love

2009-06-21T22:19:00.003+10:00

Sorting and organising my little girls beautiful art work.

This would be one of my favourite things she draws, we find this particular note alot, in random places around the house.

The new banner above is Miss Lilly's work also, thanks clever girl. I must turn some of this into wearable art for you!

Crochet

2009-06-17T22:17:00.005+10:00

I've been into crochet again at the moment and am finally getting around to putting the finished products on here! This pink beanie is for Lilly using this pattern. But beware if you follow this pattern, it turns out super tiny, so I upsized it with my Dad's mathematical help. Later I found an Adults version, I'd say mine is in between the adult's and the child's. I think the flower is the pattern from Attic 24, have you seen her blankets? they are just so gorgeous. I love that blog! I used Jet 12 ply wool, so its quite thick and warm despite the granny holes.

This one is for Joe, in browns and creams, I've done a Jet blue version in 12 ply as well, but no pics of that one! I have used this pattern for both of Joe's beanies, and again upsized it to fit better.

So after all this crochet, I needed somewhere to keep my tools and patterns. I had made this bag pictured below earlier this year using this pattern, which I had seen on Lisa's blog and got all inspired and luckily was able to make it then and there with the bamboo handles I had in my stash, as you do!!!

I used some of my favourite fabric in Anna Maria Horner's Garden Party.

For the crochet tool organiser, I had no choice but to match it the bag and used some more. I think, possibly, this crochet organiser would be my most favourite 'thing' I've ever made. Not sure if its the fabric choice, the usefulness of the thing, the cute button loop or what,

but I love it.

Here is the inside of my organiser. It's got room for about 6 hooks even though I mainly only use 2 different size hooks, a pen, scissors, unpicker, needle holder, note book and a spot for the current pattern I am working on. I guess this is just a version of a crayon roll.

Mum has just finished the most gorgeous ripple scarf for Lilly in pink, purple, green, blue and orange and a bobble scarf for me. She's been busy, I only took posession of these items tonight, so stay tuned.

Berry Choc Chip Pops

2009-06-05T21:04:00.004+10:00

its definitely not the weather for these!

Joe boy wanted icy poles, I had white choc chips leftover in my hand, a new stash of berries in the freezer...so this is what I came up with!

Berry Choc Chip Pops

1 cup natural yoghurt
2 cups vanilla icecream
1 cup mixed frozen berries (forest fruits pack: strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, cherries)or fresh berries if you have them
1 – 2 tablespoons agave nectar or more to your taste, but taste first after the choc chips go in
½ cup white choc chips

Process choc chips till crumbly then add remainder of ingredients and process to combine till the fruit is chopped up smaller. Pour into moulds, tap to remove air pockets and freeze, add paddle pop sticks when firmer.

Makes about 10 – 12 pops

Agave Nectar is delish, my friend Jen found it for me, you could use honey instead.

Rice Heat Therapy Bag

2009-05-29T22:10:00.003+10:00

Made using red corduroy and some black and white spots for something different

The bag is my design, nothing rocket science about this! I make an inner of white cotton filled with rice with a few drops of lavender and the outer cover is easily removed so you can wash it, I used velcro on the closure. The poem is adapted from a few different versions floating around. This one was a gift for a Mum at school who has a sore neck.

I've also sewn some smaller square bags with inners filled with rice and peppermint oil, they are for the freezer for headaches and I can confirm they work..unfortunately I had to test one out this afternoon. Will post pics of them soon.

Kaffe Fassett Bag and Zippered Pouch

2009-05-27T21:25:00.003+10:00

Kimmy purchased this absolutely gorgeous fabric recently in Sydney with no particular project in mind. She wanted a Glam Green Bag lesson, so this is what we did.

we had the smallest bit left so made a zippered pouch using this tutorial, it took no time at all and is so handy inside these roomy bags.
I love this Kaffe Fassett fabric and we used a favourite small leopard print for the lining.

Key Lockets

2009-05-24T17:10:00.004+10:00

Lill's latest project...something very useful thanks little girl!

Gathering her supplies, we got the box of embroidery threads back from Granma.

We needed a keyring for our new post office keys to go on, something that would hang up in the car and be easy to find. Lill looked through her new craft book and found this great idea.

Pocket Lockets

* a cute little felt pocket with a ribbon attached to your key, the ribbon slides up and down to reveal the key.

This one is an owl and she picked the colours and did most of the cutting and stitched on the nose. I did the rest.

We made one for Daddy's car as well and Joe boy picked the colours for it.

So far so good in the car, no lost keys!

Sydney part Two

2009-05-20T23:02:00.008+10:00

...here's a few quick pic's of Mothers Day in Sydney!

Tulips

my completely most favourite flower in the whole world, although these roses are up there! as are most things in Mum's garden.

But gee I love tulips especially when you see them in big bunches like this.

Moving on to the most deliciousness thing I've ever eaten on Mother's Day...

High Tea at the Queen Victoria Building.

Holy smokes was that the best thing I've ever had, nothing nothing was wrong or even a tiny bit wrong. We (Kimmy and I) sat in there for 1 1/2 hours savouring every treat on that plate, drinking 3 cups of tea each, watching all the goings on, marvelling at the sheer amounts of Old Country Roses strewn all over the room and most strangely having our voices change into new alter-ego's.... Sarndra and Sateen (the Prue and Trude type). Private joke.

We had sooooo much fun and spent too much money but gee we missed our children. Next Mothers Day I have promised Lilly and Mum I'll take them to Sydney for High Tea.

On the craft front here at the Mummy Made It house, its all crochet crochet crochet. I have done 2 beanies for Lilly, which are too small, they only take 2 hours or so to do and in my experience I need to follow the pattern exactly the first time before I go changing things to suit. So now I am working on the changed versions. When I get it right, I'll tell you all about it, including links to the tutorials I used and what changes I made to suit my kids heads! I've got Mum working on a matching scarf, a stripey ripple scarf to match some new pumpkin patch leggings I got Miss Lilly. And I've half done a beanie for Joe boy in some lovely Jet wool. We are headed to New Zealand in August so we need lots of winter woolies.

p.s. I've turned off the auto music so you need to press play to hear it now

and the new song is from the Tinkerbell movie and so sweet! We love it!

Sydney part One

2009-05-14T17:44:00.003+10:00

I finally made it to Sydney! Yeah!

I had the best time, I went with my second best friend Kimmy (see pic below). We actually went to a 2 day Wound and Skin Integrity conference, which was very very interesting. I learnt so much and updated my knowledge on the latest trends in wound dressing selection and got a few new insights into everyday items, in particular - soap!

We managed to visit one fabric shop, The Remnant Warehouse, thanks to some hot tips from Cass, thanks Cass. We stopped here straight after getting off the plane. Material Obsession and The Craft Depot will have to wait till the next trip unfortunately.

No bargains were to be had, but it was just so nice to see our favourite fabrics in the flesh and not on the computer monitor! I bought 2m of Pop Garden and half a metre each of these cute ones below! No projects in mind, just couldn't go in there without purchasing something!
Proof that we were there, and yep we matched, actually we matched the whole trip. More posts to come of our adventures, so stay tuned!

Mothers Day Crochet

2009-05-08T22:02:00.003+10:00

Nanny taught me how to crochet when I was 12 and that is probably why I can still do it, unlike knitting (another recent failure confirms that!) I love crocheting, I have never really done anything besides round and round blankets and granny squares blankets and those handy teatowels you hang in your kitchen. I saw a pattern recently in Better Homes and Gardens for crocheted flowers and got inspired to make some flower corsages, since Mothers Day is this week and I always try and make Mum something hand made to go in her present. This year she got a Pandora Bracelet, the I LOVE YOU charm, some blue tea towels and this gorgeous thing...

This pattern is from here, a new favourite blog to keep track of and the most gorgeous crochet. I added an extra row of petals (the darker purple around the outer edge). I also made one for Lilly's lovely teacher.

And since I am jumping ship this weekend and missing Mothers Day (don't worry I am sick to the core about it, truly I am) to attend a Conference in Sydney with my second best friend, I had an early Mothers Day with my little treasures.

This little boy couldn't wait to give me the present he made at Kindy, a gorgeous card with a photo of us on the front and a bag of homemade Coconut Ice! It was yum, we scoffed it down together, thanks Liza! I love the way Joey says Liza....Wyiza!

And today at Grade 1 the Mum's had a very special pampering complete with massage, manicures (my pink polish is still gleaming and its staying there for the trip to Sydney!) hair brushing, jewellery making, fruit kebab feeding, puzzles, singing, poems and lots and lots of love and hugs!

Happy Mothers Day to all my friends and family who are Mothers, Grandmothers etc, I will be enjoying this on the day with Kimmy and no doubt very very homesick for those 2 little people pictured above, and my husband of course!

my girls first sewing project...

2009-05-03T22:09:00.010+10:00

and isn't she just so clever!

I found this book today and just couldn't leave it in the bookshop, its packed with easy step by step pictures to make gorgeous little things. Alot I'd like to do as well.

So Miss Lilly chose a felt butterfly brooch to make, she did all the placement and stitching except for pushing the final part of the needle through the layers of felt on each stitch as it was too hard for her little fingers. We need to get our embroidery cottons back off Mum so we don't have to use wool again, that will be much easier!

It took about 30 minutes to make and she didn't once whinge or want to give up. She learnt plain stitching and blanket stitch and also how to thread a needle, start off and end with a knot. We also did stuffing and sewing on a pin to the back.

Here is her very beautiful finished brooch.

You are a clever girl.

antiques and collectibles fair

2009-05-03T17:57:00.003+10:00

Here are the treasures we bought...

Lilly chose the tiny little doll with sleeping eyes and the smallest crocheted dress you could imagine. The doll is 60's. I got another pair of Siamese Cats for my collection, a Holly Hobbie book about Mothers, a milk glass cup and saucer, a demitasse cup and saucer, some miniature figurines, some random plates and 2 trio's of Elizabethan Mother (my Mother's Day present and one is for my second best friend!)

Here is the new pink addition to my china cabinet to go beside the violets that I got last year at the same show. These cups are tiny, made in Japan but I'm not sure of anything else about them, so so sweet.

Monarch Butterfly's

2009-05-01T21:05:00.006+10:00

Lately we have been on a complete tangent. It all started at Kindy where we had some caterpillars that were brought in by another family. Well Joey and I had to get some for ourself and after a bit of research, library work and googling we found out all about the Monarch Butterfly.

We learnt that they eat milkweed as caterpillars and if you open your eyes and look around you see it is growing everywhere. We found a massive patch nearby to our house and spent many hours wandering around just looking, finding caterpillars, butterfly's everywhere- how come we've never noticed these beautiful orange and black things before right here on the road we drive down everyday?) We took some home and had our own caterpillars. They ate and ate and ate, and grew very fat. Meanwhile we noticed more tiny caterpillars appearing, the milkweed we had picked had lots of eggs on it.

Eventually the caterpillars have eaten enough and hang upside down in what is known as the "J" shape, they spin a tiny silken pad to hang from. We noted they stayed in this position for 12hours before they magically shed their skin to reveal the Chrysalis!
The "J" shape ready to pupate. In the 'wild' the Monarch Caterpillar gets off the host plant and pupates elsewhere, but here in our house they have no choice but to hang from the plant they have been eating.

This is a newly formed Chrysalis, you can see the discarded skin below (a black crumpled piece).

After a few minutes a beautiful gold line appears along with some gold dots on the green Chrysalis. It is so beautiful. The Chrysalis hangs for roughly 10 to 14 days and changes occur.

Eventually the Chrysalis turns brownish and black in patches then magically, orange sections are seen as the Chrysalis case turns clear.

Here are my two trusty observers- observing at a very close range!

Not long later, a beautiful Monarch Butterfly emerged.

It hung from the empty Chrysalis for a few hours breathing in deeply to pump up its wings, then to uncrumple and dry them and then slowly take a few practice flaps to test them out.

Finally with a few wonky flaps and flight attempts it flew away. Off to find nectar to eat and milkweed to lay more eggs on after it finds a mate. There is no shortage of milkweed around here. The plan for our yard is a small milkweed patch and lots of colourful flowers to attract the Monarch to our garden. But look a little further at our place and we find things way more exciting than this: Eastern Dwarf Tree Frog, Blue Triangle Butterfly, Orchard Swallowtail Butterfly and another frog yet to be identified.

After our fun with the Monarch's we put the remaining milkweed plants that we had picked back at the patch so that the other tiny caterpillars could live on, the life cycle would never end in our house, because the more milk weed fresh shoots we picked to feed the growing caterpillars, the more new eggs we were bringing back home!

So this discovery led on to a small fascination with butterfly's. Everywhere we went we saw them, we carried our books and were able to identify most. We even found one outside our local bakery, on the smallest Oleander plant with all stages of the Common Crow Butterfly happening (these maybe only a boring black butterfly but the Chrysalis is by far the most beautiful I've seen and we had one hatch here this am).

Further on I investigated what Butterfly's were native to Australia, since Monarch's aren't, but interestingly are listed as potentially vulnerable in our Going, Going, Gone book. And after this, came to find out about the Richmond Birdwing Butterfly which is indeed very vulnerable and is a native butterfly to our very own region with a Recovery Program to boot and the expert Ray Seddon living just kilometres away at the ready to teach us all about them! Which is a whole new story in itself, stay tuned for our adventures with the Richmond Birdwing Butterfly and planting of the vines as they are far more important than the Monarch.

Richmond Birdwing Butterfly image from saveourwaterwaysnow

would I change a thing?

2009-04-29T22:36:00.004+10:00

... nup!

hang on, yes I would, I would magically make Lilly and Joey appear for the day!

I'm flashing back 8 years this September to our wedding day. I meant to do this last anniversary but scanning pictures was not that appealing. These are unprofessional photos taken by friends and family, the professional ones (in the times before digital) are bound forever in the big album which is stored in its special box never hardly ever looked at!
I'd definitely wear this dress again, yes definitely...I'd just have to get it out of the Airs & Graces windowed box and try and fit into it that's all! Back then, I wasn't into sewing so much but I did have detail in me and this dress was made especially for me and turned out exactly as I'd imagined, even down to the pattern I wanted the diamontes stitched into (I bet they called me a PITA behind the door!) The roses are preserved and framed on the wall, thanks Mum that really was a good idea, despite how ghastly I thought it was at first.

Here we are, all married and very happy!

Nothing's changed cept we've got Lilly and Joey...

NOW we are very very (infinity no returns very) happy!

sight words ruined my picture

2009-04-29T22:08:00.003+10:00

Last night Lilly and I did this week's sight words homework. Our clever teacher always gives us interesting things to do. This week we were supplied with a plain white piece of cardboard a bit smaller than an A4 size and we had to fill it in with colour, this is what we did, mainly Lilly.
I did some of the flowers on the right, the trees and birds nests and helped fill in the blue sky.
Then we had to glue on the sight words, 6 of them, randomly onto the work, then draw puzzle pieces or wavy lines and carefully cut them all out making a puzzle.
Well the big mistake I made was helping create this masterpiece, naming flowers then drawing them, adding the birds nests (she could feel it in her heart when I drew the first bird, I could see it in her face!) she was so taken with our work and so happy. But then she went into an absolute state of desrepair when I read out the next instructions of glueing over the top and then cutting it up!!!!
So I scanned the picture before any of this happened and now I'm blogging the original drawing so everyone can appreciate it, cause she is still not happy about it all, and scoffs at the puzzle when we put it together.

Sesame Street

2009-04-27T23:30:00.005+10:00

So this cool as Sesame Street sheet became shorts.

owned and worn by a cool as and cute as little boy!

How could I choose which cheeky picture to put in here, so here are both of

my little beauty boy.

And so far I haven't had the right idea for what I can do with the rest of it (the sheet), which is destined to head Kirsten's way, since this little rascal's mummy found it!

singlet love

2009-04-27T23:24:00.002+10:00

love love love this singlet...

and I believe it is very very very loved...by another Lily!

six

2009-04-26T13:50:00.008+10:00

Happy 6th Birthday to my little Lilly!

Born on Anzac Day, such a special girl, we did the Anzac Day parade for the first time marching with our school this year in full school uniform, remembering those brave people that lost their lives for us.

We will never forget, ever.

After the parade and service we went on a special tour of the Australian Wildlife Hospital at Australia Zoo. It was great, we saw a Koala, snake and possum all having different operations, we saw all the different wards with lots of patients, the orphaned Koala's learning how to be grown up wild Koala's and much much more.

Lilly got this Sea Turtle Puppet, in pic above for her birthday, since she loves Sea Turtles and has been fascinated with Puppets since seeing this recently!
Then we stopped off at a nearby dam and found some water lily leaves for her cake since we couldn't buy any plastic ones! This year Lilly helped me make her cake, she came up with the whole idea and I think we did a pretty good job.

The Frog Pond.

We had Roast Pork as requested for dinner and a couple more presents at bedtime.

A very busy but so much fun day it was!

Happy Birthday Beautiful Girl!

i can feel it in my heart

2009-04-20T21:07:00.006+10:00

Lill and I headed out together today for the last day of school hols, we had a few jobs to do and I thought we'd check out some Op shops as well. So driving along I am looking at her in the rear vision mirror and I tell her the plan then she says to me:

Mum I think this is going to be a great day today, I can feel it in my bones,

actually I can feel it in my heart.

We exchanged a Pandora charm that I already had and got our bracelets cleaned while we were there. Browsed in the Op shop next door while we waited then had a smoothie and coffee followed by a visit to Nimble Stitches, the tiny boutique fabric store (the only boutique fabric store!) on the coast and picked out some fabric for a dress for a little friends birthday.

Then we headed on down to the other Op shops we check out every so often and found a few more treasures.

I think my favourtie find is this little pink vase which I think is actually a candle stick that my lovely little Lilly discovered with her heart.

Lemon and Lime Pillowcase Dress

2009-04-18T11:00:00.006+10:00

First up check out the cute little boy, with a fresh haircut! Bouncing!

This is a version of the Strappy Sundress. The pattern only goes to a size 6, a very small size 6 so I tried to make it bigger, mainly the bodice, I'd say this is now a size 10 as that's the size my cute almost 6 year old now wears!

I challenged myself to use only a pillowcase, a vintage pillowcase at that! But I had to call on the trusty spots pile of fabric for the green as there wasn't quite enough. So I used the green on the back casing and bodice lining otherwise the rest of the dress is made from one pillowcase. Bougainvillea's don't smell Lill! But seconds later we spotted a tiny blue butterfly nearby to this which we need to identify. Stayed tuned for our caterpillar-butterfly news we've got going on here, got stacks of photos of the whole process, more to come on that...

Here is a pic of the dress I made prior to the yellow one.

I used 2 vintage pillowcases for it and nothing else, except the new elastic but that's it, so this dress cost $1. And unfortunately didn't get a good pic of it while it was being worn roller skating the other day! The front of the skirt part of the dress has a white pillowcase with embroidery on it sewn into the blue floral main part. I used part of the white case to make the straps and line the bodice.

Part 2 Mon Repos

2009-04-17T23:49:00.004+10:00

Remember this post...

Well we made our return visit (back at the end of Feb, slack blogger). It was fantastic.

We saw hatchlings, got to very gently touch one and say a quick goodluck little loggerhead turtle, be safe on your journey!

Unfortunately for us the nest we saw hatch was a 'priority' nest so that meant all the hatchlings were being taken back to the research centre to be photographed, measured and weighed and then released later on. I desperately needed my kids to see these little miracles enter the ocean, so they knew what really happened. So we asked if we could wait till all the groups had been down on the beach and then go again. Lucky for us, 3 hours or so later at about 10.45pm, our family- the only standing children around were taken back to the beach and we saw hatchlings enter the water!

They ran through the kids feet, we met Ranger John (in picture above) and we learnt heaps!

Since we have been home, we have learnt alot more about the sea turtles that nest on our very own beaches here and the programs in place to help protect them. I have registered with this group to be a volunteer next breeding season!

Easter Bunny

2009-04-17T23:14:00.005+10:00

We won first prize in our Easter Kindy Raffle! and amongst the goodies was the cutest bunny softie made by hand by a very talented Kindy Mum who I would love to meet some day (she's in the other group!) using vintage fabrics, he is blue and we named him Peter! No picture of him sorry.

Lilly thought it was gorgeous and wanted one for herself since Joe boy is the big kindy kid and the ticket was in his name! So there was only one choice after this win, make a pink one, somebody had to. We used the special blue rabbit as inspiration for this pink bunny.

Miss Lilly picked out the fabrics, some old, some new, the decorations and special touches.

This one is called Flopsy! I made another as a gift after Flopsy, she was pink as well and had a few other details. I've bought some more corduroy and bits and pieces to make some more!

The Easter Bunny didn't leave alot of chocolate in our nests but he did leave a note! We had an Easter hunt after breakfast with 14 tricky clues, so much fun! And we used team work, patience and most importantly generosity and GIVING! Later that day, I overheard Joey (nearly 4) tell his sister "teamwork Lill, that's what we need like that bunny game this morning".

After hearing that it was all so worth it!

Tree Climbing

2009-02-26T16:36:00.003+10:00

Having trouble uploading pictures and the order they are appearing, since blogger won't let me rearrange them on the page anymore, grrrr.

So the above collection is of my gorgeous mosaic butterfly Mum made me that hangs at the front door. A snippet of our new front fence made from recycled materials, cept the small dog wire to keep The Fox in and some pictures of what goes on here every afternoon after school: tree climbing and tyre swinging. We don't have DS's or whatever they are called!

My Favourite Skirt and a Bag

2009-02-18T23:09:00.004+10:00

With school back and my little boy starting kindy this year, its time I got back into what's important. Sewing of course! But this year, now in fact, I need to do some serious organising in this here house. And I am going to get going in the garden too, just waiting on my Dad to construct the vegie patch, come on Dad!!! Anyway, above is my favourite skirt, I made it last year around Christmas time. It is a Make It Perfect versatile wrap skirt in Anna Maria's Garden Party. I have grand plans for gorgeous cushions and quilts using this range. Check this out, I stumbled across recently and have become a regular follower! Absolutely gorgeous and so happy to read each day.
This is a gift for a friend at school who had a big birthday the other day! So I made her a bag since she has admired them a couple of times. I had such a hard time picking the fabric to use, I hope she likes it!

I need to blog a bag I made recently thanks to inspiration from Lisa. It's a very cute bag with bamboo handles using Anna Maria's fabric yet again. Will get to that...

Hydrangeas

2009-02-04T10:28:00.002+10:00

This one is on its way to England!