Lemon Butter and Paper Craft

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

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

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

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

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

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)

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

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...

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

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

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

My Girl Turns 7

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