I too am addicted to scrap

a new year a new attempt

2012-01-10T19:00:00.000+10:00

Abandoned! i think it about sums up my blog!
life has been busy yes but really i just feel slack that i havent shared anything in forever, but really i was at a loss for what to share. Its no secret i stopped scrapbooking, as many i know have. And then we moved, so i faced no garden, shared family housing of which i thank my parents for while we sorted ourselves out and then of course the return to full time work. eek about sums up the second hard of 2011. And then i added to it all by starting my fine arts degree! like i have the time, rolls eyes...lucky i spend part of everyday creating anyway, and so i dont see scrapbooking returning to this fair blog anytime soon, ive lost the passion i once had and its been replaced with ART!! not really a stretch after the uni statement!

So i thought i would share my journey into this fine art degree, a way for me to watch my own progress, esp this year after i start studio units in painting and sculpture. Ive started and finished two units and did really well, both general art based units. A high distinction and a distinction, i was chuffed after 13 yrs of not studying. this term im slogging my way through my last two general ed units, and critical thinking and popular culture are both kicking me in the tush! I know im working on a credit in one, but the other god only knows! but i will be pleased to see the back of them in a few more weeks. sometime in march its back to arts units in arts departments thank god for that!

this was my final art and creativity work, its a stop motion animation. You dont even want to know how long i spent on the stupid thing, how many times a drew that damn bird, took photos etc, insane!

I shared some of my art journal after i started it last yr and this we moved and i disappeared, i did keep the journalling up and that journal was eventually filled with lots of uni stuff and whatever else was happening at the time. This week i shouted myself a 2012 journal or two one that i will keep personal and one that will be filled with uni type stuff. i was naughty and sprung for one filled with really nice paper, thankgod for sales right :) I also sprung for the blue bazaar mixed media kit, which seems to be my go to shop for art journaling stuff. Ive been lead and inspired to some great stuff from their site and journaling friday challenges.

Heres my first 2012 page, and i will share what i get up to with my kit when it starts in feb.

the person was inspired by the cover of an art journaling mag i got this week, how very post modern of me to rip off someone elses idea, thanks for the inspiration but, take it as the compliment its meant to be. Big changes ahead for the yr of 2012, new school for me, new yr level, more uni, emily at school (eek) its a big unknown!

We moved as i mentioned, and in december finally decided to be adults again and leave my parents house, rolls eyes. such is life but hey. anyway we bought of the south side of brisbane, a very very large ridiculous house that I LOVE! lol im still sorting out and painting said ridiculous house, but will share pics shortly.

And to finish off this large post, heres some of the art work ive done in the last few months, some of it in the last few days :) gotta love the holidays even if they are rapidly finishing! cry!!

I only just finished this today. Its been a few weeks in creation, and months in my head, it will have a buddy on the wall exactly the same..:) Ps thats the green of my feature walls Olive Reserve! and FYI i hate painting rooms!

I did this just yesterday, no guesses for who it represents and its on lillys wall in her bedroom, now if only they would behave like this! they r a bit sick of each other after the holidays ;) again people inspired by the same artist from my art journaling mag (I get the feeling this will be my go to doodle for people for a while, i dont know y)

this i painting for emily for her birthday

this followed, lovely colour emily chose wouldnt you say (Insert sarcasm here..:))

and this finished the set off, they are all on the walls of her room.

did this the week we moved into the house we bought

and i did this last week

and these r some of my favs from the last few months. The hearts i think im going to turn into something for my bedroom wall above my bed.

until next time...:)

HOME again

2011-06-30T17:40:00.001+10:00

Im a total fail at blog updating these days, but what can ya do :)

You may of noticed a few changes. We have moved from VIC back to QLD in the last week or so, for me it was actually an easy decision in the end, family vs no family and having your family and friends around wins hands down each and every time. And so we semi packed up and headed home. House was placed on the market and we said goodbye to country living and hello to a capital city once more. I return to work for third term teaching at Caboolture East until end of year where i have then applied for a transfer into a school closer to the childrens hospital to coincide with Emilys start to school and having to have as many appointments as she can outside of school hours and with traffic and everything else to consider it made more sense for us to live and work closer to royal childrens in bris.

The week before we were coming home i had the decision to head back to uni and study a fine arts and visual culture degree. Am i scared, oh yeah, but i cant wait too So with that in mind i started art journalling to remember that which i had learnt previously and to just start creating again so its a habit for august when my course starts up again.

heres what i have so far. Ive seen many journals, and mine is very much a working document, one half i have put aside for experimenting, practise draws, ideas, anything and everything to do with whatever is happening on the pages in this book.

so my first page was inspired by my decision to go back to uni..:)
curtain university degree completely external for the next three years here i come, eek!!!

I would like to put this up in one of the girls rooms, or a version of it anyway. but again inspired by my own personal growth.

experimenting with masking fluid to paint flowers using watercolours, and the day we made the decision to come home.

more about coming home. I saw the map used on blue bazaar and i just couldn't get the idea out of my head, but what can ya do. so thanks to that person, killer idea, that very much spoke to me at that point.

my knowledge tree, and the decision to go back to work full time and getting my contract job until my school comes up next year. it all happened pretty fast.

Do you have a hero? i do, Emilys surgeon Christopher Coombs is quite the amazing man, a hero in my eyes in every sense of the word, for without him I don't quite know where emily and her arm would be.

about being home, seeing family and loving everything about it

hoping to inspire my students, who have their own hard luck stories to share, i want to bring them a little art in the form of their own journals

heh, about the weather!! its so beautiful up here right now. But this is actually a trial run of a painting i hope to do for emilys birthday. i will share the final product because i have a few changes in store. There may even b a repeat of it for my niece who turns one very very soon

Took the kids to the surrealism exhibit at GoMA on tuesday and the next few pages are about that influence. The gallery is fantastic with its childrens activities and we will be back their frequently!!!!

so there you go. Today i have been playing with gel mediums and texture paste, will share over the next few weeks.

a crochet rug.

2011-01-28T16:30:00.002+10:00

i'd like to tell you this was an easy project, but going around in a circle is so not. its a little lumpy in places, but its flat enough for the floor
here she is with her floor mat in her room! lol, and yes i did sew non slip squares into the back of it. The colours match her wall quilt.
colours are a bit off, her room is far to sunny in the afternoons to get a good true shot of it.
i edges it with an edge Mel goodsell sent me towards on attic 24, one of my fav crocheting blogs. A bobble edge or something like that. its a little lumpy but not so that you will catch your feet on the rug itself.

and heres my next project just started. the perfect to make in summer blanket, cause its only little squares..:) this will be single bed sized when finished. in the distant distant future! lol the pattern is also from Attic 24 so check it out (excuse the pic, took it with the sun and my iphone, was far to lazy to get the big camera out heh)

www.attic24.typepad.com

a moment in time

2011-01-26T18:42:00.000+10:00

time spent together, hanging out on australia day...:)

my garden!

2011-01-25T16:06:00.002+10:00

my tomatoes to date, how sad is that!!!!

we have either had way to much rain, or not enough sun or the temps just haven't been right.

three organic cherries..:( they smell good but. they will go in my pasta tonight.

Now i have no idea whats going on with the other type, they should be so much bigger than this, can anyone explain?? i might fertilise. I did it before quite while before all the rain. So i don't know.

On the plus side of the garden, the potatoes have gone nuts, i hope they harvest well when its time..:)

just one moment in time

2011-01-23T12:48:00.002+10:00

ok well more than one moment this week, heh, and with words, i can't post with out them, sorry about that. not much crafting to share this week, but im still working on ems floor mat, its so nearly finished.

out side my side door, the door that leads to the area we term our backyard. is a very very old rose. The first year we lived here i think i got a rose, and the next year a few more and so on it goes. This year the bush is going crazy with flowers. its so nice to see it come back to life!

I have no idea when this rose was placed there, but keep in mind my house was built in 1876!

its a beautiful rose, that comes with that old fashion rose scent that seems to be missing in new roses.

emily is going a little holiday crazy i think, you know that point where its so time for school and after school activities and swimming lessons to start again?? its so time for that to start again let me tell you!

they are sick of the art equipment i bought and have used most of the good stuff as they refer to it, the holiday away is done, christmas is over and the toys while still fun have lost there shine

yeah its time for school to start!

15000 visits

2011-01-16T14:52:00.002+10:00

wow, thats nice

thanks for visiting

One moment from our week.

Making it up as they go..:)

its amazing what happens with a little time

2011-01-15T21:30:00.002+10:00

i haven't posted a scrapbook page in a very long time, and not because i didn't want to share, simply because i had not touched a piece of paper, combined with a photo in a very very long time. I quite literally lost me. i just didn't want too. I missed and still do the social aspect of my craft so very much. Those days were you sit with friends and produce five good pages and you laugh and tell stories together, eat stuff you shouldn't and end up having a damn good time. I miss those trips. I miss those nights. I miss my friends. The laughter and silliness that made life fun. I would so very much love a weekend away like the old days.

anyway, by no means my best work. That remains of the cover of an old scrapbook creations issue. But here is my babies in their christmas pic of 2010. Sorry about the photo of the page, i hate flashes and i just wanted to blog, and get my feelings out there. My therapy so to speak.

It took me quite the while to get this going and i moved things around for hours before the glue came out, and then it sort of just fell together in a way i liked and that was it, done. I still have the bug, thankfully i bought new printer ink today, so im off the locate the photo paper that would be at the bottom of a pile somewhere in my scrapbooking stuff long forgotten in the waste land that was most of 2009 and much of 2010 as well.

Reef HQ Aquarium

2011-01-13T13:51:00.004+10:00

When we visited the Aquarium on Monday, lilly was very taken by the Turtles and the Turtle hospital on site, that we were able to visit. We have spent much of our day today, researching sea turtles, in particular green, which were the type they had whilst we were there. We have written story boards and then we finally sat at the computer together and went through the video footage we had and pieced it together into a movie made by lilly..:) we have burned it to dvd for her to take to school as part of her what i did on the holidays show and tell..:)

edited to add

this email lilly received back from REEF HQ about her movie

Dear Jones Family,

Thank you for sending this home video through to us. I have sent it around to all our fabulous hard working staff and volunteers who spend their days making Reef HQ a great place to visit. Spreading key messages of importance of keep the Great Barrier Reef great! Our Director and Curator, Aquarists, Interpretative/Education and Marketing Staff very much enjoyed the presentation.

Very impressive work it makes all our hard work worthwhile. Particularly when we see a child of seven not only learn so much during her visit but also share the message with others who have not had a chance to see first hand how important our Turtle Hospital Facility is to the further research, protection and conservation of these magnificent animals.

So glad you enjoyed your visit. We have some very exciting redevelopment happening over the coming months (infact work commenced on Wednesday) with a new get up close to the reef creatures area upstairs and learning and play area for the children and also an extension to our Turtle Hospital. So should you visit Townsville again please come back and see all the new exhibits and spaces.

Regards,

Sandra

lilly is quite chuffed with it..:)

just one moment

2011-01-12T19:28:00.002+10:00

i plan to post a photo every friday of 2011. just a snippet of my week. Our week. With no words, except for this week..:)

This is what our week looked like, we spent it in Townsville with my mum and her husband and my grandmother. i will come back and do a post with more pics of our holiday, i just feel a little strange doing it right now. its not the time for a cheerful post about holiday fun with so many suffering.

my heart is in Brisbane, as many of you know thats were im from. In fact the town in which the school i taught in is underwater. Many of my friends in the area are cut off, and feeling the full effects of this disaster. My own parents reside in the area also. Though are overseas so we know they are safe and sound. Im hoping for all your sakes that the water resides quickly with minimal damage.

a bean bag

2011-01-05T15:52:00.002+10:00

Emilys room renovations continue. A bean bag.

http://myhomespunthreads.blogspot.com/2009/02/bean-bag-chair-tutorial.html

heres the pattern i used, it was very easy!

The cover comes off for washing and i made my inner out of calico. She does say an 100 l bag of beans, I nearly got two bags, i wish i did, i will be adding probably another half bag of beans to the bag when I make lillys

I added the handle in extra so that it was easy to move around. It is going to be part of a reading corner in Emilys room, with a few pillows thrown in. ATM she is carrying it everywhere with her!

Colours we picked matched her wall quilt.

And if you look carefully you will even find a bird just under the handle..:)

KIcking back in her bag watching TV.

It was no cheaper to make a bag, actually it probably cost me more, but the balls are completely sewn in! Little fingers can not make holes and spread them around the house. I think it took me longer to clean up the balls that missed the bag opening than making the whole thing, every time i moved something i found more of the little buggers.

currently on my crocheting hook, i work slowly at it each and every night. The mat for Emilys reading corner. Im sure you can see the colour theme emerging! Lets just say crocheting in a circle, little bit of an art form all by itself, once you just past the first little bit, there is no pattern, its kind of hope for the best and lay it flat every round to check! I will probably end it with three bands of each colour, trying to decide on finishing with scallops or not. They would be red, but I can't make up my mind currently. I shall probably let the owner decide!

Wendy the bird

2011-01-03T19:06:00.002+10:00

Well the quilt is hung in emilys room and against purple walls it looks so much brighter too. She loves it. Its on a curtain rod with rings and clip, pegs on the end. I didn't want to sew loops into the back of it, with the scallop edges already i just could't do it. It covers so much of her wall, its a fantastic way to brighten a room.

I have to thank Janelle for her pattern and her pattern writing skills, its all super easy to follow and that in the end gives a product your happy with too. Emily has picked Janelles candy quilt for her bed as well, and im kind of pleased about that. I will get to that one shortly.

This is a wendy bird, the pattern to this softie is a free downloadable one from lollychops.com

Wendy is easy and quick. I strung the three of them together and then hung them off emilys 10 foot high ceiling. Its safe to say im never getting them down again! lol also should of taken pics before i put them up there. im not tall enough.
i have another wendy to share soon, this one will be on a bird swing. Emilys room is starting to take shape, obviously her bed quilt is yet to come, but i have a rug on my crocheting hook for the floor and some art for the other wall as well as some bunting to pop up somewhere. Some nice pink boxes for her toys as well. A few other bird type softies as well.

Little Blue Birds

2011-01-02T09:51:00.004+10:00

I started this quilt in 2008! I even shared that very centre panel. And then i spent from then and until now, SLOWLY working on the hand stitched panels. They took me forever. and we had a few mishaps along the way, including my lovely children helping out by cutting up a piece of red spotted material for the corner stars. Needless to say the spots on two corners are different! And at one point my dear husband helped me tidy up the lounge room and placed a half complete hand stitched flowers panel in parts unknown? How do you lose a piece of material that long? I have no idea, but we did and I have never seen it again. Completely gone. I wasn't a happy camper when i had to stitch it again. It sparked this particular project being put away for quite some time.

This year my kids started swimming lessons, and lilly little athletics, and i spent hours bored to tears after the first few weeks, im bad i know, but you can only watch so many long jumps before you go insane, so i started taking my sewing with me, and because of those hours i finally finished all the hand stitching. After that it took no time at all to get this complete and good to go.
I used bamboo batting, its so lovely to work with. i was so worried about quilting this and seriously through about sending it out to be done, but didn't and while its not perfect only a quilter would noticed, and well we are pretty rough and ready around here so it fits right in. And im kind of glad that i did the whole thing.

Heres some of the details.

I think there is pretty much an even spread of hand and machine stitching to this quilt.

Anyway there you have it. This was a Janelle Wind block of the month quilt, that clearly I didn't do in the seven months or so that I was receive packets of material and patterns.

This is for Emilys room. Its leading the way in a room renovation for her all themed around this quilt. I will share the other bits as I get them up. Some im still in the middle of getting organised. And her bed quilt I haven't even started. But its coming...:)

Christmas 2010

2010-12-27T12:26:00.002+10:00

From us to you, Merry Christmas

sorry about the dodgy video work, we're getting better at it, i promise!

Owl Pillow, is called snuggly owl and I found him on oneprettything.com, and on Make it, Love it, its a downloadable pattern and instruction set, I found him pretty easy to make, he is pretty big and takes a fair bit of stuffing. Emily loves him, she quite likes birds, her room its getting a make over based on the little blue birds quilt im making her, that i have been making her for a long time, its so almost finished its not funny! I can't wait to see all the little things i have altogether. Matts for the floor, bunting for the shelves, art work based on her quilt and a few table runners and things, very cute. Right now thinking about adding curtains as well. Don't know yet. But the nursery feel her room has had is on the way out, welcome the girl room..:) Sigh, no more babies here..:(

I hope everyone had a wonderful christmas, and has an even better new year.

A gingerbread house!

2010-12-23T11:21:00.002+10:00

well it started out like this. i got excited then. lol. i had expected it to fall apart before this point. but it didn't. ARGH on the windows, i read the instructions last night, and wasn't really thinking about what they said, and i really should of listened to the voice in my brain that didn't understand the instruction because when it was cooked i couldn't get the windows out, of course! now i knew that, but followed the stupid box anyway! i won't next year. i bought a box with all the cutters, which wasn't expensive at all, and took the guess work out of it all. but i did find heaps of templates on the net, the kids enjoyed using the cutters though.

And the complete details. there was a tense moment when i took away the roof supports, but the icing so far is holding..:) The recipe in the box of cutters for the gingerbread is very nice to eat and work with, it was all pretty hard so i had no issues with collapse.
The chimney, its three chimney cut outs stuck together with icing. Works a treat.
THe roof, sliced allsorts, hanging royal icing loops, easier than it sounds, i swear but effective too.
And our complete 2010 gingerbread house. I LOVE IT. let hope its still standing saturday for the centre of the table.

right now i feel like one big piece of royal icing, its everywhere, im covered in it! Going for a shower

jacqui

its been a kitchen sort of day

2010-12-22T17:32:00.006+10:00

The best thing to do with fresh bread?

Cut it for lunch while its still hot! YUM

still bread making here, though we have changed a little. Does anyone watch River Cottage? British show, on lifestyle channel. I got quite the few tips from the Bread making ep.

Attic 24

how i love thee...:) hehe

i have been sent to this blog a few times

heres my bag, and the link to the pattern

http://attic24.typepad.com/weblog/crochet-bag.html

Its very easy and quick, this is lillys. She wants to learn to crochet, so i bought her some wool and a hook for christmas and this is her bag to put it all in. God help me when I have to teach her christmas day, cause you know she will want to get into it right away!

any tips for teaching a seven year old appreciated, she can finger knit like a pro, its this years tinsel on our tree.

christmas present glore

2010-12-20T12:57:00.003+10:00

More sewing from Janelle winds book. It really is fantastic. I love this bag, it is so very cute. I made one for lillys friend earlier in the year and the girls totally fell in love with it, so here is emilys for christmas. Hers has a magnetic clasp. It will be good for the plane when we go and visit my mum after christmas.

I found this quilt on moda bake shop. (Picture frame or frame it or something of that nature, i would share the link but its stuck on my out of commission lap top) It was very easy, though i found the squares didn't quite match up, but within the overall effect you can't really pick it out. As said, it was easy and quite quick. Its also rather large! it should of had another round of large squares, but it was getting out of control for me. But i can so see it bigger and on a bed. Anyone this ones intention is for a picnic blanket. the owner of this quilt would of no need for warmth from it..:)

details, im still learning about free motion quilting. But i have discovered the lumpier the better for me..:) A wise lady also told me that it can't be wrong if i like it. Im going with that theory!...:)

The shopping tote from Janelle wind again, gotta use these pattern books up as much as possible..:) it goes with the picnic quilt.

five sleeps till the man in red....eeeek, we are so not organised, the only thing stashed in my cupboard is an xbox and kinect kit, dear me

updating the pillows

2010-12-19T12:36:00.002+10:00

i shared the link to this quilt ages ago, heres my quilt. i first found this blog of janelle winds blog and let me just tell you cluck cluck sew is a fantastic blog full of tutorials to create things, all sorts of things. its all easy to follow. i loved the scrappy ness of this quilt. we use this mainly at little athletics on a friday night. its our picnic blanket. it gets quite the few comments too, i've led many to the tutorial. i knocked it all up over a few days. i did add an additional boarder to mine.
http://www.cluckclucksew.com/2008/09/petal-pillow-tutorial.html

heres the pillow tutorial. i've been looking in a few stores at pillows, ours were in desperate need of replacing. I saw very very similar pillows to this one in designer stores starting at thirty dollars. just between you and me this didn't cost me that at all, and it was quick and very easy to sew and has given me all sorts of ideas for the other pillows. The felt is by the metre and it was very nice to work with, softer than the craft variety. Lincraft i found by the metre felt, but i bet its in spot light as well, somewhere. I used a demin for the base of the pillow.
My girls are totally in love with it, so i can see a few more of these in my future, i would probably make a slightly smaller base next time, esp for the girls beds.

Currently working on an xmas present quilt, i finished the quilting part yesterday, just the binding to go, will share shortly..:)

sewing sewing

2010-12-15T15:19:00.002+10:00

so its been a week of sewing, of finishing things off and in some cases starting things. Much of my sewing came from Janelle winds book. Its fantastic, everything is funky and easy to follow and a pleasure to sew. The iphone pouch is for Jen Emilys hand therapist, emily and jen play with her iphone while Jen does her stretches. A part of therapy emily hates, so we found this to be a fitting present..:)

Lilly has two teachers this year, and this is what they got. I also followed a pattern from Janelles book, however there should be eight stars and I went for four as a middle of the table runner. I love these stars. I want one for my house too..:)

in the middle of a bag and quilt and some other bits, will share later

Merry Christmas to me..:)

2010-12-13T19:31:00.003+10:00

This is my new baby..:)

I LOVE IT!

also got the ipad pictured..:)

its a happy little apple family...hehe

we always do something for the house at christmas

last year i got a fly screen for my front door so we could have it open, we get an excellent breeze right through the house when its open.

this year i got a toilet, yes you read that right, i nice white one.

i mean really who has an apricot toilet? I did heh.

and well because that present sucked nuts and we had been basically sharing a laptop for months after the kids fought over dans and broke it we splashed out and bought the mac. its

fantastic. so fast. I LOVE IT, did i mention that..:)

And just to prove im still kind of scrapbooking heres some art I made for our hallway.

Lilly took one look at it and went thats our family tree. YEs yes it is...;)

I made this for Lillys room. Its above her fireplace., its an apple tree.

and the bunting, well once i saw Mel Goodsells I just had to have some, its pretty cool and very easy

i just googled How to Crochet a three sided motif.

The snowmen

2010-12-09T19:42:00.002+10:00

well here they are a little snowman army for emilys preschool christmas party tomorrowthey were very easy. Much easier than you would think.
I rolled two balls of white icing and stuck them together using water. The scarf was rolled icing that i coloured with wilton christmas red, i used the very expensive tool of a butter knife...good for everything hehe. and wrapped it around the snowman neck, i used water to stick it together again.

the hats i used a small circle cutter and stuck to it a cylinder shape, and a hat was born. The icing was colour with wilton black. The nose is just a little icing shaped as a carrot. kind of..:)
I gave them a little glitter, its an eatable powder and the eyes and mouth were made using a pen for writing on cakes.

I used orchard icing, bought from any supermarket. If I was actually making something like this for someone esle i would of used an icing modelling paste....but quite frankly kids couldn't give a rats about it.

i buy alot of my cake supplies from

the raspberry butterfly http://www.theraspberrybutterfly.com.au/store/pc/Simply-Sugarcraft-c2.htm

postage is ok, and the store is very fast, turnaround was just a few days. all the cutters, colours, glitter dusts, paints, you name it and its in this store....lots of great ideas as well.

I also use my local kitchen shop in Ballarat, LeKitchen.

i have a more detailed look at how I craft with sugar for cakes coming, just had to get all this out of the way....the end of the year is coming at frightening speed huh

fete cupcakes

2010-11-27T13:21:00.002+10:00

my creation for Lillys School fete tomorrow.

i discovered glitter dust for cake decoration, i love it the stuff, its pretty cool.

ive been using the cupcake recipes from joyofbaking.com its a fantastic site. i want a reason to make the red velvet ones, they look so cute.

all the flowers and butterflies are just fondant with royal icing. its easy as. they have been through all sorts of conditions this week to. it was hot when i made them, sweating type hot, not fun, in fact YUK, and now its freezing and been raining for a few days, which made everything extra fragile!

i managed to get a cupcake carrier half price last week. it will get quite the work out between now and christmas.

next cupcakes will have snowmen on them for emilys preschool christmas party. wish me luck

mc happy day

2010-11-12T19:40:00.002+10:00

it goes without saying that tomorrow is an important day for us.

most of us go our whole lives with no need for a facility such as ronald mcdonald house, but words rarly describe whats its like to actually need it, more than once.

its the simple things, from access to a kitchen, to a washing machine...the normal life stuff you still have to be able to achieve while your little one is in hospital. A safe affordable place to stay for extended periods of time. A place to retreat to on days outside the walls of the hospital, where even your sick children are welcomed. A location either within hosptial grounds or very close to for those times when your needed asap.

its so much more than a house. its understanding. where all going through similar experiences at the same time.

give what you can, buy a big mac, it really does make a difference.

its a barbies life

2010-11-08T14:31:00.002+10:00

what to do what to do, three nude barbies, one unhappy four year old.

collect one scrapbag of material for her to look at, and maybe 20 cents worth of elastic, 30 minutes of my time at the machine and we have barbie fashion happening.

seeing something that excites her as much as my minimal effort with the clothes was pretty priceless i have to say.

this poor barbie, is Attitude Barbie. Nice tats...hehe...she had to have trashy clothes to match...seeing as we can't get the pen off.

Do your kids barbie hair look like this too? i wish they would find something bettter to make barbie hair out of

pleated strip skirt

2010-11-02T14:12:00.003+10:00

i found this on moda bake shop, its very sweet.
http://www.modabakeshop.com/2010/08/strip-pieced-pleated-skirt.html

its a pattern for a jelly roll, but strips of fabric do the trick. most of this material was made up of letf over bits and pieces and a fat quarter here and there. i had two 14 strip panels with six pleats in each, made for lilly who is seven and not a small seven.

it was easy stitching. and a great way to use up left over strips of material. its one i will make again.

i love moda bake shop, lots of patterns for all sorts of things. its a great blog.

sewing again

2010-10-26T14:02:00.002+10:00

so i've been sewing again. a whole quilt which i had my first go at free motion quilting. and while its not perfect, it looks like. i found th epattern i used on janelle winds blog first. a link she shared. the quilt is easy and i love the scrappy look of it. heres the link. http://www.cluckclucksew.com/2009/12/raw-edge-circle-quilt-tutorial.html
i will share pics of mine later, its not a nice day here for pics today. i did add a boarder to mine. but i found the whole thing easy and quick. i had it complete in less than a week to use. its currently the rug we take to little athletics on a friday night.

today i woke with the urge to sew clothes. god knows why. i came across the link to this dress on one pretty thing. http://indietutes.blogspot.com/2010/08/solar-dress-free-pattern.html
the dress is easy to sew and i had it in less than an hour. way less. and emily loves it, it gives good twirl, very important in four year old world. the pattern has multi sizes and im thinking it would also look great as a top, which i think i will make for lilly so their clothes are just a little different.

the back, emily is in the four/five size of the pattern. its a little big on her, but i hope she gets to wear it next year as well.

and this one is just cause she is so damn cute..:)

garden birthday cake

2010-08-26T21:47:00.004+10:00

While lilly may turn seven on the weekend, this is (thankgod) the off year for birthday parties, yes im one of those mothers, every second year is plenty if you ask me.

but that didn't mean in lillys eyes that she still couldn't have a cake worthy of a party. This cake was meant to have a crown instead of a seven, but the crown met an untimely end, i droped it. swore up the kitchen and then dan presented me with a seven and all was well once again..:) hehe. Anyway this is to share with her class at school tomorrow.

excuse the bench that is still covered in corn flour and icing sugar. i just finished the mother things. i have spent all day putting this together and lets not forget the days prior actually making the damn flowers! i tell you who does this??

im happy with it but. way to cute.

have any of you looked at cupcake wrappers lately, there are so many on the market, and they r all so damn cute! i got these at my local house store in ballarat and went with the pastel because of the garden look on top, but they had some really very cool ones.

Last Week

2010-08-24T12:38:00.008+10:00

What did you get up to last week?

ME? Well it seems it was a mixed matched bunch of things.

Emily learned to write her name. How cute is that. She forms all the letters without help, we only told her the order. Now she writes it on everything. Not bad for a just turned four year old.

I love old bus scrolls, but have you ever priced the things. Reproductions are a ridiculous price. so while i loved the look i was unwilling to spend that amount on something that would so easily be placed on a wall and only appreciated once in a while.

until i watched better homes two fridays ago and watched her make one. How easy was that!

IM one for cost cutting and bargins, so the whole thing only cost me a bit of glue, white card and two tubes of paint.

i had the boards sitting in the garage from something else that were actually taking to the tip. a bit of retrival, a double coat of black paint, and using my trusty electrontic cutter all the letters were cut and glued in place. And there you have it, a london bus scroll.

this one a more personal one, all the placed that dan and i have lived during our relationship. the bottom half is blank ready to fill with places to come. It was fun to remember and think back on all these places and we r looking forward to placing some more interesting names on the list.

We filled the cookie jar with choc chip cookies and apple muffins. Needless to say they never last long!

We were kept warm by this. I heart this thing especially as we suffer or enjoy depending on your preference the last surge of winter this past weekend and coming week. We have had hints of spring promise, its coming.
I planted out the green house with seeds for the spring garden in a few weeks. We have an onion crop to look at in a few weeks hopefully. but its been an especially wet winter down here, the wettest in fourteen years. There are now full dams in our district that haven't been full in that long, its kind of amazing really. It also shows us that to much rain is as bad as no rain at all as the walls of dams crack under pressure. Anyway we r not all the confident in our crop because of it. what can you do? :)

We have been toying with the difficult decision on moving these past few months. Since emilys op actually. wondering if living in melbourne would help us cope during those times. but between the both of us we just couldn't get fully on board with the idea. we do love our house and the things a small town provides. Anyway last week dan accepted a new position with a very large pay increase in a town about 50 minutes away. so he is going to communte and we become a two car family again. its an odd feeling to get a car back, i have been without one for so long, but the wet weather makes the school walk largely difficult so the decision was made. Anyone own a suziki alto?? very effecient and lots of saftey features. and a pretty good price as well. we test drive it on monday. but it looks like it will be the winning choice.

this week life is all about lilly turning seven. will share pics of her soon.

Crochet fun

2010-08-17T14:19:00.003+10:00

I love to knit and crochet during winter down here. I first learned to crochet in Mitchell, small country town in QLD where i did my country teaching service. I made the traditional granny square blanket that everyone has. YOu know the type that goes around and around that you add to every year.

Making things for the kids while Emily is in hospital calms me. I sit beside her and knit, I knit or crochet during her operations, something mindless that keeps me from pacing a hole in the floor of the parent waiting room.

After emilys stay eariler this year I walked away with a poncho for Em, and a shawl for myself as well as something for Dan that isn't quite finished yet. Its nearly done. BUt I also started a blanket for lilly to use at night in front of the TV. It tends to go to bed with her as well..:)

So I started my crocheting in long lines and then edged it, it is so very warm. She now wants a bigger blanket for her bed and im inclined to agree that it would make her bed toasty warm during the winter months so its on the list for nextu years winter projects.

Not to be left out of course is miss emily who wanted a blanket as well.

I found this pattern
http://www.lionbrand.com/patterns/60689AD.html?noImages=&r=1

i love the colours in that pattern, but do you think i could get the pattern to work, no way. but i also couldn't get the hook they used or the wool. im guessing that had something to do with it heh!

so the pattern wouldn't leave me alone and so i went searching on google, gotta love that thing and found a how to video on crocheting an octagon and off I went. 4mm hook and regular 8 ply wool and here you have it.

it could do with another two rows added to the width, but right now im calling it done, i am sick to death of crocheting around eight sides. it has taken weeks and weeks, but emily loves it and i have to say it is warm as. so i figure in a few weeks i might look at it again and feel like adding the extra rows to it.

if you have never crochet before and you want to learn google how to crochet in a square and video a million will turn up. With easy to follow steps to watch. Start with a granny square which is the traditional round and round blanket and go from there. They grow pretty quickly and are super warm.

Organised Chaos.

2010-08-13T00:28:00.002+10:00

Almost two years we have lived in this house. Two years without a linen cupboard. Thats a long time! I have had two metal garage shelving units in this perfect spot for a built in cupboard in the hall way to our bathroom with all our linen stacked on it, including our drinking water from the rain tank. Yes our tap water isn't the best to drink. Its the country what can you say.

Anyway, below is what it looked like, well not quite I had started the big move out of this spot so its missing a shelving unit that was relocated to Emilys room, and actually has the cute industral look going on now. I hated this spot. It drove me nuts. But by the time I had people out to make the cupboards and paid travel time etc, it was becoming an expensive problem to fix, so we sat on it and just put up with it. UNTIL!

This! Same space, only fantastic now. Flat back cupboards that installed ourselves, all built in and attached to the wall. And the best bit, just for 300. Our kitchen is white, and just off this hall way and it all matched perfectly. And thankgod too, because I hated the way it was! I even have the perfect spot beside the cupboards where our heated floor switch is for the vaccum cleaner.

We have had a birthday girl this week and what does this little girl want for her, her ears pierced. So off we went on her birthday to have it done. Both ears at the same time, and thank god too, cause i don't think that she would of let us do it a second time.

We had told her it would hurt, she all like ok, i know i'm brave.

she was a little nervous, but it didn't stop us at all.

and lets just say she was shocked when it happened and for a few seconds i didn't think she was going to cry, but oh did she. Sigh, beauty is pain! Anyway, she loves them.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BABY, four, how did that happen??

They somehow make her look so old don't you think? But still so sweet.

Lilly is a no go on the earings, she took one look and went i don't think so. hehe

Some making

2010-08-05T20:38:00.002+10:00

Well thats what emily calls it..:)

I have had the softies book forever. And this is the first and only thing I have made. Polly. For my niece. She is so soft. And i love that amy butler fabric.

Next is a change mat with pocket, that i found on one pretty thing. The pattern was easy and the whole thing was done in a matter of an hour. It to went in the baby present..:) Ps i really had to talk myself out of buying the Amy butler baby book...oh my god, its so nice!

And a card to go with the gift..:)

sorry about the pics, camera needs new batteries so its just an iphone in this house atm.

Later

Jacqui

Long time between posts....

2010-08-01T16:37:00.007+10:00

Well its been a while I know.
Is there anyone out there anymore??

What do you say. I just stopped. Everything it felt like.
I haven't scrapped in a very long time.
I haven't taken a proper photo in longer.
Sewing, not even thought about it
The garden, well it needs some attention but we did have a crop while I was gone.

After Emilys accident i threw myself into life as a way of coping. But as we drew closer to the year of that accident and it got colder last year things started to fall apart for me. I just didn't want to do anything. Depression was a title thrown around. And I guess i was. PTSD is still an issue. Even two years later I still have flashbacks? I stopped talking to people and as a results friendships suffered, but no matter what I did, I couldn't stop it all from happening. I lost hope.

With my husband to talk to, I have slowly been putting myself back together. I'm not who I was, but I feel better. I have done nothing special, just taken some time for me. Time to quietly, in my own way deal with what happened to us. Some days I barely made it out of bed, others I got in the car and actually went somewhere. Mostly I was locked within myself trying to come to terms with myself. Getting over the feeling of motherhood failure. It still haunts me that if one small thing changed that day none of it would of happened. If I changed one thing that day. But you can't do that.

Life continues on. And so I jump back on the bandwagon of life and move forward. The past few weeks I started to crochet again. Much of it in thanks to Mel goodsells blog. I love to crochet this time of year. Keeps you warm in front of the tv and it forfills my crafty need when its too cold to be away from the fire in the scrap room.

While Emily was back in hospital in may, I turned to knitting again. And it made me smile. Finding those small snippets of my personality coming out again.

Just this past week, I have had to ideas for canvas's, one for my amazing new niece and I can't wait to start. I forget the last time I had inspiration to do anything arty. I even want to sew!

Tonight dan is going to start the fire in my art room so I can do just that and I can't wait. It feels good.

Heres my beautiful niece with my baby brother, I can't believe he is a father. Brooklyn. I'm so excited about her. I can't wait to get home and meet her, but it will stll be a few months.
Emily
hehe, she is such a ham. The things you find on your phone when you leave it where she can touch it! And just how did they learn to use an i phone before me, said owner of the at times frustrating thing. Now I can use it and have found all the little ons and offs I love it.

Can you believe she will be four in just 10 days? I can't.
The new improved arm~! I don't think I ever shared a pick of the graft she had. It covered that whole space. At the beginning of May she was admitted for the first lot of reconstructive surgery. I lovely five day stay, or so they told us. I really should of known better.

The first day, a nine hour stretch in surgery. Where they took that large expanse of skin you see from her back and relocated that, muscle, fat other tissues to her forearm and then under a microscope reattached it and the blood supply. The first night she had half hourly obs on her arm, needless to say dan and I slept very little for the first few days after.

Then Day five comes and everyone is so happy, the blood supply has been good and what we could see of the transfer looked good. until they pulled all the dressing down. Then all hell took place.

The part of the flap over her wrist was to tight, they think, it cut blood flow and the layers of skin died. They released the pressure and hoped for the best. And we sat in her humid hospital room (humidity was needed for her arm to heal) for another week and a half. It was horrible. The heat got to us all. She wasn't allowed out of bed. It is so hard to keep a three year old entertained when they want to get out of bed!

Anyway, back to theatre, another skin graft and another three week stay in hospital to add to her record. ANother month spent with Ronald Mac house. And may was over. It took so long for the graft to actually heal they thought it was going to reject at one point. BUt her poor arm was so stressed its not surprising really. So for the following eight weeks we went to melbourne twice a week mostly so they could keep an eye on it. And then over the space of five days, it just up and healed and all the worry was gone. Amazing really. Her doctor things he will be able to get rid of the graft in time without to much effort and it won't limit anything theyw ant to do next. THankgod!

so now we are on a six month recovery wait until the next part. Tendon transfers. Beginning of next year at this point. I however expect it to be anything but easy when it occurs!

Thankgod for family. My dad came and took care of lilly for a month while all this went on. She was only in Melbourne for the final weekend. My poor dad thought he would get to spend some time with us. but it wasn't to be again! And now we are all kinds of homesick and can't really find any time to get home before next year.

Lillys teacher left at the end of last term. And I had to task of making her goodbye cake. Cupcakes..:) I hadn't done anything like this in so long. And it was so much fun. I forgot how much I enjoyed making cakes and icing them. A small amount of knowledge goes a long way.

And finally my two being silly in the thai restaurant in ballarat for a girl dan works with birthday. oh the noise, lucky it was a sunday and not to busy!

My heart is with my dear friend Kirsty Piper this week as she deals with the loss of her mum. Where thinking of you and we love you and we wish we were with you. We are there even if we can't physically be with you.

have a good week everyone

jacqui

A pox over my house

2009-04-06T20:58:00.002+10:00

Sorry for the not posting.
The first week in march lilly came down with the chicken pox. And of course just 3 days after I got lilly back to school Emily also got them.

Emily was quite sick for a few days.
Overall the month of march was a complete write off around here.
I remember lots of lotion
I remember sleep less nights for us all
I remember seeing pox in places i didnt need to see them. Miss emily had them on her tongue!
I remember stinking baths at 2 am when we couldnt stand the cries because of the itching anymore.

And now, I think we have all healed and recovered enough.
Normal life should resume from now..:)
I have my dare for this month to share too, tomorrow now, havent downloaded the photo yet.

corrupt ipod

2009-02-27T20:37:00.002+10:00

two words u never want to see after u have spent the better part of the day waiting for i tunes to download the new u2 album that came out today, but u guessed it, plugged in my ipod ready to add the album to my playlist and what message did i get corrupt ipod. WHAT! its not even a month old! after much trying to fix it, it ended up being as simple as pressing two buttons....thankgod!!!!! my trusty little silver nano is on the go again. ps i like the new one,it sort of feels like a mix between their older music and newer music, easy to listen too.

12months on
well this time last year we had just arrived in victoria, had no idea what avoca looked like and were scared stiff about what we were doing.
12 months down the track...part of me wishes we never came and then maybe emily would still be perfect the way she should be, but i know that what happened to us last year could happen to anyone at anytime in anyplace and it cant stop your life. (will i ever purposely seek out a snow get away again...i dont think so)
the first 4 months or so of being down here life was all about looking around and settling in. we went to visit lots of places and vowed to go places and experience all the things we wanted to in our newly adopted state. we started out right. since august we havent really been anywhere. im ok with that we had lots to deal with and a few changes to learn to accept.
for all that went wrong, we're not sad we moved, our lives changed in so many great ways. we see dan so much more than we did in brisbane, we actually have a family life here and many nights a week we even eat dinner together a jones family first (chefs have the worst hours!!), we r in a good financial place right now its nice to have a small morgage and only one car to worry about. i was able to take the opportunity to not work while we have lived down here, a blessing in many ways apart of the obvious (especially after july), i loved being home before lilly went to school it was great to get to know her properly before school and its great now for emily to have her time with me too. its nice..:) and i hope and i think the kids have benefitted from it alot. (i am getting organised to enter vic education system this year, i dont want to lose my skills totally they r so much a part of who i am) the best part of our move is the peace and quiet of a country setting, its fantastic and we r close enough to escape to melbourne for shopping for the day if i want too....:) and we love the weather even in winter..:) we r loving the house we bought and the land that came with it, so much space for all our food trees and veg patch (that copped a flogging in the heat wave...but im on the seedling thing again to get it going again)
overall we r still happy to be here with no plans for changes this year or probably the next.

do you have a scary age??

2009-02-24T18:40:00.002+10:00

mine is actually 45
its like what my brain thinks is half way i guess
i will have one child about the move into adulthood, i will hopefully of been married for like 20 years (if were lucky), i dont know....SCARY stuff

lots of things to accomplish before that age...some i already have, some im working on..:) i kind of hope that by that age i will feel like an adult!

whats yours
share it

33

2009-02-23T15:58:00.003+10:00

argh birthday - 33, weigh - argh argh argh (but in truth scales r ban on brithdays), calories millions (but its national no diet date due to said birthday), birthday gifts- 2, birthday calls - 1 (hmmmmm calls from father 0, calls from brother 0) very bad, brithday emails LOTS - very good. two well behaved kids, a day spent reading and scrapbooking and then dinner out ... overall pretty good.

ok heh ive been rereading the bridget jones books...so funny, got to love a book that makes u roar with laughter just from the imagines in your own mind. so i just couldnt help myself.

yep i turned 33 yesterday. it effected me more than turning 30 but its not my scary age just yet. thats still over 10 years away yet....:)

school is still going well for lilly. friday we all walked across the road to her first swimming carnival. where she came first in all her prep races. they were very cute kick board races and noodle races. she was very proud.

then this morning an award on parade. i wasnt there but dan was. i was at home with miss emily who has a cold. not surprising really seeing as the stuipd weather is so up and down here atm. its cold (like start of winter cold) and then its heatwave summer hot. noone knows if they r coming or going.and then the first day of homeworking homereading. scary proof i have a school aged child. i would like to say she had an idea of what it was all about, but she had not seen the book and had no idea. thankgod for my reading recovery training. after a breif talk i could tell she had no idea so i was able to start in the right place and make it a positive first reading and homework situation. god help the rest of the kids in her class as im guessing none of them had any idea. (and yes being qld trained i find it werid that prep kids have home readers. i guess i will get used to it)

ive spent a fair part of the last few days scrapbooking. dont die of shock. i really dropped my ball on the whole scrapbooking thing in recent months and weeks. no enjoyment, didnt want to. but a friend asked me to do something and so when the right mood appeared i started with this layout for her to give to her brother when he is married next weekend. and the rest just sort of rolled from there.

its 8 by 10 and going into a silver frame. i hope they all like it, its hard to scrap for other people. i find what i put on the page is just a personal taste. i guess i will find out tomorrow..":_)
a card to go with the above layout.

after that i pulled out our santa photo. and mum i found the extra one here in the santa photo bag. i will put it in the post. im loving that spotty cardstock its pretty cool. emily didnt cry, but she wasnt impressed with santa either in the photo which is sad because when we walked up to the photo booth she was super excited, but seeing santa and sitting on his lap where two very different things.next was this one. i love this photo. it was taken just before her accident last year. she has changed so much in that time its hard to believe. the journalling on the photo is all about her baby giggle and how much i loved her baby giggle. that innocent giggle that babies have, that toddlers lose as they learn to fake laugh.

heres another one, ive had this photo for an age. but have trouble with photos where i can see her left arm the way it should look. but ive been getting over it alot more lately and it didnt seem to bother me today. acceptance of what happened. i guess.

i think the scrapbooking key was the have photos available. not having to print them outhelped. soemtimes i get stuck in photoshop and very get to the print stage. i think i will have a few printed so they r jsut there waiting for me.

week one down, onto two

2009-02-10T20:22:00.002+10:00

Lilly is LOVING SCHOOL
she wakes up each morning and just cant wait to get dressed, pack her bag and get out the door. every afternoon she is full of stories about things she has done and learnt.
the first day she came home tell us the sound of g and that it was for girl and the sound of b and it was for boys (lol they had the toilets explained to them)
the next day it was sssss for snakes and the movement of her hand to match. its all so very very cute.
she loved music, is loving going swimming each day (yes preps have started swimming the second week of school....brave) but her fav place was the library. (bestill my beating heart she is going to be a book kid) its the only place she dragged me to by the hand to show me where it was. which is funny considering she could of pointed to it from her classroom. our school only has like 3 buildings...:) 120 kids its very cute.

anyway the said love of the library had to have a new library bag. lillys is the navy one, and the brown one is for lillys friend little school friend.
not bad for days sewing...:)

tomorrow the prep kids have a rest day. woohoo!!! but i will admit that in a small school parking doesnt seem to be a problem at 3:15 when the kids get out..its great (that wasnt something i was looking forward to the whole pick up thing...but its great)

just a quick one

2009-02-08T08:27:00.003+10:00

to those that have wondered and called

we r ok
while the fires r now in our wider district (bendigo and horsham) they r not anywhere near us. so apart from dieing from the temp yesterday we are all ok...:)
we saw a cool change come through at about 2 this morning, big storm, electricity outage (which meant i was missing the fan big time for a few hours), but we have woken up to news of 24 degrees and more in days to come...its beautiful here this morning.

our hearts go out to the vic familys that had to pack a car and drive away from their homes and now wonder what they have left. (this is our fire plan so noone need worry) saving love ones is the only thing that matters.

how did i become a school mum!

2009-02-05T09:30:00.003+10:00

when lilly was born school seemed like something i wouldnt have to think about for so long!!! but 2009 had a way of creeping up on me and this morning i had to face that moment when your first born child is no longer a baby, no longer at home with me each and everyday and has suddenly become a school girl. in her words a BIG GIRL! how did that happen! im sure i didnt allow it! heh

i had only one moment during the whole process. and thankfully it didnt involve crying (i was shocked) and it happened before taking her to school. must be somehting to do with the uniform i think. they look so big when u put them in a school uniform! the scrapbooker in me knows how lucky she is to have a red and navy uniform..:):):)

she has been super excited about this moment for weeks, months even and bored at home for even longer. she wants and needs to learn. i cant wait to see what she thinks this afternoon and again when she gets up in the morning knowing she has to go to school again. when she lined up with her class (a straight prep after all...we were expecting a composite but we had some incoming students during the holidays which changed everything...:):) ) she only looked back once to check i would pick her up at the end of the day and she was gone. her face was eager and bright and my heart soared. i wasnt even sad (well in that moment anyway..:))

no real super great photos. she could hardly stand still. she admitted to being a little nervous and was so funny pinching her fingers together to show us how much she was nervous. lol and of course she was up during the night, school playing on her mind and was up long before the 7am alarm went off that i had set just in case.

i would love to know what she is up to at the moment..:) when they walked into class i had to sneak a long peak. sitting inher classroom on the floor in a circle with all her preschool friends already interacting and putting her hand up to answer questions. (ive witnessed children do this year after year of my work life, i was and am always amazed at the people they r, but seeing your own child, the one u worked on their whole life to get to this point is not really something i have words for. like every parent this morning...i was so proud of her, she took it all in her stride and made it look like she belonged there.of course the said jumping around..:)
and even my blond curly bear was in on the photo taking action this morning, posing and smiling for the camera! shock! SHE is missing her sister and saying goodbye to lilly and then taking daddy to work was a little to much for my girl who very much wears her heart on her sleeve..:)

it is amazingly quiet at home, its going to take some getting used to i think

queensland, scrapping and being just plain lazy

2009-01-27T16:20:00.002+10:00

were home
have been for a week. lots to do in a house about the start the journey that is formal schooling for the first time. there has been much shopping! uniforms, shoes, socks, lunch boxes, book packs the list is endless. we r starting to look organised for it but.

so organised that i finally decided that today i could scrap the day away.

its not an exciting page at all, these are photos from lillys preschool year. they were on display during the year and as a fundraiser the photos taken r sold to parents to repay the printing costs. i came home with 7 of them! they r just random pics of miss lilly from during the preschool year at some of the different things they got up too.

this is my happiness canvas. i was just going to add a word to my pin board but part of my happiness promise to me was to rediscover art so a mixed media piece seemed to make sense. it came together so easily i was shocked. art is one of those things u love it or u hate it, i am happy with this end result. on the green cardstock is the definition...i liked this one, characterised by good luck, fortunante - enjoying, showing or marked by pleasure satisfaction or joy - being especially well adapted, cheerful. it felt like everything that im trying to bring together. ive been doing some positive visualisation before going to bed at night (i know i know its way out there) but its working, im sleeping well, im eating properly and im feeling 100% on top of everything and im smiling!...its great

our holiday at home looked alot like this all the time. plenty of time in the pool, plenty of spending time with family and friends. we had a blast!

on holidays

2009-01-14T12:28:00.000+10:00

were on holidays this week
we will be back on the 20th

enjoy the few weeks left before school starts and i will be back soon..:)

street parties and more

2009-01-08T12:08:00.003+10:00

heres some of the things from our first country family christmas.
Our lovely town held a street party. it was provided free by our local business group and council. it was a blast. local bloke dressed up as santa arrived on motorbike with presents for all the children in town, there were christmas carols, rides for the kids and dinner plus entertainment in the form of whip cracking, u really know your in the country when thats the entertainment. next year we will take chairs! i tell u CHEAP family fun. it totally reminded me of a eaiser time in life many years before it took more money than sense to enjoy the season.

i sometimes wonder if things r difficult for my little miss. never allowed to go in the jumping castle all for obvious arm reasons, but still it makes me sad that she misses out on some things she would dearly love to do. lucky for us there was plenty of iceblocks and popcorn around to make her smile. i think i will scrapbook this so she knows that we knew it wasnt fair, but that we couldnt change it either.
heres lilly life of the party enjoying said iceblock and popcorn and nearly losing it to the camel puppet she didnt even know it was there lol

and on the bucking bull ride. she was scared stiff (in a good ride way)and all i could do was laugh she was so funny. almost lost her top at the end. its nearly 8pm in this photo if u can believe it...we r still not used the whole day light saving thing, dont think i ever will be, but we do enjoy being outside later into the day thats for sure. we went home not long after this to get ready for the big man to come visit our house. lilly was excited by the chimney thing. and wonder which he would pick, the one in their room of course so thats were the milk and cookies was left. lol (yes we have more fireplaces than sense. 5 of them! all working open style each with their own hand carved mantel)

christmas morning. i love watching the kids on christmas morning, they r both so different and so funny in approach. lilly is in one and all ripping at presents and opening until the pile of boxes and paper is bigger than the pile of presents, Emily is totally and i mean totally different. she opened each one slowly looking and paying attention and stopping to play with each item. it took her forever to open the presents. we were all desperate for breakfast by the time she was happy with her opening.
if i can just point out the hobby horses. on the dress up rack there. thank you my very lovely friend daisymum(who made them), the girls love them. they r a big hit around this house.
here she is taking her time. funny little thing she is. all her presents were all picked generally because they had to be manipulated with two hands. all secret she doesnt know shes doing it therapy! this wooden velcro fruit set with cutting board and knife came from http://www.entropy.com.au/ its a charming little toy shop with a shop front in townsville. they were FAST, toys were wrapped and reasonable with prices and range. it was a fantastic shopping experience. we will be using this store again. they stock mostly your traditional educational type toys...i wont hide the fact that i dislike most things found in target, kmart or big w as a waste of space and money!!!
we also bought some wooden eggs in carton to add to the kitchen and some wooden threading blocks for emily (great therapy for her again this last one).

thanks nanny and pa. the girls love the climbing frame and emily hangs from it with two hands just as we had hoped she would. More therapy for her arm gifts! im not sure why they have the trampoline there, maybe because the no shoes thing? we could do with some more rain clearly!

edited to add:

wedding anniversary today

9 years

eeek i nearly forgot!

Happiness

2009-01-06T17:17:00.002+10:00

well hello 2009!
how easy it is to take a blogging break and become totally out of habit with actually doing it!!!
we haven't been doing much. obviously.
Dan was home for a few days between Christmas and new year. it was nice. we just hung out at home. from Christmas day I've had my nose stuck in not one but four books. twilight series. oh so loving it. my favourite thing was the midnight sun draft, there is something so very funny about the story from Edwards eyes. heh. today went and saw the movie while Dan and the kids saw something more kid appropriate. i was i will admit more disappointed in the movie. its never what u see in your head is it? I'm so very glad i read the story first. the book is way better.

summer seems to of finally found us down here in vic. it took a while. but the last few days have been warm with a cool breeze its lovely really. i haven't been doing much but enjoying the sun and reading books...odd to of not touched a piece of paper, double sided tape, photo or a sewing machine in this long. i can see that changing. esp since i have my December daily book to work on now i have a few pics to add to it.

no photos this post. next time!
i wanted to intro my 2009 word.
last year i went with home. i was so far away from my own that i needed a word to remind me that home is where u make it. it stills above the cupboards in my kitchen now. and i look at it often and think about what it means to me.
this year...
i wondered on a few
healing, family, love

but I'm going with

HAPPINESS
i used to be a fairly happy easy going person, or thats what it felt like anyway.
after all the drama involved during my 2008 i think i forgot how to be truely happy. dont get me wrong im fine with everything in my life. but i seem to have to work on happiness quite a bit to get it and i dont seem to be able to pull all the parts of my life together so that im doing everything well therefore making me happy. something seems to fall away. i would say since emilys accident my health has suffered and my weight has sored. im not one to promise myself things at this timeof year so i like the idea of having the year to work on just this one word. happiness to me will mean finding myself totally once more during the 2009 year and enjoying not just doing all the parts of my life again. im going to add this years word to my pinboard in my craft room. so i have a nice big visual reminder of it.

anyway
im sure i will be back in the next few days to share my dec daily album.
and my potato harvest that im thinking i should deal with before i go on holidays. im thinking it would be better to wait but i know that dan wont deal with while im gone. i put them down in october...about the second week so they have been down for about 10 or so weeks..???maybe more might be more like 11 this week....we have no idea if thats enough time, they r out the top of the gargabe bins thats for sure and i cant do anymore hilling....anyone got ideas on this??
speaking of the garden, we r harvesting lettuce now, having zucchini anyday and tomatos and carrots too. will share when we do the pull..>:)

MERRY CHRISTMAS

2008-12-25T09:34:00.002+10:00

from our family to yours
have a very merry christmas

farewell preschool

2008-12-15T14:49:00.005+10:00

well we had the preschool and christmas concert today. hard to believe that a whole year has gone by. i remember how happy i was when we moved and lilly had a preschool placement. something she wouldnt of experienced if we didnt move. and she so loves preschool. its gotten her super ready for school. traditional (c&k) preschool is so lovely. its been a nice opener to the school experience....:) emily is all signed up for a kid u not 3 year old in 2010. come off it! it will be werid to not go to preschool at all next year.

sorry to my readers but this is a for the grandparents post really..:)

sorry for the white out faces. lilly was a chicken in their first skit to the story stone soup. i made the chicken head hats.

sharing the yummy stone soup with the other animals and the fox. so very cute! i was shocked to see my outgoing little girl in all the songs of the concert. some of the kids were not in all the songs. getting up in public wouldnt of been my strong point either!

This is for the song mr teddy. lilly loves this song, she is often found singing it. its quite catchy now i think about it! he is in a box and he jumps out to sing his happy song? i didnt know it or remember it.

In the song "i want to be a ..." lilly was a dancer..:) im going to take her to dancing next year.

and last of all jingle bells. serious business that bell ringing. lol
of course there wsa also a visit from the man in red. in the firetruck no less. lol i love small towns.

lilly recieved a book

now our big man in red SHOCK. Emily, she is quite taken with santa this year. last year i remember the looking and talking and the backing her in for the quick pic and back to mummys arms. there was none of that today. she loved getting the present from him. walked away to unwrap it and then was off to show him her book. yelling at the top of her lungs "hank you santa." so very cute and such a good cue in to our myers santa photos next week.

look telling lilly to "go way" hehe

apparently u cant share your santa time.

now we r watching tv. the kids r buggered after running around all day at preschool. it was nice to share lunch together on her last day....

salt dough ornaments

2008-12-14T10:05:00.003+10:00

yesterdays advent activity for us was to make ornaments

so we used the salt dough that mel goodsell has on her blog as part of her handmade christmas posts.

its great. the kids had a blast

one dough makes HEAPS. we split ours up and made it into 5 different colours.

this first christmas tree lilly and I did together. using the christmas tree cookie cutter. we of course did this one a few times!

then lilly started working on her own tree

she then made a snowman

while the kids were working on their ornaments i made a few with them. sadly lilly thought this was a spiky green mountain! i was going for christmas tree

and this is my snowman

this is emilys tree.

emily had fun squishing the dough up, she didnt really get onto making many ornaments. all good therapy for her hand but. lots of squishing!

these were in the oven for a few hours and last night were coated in modpodge

i can see us using salt dough way more often now.

home made

2008-12-13T22:30:00.004+10:00

So ive been one of santas elves this season, by choice, making my kids some of their gifts.

this is for emily. a fairy dress up. Its a mccalls pattern this one. it also has a gown that im going to make for lilly. Both of them will get wings. new wings for lilly and first wings for emily. im going to go and buy them a cheap clothes horse so they can hang up their dress ups. u know the ones with the tray at the bottom, which they can put all the other bits that seem to go with the growing pile of dress ups they have collected.

next is my version of a tutu. a ballet skirt really. i made it out of soft material on purpose because my two tend to dress up for hours and play other things while still in their dress ups so i wanted something that was soft and wouldnt scratch up their skin like tulle might. no pattern for this...2 metres of material cut in half lenght ways. Half for each child. I then halved lillys again and started to gather it up.

Emilys tutu. I made it shorter and smaller of course, but with the same idea as lillys in mind.

next some nappies for their dollies
for these i used the pattern off the link from mel goodsells blog. its easy to follow.

next the crowns

heres the link

http://juicy-bits.typepad.com/juicy_bits/2008/09/32-felt-birthday-crown-tutorial.html

i find this blog can take a while to load...but its so worth the effort.

i do wish my crowns looked just like hers...but alas no.

we r hoping they last longer than store bought ones. my girls got new crowns last year and they were broken in seconds.

and finally a new lunch bag for lilly for school next year.

heres the tutorial link

http://blissfulbyquenna.blogspot.com/2008/09/tutorial-zippered-top-lunch-bags.html
this was pretty easy to do. its insulated with the inside of a plastic insulated bag, u know the kind u would use a few times and then throw out. i pulled it apart and recycled the insulation. zippers im still learning thats for sure...but its functional.

thats it for the photos

but we r also working on a tent and hopscotch mat

and i may tackle a material dolls house too. we will see.

i also have a summer shirt on my knitting needles for emily made from a sock yarn i got from http://www.onefatslug.esty.com/ NICE YARN, hand dyed.

2008-12-09T17:01:00.002+10:00

it sounded great when in the last week of november i decided to buy us a new christmas tree. we have wanted a new one for ages but the price oh my god the price. it always turned me off. anyway enter ebay. and this lovely 650 tip 6foot christmas tree $26! i love it. its not quite as bushy as i would of really liked but then i didnt want to spend upwards of $300 to get bushy because lets face it thats a waste of money and a little silly. but the kids love this big tree..:) forgive the bad santa! topper somehwere in two moves this year i lost our lovely star

some present tags i made

a tour around my house

2008-12-07T13:41:00.005+10:00

today im showing off my kitchen...clean and tidy...but that didnt last long..u know lunch and dinner to be made..:) this is our art hanging wall. the piece of wood was covered in wadding, and then material. i screwed in 6 or 7 small bulldog clips along the bottom and then daniel put it up for me. we change the things up here each week after lilly has been at preschool usually. atm its a mixture of preschool stuff and home stuff. i love this part of our house. its the newer section, and i especially love the exposed brick walls.

our kitchen. not much to do in here. we would like to change the bench tops eventually to granite. its amazing that my kitchen is clean and tidy in this photo but it still seems to look messy!, we have a very lived in house thats for sure. all the slate is heated for winter...hmmmm nice

and the view from our sink back towards the back of the house. we have a little glassed in sun room off the back which is lovely to sit in, the kids enjoy playing there too. nice place to a wine and a chat with dan when he gets home. the kitchen opens out onto it by bifold doors which is nice.

heres my diary swap. thankyou daisymum7 it is just so pretty i love it. im going to collect information in it this coming year about our garden, rain fall and what grew well where when and how. i also recieved a lovely teapot cosy which will get used come winter as we have taken a liking to drinking green tea (im allergic to black tea, it tastes like tin to me) and a coffee plunger warmer. which will also get wrapped around the plunger during winter. thankyou daisymum7 its all so lovely. daisymum7 and i are also doing a swap. im swapping her a few cards (which i have ready to post to u on monday) and she sent me her lovely and so cute hobby horse heads for my girls for christmas. i will share later when they r all together.

arh our potatos in the bins. they r doing well. actually growing like wild flower. we hope they keep going, there is room for one last hilling up of soil and then we will let them do their potato growing business. we have no idea what we r doing i will point out and r learning as we go. lots of finger crossing going on hehe

last a zucchini flower. woohoo and i see other buds on all the plants. woohoo. success at the moment anyway hehe.

i havent scrapbooked inthe longest time, months, but im itching to get in my room tonight and scrap! i so dont have time to scrap with all the things i have to do for my kids for christmas, but im sure i will get it done in time...:)

so tomorrow i hope to come back with at least a page to share. ooer and some of the things i have made my kids so far to stuff stockings with. with lovely night time flash photography! seeing as i have tokeep it all hidden..:)

lastely im thinking of my dear friend sally right now, going through a bit with her youngest and the hospital. sending cowper all the good get well vibes we can find sal.

guess what i got back today

2008-12-04T15:24:00.003+10:00

lets see if u can guess!
hmmm lots of photos on this post!
yes i got my camera back all fixed and good to go...woohoo. cheaper than expected too so another good thing.

we went to melbourne today for emily...more on that later but waiting for me when we got home in the post was my handmade christmas ornament swap. are these not the cutest stockings...a big thanks to em from http://www.embelish.blogspot.com/

thats our handcarved main fireplace in the lou nge area too. its so beautiful. and its nice to have it to playwith over christmas too..:)

a close up of the detail....they r just so cute

would u look at this cheeky monkey!
i dont think its any secret that i so didnt want to do our hospital visit today. i wasnt really ready to do the hospital thing again. but i told myself to tough up yesterday. well we had a great visit. emilys doctors cant believe the range of motion she has gained back and decided that they would wait on surgery to see just how far she can go. they fully expected to be booking us in for surgery and had been discussing all sorts of complicated reconstructions in the background. and while it will still be needed it was all postponed today. thankyou! so her next review is in march and again we will expect surgery to be in april. i walked out today peaceful. happy that i wasnt going to spend the new year juggling all sorts of things and can just focus on a short visit home, and setting lilly up at school before we go off to melbourne. where i will then be able to focus on emily without alot of other worries. so finally good news really. i am so happy that emilys doctors saw the range of motion that jen and i see each week during therapy, her doctors cant believe that she has certain up movements that by a text book she really shouldnt have. her thumb has improved out of sight and they witnessed her use of the left arm, which emily now includes normally. all music to our ears and eyes really. its given them a clearer picture of what reconstruction they will need to do and its all less than expected. i love that she excided their expectations. we were sent home with a large keep doing what your doing chorus.
well done my beautiful girl your amazing!

now i do wish i turned these cards...but im way to lazy right now to go fix the problem and upload again so u will just have to turn your head hehe.....but i made these cards for the december dare. http://www.aussiedares.blogspot.com/ the dare isnt due til tomorrow..:)

ps diary swapers...your swaps should be in the mail or very close to it..:)
i recieved a love box of goodies which i will photograph and share ove rthe next few days..:)

Advent Calendar

2008-11-30T09:19:00.002+10:00

though i would share the activities in our advent calendar for this year.
in each of the pockets we have a small piece of paper with a christmas activity for the countdown to christmas. some of the pockets also have a chocolate treat...i think there r only 5 chocolate treat ones.
here r our activities

Put up the christmas tree
Visit Santa
Go gift shopping
Make wrapping paper
Draw christmas pictures
Watch a christmas movie (the old ones i watched when i was little, u know the animated ones with rudolph saving the day)
Listen to christmas stories and then draw a picture of the story
Donate a gift to the wishing tree
write christmas cards
Email santa
Play christmas games on the computer (see links below)
carols by candlelight
christmas concert
listen to carols
make a christmas decoration
make the christmas cake
make christmas coookies
christmas window art
Make grandparent presents
make a hand and feet reindeer
make christmas gift tags
wrap christmas presents
make a christmas table centrepiece
share the story of christmas, track santa on santa tracker (maybe midnight mass, still up for discussion)
share the joy of christmas

we like having activities in our advent calendar, builds nice excitment for the day and helps us teach the kids about giving and not just recieveing and we r starting to teach them this year about christmas and the purpose of the celebration.

here r some christmas links to great websites

http://www.thekoala.com/christmas.htm (games, gift tags, recipes, australian christmas site)

http://www.northpole.com/Village.html (email santa, santa tracker, stories, games, recipes)

none of this really cost me any money. we have a cloth reusable advent calendar, there r plenty of colouring in pages on the internet. the only money i have spent is the repositional paint for the window decorating and i bought the old christmas movies. but for the most part free activities for us to do each day. mostly from free internet sites. if the two above dont suit your needs try a search it brings up plenty! including countless sites of colouring in pages and stories.

ive used the above two before, including in a school situation.

enjoy

jingle mouse

2008-11-27T12:33:00.004+10:00

how cute is he

i made two

u will find the tutorial to make him here

http://pimpstitch.typepad.com/blog/2008/11/tutorial-monday-jingle-mouse-ornament.html

jingle mouse was very easy, and quick.

we r looking forward to putting them on the tree of which we will be getting a new tree....a big tree woohoo...ive always wanted one! its my tuesday job

my camera we heard back...the lense can be repaired woohoo...at a cost of course but a cheaper one than a new lense....sooon!! until then its the trusty mobile phone photos, im so sorry!

i have some cards to share with u all over the weekend made for the dec dare at aussie dares and some sewing. some pj's for lilly and pj pants for me

my fried rice

2008-11-25T17:23:00.002+10:00

as i was making it for dinner tonight i thought i would share the recipe.
its so not fried rice but dont tell my kids that. they love it!
and its something that has morphed into the rice i make today. ive been making it forever. since i was at uni and it would feed a house full for a few days and was cheap as chips to make.
i pack it with veg that my kids eat willingly under the its fried rice name.

u will need
2 cups uncooked jasmine rice
hoisin sauce
soy sauce
1 head broccoli
1 large onion
2 carrots
peas and corn (frozen is fine)
4 or 5 mushrooms
bacon/chicken/prawns/pork/ham (optional)
sesame seeds/cashew nuts
olive oil and seasme seed oil
2 eggs

cook the rice in the microwave, on the stove or in a rice cooker using absorption method. and set aside. no need to chill it, so u can cook the rice as u prepare everything else.

in a wok or large frying pan add a splash of olive oil and the seasme seed oil. cook a wedge cut onion. add meat if using meat. and cook until meat is cooked. add chopped vegies. cook for a few minutes.

add to the wok 1 or 2 tablespoons of the hoisin sauce. plus a tablespoon (or a good splash we dont measure) of soy sauce. i also add a little bit of water...couple of tablespoons at this point and then cover and let it simmer away until the veg is cooked, but not totally soft.

push the veg aside, crack the eggs into the wok and cook. break them apart and mix in with the veg.

add in the rice now and mix it all around. sprinkle with seasme seeds/cashew nuts.
serve with sweet chili sauce

menu 2

2008-11-25T11:22:00.003+10:00

well my menu from last week is nearly over. some reflections for future reference.
zucchini slice...a big winner!! it will be back in the menu very soon.
emily would not eat the chicken sticks...and they were yum and she was having a moment over the crumbed chicken (nugget size) too, but they were both also yummy, so we will try her on them again soon.

we have fried rice for tonight and then beef and carrot ragout tomorrow. we will see how they go.

if your looking for a menu that keeps working, without having to write one every week check out julies blog. link in side bar. she hasa great5 week menu that doesnt change but has plenty of room to move so that u are eating differently.

anyway i thought i would keep sharing our menus and some of the recipes. if u wanted to try menus and mine suit u and your family use away.

menu 2

this coming fortnight we will be having

pork sausage and potato salad and greens
lamb chops and veg
chicken stirfry and rice {hoisin based stirfry, we will use little chicken and lots of stirfrying type fresh veg}
creammy mushroom and bacon pasta {but we dont use cream, i will use evaporated milk instead}

first of our veg based meals this week will be

stuffed roast potatos. {easy ,bake a well seasoned skin on potato -i will start ours in the microwave - then cut open add butter and some cold salads we r thinking slaw, top with sour cream and cheese}
fish and salad plus roasted potatos {fish choice is up to dh, itjust depends whats good, but it will be pan seared and oven finished}
warm beef salad
roast meat {depends whats on special} and veg
hamburgers on fresh homemade rolls with homemade mince patties and salad
pizza on a homemade base with homemade pizza sauce
apricot chicken in the slow cooker
second veg based meal will be roast pumpkin pasta
and attempting to add a third veg based meal this week, but its a totally new one for us so i dont know how it will go crisp rice omelette from donna hay with roast potatos and green salad
and last this fortnight will be a meal out. probably at the local wine bar or the pub for parma night {im not sure i get the whole parma thing, but its huge down here}. we r trying very hard to not do takeaway. going to an affordable local walking distance place gets us all out of the house and is nice. and supports local business

DESSERT

self saucing chocolate pudding - we didnt eat it last week so all ingredients r still in the cupboard
fruit salad

MAKING

homemade orange coridal
homemade chocolate topping
homemade muesli
daily homemake bread
eaisyo yoghurt

BAKING

caramel-filled biscuits from donna hay and new for us
lavash bread crackers
apple muffins
scones

and something i can decide yet!

and finally...we found a great fruit shop. its in a town about 20 minutes away from here, it reminds me of older style fruit and veg shops and it aways smells devine. i hate supermarket fruit and veg, and well im waiting waiting for my own produce to start, so im happy to of found this local to my council shire small business that well and truely deserves our hard earned money over the supermarket!

zucchini slice

2008-11-21T12:08:00.003+10:00

thought i would share this recipe
i have no idea where it came from, a friend from work many years ago passed it on to me after she made it for a work shared lunch.
its yummo!
375g zucchini
1 large onion
3 rashers bacon (optional)
1 cup grated cheddar cheese
1 cup self-raising flour
1/2 cup oil (i used good olive oil)
5 eggs (i only had 4 yesterday and it worked fine too)
salt, pepper

grate unpeeled zucchini coarsely, finely chop onion and bacon. combine zucchini, onion, bacon, cheese, sifted flour, oil and lightly beaten eggs, season with salt and pepper. pour into well-greased lamington tin (16cmx 26cm), bake in moderate oven 30 to 40 minutes
serves at least 6

i have cooked this with less oil, it still works well
i have frozen it for short periods of time, works well
yesterday i made it with only 4 eggs, so used all the oil required, worked well.
and to take to peoples places i have made it as mini muffin size (takes less cooking time) and they will walk off the plate.
ive made it with bacon and without.
the best part i got zucchini into the kids and they loved it!
we had 4 slices for dinner with salad. and the remaining two for lunch today with salad.

i will be making this again when we harvest our own home grown zucchini's later in the season. its a great way to use them up.

sorry no photos...camera lense jammed and its all off being fixed i hope

sewing

2008-11-20T15:34:00.003+10:00

this is made from a mccalls pattern
has 6 different things to make up.
this is for lilly, im going to put it away from christmas. but im happy with how it turned out
tonight i hope to sew her a few more things. another set in a different style and a dress. then i will work on some emily things

ornament swap

2008-11-20T09:53:00.004+10:00

just thought i would share what ive been up too this week

ive been taking part in a christmas ornament swap

and this is what i made to send to my partner. actually everything that was in the i have to post u basket went this morning. woohoo!!!!

the ideas for everything came from martha stewart website, i would love to give a link...but i dont think i could find some of it again if my life depended on it, i know i was on the site for ages looking around at her crafts for christmas section. lots of clever things.

i also made the box. makes everything look so cute

i visit daily this site

http://www.oneprettything.com/ its a link to all sorts of handmade craft instructions. its a must visit site! this is where i found the box link.

whatelse

lots of rain, lots of trying to keep the kids entertained in the last 48 hours. the rain is good but.

my vegies r loving it all

i have some awards to give out

thanks to those that awarded me

i will get onto it tomorrow i promise

do you ever

2008-11-16T19:39:00.005+10:00

do things u know u shouldnt??

that for me was 60minutes tonight. we always watch
but stories involving toddlers that die or nearly die i should really be kept away from!
how quickly i can be reminded of what happened to us, and by what could of happened and how close we came!

backyard swimming pools, i know i wont be inviting one into our lives ever.

we r however looking seriously at a reversing camera for the car, i cant seem to reverse until i know the kids r with daniel as in like a totally compulsive checking every 5 seconds type response to what happened to us.

we managed to scratch together $50 to donate to ronald macdonald house this week..:)

menu planning

2008-11-12T11:45:00.003+10:00

i often menu plan
its a great way to save at the supermarket, it also helps me toremember to try new things i have found or to cycle things inthat we havent bothered to have in a while. it also makes me look in the cupboard before i go shopping (a job i hate! and one i am looking forward to saying good bye to one day soon on the fortnightly basis that is) anyway i thought i would start sharing our menus they go for two weeks generally.

im not good at saying on tuesday in two weeks i will have...because i end up looking at it and going no way! yuck. so we have found the best way for us or me hehe is to have 14 meals on a list and we just crossthem off when they r gone.

so this next two weeks we will be having
spaghetti bol twice (canned tomato, tomato soup, tomato paste, mushroom, mince, mixed herb sauce, with homemade pasta)
rice paper rolls (a fav in this house usually with lots of raw veg and stirfried chicken)
zuchinni slice and salad
quiche and salad (probably ham, onion all homemade)
crumbed chicken, homemade chips and other veg
pizza (homemade base, with various toppings)
chicken sticks (homemade) with salad
sausage, mash potato
roast chicken and veg
fried rice
bacon and egg pie and salad
beef and carrot ragout (slow cooker)
hamburgers(homemade mince patties, homemade bread rolls)

Its nothing special in terms of feeding ourselves, but i know that emily in particular will eat something if im lucky from each of the meals. she isnt into taking risks with food and refuses to eat if she doesnt like something. i am trying to find some veg dishes that she will eat. last week we had veg patties on our burgers...emily wouldnt eat, which was a shame because we all liked them, so this fortnight im going to try zucchini slice and fried rice (no meat) and see what happens. lilly used to love zucchini slice so im hopeful of some success with that one. im trying to work into our eating 2 meals per week that r just veg based...so far ive got one in each week, its hard going with my house of meat eaters...but we r getting there slowly.
lunches we generally eat leftovers, tuna and salad open sandwiches on fresh daily baked bread or we r out or lilly is at preschool. so i left lunch off our menu planning. we usually incooperate eating out once a week too, but for the next fortnight we decided to stay home for dinners because i had mylovely friend marnie here lastweek and while we were great for dinner opting to stay home we spent a bit over lunch time and on some wine for after the kids were in bed asleep toohehe..:) so we rfinding the balance a bit this fortnight.

we will also bake
bread daily
lavash biscuits
cakes
jam drops
donut cupcakes
muesli bars/slice
and make
pasta
yoghurt
a dip or two for snacks
and more muesli for breakfast

i will also add two deserts (we dont often have it, but like to know itsthere if we want it)
apple crumble
self saucing chocolate pudding

so thats us...what r u planniing on having this week??
share away

support ronald mcdonald house this weekend

2008-11-09T12:24:00.003+10:00

i cant even begin explaining just how thankful we are to ronald mcdonald house. You never imagine u will need them, you think what a great thing they r for the familys of sick children and if your anything like us dont really think much more about it. Until u need them. housing for familys is very much in need close to the childrens hospitals around australia. we were so lucky to be able to use the facilities of ronald mac house at the royal childrens in melbourne for our entire stay eariler this year, i have no idea how i would of fed myself, showered, and had a small place to call home during those weeks. knowing that lilly was safe over at the house with either myself or dan or my dad or mum made things just a little bit easier to cope with.

i wish we were in the position to make a donation that would make a difference, like many of the familys helped by ronald mac house we r not. we donate all our change each and every time we enter a mcdonalds and across the year i guess that adds up to a few hundred dollars. right now in aid of ronald mcdonald house mcdonalds is selling cookie houses. the cookies r from byron bay cookie company and r yummy. $2 from every house sold goes direct to ronald mcdonald house charity. if thats all u can do this week we urge u to step inside a mcdonalds this week and purchase a house. small amounts add up to make a difference.

we will be on hand at mcdonalds wendouree on saturday morning for breakfast to lend our support to mchappy day as funds r raised for the chairty. it is of course a cause held dear to the hearts of everyone in my family after emilys accdient. to read more of our story emilys accident can be found in the labels of my blog

be generous if u can

where we r at

2008-11-06T11:04:00.006+10:00

with our simple living change.

i forget the last time i actually bought a loaf of bread, we generally make a loaf a day. a mix of white, wholemeal and bread rolls depending on my mood and what is in the pantry.
cleaning wise we have had a huge change, we r now on septic so many of the products i once used r out the window. we r generally getting by on vingear and bicarb, i usually wipe the benches down at the start of the washing up using the clean water with homemade dishwashing liquid in it. i am however back using a dishwasher...woohoo...but cant use alot of homemade powders because of the borax (it cant go in the septic), and that fact that in vic i can not for the life of me find washing soda...go figure. in the washing machine for our clothes we r using environmentally friendly, septic friendly liquids...its as good as its going to get i think. the floors for the most part we r using dry flat mop for sweeping, and a mircrofibre wet mop for mopping. mircofibre in the bathroom too, thankfully i have no mould problems in this house. when the microfibre just wont do it (esp with a toilet training toddler on the floors) i do go for something a little more!
we took a bit of a pledge to not buy new clothes...its going well. for the girls and myself im making quite bit...the only things on the buy list r underwear and school uniforms.
christmas : the kids r getting ALOT of homemade items this year. at their ages they wont know the difference.
we r growing some of our own food.

its still a work in progress atm, as we build beds etc, i hope they r all going by sunday/monday. all the plants will be raised from seed by me, i have been working on that for ages and i have numerous things ready to go in the garden beds by monday..:) we have choosen to landscape parts of our new yard with etable plants and vines. alot of the yard already had etable trees. and this morning i was greeted to this view of my garbage bin potatos...they r poking their little heads up woohoo. i have two bins of potatos and more seed potatos to go down in the garden beds next week too. its all a bit late i know. but we r enjoying the changes..:) in the gardens so far we already have planted a bay leaf tree, 2 beans, 1 snowpea, 2 zuchinnis, 2 corns, 2 cucumbers, i just poped them in the beds that were here.

we r trying to make everything we eat from scratch, that we can atm. see the museli a tthe top of the page...blogger wont let me move it for some strange reason. i have wanted to make my own for weeks, finally this morning was the day. i dont know why it took so long as it was very easy. and its so yum. i didnt measure anything, but it has a pack of rolled oats, half a pack of bran (i used processed bran i cant stand the flakey stuff), coconut, dried apple and apricot, sutanas, a seed mix, pine nuts and almonds that dan roasted in the oven first (worth it, i wouldnt of but he wanted to) i think thats it....shake and your done...i had mine with milk this morning, but im going to make some vanilla yoghurt today for tomorrow cause i bet it will be since with that too. i couldnt tell the price of the museli i didnt count it bad i know...but i have enough of everything except the oats to do it all again so its not to bad when i put it like that. i have purchased an electric fowlers vacola preserving kit from ebay so we can make tomato sauce, pasta sauce, beetroots etc and get stock pilling our own food, i should have it next week so that will be some interesting experienmenting to come!
we decided whenw e moved to change our eletricity. we went to go switch and compared the deals around. we wanted to go with some green energy. 10% green power saw no change in the bills we were paying, but we went 25% for $1 extra per week. i would love to work towards 100%. we have done alot of thinking about the electricity we used during winter. i know its part of living here but we were running the dryer for every wash for months because things just wouldnt dry. i saw a mrspeggs clothesline advertised. its a portable line that is better constructed than the clothes airers etc that r available. anyway we need a new clothes line here. so we decided to go with a portable one, that will easily come inside and hold a load of washing well over winter so it can be dried in the rooms we pay to heat. might as well get what we can out of it., we r interested to see how much of a difference this will make for us over the winter months if we dont have to run the dryer ALL the time.
im still knitting dishclothes (everyone even my chef dh loves them)
we have cut out most throw away items
we have reduced our rubbish by making things from scratch because there is no packaging, by giving things to preschool for construction and by starting our compost off, and by making emily's training pants ive reduced the nappies we r using to mainly a night time useage. (that one is also good for the bank balance!)
another big change we have all made is a committment to stop using shampoo and conditioner. we have started by using an apple vingear rinse and having another few weeks to go before we start using bicarb for our hair as well. the vingear rinse was surprising! the first time we were oh i dont know...the second time was bit better...the third and my hair was like i had usedsome expensive shampoo and condition...it was so lovely. im preparing myself to go through the ups and downs again when we change to the bicarb as well...but the vingear taught us it will get better and with great results.

well thats just a bit of what we have been working away on since deciding to live this life. we r all happiler, healthier and never bored thats for sure

moving houses and so much more

2008-11-03T19:15:00.004+10:00

moving week went well, we were all out of the other house on tuesday and it was all cleaned by thursday morning and the keys handed back, im still unpacking here and going through things and getting rid of things we no longer need.

as promised the start of what im calling

a tour around my house, i will share part of our home every month as we change it and make it ours

i started with the outside

because these r going to be my veg garden beds. i have 4 of them going up the side boundary of our property. tomorrow dan is going to hoe them up, im going to add some cow poo and compost and then on the weekend i have ordered some organic garden soil to be delivered. and come sunday afternoon i hope im showing u all some planted out beds. i have lettuce and tomato ready to go...some cucumber and zucchini, a popcorn, carrots, beets and much more coming on. i cant wait. we will add a makeshift fence around this garden to keep the dog out and the rabbits...and the kids! i also have an arch for the veg garden entry and a grape vine to grow over it. we went with recycled railway sleepers..c grade ones they were $20 each and we brought them home while we had the moving truck so we saved on delivery charges too. dan put them all in place today, and i had two left over and we found some old ones out in the yard so we have added a garden bed to the front of the house, i will share pics when its organised.this is the view down the back of our block, just through those trees is a road. but i love this view makes me forget that we live in town. we have some landscaping plans for this to thicken it up i would like to put a bike track through it for the girls to ride on, also we have a natural low through the bottom part of the yard im going to get some river rocks and turn it into a dry creek bed, we dont want to lose it because its the natural drainage of our property...but we will work on the landscaping plans slowly one small part at a time. forgive the scared looking dog, she could sense the storm that came and didnt do anything, it sort of missed us, we did move her inside after this pic. i think this is one of my fav parts of my house this view. i love the older machinery around the place. i love the painting, of which we r lucky to have being in a hertiage house and all! this is the little porch outside our loungeroom and side door way. i can so see sitting out here watching the girls play. or looking at my veg growing. i want to find a new location for the wood there too. beside this is a lovely OLD rose im going to pop in a few other roses in this location too. they will be nice to bring inside for flowers too. we r waiting on a screen door for here too as this will let in that lovely cross breeze we seem to get here over winter. we will put one on the very front/back door (we havent worked out what to call it yet lol) too. but the house has been really lovely during the day.

as we work outside alot this month i will share more. water tank going on the other side of the house next week by friday i hope.

well i managed to make it through another round of sytycs. i so didnt expect too its so close the voting. i had no internet this week so the lovely rach from scraptacular text me all the details and my interent was back today, thats a whole other story.

this week we had to make two layouts

this is based on a pencillines sketch

emilys first visit to the park after her accident. she was pretty funny. screaming wow the part wow, wow the park, with a im going to play inthere somewhere too lol. everyone was looking she was just so excited.
this one had to have a title, journalling and an 8x10 photo. this is miss lilly last weekend at her preschools 30th birthday. pockets the clow was there, and he kept her entertianed while i took some photos.

and yes finally im back with an internet connection. bigpond was having a minor moment i think, i actually felt bad for the people working there it wasnt their fault. if u r waiting for a bigpond anything atm and it hasnt happened RING THEM my order for a connection was held up 4 times! with no real reason at all. we have come to the conclusion that telstra empolyee's need to speak to people and not computers. on monday telstra man rings, im coming to connect your phone...huh! we have no line, it has to be built u guys sent me an mobile homeline. ok he says im coming anyway. ok...he gets here goes for a walk around our property and comes back. your phone line is coming from the stree in front of yours. werid but true, there is no record of this line anywhere. ok so that solved one problem. by 6.30 that night we had the phone up and going no worries. woohoo. other phone was returned to telstra and we were set. we were told to ring bigpond again for adsl line tests etc, but there was a heap on concern over the very old phone line holding adsl no worries i said we r going wireless. he said ring u may not have too. so i ring. the firstof 3 1hour phone calls with bigpond. spoke to a guy he said thats great lets test the line, shows it should be ok...great...he says im not cancelling your wireless order just yet...great i say, he says lets get your old account transfered and see what happens. super...by 12 the following day u should be good. next day 2pm..no internet. im left thinking thats ok we didnt think it would work. i ring bigpond to let them know its not working. turns out they had not even turned it on yet! the order was stuck in an error. oh ok. whats the status on our wireless...also stuck. great. can u fix it. yep no worries. thanks great. but instead of fixing the orders we had, the orders were started all over again! r u kidding me. phone gets cut off battery ran out...bugger. later that night i ring back. explain i was cut off and want to check its all good. explain what i want. he looks. ok yep its all good your adsl modem will be sent out to u u will have it in 10 days...huh! umm i have an adsl modem. oh ...turns out my transfer experiment was turned into a brand new internet order. i dont think so! he fixed it, and checked everything and found out it was all stuck. finally someone fills out a form and within 24 working hours its fixed and im here. im here sitting on my adsl line, the line we shouldnt be able to have but do have...go figure. no only that but today 4 weeks to the day of the order my wireless modem also turned up! we now have to send it back. i tell u i dont think they know what the hell is going on. i dont blame telstra workers u could tell they were pulling their hair out with me. thankyou sara for everything u did too. we partly buggered up stuff witht he land line experiement. we r going to experiement with this connection this week and see if its ok and then decide on the weekend about the wireless. i so dont want to change my email addy.

anyway i hope everyone is having a great week. i am...im even sleeping again...funny how the change of one thing can change something else. this house makes me feel happy! i had forgotten that feeling.

im back!!

2008-11-03T12:31:00.002+10:00

got my internet back today...after much buggering around from telstra
but ime here

backwith a real update later

sytycs 8

2008-10-24T19:50:00.003+10:00

yep 8 weeks and im still here

ok this week was about colour blocking...heres my entry...but its only pretty fluffy around the term of colour blocking so we will see how that goes

i love the photo of my girl but...she is so photogenic and beautiful...oh hang on im her mother i know lol

she is such a funny little thing...tells the worst jokes and cracks herself up everytime...its safe to say i smile and nod but her father laughs along with her lol...too funny

we had a funny conversation this morning

we were talking about jobs people do, daddys a chef, mummy is a teacher just like linda (preschool teacher etc) what would u like to do lilly...i want to be rapunzel...yep as in let down your hair

i repeated my explanation of a job and asked again....answerdoesnt change i was in stitches. we told daddy this afternoon and he got more out of her...you see rapunzel paints and dances all day with a little bit of gardening on the side. ive got no idea how she gardens in her tower but there you go LOL

ok i probably wont post much now until late next week

ODE to sara who has successfully pushed through our internet order so i expect my modem by maybe wednesday next week. im so thankful to her for that as i was getting no where fast.

mason family im so happy that you are all home safe and sound all at home together. a huge thing u have all gone through these past weeks. wishing chelsea a fast recovery now.

ok all...i will be back next week some time with i hope all sorts of news and photos to share

im going to spend the next few months taking you all on a tour of our beautiful new home as we set it up and change some furntiure to match our 1870's antique home! stay safe everyone

MOVING DAY

2008-10-23T15:42:00.001+10:00

hi everyone
we r in the mists of moving up the street
from monday looks like i will be without access for about a week
i will do a proper update before then..:)

toilet training

2008-10-18T12:06:00.004+10:00

well its beginning to look like that time in toddler world!! she is over 2 and its warming up. keen to not make the same mistakes we did with lilly we decided we would not purchase pull ups (im sure thats why lilly didnt get it..what was to get it was still like she was wearing a nappy), but last time we also didnt think much of store bought training pants u know the ones with the thin foam layer...that does nothing! so i ended up searching modern cloth nappy sites thinking maybe that was what to do when i found this pattern for home made training pants http://www.geocities.com/songshirah1/?200811 ive so far made 4 pairs. we would like a dozen or so, they r pretty straight forward to make, but i will next time make the crotch part just a little wider to make the elastic casing eaiser to stitch. i couldnt get ripstop nylon out here, but its basically a shower curtain so we went with a fabric shower curtain. and i reused our old flat cloth nappies as part of the padding. this way is no cheaper than buying them, but hopefully its a better product that will at least hold one wee and last better. i remember lillys foam crunching up after a few washes and having to buy new ones hence the not using them all that much...seeing as that cant happen with these ones and they look like they will withstand lots of washing...these ones r made from polarfleece like the pattern says, but i might have to look into something more summer for dec and jan...i will report on how they go.
nothing better than straight from the oven fresh homemade bread roll. i was blowing on my fingers as i cut them open they were so hot. i get 10 rolls mediumish in size from my loaf of bread that i have blogged about before. i love that they turn out crusty...YUM...we had some for lunch but they will make hamburgers for dinner tonight.this weeks so you think you can scrap entry. had to have fabric x 2, handmade embellishment, 3 photos 2 different style of sewing and 75% had to be stitched down. well there is more stitching here than i know what to do with. 2 different materials - stems green pokadots and some heather bailey folded like ribbons with ricrac and zigzaged down. the orange blobs r french knots and there is some backstitching. the flowers r handmade.

9 days until we move..u would think i was be stressing, but no, im not living in a sea of boxes either oops..hmmm dont know if thats a good thing or not lol. we r starting to move the smaller things from tuesday but. so i guess that will help..:)

heres my apple (granny smith) in flower.
its full of flowers, in fact we will have to pick of some i guess if they all start to be apples. we have an apple tree here in the yard we didnt know about so im expecting the apple sex happened hehe....but we also have an apple tree at our new house we didnt know about too...so that willl be 3 apple trees woohoo, the one we r getting is older so i hope we get some apples off it, dont know what sort it is but.

nothing else much going on...we r going to try putting some seed potatos down in a new old style garbage bin on tuesday to see if we can get a harvest seeing as its getting late to put them down, im going with the fac tthat its still been quiet cool here until this past week and that they will be ok heh...but i know nothing im just guessing really.

Diary swap 2009

2008-10-15T08:31:00.002+10:00

dont forget today is the last day to sign up for the swap
i will get details out to people over the next few days

family fun day

2008-10-14T19:08:00.003+10:00

we have gained permission to have emily at the park and in the softfall again woohoo...in fact it was encouraged, all that holding on and climbing! we found a great park in ballarat that reminds me of kidsspace at chermside and it was great for emily, steps and stairs to the slides so she could easily handle the climbing part without to much effort. how cute r they going down that slide together.
miss em...best photo i have had of her in an age!!! no smile but...everytime i asked her to smile she would say the word but not smile lol
this one is always smiles a plenty....and here she is just being her...i love this pic best one i got all day and i only had one chance to get it too.

hmm what else...i got some strawberries to make a patch with...and a green seedless grape vine to grow over an arch way too...and we r still looking at ways and products to build the veg patch out of...anyone got any good EASY ways to do that?? dan wants to use bricks eventually but its sort of a long term plan and one that we will do bit by bit. we dont want treated pine for the veg beds...so then its dollars...dont know still looking. the granny smith apple has blossoms on it...but only time will tell what will happen with that.
13 days until we move
6 until we start moving some of the smaller things up there
woohoo!!!!

so you think you can scrap 6

2008-10-12T10:07:00.003+10:00

ok this weeks theme almost saw me pull out. i didnt know if i could do it, but u know since i got it on the paper and ive rewritten it and read it now a few times i havent cried since?? im sure there will be more tears but for now i take the cheap therapy!
the theme...journalling (about something sad..eek), only one pattern paper (bo bunny doubled sided i used) had to have 100 words or plus and have handwritten something on the page.
the journalling reads:
one moment, one decision, one split second and life as we know it changed forever. Ive asked these questions of myself a million times and more. WHY were we there? at that moment WHY was there a truck reversing when its illegal in the snow and WHY wasnt emily in my arms?? WHY WHY and it doesnt matter how many changes i make to the story on THAT day disarster was going to happen to us.
I know how lucky i am that emily is alive and well. Im all to totally aware that things could of been so very much worse on that day. That truck did so much damage. Emilys arm was damaged, the type of damage that lasts a lifetime. We were all emotionally damaged I HOPE NOT BEYOND REPAIR. but I was and still am ROCKED to the core. I will never understand WHY this happened. What was the purpose??? WHY??I didnt need reminding to look after my children, I already knew i was blessed, they are always the focus of our life. So WHY?? what was the purpose of this? Emily doesnt deserve to carry this her whole life, so WHY? and so continues my unanswered question... WHY

this stuff is in my head and heart all the time. this was a great way to get it out. but i also feel like a bit of a heal when u read some of the journalling in the gallery, while it doesnt take away from what happened to us it gives me a little more perspective i think...hard to explain...i guess i was left with she is still here and pretty much ok, get over it sort of feeling....i know i wont ever get over it...but im thankful that i could have her in the first place and that we didnt ever lose her.

an emily update: i havent done this for a while. my girl had her hand therapy transfered to ballarat to a wonderful lady called jen. she has a little boy not much younger than emily and i sometimes think this makes a world of difference in whats happening. when we left the hospital we had a list of exercises to do with emily..they quickly became agony for us all as she didnt like it and screamed the house down until it was over...and when u r spending 5 or 6 minutes like that 5 times a day its wearing!! anyway enter jen. and a big change to home therapy. its all play based and manipulating what she is playing with...woohoo!!! this last two weeks...a bag of rice for playing with a pouring and digging in. we r on the look for turning toys too. emily has alot more function back in her hand and arm too...its still slow and and its still limited but we can see huge improvements. some wrist turn...its so slight but its there when she picks up a spoon and pours the rice. her thumb is starting to strengthen slightly too which is helpful for getting her pressure garmet on! an overall improvement in fuction. she still wants to write and draw with her left arm and always tries it first then changes when she cant move her arm and wrist, but i watched her the last few days get that wrist and hand in nearly a good enough position to make a mark on the page.....I HAVE HOPE. i hope it continues for her second surgeon accessment, but at the same time I HOPE kind of that they deal with the remaining surgery soon.

10 years

2008-10-10T16:31:00.002+10:00

10 years to the day
strangely a friday night...i would like to say for sure 10 years ago was a friday and im only guessing it was..the memory is a little foggy!
i met the man that was to become my husband. actually i had met him about six months eariler, but it was a one off type penny didnt drop meeting. lol
this particular night strangly i think i knew i had met someone that was going to change my life. i remember leaving the uni night club early that night without saying goodbye...i was scared of what i had found.
we have been through alot in those 10 years and some of it i would change if i had the power too (as in anything from the last 4 months!) but we always come out of everything together and mostly stronger for it too.
i cant imagine life without dan and the adventures we have had. i cant imagine life now without the family that we have created.
happy anniversary
cant wait to see what we do in the next 10 years.

this is us on our 8th wedding anniversay in jan of this year
and in the early days....we were engaged in this pic (but only just)...it was the end of 1998.
we got married at the very start of 2000.

cooking, growing and cuteness

2008-10-05T16:34:00.006+10:00

well i think these r lettuce...coz i think they will be...but still waiting to work it out lol
beans, snowpeas, corns and a few other things today. will have to wait on identification there. the beans and snowpeas and the corns will be on potted tomorrow to get a bit stronger, and may come out of the green house too. and then in the ground in 22 days or something like that
cucumbers here, pumpkin and 2 tomatos r up today too.
also have some lettuce that i know is lettuce, and basil another cucumber and pumpkin in the other reseeded seeds. looks like i will have pumpkin and cucumber coming out of my ears!

how cute r these two, walking hand in hand through the wild flowers in our backyard. would u believe its only been 2 weeks since dan mowed! would of done it the other day but it rained one day and then his next day off we were in ballarat for emily. this week i HOPE
ooer YUM!!! cinnamon scrolls
this was super easy to do
i found the recipe here
http://eatmeblog.blogspot.com/2006/03/day-39-cinnamon-scrolls.html

A SWAP

i would love to organise a swap

this is what i have in mind. a 2008 diary swap.

i was looking at diarys the other day, the cheapy shop ones for just a few dollars and thinking of using my remembered sewing skills to making something nice for 2009. and then thought what a great swap.

so this is what i propose.

if your interested email me djon7593@bigpond.net.au

this is what u have to do:

email and join in before the 15 october. if we have enough people i will send out partner details by the 20th.

swaps will be due in the mail by the 30th november

your swap will need

to have a diary no smaller than 10cm by 5 cm as a guide, be covered in a quilted top, or altered with paper. make sure that its going to last for the year. then add in a few things to spoil your partner with.

thats it

im also thinking of organising a secret santa type swap, email if your interested in something like that too

ROUND 5 - The Finals

2008-10-04T10:24:00.003+10:00

well im in the finals of so you think you can scrap

i think the finals will go on for quite some time yet but.

this week arty/freestyle

oh im not a freestyle scrapper at all

its safe to say its just not me...ive tried it before and feel a bit of a spaz when i look at my freestyle pages. i like some of the pages out there in freestyle land, and some i dont understand. but its all inspiration to try something new.

this week as well as being arty/freestyle

we had to have funny edges - i have embellishments hanging off everywhere

use paint - i flicked paint with my finger

handwrite or make a title - i drew the no and then cut it out

thrift something from around the house to use. - i used masking tape - not orignial i know and i used the pull from my diet coke can as a photo turn down the bottom.

i like the overall page, i dont think its finals material but its missing something to me just cant put my hand on it but.

all is not lost

2008-10-01T20:30:00.003+10:00

in the seeds i thought i would lose
we have and counting
edited to add
2 strong beans
1 strong snow pea
2 strong sweet corns
plus 5 little little green things that i cant work out what they r just at this point. i will let u know!
2 cucumbers
1 butternut pumpkin

this weekend i will pop the beans, snowpea and one of the corn in a pot of their own! So they continue to grow well, getting ready for my new garden bed...in 25 days! not that im counting much

heh
yes i sleep
not well and usually very late...sleep has sort of been missing for me since emilys accident, i dont know if its going to get any better any time soon. but thats ok its just the way it is for now.

im still learning (learning as im doing really) on the garden front. i have read about lots of things to try on some sustainable living blogs that live organically for helping with pests and fertilzer etc that we will be trying and i bought an organic gardener book too
here r the blogs i visit usually daily
http://down---to---earth.blogspot.com/
http://crazy-mumma.blogspot.com/
i use the links these ladies have to get about and look in sustainable world.
all the blogs i get lead to from these too are a wealth of information on all sorts of things from the garden to the budget and craft and cooking and canning lol..i could go on and dont forget soulemama too...link in side bar

gardener...its still questionable lol

2008-09-29T18:00:00.003+10:00

im trying...or its very trying...or maybe its got something to do with my keen as mustard helpers lol
our of our lovely trays of toilet paper rolls we now have two beans and a snow pea.
but the others oh the poor others...some got tipped out of their lovely homes and r all in a tray together...and im hoping for the best to see what we get out of that mess.

much more reading happened and we decided that with the weather here atm that we needed a green house. we r having some very lovely spring days and then days like today and you would swear we were back in august again. not good for plants and seeds at all!!

enter a trip to the nursery today where we both lusted after top of the mill green houses for our new house in a few short weeks, but what to do until we could afford that.?? next a trip to bunnings...oh bunnings, u can never find what your after and come out with a million other things dont u!!!

Not today woohoo. i came home with this. a portable green house that is already doing its job...:) i popped in the hopeful seeds plus the ones we have up, and egg carton we moved to next as an option but we get our eggs from people and we reuse the cartons so i didnt have a heap of them available. so i ended up splashing out on real seedling trays to try as well. i have reseeded all the ones im not sure we r going to get plus some other things including pop corn! and hopefully this time we have more success.

the top shelf has my snow pea and two beans, plus the hopeful ones that were helped alot and some other bits
the second shelf has my reseeded everything for the garden
and finally on the bottom i have carrots, but they were also helped alot and im now not sure where the carrots will come up in the tub...oh well lol

It was market weekend the weekend just gone. its right at the back of the house we currently live in, nice and easy for a stroll. the nursery came this month and i came home with our first citrus tree. an orange. it will be planted at the end of the month, when we move! i also came home with our first every homemade tomato sauce...YUMMO do yourself a favour try it...i tried just a little as tomatos and me r not best friends at all...but the kids love it so i will be making some with our tomato crop!
today we finally made it into ballarat to a nursery. we came home with a lemon tree, granny smith apple and a pink lady apple to put in our new house. i cant wait to see them grow! and then fruit! we also came home with a mushroom box...i have no idea how or even if its organic but we liked the idea so r giving it a go...its currently a box of dirt but in a few weeks i will share some pics of mushrooms i hope!

scrapping and sewing

2008-09-28T09:04:00.003+10:00

round 4!
this week we had to use rubons, tape, write on a photo and use bright colours. very collagey look this week. gauze up the side that i inked pink before i stuck it on. i had little to no plan when i started this, it just sort of happened as i scrapped.

are these not the cutest little baskets. i made two...super easy and quick heres the tutorial i found here http://ayumills.blogspot.com/2008/05/tutorial-fabric-basket.html

i plan to mess with the measurements and make bigger ones for storage in the girls room.

i made this dress for emily. its my first attempt at following a pattern on my own. its just a basic spotlight get creative pattern. it was very easy to follow.
http://www.oliverands.com/blog/2008/08/lazy-days-skirt-free-pattern.html

this is the easiest skirt in the world i think there r only three lines of sewing! and one cut. doesnt take much material either. both my girls got one. i did pretty well out of $10 material. 2 skirts and a dress! cant beat that.

the funny thing with all the sewing ive been doing, when we left brisbane i gave away my fabric stores. it was all very country looking. im not a country decorator and i really thought i would leave sewing behind....so not! the materials that are around at the moment r fantastic. i love the colours...i could just go silly!

mermaid tales!

2008-09-26T08:18:00.004+10:00

shocking pic...the sun is so sunny here this morning! and i love it its very nice after winter! well here it is a finished mermaid outfit. forgive the serious pic, i was interrupting her fav morning show lol. im quite happy with the final product. it took forever this week, every spare moment i had was sewing scales and then stitching them to the tail, but lilly loves it, is currently giving it a cuddle!!??!! the material has a shimmery shine that changes the colour as u move too. it has an elastic waste and the back seam is completely unstitched so that she can walk around. hopefully it will grow with her for a while!!!.
some of the details...yes stuipd i know but i did hand stitch seed beads on as well, u can just make them out! the things u do for your children!....:) the top i made like an apron, it just ties over her clothes to complete the look! lol i wanted more than a bra type top. emilys tale is next on the list. i want to make hers quite a bit shorter so the flipper doesnt touch the floor, she trips over enough now! the girls r both getting some dress ups for christmas. im going to make them. which means i can throw out more of the old old dress ups lilly has had since she was emilys age. sadly mine are way better quality (but cost the same?) i hope that means they will outlast my little dress up girl.

does anyone watch heuys cooking adventures....on tuesday or wednesday this last week (cant remember which)my dh was cooking with heuy. pretty cool for dan....:)

some information for those interested
lemon cordial
i first found a cordial recipe here
http://crazy-mumma.blogspot.com/2008/07/homemade-fruit-cordials-nablopomo-10.html
its all to easy and is made in a few minutes (not worth buying really)
for my lemon we
used 500g sugar
500ml water
pop both ingredients in a pot, heat until sugar has melted + plus a minute or two after that - thickens the sugar syrup just a little.
u should have about a litre of sugar syrup
generally cordial is then equal parts fresh squeezed fruit juice and the sugar syrup.
we didnt use equal parts lemon juice. i used about 800mls ish maybe less in the sugar syrup i didnt want it to be too tart for the kids. its perfect for us. its lemony for me and sweet enough for the kids.
homemade cordial tastes different to store bought. the taste is refreshing and reminds me of expensive flavoured waters u can buy. but i know only the best fruit was used to make it.
we do add citric acid about a teaspoon a litre i think helps it to last a little longer.

the lavash bread biscuits i found here
http://simple-living-simple-cooking.blogspot.com/2007/03/lavash-bread.html
i use alot of things from this simple little record blog. lots of base cooking ideas that r helping us to cut out even more preservatives and fake food

how dare you

did i even tell u all i joined the team over there...link in the side bar.

this months theme was everyday...we werent required to add to the theme but it had so many opportunities so i just had too!!!

this is what i did. printed lilly onto some printable fabric photo paper

followed sort of a tutorial here http://www.craftbits.com/viewProject.do?projectID=1098 and went with some fabric scrapbooking ideas from doona downeys book (i love that book)

i added some quilt wadding for insulation and then some lining, including a plastic layer so that condensation doesnt leak everywhere.

thats a 600ml bottle and its alot bigger than the bottle. i bought lilly and emily new thermos water bottles this morning and it should fit those i hope nicely. it will also protect these bottles from some damage...they were not cheap!

LEMONS

2008-09-23T14:22:00.003+10:00

not even three months ago this view of lemons would of filled me with what the?? i wouldnt of known how to use this many lemons. so yesterday when dan arrived home with a bag full of home grown lemons i knew just what to do with them!
lemon cordial!!! YUM! yes i used all those lemons, with some sugar sryup i made up and got a bottle and a half of cordial. im waiting for it to cool right now and then lemon cordial drinks here i come!

cooking and sewing

2008-09-22T18:50:00.002+10:00

recently i was left with a what will i do about crackers, savory biscuits and the like. full of preservatives and children that eat packets of them a week. i had no idea when i came across a few ideas. we turn our day old homemade bread into crackers by drying them out in the oven to eat with cheese or philly spread or homemade dips, then i found a recipe for lavash bread biscuits. totally yum!!! easy to do esp when u can roll out the dough with the pasta machine we bought dan for fathers day! we have made them twice, they last a few days and r so hard to STOP eating just ask dan! hehe
yesterday i made them with my little helper. she was putting the cooled ones in the box before the new tray came out of the oven. im sure my little helper ate half of every tray that came out of the oven..she didnt eat much dinner last night lol.

her fav job everyday is to help me out in the kitchen. she pulls up the chair to the bench and says help help until i give her something to do lol.

my newest sewing project!! its for lilly's dress up box. she loves playing dress up and is finally steping away from dressing up as a fairy! I am however upset by the quality of bought dress up clothes, they r not sewn well and cost a bomb...so this time i decided i would do the sewing and from my own design too lol can u guess what it will be??

ive managed another two rows this afternoon. the base is calico. and ive cut out another two rows but they r still being prepared

i will show some more of the project tomorrow.

So you think you can scrap 3 plus a rak winner!!

2008-09-20T23:08:00.004+10:00

this week i almost gave up. ive been busy. but i took this killer photo of lilly today while i was taking photos of suzannes little man today and i knew i had my official im five photo and well its the first thing i wanted to print off and scrap.

this week we had to use a pattern paper background, plus another 3 pattern papers on the page. so my background is mm, i then used pink pasilee, around the block, ki lace and fancy pants.

we could only use one 4 x 6 photo and the embellishments had to be clustered together. we had to INK everything including the photo and use staples.

a close up of the clustering. i like the page, but its still missing something, but its done and if i done make the next round i dont...im not all that concerned. its been fun to get scrapping again above anything.

I had a great week showing suzanne around our country town, we had trips to ballarat and out to the vineyard and lots of lunching! it was so nice and laid back. got to show suzanne inside our new house which was nice, i also enjoyed seeing it again and i still cant wait to live there. soon!

a rak winner

Kerry - Ann

email me and i will send you out your things.. :)

i will be back tomorrow...wait til u see my new sewing project...think childrens dress up clothes and it couldnt be as easy as a fairy dress either!!!!...5 year olds need i say more

veg garden

2008-09-15T15:26:00.002+10:00

im going to have one at the new house, its in the planing stage for dan....ive said what i want and he is addingwhat he wants

but i started out today getting some seeds organised.

we have always had one but nothing on the scale we want to move towards. i was reading one of my fav sustainable living blogs last night and use had this great idea for seedlings! (seeds way cheaper to get than plants...they just need some effort) i cut in half the toilet paper rolls of which i had heaps waiting for lilly and a crafty day. filled with seedling mix and seeds. we will hopefully have corn (just), lettuce including cos, cucumbers, beans, snowpeas (just), pumpkin, some new herbs and tomatos for dan and for me to make tomato sauce out of..im alergic to them myself! We are waiting on some popcorn corn too. i liked this idea because when we move in a month or so i can pick them up just as they r and plant them as the cardboard will break down into the soil and i can get the planting thing started right now. they look all pretty here but are currently all covered in soft drink and water bottles as their own little green house due to the weather down here atm, its all over the place!

yes thats rain they are sitting in!!! AND dans bay leaf tree that really needs a garden spot! or a new pot, it was a little thing when we got it a few months back but its really coming on right now.

we have more plans for carrots broccoli, potatos, onions, strawberries and citrus trees either when its the right time for the plant or when we move. and are going to look into having an apple tree too.

i somehow dont think heidi swapp every expected her paper piercer to be used for quite this idea lol...but there u go hehe. this is a 3 ltr milk container, i put holes in the top so the water dribles out so the girls can water the seedlings when they come without killing them with kindness!!! hehe

ok i wont be around this week

i have my good friend and emilys god mother visiting from qld with her son and i havent seen them in the longest time!

have a great week everyone.

some stitching

2008-09-14T16:22:00.004+10:00

I decided last month that i would take on a quilting project..the first one in a number of years. I picked a block of the month quilt...called little blue birds by Janelle wind .
so far i have worked throught two months of it. Im LOVING IT...didnt she just pick beautiful fabrics!

some close ups, i wouldnt say im perfect at patchwork, actually a long way from perfect, but im happy with it so far.

This was last months block, all hand stitching. it took me ages to do, and again its not perfect but its looking good from a distance.
This weekend ive been making frilly aprons for the market store (see the link in side bar)
I was playing with my new machine, and working on the finishings of something that is for sale. i wanted to hide the messy seams and stuff and the overlocker type stitch was great lessing the problem too. This is about a size 2 so probably good for a 12 months to 3 year old i would guess. or thats what im hoping as emily has one too. i listed the smaller apron for $18..:)

anyway im loving stitching atm, there are some inspiring people out there in sewing land thats for sure! i have so many ideas that i want to try now! and i would love to go to tafe and actually learn about sewing and making your own patterns and stuff. one day!

so you think you can scrap 2

2008-09-12T11:10:00.004+10:00

i made it to round 2 with last weeks entry

this week the instructions were as follows

1 large photo

3 pattern papers (not from the same coordinating line)

all weighted to one side

ink (lots of it)

dimension

strip journalling

i think that was it

heres what i came up with

i went the close up photos for this round

and ps to anyone worried - im ok today.. :)

dont forget my rak lilly will draw a winner on sunday night

hospital day

2008-09-11T19:33:00.003+10:00

today was a hospital day, maybe our last regular weekly one!
it was a hard visit today
finally emily was reviewed by one of her surgeons (yes she has a large team of doctors that start with fellows, professors and end with heads of micro surgery) lots of talk about where she has come from (more of my own realisations about how lucky i am to still have her with all her limbs in tack), and lots of talk and trying to work out what she has in terms of function (basically what they thought she would have) and then finally the very long list of what she doesnt have, which i listened to while trying to stop myself from crying. they are however happy with her progress and with the work they have done so far, i guess it was just hard for me to listen to the whats missing thing. they r still hopeful of more improvement.

still thinking more surgery in jan, thumb reassignment to try and give it more use, maybe muscle then and a fat flap. i always knew we had more surgery to go...but to hear that she faces a life of surgery is pretty scary. they expect that she has several surgeries that are corrective then every few years to help with growth and assess where everything is at, probably until she is 18 years old! we were thinking that maybe by the time she was 12 or 13 we might be able to put the hospital behind us, but it appears not! Its sort of thrown me a bit.

anyway...ot and physio is being transfered to ballarat so that it can be intensive we hope for next week, but we will find out tomorrow for sure. otherwise another week of melbourne
she did get her pressure garment today but which is good, which has this gel silcone sheet that goes over the graft itself first. its funny stuff. so goodbye to crape bandages and tube grip stuff...thankgod, i was stick of seeing that stuff. she will be in the other for 23 hours of everyday! wont that be nice during summer! She gets an hour break after her bath every night from it all.

anyway, i dont really know how to record how i feel about it all, just that today was a little to much for me, but everything is as ok as its going to be for a while
another review in 2 to 3 months..ya!

FINALLY

2008-09-10T17:04:00.006+10:00

well yesterday was a sewing day...a few clothes for the kids and this, my gratitude wrap for the swap im in organised by mel goodsell. BUT, after many months of know my sewing machine was dieing...it kicked the bucket! ive been putting money away for a while generally from my card publications to put towards my machine and i was still a little short. My loving dh told me to get a new one anyway. woohoo!

im in love right now with the stitching work of janelle winds journal covers with belts and mardi's pattern test ones. so i decorated my wrap with something similiar. (i know i will be buyiing that pattern when its released! THAT bag is just beautiful)
the inside, and i beg of my swap partner to not look closely a the stitching, this is what i was in the middle of stitching when the said machine started the kick the bucket!, im still thinking of stitching it again, but will have to think about time frame before that. the belt i stitched today on my brand new wonderful machine!
And this is it my beautiful new machine. i went the breast cancer release machine, it was good value for money and a good next step for me after 11 years of a very very basic machine. and it came with all the quilting foots i need and generally meets my needs. its just so lovely to stitch with, it doesnt thump along, or move the table when i really get it going. and just because i didnt want to stitch paper as a first project here is a felt food tutorial that was promised before said machine started to really die on me..: )

Biscuit felt Tutorial - jam drops.

(machine stitched version)

brown felt

red felt

hobby fill

machine.

Roughly cut two large brown circles and a small red one to act as the jam.
Stitch the jam circle to one of the brown circles.
Stitch the brown circles together. I used my new overlocker type stitch, more because i wanted to see what it was like ... :)
leave a small section not stitched

and add hobby fill. stitch closed.
to add a bit of feature, stitch around the red circle once more through all the layers of the biscuit. (like quilting really)
And there u go finished biscuits.
My first lot of biscuits i made i used blanket stitch on the edges and to attach the red circle. it was also easy to do it this way.

FINALLY A RAK
i promised this weeks ago and then got sick.
so here it is, if you would like to start your felt food collection i have some strawberries and todays biscuits to give away, but also added to the rak is one of my knited dishcloths. if you want to try one leave me a comment on this post and i will get lilly to draw a comment in a few days.

masters layouts

2008-09-07T22:20:00.003+10:00

well i dont think these will get picked up now
i love the double that i did, im going to pop it into frames for our new bedroom wall for when we move.. :) i put old book pages down and tore them back and then white washed the background for blending. cant remember what the papers r, i know they were nice quality
my single layout is not outstanding, it was the one part of my eNtry (that i didnt get to finish) that wasnt up to scratch! no matter what i did i couldnt make a shaped layout what i wanted. the flowers i crocheted myself

i think the thing that im disappointed about is the money spent on my entry. im not concerned with missing out and not getting the entry in lets face it i was in the middle ofsomething way more important than a scrapbooking contest at the time, but still i look and think of the money! at least i will use the calendar when i get it finished

scrapping share

2008-09-05T21:42:00.003+10:00

this is my so you think u can scrap entry...its my second take...im working on some hospital photos and while i want to scrap them, they r quite memory provoking and therefore hard to scrap....im happy with the above one but. emily loved music therapy, she used to have it every few days, it was a lovely way to fill in the long days of trying to entertain her inside the hospital, esp when alot of that time she was stuck in that little cot day and night!
this was my first effort for so you think u can scrap, but something about just isnt right, its ok as a layout, but wasnt what i had in my head for the comp. something about the title not sitting right, i wont fix it, its scrapped now and on to the next thing..: ) this was about emilys visit with tlc in hospital. top organisation.

i know the tutorial is coming!

photos to go and its good to go...:) tomorrow

we r all still a little slow around here

sick

2008-09-04T19:51:00.001+10:00

we're all ok
just been sick... :)
on the mend now we all hope
ill be back tomorrow with a felt biscuit (jam drops) tutorial and my RAK

5 years ago today

2008-08-29T21:48:00.003+10:00

Five years ago today i was thrown onto this crazy rollar coaster called motherhood. It has been everything i thought it would be. Its been hard, but the sort of hard you cope with because of the love you feel. its been joyful, love filled, and amazing. i cant quite believe that we have watched this special girl grow and learn for five years. actually we all had to learn together how to be a family..(the special right of a first born i guess) all those baby years, learning to walk and talk, i was so excited. but that is nothing compared to watching her learn to write(something i should take a pic of..i have a moving box the kids play with, lilly has written random letters all over it, including her name which she writes on everything atm) im excited by this next phase in her life. (i have no idea what im going to do while she is at school each and everyday next year..me and emily will be so lonely) its funny the things u think will never happen have a way of coming around.

birthday treats started with a lounge room camp out, next to the heater, all of them together all night..so very cute, there was some movie watching and lots of snoring!
arh the birthday cake, it took all my strenght today to cook for her..we r all feeling pretty blar! she so wanted a butterfly cake, thankfully she was happy to help me create a marble cake..the pink marble is the colour of that icing! sprinkles and little flowers and she was happy as. i wish i had been well enough to create for her...but not so this year.
and heres my big girl this morning. i love morning birthday messy hair and blurry eye photos hehe. so cute. we were as you can imagine up early. as a 2 and 3 year old she would of been into her presents that were on the table without a care for the fact that we were not around. not this year...at 7 this morning she was jumping up and down on the bed for me to get up so she could open her presents hehe. first i have to be the first one to sing happy birthday to her..: ) she was so funny, told me it was her favourite song and said thanks...so cute. and such a grown up girl now.

i didnt take official 5 today photos, because she is as sick as i am, by about 10 she had the dark rings and red puffy eyes back and had a big sleep after lunch, but this was after much dancing on her tv dancing game mat..lol...its really quite hard, but she is better at it than me lol

lilly at five
you are caring, and considerate. stubborn and independent!
particular about the way to do things. you love to spend time with emily, and for the most part you two play together so well. you love to spend time with DADDY!
i hope you had a great birthday even thou your sick.
i love you baby
happy birthday
mumXXX

small knitted dishcloth...plus an emily update

2008-08-28T20:23:00.003+10:00

small knitted dishcloth
you will need
4 1/2 mm needles
lion brand cotton yarn

heres the pattern..again im calling it mine but happy to face the fact it could be out there somewhere...its based on a pretty basic knitting stitch. i didnt have a pattern.

cast on 37 stitches
knit 3 rows.

knit 3 then start pattern of k1 p1 until last 3 stitches and knit to end
repeat 10 times
knit 3 rows

repeat pattern 15 times
knit 3 rows

repeat pattern 10 times
knit 3 rows
cast off
weave in ends.

pretty easy to whip up...it was a melbourne day for us and i made 2 in the car. so quick and easy.
i will put these up in the market store $4 each or 4 for $12

yep it was a melbourne day today...back to the hospital. we went last week to, but i didnt deal with last week very well and was never in the right space to blog about it...still dont know if i will get through without crying...but todays news was excellent
last week we went, we were happy with the healing of the graft after a week of us looking after it and we came home with just a tube sock type dressing and instructions to do more of the same cream etc. that was great. as part of our session we see the ot, (she is fantastic) she wasnt quite so happy and was quite scared for our girls hand and wrist. as u can imagine alarm bells ring. last week her wrist was really starting to turn out to the left and her hand was sort of stuck in a claw like position...she was still using it, but it was resting in this horrible position. basically things we knew could happen were happening...from her original hand repair we have known that the muscle that her thumb tendons where contected to wasnt as strong as we all wanted. her thumb doesnt sit in the right position because of this, and its this tendon that is meant to help her wrist stay in the correct position...it wasnt doing this, the stronger muscles where taking over hence the left going wrist. fear was sparked that she would be back in surgery sooner rather than later to have the thumb repaired (something we were hoping they would wait until jan to do) we were sent home with new resting braces and new exercises to try and shock it awake and make it start working. our appointment made with our surgeon to review this and make a plan. EEEEK....i stressed and worried all week of course
move onto this week...all that worry and now they think its responding with the new everything and it may wait until jan. im crossing my fingers for that. all our news was so much better today. her graft is starting to soften (which is good for the gliding of muscles under the skin..or what she has left there anyway) her knuckles have made a reappearence (woohoo), her hand while not corrected has responded to the brace and its staying more or less in the safe position they want it in. her thumb is still an issue, but a day brace was made for this to help keep it in the correct position 24/7 without restricting her wrist movement which is getting stronger every day and finally she is healed enough to have her pressure garment (sp) ordered. woohoo. i had no idea how long u had to wait for it all to be ready for the pressure garment.
and the thing that really tells us she is on the right road...we dont have to go back next week..woohoo...her garment will be posted to us and we will go back for our surgeon appointment the week after. a whole week with no melbourne trip...we wont know ourselves!

It will be nice to have the travel break (seeing as we all have colds), in the mean time the hospital r trying to find us the right person so we can travel to ballarat for intensive rehab instead of going to melbourne. but it has to be the right person.

i think thats it for me..: )
but one last thing
pst we have had spring sunshine for two days...its so lovely!

Felt food Tutorial - strawberries

2008-08-27T16:13:00.005+10:00

You will need

red and green felt
a sewing machine
needle with green and black thread.
small amount of hobby fill

1. cut a 2 1/2 inch x 2 1/2 inch square. (a smaller or bigger square will give a smaller or bigger strawberry)

fold in half diagonally, and stitch one edge.

2 Turn the strawberry in so the seam is on the inside. Use a pencil to help turn the tip.

3 cut off the point at the unstitched end.

4 stuff with a small amount of hobby fill

5 squeeze together the middle of the top and stitch 4 stitches.

6. Squeeze together the opposite ends and stitch completely closed

7 from a small amount of green felt cut a circle. then cut small triangles out of it to create the top leaves of the strawberry

8 stitch to top of strawberry. I just stitched down the ends.

to finish off add some black stitches as the seeds on the outside of the strawberries done!

I have some felt strawberries for sale at 50cents each..see the market store

Bought a HOUSE!!!!

2008-08-26T16:45:00.002+10:00

here it is
http://www.realestate.com.au/cgi-bin/rsearch?a=o&id=105091604&f=0&p=10&t=res&ty=&fmt=&header=&cc=&c=18683607&s=vic&snf=rbs&tm=1219733081

i hope the link works
we will be doing the moving thing in about 60 days
the grand total of about 800 metres down the road i kid u not!!!

and i cant wait!
modern kitchen, bathroom
nice painting
nice rooms
fires
heated floors in kitchen/bathroom
nice outside spaces
sounds like music to my ears!

10000 visits celebrations - large dish cloth pattern

2008-08-26T08:54:00.006+10:00

I decided that i would really do the share thing this week, as in share patterns and put up step by steps for some felt food ive been working on and then end the week on friday with a felt food rak and also a knited cotton dishcloth give away.

I made old nappy dishclothes months ago, they work a treat even getting a rave review from the other cleaner in the house that must have this and that to do the job...thats a huge tick for me believe me!...husbands can be very fussy about the way they clean and what with...i go with as long as u do it i dont care....so a huge tick for me.

we have 6 of those and i wash them daily (which i just love being able to do) and sometimes they just dont last the day, if im real good with the washing the 6 do well, if im slack with the washing or we have days where i feel the need to follow my less dryer using pledge, then sometimes the clothes get backed up and i run out....so more were required.

my sewing machine lives in our stuido/dining room area. great during the day if i can get at it, not so great at night when its oh so cold in that room and the fire is a room away and so inviting...i end up not wanting to sit at the machine and go off in search of some other creative project i have on the go!...in my daily blog reading i came across the green blogs i often read and a cotton knited dishcloth pattern. so i was off to spotlight last week after emilys appointment in search of lion brand cotton. Ive made three...a straight knit one which is ok, and then a pattern i found off one of the green living blogs...i loved it and then a pattern of my own.

i thought i would kick off this week by sharing the kniting pattern.

now its just what ive done, as far as i know i havent seen it anywhere, but lets face it it could be out there somewhere! so while im calling it my pattern, im totally open to the fact that it could belong to someone else. I didnt have a pattern to use for it. I like this one because the cotton ends up with bobbles (yes tech term i know lol) and is good for cleaning up messes because of those! (im working on a smaller dishcloth pattern this week)

so here it is

MY LARGE DISHCLOTH PATTERN

i used lion brand cotton yarn (spotlight) - was on special this week too, im going to try get more on thursday

size 4 1/2 needles.

cast on 61 stitches
knit 3 rows

then start K1, P1 repreat until end of row.
repeat that row 10 times
knit 3 rows

repeat the pattern 4 times

cast off.

(PS just look at that sunsine..its worth mentioning being its such a fleeting thing here at the moment...it feels like spring is on the way today..but i wish it was warm to go with it)

ok im no expert knitter, but i worked on it during yesterday on and off between other jobs and the kids, and then once dan was home i knitted until it was done. so it didnt take very long. i would say im an average speed knitter! so a project just perfect for an afternoon of quick knitting.

i have decided to open another blog, a little market store blog...see the side bar...im still thinking of going with etsy, but cant decide quite yet. but for the moment on my market store im going to list a few of my homemade things that people have suggested i might be able to sell. basically i decided a no pressure thing, sometimes i might have things in stock and sometimes i might make to order...:)

Jacqui's Market Store

Dish clothes r the first thing im adding to the shop. My large dishcloth is $8 small dishcloth $4

i will also add some felt food, aprons, hotwater bottle bags (popular in this house!), cards, card folders basically whatever i come up with u will find over in the my market store.

i hope u all enjoy my week of celebrations...its all just for some fun...i love sharing how i make my things.
tomorrow i will share some felt food making tutorials.
strawberries
jam drops (requested)
and if i get it finished a bunch of grapes.

making pasta

2008-08-20T17:23:00.005+10:00

today i travelled a little bit more through my quest to rid our home of preservatives in our food, plus the age on alot of the food we eat.

we made pasta!

so easy!

the dough

550g plain flour

6 egg yolks

4 eggs

extra virgin olive oil until comes together...about 50mls maybe more

bring together...we mixed ours in the kitchen aid

knead until smooth dough

wrap in glad wrap and leave in fridge for about an hour.

we borrowed the pasta machine, i didnt want to buy one in case i thought the making to hard...we will be getting one for home but.

it has to be rolled flat a few times before u get it to this stage. it was rolled down to 5 on the pasta machine before this step.lilly enjoyed having a go too...she rolled out the angel hair.
emily enjoyed the eating lol (its heart warming to see her using her injured hand and arm even if it is just pasta....its more than she would of done a week ago...it builds hope in my heart)

and here it all is...we made two doughs and two different pasta cuts.

we hope to get 4 meals out of the angel hair and maybe 3 from the fatter one. it will dry on the rack (our washing rack) for about a day and a half and i will store it in big tupperware containers until its gone... :)

we r currently eating the angel hair with bol sauce and its YUM!...

making pasta is always going to be more expensive than buying the dried packet. but its the cheaper way to make the ones stored in the fridge section of the supermarket. the latina ones. which is the ones we like to eat mostly, or the gourmet packets

each dough cost me about $4.50 maybe a little more, we used savings brand flour, and regular free range eggs.

so if we get 4 meals out of the angel hair it cost me $1.20 (we r a family of 2 adults and 2 kids)

not bad i say

if u eat organic it will of course cost a little more.

and out of all the eggs whites we have left over...dan is going to turn them into a desert.. :)

we hope to keep making pasta now, in big batches so we only have to do it once every other month..:)

ps my bread making is getting better the changes i made to the dough in the below post worked a treat...its getting pretty light and fluffy...im off in search of a slightly bigger loaf tin now

a blog award

2008-08-18T18:57:00.006+10:00

ooer thanks sue smith

The rules for the award are - (1) The winner can put the logo on their blog. (2) Link the person you received your award from. (3) Nominate at least 7 other blogs. (4) Put links of those on yours. (5) Leave a message on the blogs of the girls or boys you’ve nominated

ok 7 blogs...i love and visit sometimes daily

I heart this!!!
I bought it for daniel a few years ago. I use it all the time!
i have been mucking around with my bread recipe. trying to make it less heavy, im getting there
here r some of the changes i have made
500gm plain flour or so (i havent changed that part from the original)
2 tsp yeast
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 cup lukewarm water - think a babies bath
3/4 milk

mix flour, salt and yeast together
add wet ingredients

now heres why i HEART my kitchenaid (hehe ok dans kitchenaid)
leave it on mix for 20 minutes!
spray a bowl with oil, place dough in, turn the dough to cover in oil
cover with plastic wrap leave in warm place for 1 hour

punch down, turn out on board, knead for a few minutes
shape into 2 balls and place in a tin beside each other.
spray with oil, leave for 30 minutes.

heat oven to 200c
cook for 30 minutes.

ok dan helped me with the changes including getting out his baker tafe book lol...i had no idea of the science involved in bread making. its all about the heat

he has also suggested adding some butter to the mix...im yet to try that but.

chefs r great husbands, they have heaps of knowledge
we cleaned our wooden chopping boards tonight (as in dissenfected)...so easy i had no idea it was that easy. it will get done more often
use table salt(cheap salt), shake a few tablespoons over your board. Cut a lemon in half and start scrubbing.
the salt acts as a scruber and the lemon has the acid to kill. pretty cool i thought...nothing grows in salt they tell me...and better yet all natural too.. :)

we r trying the homemade dishwashing liquid right now. thanks mel for putting it on your blog.
i quite like it, the no bubbles thing isnt so bad as we have bore water we lose the bubbles quickly anyway. i love the lemon smell and it seems to clean well and leaves things nice and shiny. thanks mel.

movie day

2008-08-17T10:20:00.003+10:00

Since we moved here we have had a little saturday afternoon movie date. Me and the kids. We make popcorn and sit together under a blanket right at the moment and watch the disney playhouse movie. lilly loves making the popcorn, and pushing the buttons on the microwave to melt a little bit of butter. and we sit up with two bowls of popcorn and watch. yesterday they enjoyed and i suffered through cinderella 3! but its more about the act of doing something together that we all enjoy.

we also made more bread yesterday. heres the link to the recipe i use http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/10857/basic+white+bread
ive been talking to my dh about baking...he is a chef and he told me to knead the dough longer than the recipe says. so tomorrow when we need more bread im going to do that see if that changes the loaf. it does already make a good loaf, im just interested and trying different ways.
the felt food has been back on the creative table the last few days too
some jam drops (the real ones a very popular in this house)
and some fillings for our sandwiches too.

my ticker is shortly going to hit 10000...which sort of blows me away. Anyway im going to make up a bag of felt food to RAK once we hit the 10000 mark to celebrate and as a way to say thanks for coming to read my dribble.... :)

scrap jack

2008-08-16T09:47:00.004+10:00

heres my scrapjack for this month...its all on canvas...im not sure im 100% happy with it...something about the white squares...i wish i washed them yellow....but two late now. the photo is a fav even thou it was taken in low light so the quality is a bit yuck...therefore the missing eyes...but sometimes u just have to scrap the yuck pics. cause they r really not yuck. some of the stuffon this page came from last months lime tart kit.
this came out while we were in hospital...the one today card is mine...made with the inspiration of emilys first birthday last year.

and finally
on thursday emilys hospital visit went well...no drugs at all and the only thing she cried about was the tape that was on her skin..not bad really....no tape really used this week. there is still one mucky part at the top that wasnt grafted and was just left to heal...its not responding as quickly as they would like...so im not sure what that means...its wait and see that bit...i guess it could be another graft if it doesnt improve over the next 2 weeks. other than that the large graft itself is good...we now have to take the dressing down each day and rub cream into it to keep it moist which is good and bad...good that its at that point because its healing...bad that i have to deal with it in a totally visual way every day now...it takes all my guts to see it every week, but i think its partly because im wishing it to be so much better and not infected and all that...anyway i hope it gets easier to see on a daily basis. she is also allowed big breaks in wearing her plastic brace to play and use her arm and hand as well as she can...we also have exercises to do with her to get it freely moving which it isnt...but only on the second day of those and it seemed eaiser for her to do today. we r working on doing 3 exercises 10 times 5 times a day...we got it done 3 times yesterday...going for 4 times today and then 5 tomorrow!

some creative - ness!

2008-08-13T22:43:00.004+10:00

we seem to be back to our creative stations in this house and its the best thing that could of happened.!
ive had a few people ask me for the secrets of finding to time to do so much of my own crafting, scraping and general creative stuff we do
i dont know about the secrets....but heres what we do
our dining room on any given day looks more like an art studio, or sewing room. we have a large square table i cover in a plastic cover and we all create together. some days on together things others on different things. but we r all together talking, learning and spending the time doing quality things.
today i did some sewing and the girls wanted to paint. its all too easy with water colour paints! yes the powdered discs that come in a tray. it takes no time at all to teach kids to use them, they r cheap and the powdered discs last longer, and we find the colours to be pretty bright. the most important part of this type of painting...ITS EASY TO CLEAN UP! it all just wipes clean with a damp cloth. they will sit and paint for AGES!
mix it up is my other thing. we painted today, so tomorrow we might (make soap if our things arrive) or draw with oil crayons or something different, i do have a salt dough recipe thanks to mel goodsell for giving me the idea. cooking too is a big hit in our house.
and i think my other secret is to search for inspiration....mine usually comes from mel goodsell or soulemoma...u would also be surprised what you can goggle or blog hop too.

yesterday i made the kids a loaf of felt bread. they have no requested things to make sandwiches. luckily i found a flickr group with lots of sandwich ideas to help me on my way.

ever since we moved in here i have been searching for something to put on the girls walls that covers the horrible paint in their rooms. (they need painting badly and seeing as we dont own here and wont be staying here forever i cant be bothered to winge about it to the landlord.) anyway

i joined janelle winds block of the month quilt little bluebirds in a start to putting things up in emilys room to make her walls nicer. our first block (which im nearly finsihed) came with this journal cover to make.

I have so many people i really want to send a thankyou card too after everything we have gone through, and i finally got started on them tonight.

i went searching for sketches first

these r older sketches on the cardvaarks blog. all the papers from my lime tart kit and the dictionary pages from an old one i picked up at the op shop for like 20c...i have gone for pages that had words relating to being thankful.

these cards use sketches from the hero arts blog that chris millar shared with us today...thanks so much chris it got me started creating today.

and finally....ive decided to turn my journal cover into a place to keep a few cards at hand...im going to add a pen and some stamps and use it as a gratitude folder, thanks soulemoma for the idea.
we r back off into melbourne tomorrow for another visit to the hospital

TWO YEARS OLD

2008-08-11T20:17:00.006+10:00

today was filled with birthday wishes, kitchen playing and general being togetherness. I had a few teary moments, im having trouble shaking the fact that today could of been so different. I know how close we came...that has however helped me enjoy the day, i feel blessed and lucky to have this special little girl in our lives. she is such a joy. of course the above photo was as good as it got for a 2 year old and her official photo for the birthday...but thats ok...there was to much to do and see i think, and we were all laughing.
first thing this morning emily got to open a present. she was quite chuffed with it...dora...dora was all we heard...emily loves dora....and i always welcomed something different to watch and hear in hospital!Much of the day looked like this. they both loved the kitchen which was lovely. dan and i have had many a cup of tea and lots of soup today hehe.i wish they were as happy to wash up when it was for real!hehe emilys new fav trick!

and its not a birthday without one of these. just a flower. I wanted more than that but time was an issue. it tasted great and emily said wow..so cant ask for more than that..: )
i read a heap about taking candle pics, but in the end this was as good as it got....gee u have to be quick! the candles were out in seconds and emily was picking off the marshmellows hehehe

emily was very spoilt...lots of clothes and a few new toys, a pram for her baby we hope will last better than the first two (we went for a totally new style this time) and a couple of books. it all seemed to go so fast!

happy birthday my special girl...we cant believe u are two years old, your such a joy to have in our lives, you always find the best way to deal with things and nearly always with a smile. You have taught me so much (mostly in the last month or so)...keep being you.

i love you

mumXXXXX

more kitchen maddness

2008-08-10T20:09:00.004+10:00

and two posts for the day...thats a first!

felt donuts i made, with the apples....i will get a basket for all the felt food to live in when im next in a cheap shop...and i have alot more felt food to make, i wanted to do it tonight, but its very cold in the sewing machine room right at the moment so i thinks it can wait!

also made a felt milk bottle. the toaster we got at the toy shop...its so cute!

the oven with knobs now, and we know not circles had to made do with square the bit we needed for the drill we couldnt get hold of today...first time i have missed bunnings seeing as it would of been open!...also the towel set i made earlier.

and finally this is what she will see in the morning.

the present has a tea set in it from her sister.. : )

sorry for all the kitchen pics but i know a certain grandpa that will be very interested seeing as he help build the kitchen

kitchen progress

2008-08-10T16:28:00.004+10:00

its nearly finished

lots of late nights this week for us both to get it to this point
i will take more pics when we dress it up and add the oven knobs tonight after emily is in bed
i cant wait to share it with her tomorrow

dont look to closely at the paint...its not a pro job thats for sure...but the kids wont care...i would say all up....extra bits, and the paint , and the toy bits we got for her it cost us about $200....its still twice the size that we could buy for that sort of money and its solid as and HEAVY, believe me i had to help carry it outside for the spray clear coating it had to have!

all up im pretty chuffed that we made it for her.. :)

i have some felt food and the towel set i made earlier to go with it too

FRIDAY

saw us go back into melbourne for emily to visit with the hospital. everythiing is healing nicely and it looks a little better and not as swollen and all in all everyone was happy with it. this week we dont have to go back until thursday. just to plastic's clinic this time, no drugs required after she spat them out at the nurses and went through the dressing change with little to no drugs helping her with it. actually good news for her and us. Our other big news is that she is trying to use her arm. working out that her arm, hand and fingers can still pick up small things. she cant hold onto them very long but thats big progress, even waving at her doctors with it during her dressing change on friday hehe

i will be back with a birthday post tomorrow.. :)