In the garden



These native violets I planted in the front yard when we moved in, they are flowering like crazy now. I'm hoping that soon we will have carpets of these between the other plants. I think I will move the ones in the pot to the back garden and plant my strawberries in the pot. These plants love a bit of precipitation, they go a bit nuts after the rain, but they also do ok when it is dry. I love them.

Quiet week

With the change in weather now that Autumn has arrived, the little one and I have been sick this week. So this photo makes me remember this week with E, cosy indoors with the occasional venture outside.

Paris 2007


I want to live here!


The final photo I posted because it is a little joke. Hubby took the photo because he thinks "Baby on Board" signs are hilarious, particularly in French... but the funny thing for me, is that I am in the background and little did we know that I had a baby on board...

My Creative Space - Magazine files

I so enjoyed the most recent issue of Frankie mag that I decided it was high time I decorated my Ikea "Knuff" magazine files!

This is how to cover a magazine file...

1. First paint the front with off white acrylic paint. You could skip this step, but I like to see a little white around the edges when I sand back the paper.

2. Cut a piece of your chosen paper to the size of the front part of the file, make it slightly bigger than the file so you can sand the edges back.

3. When the paint is dry, put a coat of Mod Podge glue over the top. Quickly paint a coat of glue on the back of your paper and stick to the still wet front of your magazine file.

4. Using a craft knife cut an x (cross) in the circle of the hole, pushing the paper in to the inside (be careful not to damage the file or paper surrounding).

5. When the glue has dried, sand the edges around the rectangle of the file using a sanding block so that the excess paper is removed. Push backwards as you do this so it makes a clean line.

6. Rip a piece of sandpaper and do the same inside the hole.

7. Use sealer to varnish over the paper to protect it from getting grubby. When I varnished over some of the papers it changed the colours a little, so you may want to test the varnish on a scrap of the same paper first.

Next I might cover some storage drawers...

To see many more Creative Spaces visit kootoyoo

Visiting friends

On the way to and from Queensland we stopped in on our friends in Coffs Harbour. Going by what fun two days we had, I think we should have stayed there the whole time we were on holidays!!

Steve and her husband went fishing whilst we took the two boys to look for soldier crabs. We didn't find any crabs, but the kids and us mum's loved splashing in the water! Then we had a little picnic and played on the play equipment. When we got home we filled up their canoe for the boys to splosh around in. We threw in some beach toys and empty water bottles for them to play with. Then I decided we should do some painting so the kids did some painting, and then hopped back in the canoe pool to clean off. Fi's husband makes homebrew beer, very good ( a bit like bees knees). Fi made 100% fruit sorbet with mango, banana and peach. The kids loved it too.

Fi sent me home with some vegies and some orchids she grows in her garden. While we were there she was sundrying tomatoes on the washing line. I admire Fi's energy and resourcefulness in everything she does.

Artist - Maira Kalman

I recently discovered this excellent artist Maira Kalman and read her NY times blog in the pursuit of happiness and an interview with her. I instantly felt some affinity with her art. When I was in highschool I would sometimes paint picures quite similar to hers; bright colours, a bit naive, quickly painted, at the time my style was somewhat influenced by Chagall and Matisse. Also I have recently been toying with the idea of painting a lot of "brain dump" sort of pictures for my blog, rather than using so many photos and using hand written text like Penelope Dullaghan and Jenny Kostecki-Shaw.

Fun cooking

Recently we have been inspired to cook fun stuff. We made fish tacos with a spicy salsa. These were delicious. I think it would have been better if I had stopped at just the one!

and on another occasion, Vegetarian dumplings - the recipe was from Jeana Sohn's blog. These were a huge hit with the family as well.


Handmade Christmas

For Christmas I wanted to make many gifts by hand but started too late and ran out of time. I did however manage to make five customized t-shirts and 2 decorative throw cushions. These t-shirts were actually made for a friends little girl for her birthday. The bird print is from a thrifted dress, I cut it up to use the fabric.

The nieces loved the cushions. You may remember the cushion at the back from the Umbrella Prints trimmings competition. The one in front I made more recently.

International Art Exchange

A while back I was invited to participate in the International Art Exchange. I thought it would be fun, so I sent off my package to my dedicated person and some invites to some other people. I only got one person interested due to the busy time of year and some of the people I invited had done it before. So of the 36 possible works of art I could have received, I got one from the amazing Emma Kidd of Ben Conservato. Even the envelope is a work of art. Thanks Emma!! Now I need to find a frame for a friendly little monster! And I still want to send off something to the person who invited me to participate.