My Creative Space 29 July 2010

As it's been cold and wet for days and days, I thought I'd harness my children's creativity and get them to decorate some loot bags for Eva's 3rd birthday party.

I'm really happy with the variety of images they drew.

I've been preparing by making lots of lists and ticking of boxes. Plus runs to this and that shop making sure that I'll be organised and have enough things to feed the hungry munchkins.

 My only other concern is that the weather on Saturday behaves enough for Eva's party at the park to be a success... otherwise, it's lots of bodies at my house.

Get inspired here where there are always great things to see

Couples weekend

This weekend, my parents have offered to have my two cherubs over at their house for two nights!! I'm so thankful for the gift of time and space.

This morning hubby and I went to a local market and bought our missing children some bits and bobs and then went off to breakfast at The Estelle. 

We bonded and chatted and laughed and became a couple again. It was lovely.

On our way back to the car we spotted this gem,
lonely and abandoned on the side of the road.

Well, I couldn't resist, and had to bring it home

Now it will be loved at our house

I really love the fairy lining in the bottom drawer

Ahhh said one bed to the other

It's cold, but the sun is shining here at my side of the world

so out I go, to free my poor vegies from the weeds

Ahhh, said one bed to the other, I'm free at last

YUM said my tummy as I prepare the fresh crop of carrots and radish

Cold Wet Sunday

What to do with children that are tired of being inside?

Give them some cookie time!

Lumpy Bumpy blobs of fun

Turning my frown upsidedown

In a bid to get over my frustration at yet another canceled date night due to someone in the family being sick and feverish (4th date cancelled in the past 2 months), I decided to soothe my anger by turning to my craft table.

  
I have been neglecting the sewing machine and craft table in the past couple of weeks due to other commitments, but today, it was the only thing that was going to make me happy.

I took some wool that I had felted previously, and got to work.

I used the neck of a turtleneck jumper which I had not felted, and sewed it onto the ends of square of blue striped wool

Then I made sausages










 

A quick dip into my Mum and Granny's collection lets me choose the perfect buttons

 

The end result is that even though I have no control over the bugs that invade my house, and the mistakes made with over the phone bookings, I can still create something that makes me smile, and makes the day so much better.

A big sorry to J and C who arranged baby sitters for tonight

My Creative Space 15 July 2010

Yesterday I made my way to the oppy with my munchkins -  just before the rain started pelting down. I was on a mission to get some more lovely wool jumpers to make more arm warmers.

I'm really happy with the ones I found, which by the way was incredibly hard, as most of the winter gear there was made from acrylic. 

I'm going to do some felting today, and these lovely jumpers will be destroyed in the process. Such a shame, but I can't wait to see the end result, and then to see what kind of arm warmers I will come up with.....

You should also take some time whilst you are here to take a look at inspirational ladies who will also use their Thursday to create

ADDED INFORMATION.... 

Ive been happily unpicking the stitches on my jumpers and was taking piccies to show you

And then I suddenly feel like I'm being watched, and out of the corner of my eye, I see that I have an audience....  

He/she is sitting right above the window of my craft area/computer, and watching... 

 I'm not sure for how long, but now, knowing how quick these lovelies move, I'm moving to the lounge room i think to continue with the jumpers...

And I have to figure out how to catch it. I don't like killing these harmless huntsmen spiders, but he really is in an awkward position and  quite high, but I don't want to leave him there... 
how am i going to encourage him into a container without jumping or running on me, or without me falling on my head in the process?

 

Inspiration at the park

Last week I went to a fantastic children's park and was very inspired 

when i saw a group of Japanese mothers pull out their lunch boxes.

Everything came in little boxes and looked gorgeous -
there was not a single cut sandwich in sight. 

Instead there was lots of freshly made rice snacks and steamed vegies 

like broccoli and corn cobs and various unidentifiable items. 

So today for lunch I ditched the sandwich and cut apple for these 

salmon and sesame seed rice snacks. 

My Creative Space 8 July 2010

I was thinking that I had not done anything creative in the past few days and therefore had nothing to contribute this week to Kootoyoo's great Thursday online show and tell, and now that it's 10.40pm, i realise that my creativity has been directed into organising a party for my nearly 3 year old big girl, and designing a party invitation for her.

She is at the age where everything has a fairy reference to it, and as far as she's concerned girls are fairies and boys are Ben 10!


Now onto the outfit....

Northside Makers collective trip to Dalesford

I love going to Dalesford

I love it even more when I go with my crafty gals on a crafty expedition
here are some pics I took on the day....

And here is my loot for the day.
 

Lucho loves his superman dress ups cape



my favourites are the pocket warmer for my hubby (which took forever to find as he's hard to buy for) and the key hook.  

Gift from Made it and Silvermonk

I regularly forward on emails sent to me by Made it and last week, I won a pair of funky and fantastic earrings!

Silvermonk, who makes "delicious jewellery to embrace the spirit and delight the heart" sent me these ebony, coral and silver earrings that suit me down to a T. Visiting her blog, I discover that she is an all round artist who has an interest in photography as well.

I proudly wore them on my crafty trip to Dalesford

hope you are having a great day, and thank you Silvermonk :)

My Creative Space 1 July 2010

Bucket, toilet plunger, boiling water and a woolen jumper..... 

and LOTS of elbow grease...

I'm felting jumpers again!

I made a decision to keep the red jumper, as it looked so nice on! and went back to the opp shop to purchase another one.

I have not been happy with the felting results of my first arm warmers, the felting process had started to happen, but there was still a lot of elasticity in the wool, so I had another go at it.

Here are the results of felting jumpers using the bucket and toilet plunger. The left side of the image is the plunger effect, and the right side of the image is the machine and dryer effect in the original arm warmers. As you can see the plunger works a treat at felting the wool.

However, it hasn't worked so well on the green jumper, which makes me think that the wool had been treated somehow. In any case, it has felted to an extent, and I will cut and sew to suit.

Both arms are ready for embellishments and adjustments and by this afternoon, will be ready to warm arms - one for me and one for my mum.


And here are the finished items!

I used vintage buttons that have been in my moms stash for years.
I'm happy with them, although the red and white buttons one doesn't actually look so hot in the photo.