Flowers turn into this.....

Blogtober 31st

It is the last day of Blogtober, which has been mostly fun, and Halloween ( do you get into the whole trick or treat thing?), and I have a completed project to show you ! YaY! Remember the little flowers I was making? Well this is what they were for ..........


.... a lovely little flower vine garland!


It was really fun to make and I have lots of ideas for some different adaptations.


I got the idea from the beautiful blog About Mo and Me and she has a great tutorial here. It is a great inspiring blog! Go and have a look for yourself!

It is made from lovely coloured cottons that are 3 or 4 ply I think. What do you think?

Have a great day!

Blogtober 30th

well it's nearly the end of Blogtober, and I am kind of glad! I have been finding it hard to find something interesting to blog about recently. I have come to the conclusion that my life is just not that interesting/eventful/creative! I think I am too run of the mill to have something worth writing about every 24 hours! My family are pretty normal ( my youngest has just read this and tells me quite indignantly that he is not normal, apparently he takes it as an insult!) and I feel I am really the only one who would find their daily activities interesting! But they want to be in the blog so I will probably try and find their most exciting, excellent adventures to tell you about!

Soooooo.... although I have enjoyed it, I'll be glad to finish Blogtober, and I apologise for the lack of riveting posts and a tendency to bore the socks off you! Having said that, it has become a bit of a habit and I am going to try and keep up posting as often as possible, so hopefully my life will take a turn for the exciting and memorable!

Anyway I thought I'd post this picture of my son holding his modified nerf gun, that he painted and sawed bits off this afternoon, he is very pleased with himself! It has been raining all afternoon here so we have been cooped up inside. Luckily I planted a heap of seedlings before it rained so they are getting a good watering in. The rain also meant I could finish my little flower garland project. I will take a photo tomorrow and show you, I am pretty pleased with it.

Hope you are all having a lovely weekend and not getting washed away!

Nice evening in.....

Blogtober29th

I have spent today whipper snipping, mowing and weeding our garden as I have heard we are getting some rain over the weekend, so I'm looking forward to a nice evening going on with these little flowers made from this colourful cotton. The flowers are for an idea I have to make a cute mobile, a garden scene with flowers, leaves, butterflies and vines, I'll show you when I get it together.


Might do a few hexies too....

A few lovely ladies have been interested in where I got the pattern for the little bibs I made, well I will tell you, I found it in the lovely Japanese baby crochet book I bought recently ( sorry I can't tell you the name - it's all in Japanese and I have no idea of a translation), in fact most of the things I have been working on recently are from these books, the patterns are just beautiful! I bought these books from Pomadour's Craft Cafe on her Etsy shop, which you can find here.

I just wanted to thank you for all the lovely comments that lovely crafters and bloggers leave for me to read, I really appreciate the feedback and you are all so nice!
Have a great weekend!

My creative space #11........

Blogtober 28th

........just hooking along on the hexie granny, think I will try and weave in as I go, so might do a bit of that later too.

Check out far more creative spaces than this one here at Kirsty's.

Crocheting cute.....

Blogtober 27th

These are some little baby bibs I'm making, these are my first few tries, I did some boy colour and some girly colour, cause I don't know what my sister is having. They are lovely and soft made from pure cotton so they should wash up fine too.
I'm thinking of making some more to put in my 'things that are finished for a future Madeit shop' stockpile. I really like making things for little ones, and I have lots of ideas for some cute little mobiles and cot blankies. Have to get on to it!!


Thought they might look cute with a sweet flower, but I think it needs to be slightly bigger than this one, what do you reckon?

Have a great day!

Beautiful Iris!

Blogtober 26th

Sooooooo.... another post about my garden, I promise it will be the last one for a while!
I just had to show you the beautiful iris that are out at the moment in the garden. I love this glossy dark purple one, it looks very dramatic and is stunning to catch a glimpse of in the garden.


Pretty mauve and bluesin this one.........


.....and I like how this one is growing up through the apple blossom - very pretty and cottagey!

Don't you just love Spring and all the colour it brings!

at my house.....

Blogtober 25th
.....today I spent the morning turning this............



...into this, ready to plant some summer stuff and mulch.......



...and cleaning this one up so......

... the strawberries underneath have a chance to flourish in the sun!
Still a long way to go in the Spring clean up , but we are on the way!

new project.......

Blogtober 24th

I started a new blankie last night, the beautiful hexagon granny blankie! It's not like I don't have enough on the go already, but I couldn't wait any longer to have a go at this lovely pattern in my Japanese crochet book. I have chosen a softer colour palette for this blanket. It looks a bit washed out in this photo, the colours are slightly brighter in real life (I still want it to have a fair bit of zing!).

I'm going to get cracking and do a few more hexies tonight, and contemplate what to do with my 12yr old who quite proudly told me about his 'unreal' afternoon today with his mate climbing all over their school roof! I don't seem to be able to convey how seriously this little escapade could have gone wrong. He, of course is immortal, and broken bones, wheelchairs, or brain damage could never happen to him; he is farrrrr too careful! The concept of an accident seems foreign to him, I tried to explain that people don't mean to have them, that's why they're called accidents!
I think I'll be keeping him close to home for a while. It is hard to know how much freedom to give, but I think he as had a bit too much recently!

Anyway, that's a child's job isn't it - to give us gray hairs! I think I'll also try and channel his adventurous streak into something not quite so dangerous, maybe rock climbing or something!

Bye, have a good night!

Hand made Christmas Challenge......

Blogtober 23rd

This is some Christmas bunting I have been knitting recently. I am having trouble keeping it flat as the edges are curling in a fair bit, I have tried blocking it, with limited success, oh well, it's just for us so I guess it doesn't really matter much, it still looks cute and Christmasy!

I have a few more favourite recipes for biscuits I like to make for gifts.....


Chocolate Fleck Cookies
125g butter
2 tblsp castor sugar
1/2 cup sweetened condensed milk
1 1/2 cups SR Flour
75g chocolate, grated

Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy, beat in sweetened condensed milk, then sift flour in 2 batches. Stir in chocolate. Roll spoonfuls into balls, place on greased tray, press down slightly with fork. Bake in moderate oven (180 degrees) for about 10 minutes.

--------------------------------------------

Weekender Biscuits
125g butter
1/3 cup sugar
1 egg
2/3 cup sultanas
1 cup SR flour
2 cups lightly crushed cornflakes

Cream butter and sugar, add egg, mix well. Fold in sifted flour and sultanas, mix well. Roll spoonfuls of mixture in cornflakes and place on greased tray. Allow room for spreading. Bake in moderate oven (180 degrees) for about 20 minutes.

-------------------------------------------------------

Delicious Chewy Ginger Bikkies
125g butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup golden syrup
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp bicarb soda
2tsp boiling water
1 1/2 cups plain flour

Place butter, sugar, golden syrup, ginger and cinnamon in a saucepan over medium heat. Stir until butter melts and mixture is smooth. Put bicarb and boiling water in a small bowl and combine. Add to butter mixture and stir to combine. Add sifted flour and stir until smooth. Spoon spoonfuls onto greased tray, leave room to spread. Bake in moderate oven (180 degrees) for 12 - 14 minutes or until biscuits are just firm around edges. Allow to cool on trays.

--------------------------------------------------------

This is not a biscuit recipe, but is delicious for a sweet hit and people really seem to like a homemade version of this lolly.

Honeycomb
4 tblsp golden syrup
1 tblsp water
1 cup sugar
3 tsp bicarb soda

Before I start I like to prepare the tray I am using by lining it with a piece of baking paper. Heat golden syrup, and sugar, bring to boil, then simmer on low heat for 5- 10 minutes, careful to not burn it! Test for brittleness by dropping a little bit in water and seeing how hard it goes. When done, take pot off heat and add sifted bicarb, stir quickly and tip onto tray to set and cool. ( When you add the bicarb it will froth up and turn into honeycomb so stir the bicarb in quickly, but don't over stir or the air will all go out of it and it will lose it's lightness).
When cold and hard, shatter into pieces and you can dip in chocolate for homemade crunchies!

-----------------------------------------------

As you can probably tell, I come from a family of sweet tooths!

Hope you are having a nice weekend!

See what other people are doing in the Handmade Christmas Challenge at Knicky Knacks here.

Slow down....

Well, I was going to post some pictures of my overgrown garden, a type of 'before and after' post, with these weedy pics as motivation for a big weekend in the garden reclaiming my vegie patches, and then show you on Monday the beautiful, organised changes that will appear after my working bee. I have heaps of seedlings to plant and compost to add, it is going to be a busy weekend!

That was my plan, however watching 30 episodes (give or take a few) of Pokemon on You Tube apparently uses a massive amount of our download allocation ( I thought Max was being a little bit too quiet this week) and the upload time has gone soooo slowwwwwww that I think I'll show the before and afters all on Monday.

Hope you have a great weekend too!

My creative space #10......

Blogtober 21st

.....today is finishing off these little buttons of colour at this messy table!



I had fun photographing them, so I thought I'd show you some. I think they are nice and bright and cheery.



I loved deciding the colour combos and what to embroider on each one. My embroidery skills are some what dodgy, but anyway...





.....soooooo.... lots of photos, I hope you like?

I'm off to sit in the sun with some friends and shoot the breeze for a while! Have a great afternoon and enjoy this great weather if you are in Melbourne!

Check out other creative spaces at Kirsty's place here.

new colours...

Blogtober 20th

I went out today and bought these lovely coloured embroidery cottons to do some more work on my crochet buttons. Hoping to do some tonight, so I might take photos tomorrow! Yay!
Short and sweet today, have a great night!

Lovely Spring Day...

Blogtober 19th

....Still got a bit of a flower theme today, there are just so many lovely flowers out at the moment, I picked this little bunch of sweetpeas from our garden, these are the first ones to flower but I couldn't resist bringing them inside, I love their colour combos.
And we have big patches of beautiful iris this year, I think the extra rain we had has really been welcomed by the iris and they are bigger and flowering better than previous years.


I had a very cruisey day today, which was really nice. I rode my bike into town to get some things for dinner and felt very carbon friendly! It is the start of my effort to lose a bit of 'bakery fat' that has accumulated over a year of too many coffee scrolls and sourdough rolls! It was a beautiful day and I felt great to get out in it! My mum and little niece came for a visit after lunch, which was nice, my niece can sniff out any random piece of chocolate and found some easter eggs that had been missed down the back of the fridge! She said they were still yummy!
A friend and I took our boys to the skate park after school for a while and had a nice chat in the sun, and I even did a bit of public hooky!

Anyway, I had a lovely day, hope you did too!

at my house....

Blogtober 18th

....... I have some lovely flowers I received for my last day at work, and a groovy combi money box one of my friends at work gave me! Lucky me!


See whats happening at other peoples houses over at Lou's place here.

(Can't figure out how to get rid of the underlining, so it stays)

Blogtober 17th...

Sooooo....... Haven't got much to say tonight. We had Gary's extended family over for a big reunion lunch today, which was a fun day, so I haven't gotten around to taking any photos of anything for the blog. We are all cleaned up again and just about to sit down for a bit of hooky time I think. My sister in law bought her knitting with her today, and was making hats, something I haven't made before. It looked pretty easy so I might have a go on some little baby or kids hats and then decorate them with some crochet edging or flowers, I have a few colour schemes in mind already.

Thanks for the feedback regarding setting up a little shop on Madeit or Etsy, I am busy making some things and hope to have enough to open a shop in the not too distant future! It is a bit daunting getting out there and putting your stuff up there for sale, what if no one is interested in what I make? It could be a very short lived venture! Also how do you decide on a price for your creations, I find this really hard, a lot of stuff on Madeit and Etsy seems really cheap for the work and time that has gone into it, how do you balance this and still try and be competitive?
There is a lot to think about!

Hope you had a great weekend! Back to the normal routines tomorrow, the weekends just fly by! My last day of working at the bakery tomorrow, and then a few weeks break (Yay!) before I start a new part time job, so lots of time to go into a hooky frenzy and produce lots of gorgeous things!

Hand made Christmas Challenge......

Blogtober 16th

I'm a bit of a sucker for an interesting advent calendar, so I was kind of thrilled with this update on the old tradition. All those grey shapes are in scratchie paint so you rub off a patch each day of the countdown. A scratchie advent calendar - I love it! I picked this up at the Finders Keepers Market last weekend from tmod. ( www.tmod.com.au), they had other quirky scratchie cards and things, but I really like this calendar!
I was going to try and crochet one this year, but I think I'll be short on time, so that will be for Xmas 2011.

Have a look over here at Knicky Knacks to see how others are going with the handmade Christmas Challenge!
Hope you're having a lovely weekend ( it is ffffffrrreeeezzziinngg here!)

ho hum......

Blogtober 15th

Not much to report today... completely miserable outside, I let my 2 younger ones stay home from school today as they both had minor complaints, usually would have sent them anyway, but today I thought a nice day snuggled up at home wouldn't hurt.
Trying to tidy up for a weekend family catch up with Gary's relly's who we haven't seen for many years. Lunch for 20 on Sunday, so need to get organised!
I also realised how much yarn I have in my stash! Trying to find a home for it all so I can start using it up! Time to get organised in that department too.
I'm wondering how many items you need ideally to start a little shop on Etsy or Madeit, what do you think would be a minimum?

Have a great day!

My creative space #9.....

Blogtober 14th

......turning my little crochet circles into buttons. I am having fun embroidering these and doing the tiny crochet. It's a bit slow because I'm still trying to work out how to stop the threads all tangling on the back when I do the flowers. Never mind I'm sure it will get quicker as I go along.
They turn out really cute. (I think.)

See what others are doing in their creative spaces over at Kirsty's.

Have a great day, (it's nice to post early in the day instead of my recent 10pm efforts!)

Wordless Wednesday....

Blogtober 13th

Chookie Woes....

Blogtober 12th

We have had chooks at our place for a couple of years now, and up till now we have had healthy, happy hens who entertain us with their clucking and scratching around. The last week or so we had a couple of sickies who died over night, I don't know what was wrong with them, maybe they were getting old and more vulnerable to picking up a bug. I hope the others stay healthy, it is really sad to see our girls unhappy and off colour. We have 9 left and so far they seem fine, so fingers crossed. On a happier note, they are definately back laying, we are getting 7 - 8 eggs a day, they are such good layers!


On the hooky front, I have started making some little crocheted buttons and am embroidering little things on them. The first one looks pretty cute so I am happy, it is nice to do something a bit extra to just plain crochet. When I make a few more I will try and photograph them and show you .

I hope you had a great day!

at my house.....

...... contemplating what to make first with these gorgeous colours, plenty to choose from.....such a dilemma.....

Check out what's happening at other peoples homes today here.

to market, to market......

Blogtober 10th

While we were in the city for the night yesterday, I made sure we got in a bit early and I had time to check out the Finders Keepers Market which was on at Victoria Harbour. I always seem to get lost in that area so it was pretty amazing I actually found the place, But I' m really glad I did! There were heaps of fantastic handmade stalls, just heaven for a handcraft crazy or anyone into things that are a bit different. IT WAS ACE!


I just had to show the cute necklaces I bought. This gorgeous little babushka one with 5 little dolls on a chain. I love it!


And this sweet bird pendant I couldn't pass up!


They are all handpainted onto acrylic and cut out and sealed with a varnish then put on chains, I think they are very funky and I had a lot of comments on them when I wore them last night. I got them from Jubly-Umph Originals, a Melbourne based jewelery designer. I really liked a lot of their stuff and the retro quirky feel her artwork has.


There were so many fab stalls at that market, it was kind of hard to take it all in, and I'm sure I missed heaps of lush goodies. I hope they hold it again, I definately would go with a bit more time ( and money!) next time.

I hope you all had great week ends too!
See you tomorrow!

Hand made Christmas Challenge......

Blogtober 9th

This week I thought I'd share some of my favourite biscuit\cookie recipes. I love to bake up a whole lot of different biscuits and package them up in nice tins or cellaphane bags with cute ties and give them out at Christmas to my friends. They all seem to like them, especially the non cooks amongst them. I have a growing collection of cookie cutters so it is fun to make lots of different shapes and give a nice mix in my packages.



Our Favourite Gingerbread
Every family probably has a family recipe for gingerbread, so here is mine.

125gr butter
1\2 cup brown sugar
1 egg yolk
2 1\2 cups plain flour(sifted)
1 tsp bicarb soda (sifted with flour)
3 tsp ginger (grated\crushed fresh or powdered)
2 1\2 tablespoons golden syrup

Cream butter, sugar and golden syrup, add egg yolk, beat well to combine. Add ginger, mix. Gradually add dry ingredients, mix well. If dough is too soft to handle, cover with cling wrap and put in fridge for a while to firm up. Knead lightly , roll out and cut out cookies in what ever shapes you want. Cook in moderate oven for 10 minutes ( about 180 degrees C on my oven).
Cool on tray.
---------------------------------------------------

Our Favourite Chocolate Chip Cookies

125gr butter
1 cup sugar ( mostly brown sugar, topped up with a bit of white sugar)
1 egg
1 3\4 Self Raising flour
1\2 bag choc chips

Cream butter, sugar. add egg, beaten in gradually. Sift flour in, mix well. add choc chip mix.
Shape into smallish balls, flatten slightly on trays. cook in moderate oven ( 180 degrees) for 10 minutes. Cool on trays. ( delicious still warm!)
-----------------------------------------------------

Crispy Coconut Biscuits
125gr butter
1 cup castor sugar
2 eggs
2 cups Self Raising Flour
1 cup coconut
1\4 cup sugar, extra

Cream butter, sugar, add eggs beat till combined. Stir in sifted flour, stir in coconut. roll into balls, dip on side in extra sugar and bake in hot oven ( about 190 -200 degrees in my oven) for 12 minutes or until light brown. Cool on tray.
------------------------------------------------------

Anzacs
1 cup rolled oats
1cup plain flour
1cup sugar
125 gr butter
2 tablespoons golden syrup
1\2 tsp bicarb soda
1 tablespoon boiling water

Combine dry ingredients in bowl. Combine butter and goldensyrup in saucepan, stir over gentl heat till melted. mix bicarb soda and water, add to melted butter, then add this mixture to dry ingredients, stir to combine. Place spoonfuls of mixture on trays. cook in slow oven (150 degrees)
for 20 minutes. cool on trays.
-------------------------------------------

I have more to share but I've run out of time today, so will stick a few more recipes up next week. To check out more on the Handmade Christmas Challenge see here at Knicky Knacks.
Have a great weekend!

Weekend Fun

Blogtober 8th

What a busy week! Thank goodness the weekend is coming, although we have a lot on anyway!
The Man and I are heading into Melbourne for Saturday night for his works awards night, at the Crown Casino no less, so I have to try and scrub myself up into looking semi decent, bought a new dress and new shoes, as I don't think the Blundstones are going to cut the mustard this time (even though they are super comfy). I'll have to get some new make up as I threw all my make up out a few months ago when I was told it actually has a used by date. Most of my stuff I've had for over 10 years so I think it's time for a fresh batch. It is kind of fun getting dressed up when you have somewhere good to go, don't you reckon!

The boys are going to my parents place and the eldest is going to a mates place, so we should all have a lovely weekend!
Hope you are doing something fun too!

P.S There is a very interesting looking market on this weekend in Melbourne. The Finders Keepers market is coming to the Docklands and looks like there will be some amazing stuff! Check it out here for more info, I'm going to have a look before we come home on Sunday, bonus great luck we just happen to be in the city when this is on!

My creative space #8....

Blogtober 7th

......today was really busy for me, work, then parent teacher interviews, then basketball for 2 boys, then home to change and basketball for me (first game for 22 yrs - totally out of my depth, have no idea what I was thinking when I agreed to play, already dreading next week!).

I did manage to find 2o minutes of creativity while watching the boys do their thing on the basketball court, and finished off this little baby bib from a pattern in one of the Japanese crochet books I got the other day. This one is a baby\toddler pattern book with some gorgeous little clothes and accessories to make. (Sorry, I can't remember the name and I can't read Japanese to tell you from the book!) I tried the bib to see how I'd go following a diagram pattern, and it wasn't too hard at all! Yay!

Anyway, here are a few more pages from the book to get you all drooling.........





I really love this little coat and hat!


I found these pattern books on etsy here.

Sorry about the poor quality of the photos, I'm running late today and there is no natural light.

So I hope you all are having a great day\night see you tomorrow!