My Creative Space........

.................is hopefully here on the couch a bit later on. Quite a few projects on the go at the mo. so it's high time I finished a few off!

Have a great day, and find lots of creative spaces at Kirsty's place .

Happy Australia Day!!

Hello everyone!
Happy Australia Day to all you Aussies out there, I hope you had a lovely day!

Gary's work were putting on an Australia Day BBQ in the gardens in the heart of Melbourne today, so we thought we would go up and check things out, we live about 2 hrs out of the city so we drove in and made a day of it. And we had a lot of fun!! ( I think even my teenagers would agree it wasn't a bad family fun day!!)


The older 2 decided to get patriotic and get some body art done, I think they looked ace!


The streets were closed to cars, so we could all walk on the roads which was great, as there were heaps of people out and about!



There was a big parade down Swanston St with lots of cool floats and performers, My faves were the guys in giant kangaroo suits on stilts with huge springs on their feet bouncing and bounding along with all the cultural displays. Very entertaining!


....more pretty floats....


....and colourful costumes....


Andre, Max and I went to the fab Childrens Garden at the Melbourne Botanic Gardens, there is this huge river gum tree trunk that is nearly 10 000 yrs old, it had been preserved in ground water until it was uncovered and now it is part of this brilliant garden, so interesting! If you ever get a chance to take your kids to this garden I would highly recommend it , they have a ball!
(It gets a bit crowded on public holidays though!)


We checked out the Gallery......


And went up to the Eureka Skydeck 88 floors up! This is a view of the Yarra river from the Skydeck, with Max putting on a brave face as he is a bit scared of heights! We went on the Edge experience, where you go in a glass room that is moved out over the edge of the building and then you can see straight down under your feet, the cars looked like toys and the people looked like ants, The views were spectacular and you could see right around Melbourne and all across the bay, breathtaking! It was a fun experience, so thanks Jack, Denise and Tony for a fab Chrissy pressie!

What else?.......Dog racing and competitions (strangely compelling), Dutch pancakes (yum!), aeroplane fly overs and aerial acrobatics (super amazing),watching setting up a massive fireworks display ( some people had to work still), looking through Government house, lots of beautiful vintage cars that made me feel ashamed at how I keep my car, wandering the gorgeous gardens, waving Aussie flags, throwing coins in the pond around the Gallery, eating ice creams, pizzas on St Kilda foreshore for dinner, fireworks in Mornington ...............It has been a big day!

Hello Chickadee.....

Sooo.... here's the latest granny animal to my collection, Chickadee!
Perhaps looking a little more parrot like than I intended, but anyhoo, I think she is kind of cute!


Full view of Chickadee, the wings don't sit like this naturally, I was just trying to show the scalloped edges.

Face detail, and feathers on top, they are the part I like the most!

I'm thinking these animals are going to be my first items in my new endeavour, a shop on line, if I can get myself organised! What do you think? Etsy or Madeit?

Have a great day!

Granny Teddy.........

Hi there!
How has your week started? Have you got a busy one planned or nice and cruisey like us still on school holidays? We are going to be doing a few things for the second last week of the holidays, and my niece is coming for a couple of nights, so it should go pretty quickly. My sister is about to have her baby any time this week, so it is all quite exciting!

Here is the latest addition to my granny animal toys, he is supposed to be a teddy but has turned out a bit ambiguous! I just keep telling myself he's a teddy, and that it takes all types of teddies to make this world, he's just a less pretty version of teddyness!


Had to unpick the face several times, as getting the colour combos right and my stitching neat took some time, I ended up using a 4ply for the embroidery as my usual 8ply looked too chunky.




I am so enjoying making these guys, I have nearly finished another one, I'll show you all tomorrow, although you are all probably sick of seeing softies! Sorry, but I have still got a few more to try out yet!

Have a great day!

summer chicken soup.....

Hi there, how is your weekend going? We are having a good one so far , the boys are all occupied and busy and I'm getting to finish some little hooky projects, happy days!

Now......remember these lovely vegies from my garden? Well, I thought I'd share with you a recipe that I love, and how I used the spring onions and yellow zucchinis.
I call it Summer Chicken Soup, just cause it's Summer here now and the vegies are Summer harvest ones, but it is delicious any time of the year really, and I thought all you poor Northern Hemisphere ladies freezing through Winter might like a lovely warming soup to try! I really love soup and will eat it at any time of the year!

I also have a bit of a sweet corn glut at the moment so I am using a fair bit in this soup but you can used tinned corn just as well.

So here is the recipe......


SUMMER CHICKEN SOUP


4 skinless chicken thigh fillets
1 bunch spring onions, white parts chopped/sliced
2 zucchinis, yellow or green, chopped
2 sticks celery, chopped
4 cobs of corn, or tin of creamed corn
1 tbsp crushed ginger
1 tbsp low salt soy sauce
chicken stock (around 2-3 litres or 2-3 tsp powdered stock)
chopped parsley

Put chicken, spring onions, zucchinis and celery into soup pot and add chicken stock to cover. Bring to the boil then simmer for around 1 hour.
While this is simmering cook corn cobs in another pot of boiling water for about 5 minutes. drain and let cool, then cut off corn kernels and put aside.
(if you are using tinned corn don't worry about this step!)
After 1 hour is up, add corn, ginger, and soy sauce and simmer for further 30 minutes.
Remove chicken fillets from pot and chop up ( they should kind of shred up easily), add back to soup.
Taste for seasoning, and add salt and pepper as required. Add parsley and turn off heat.
Serve with a little chopped parsley or coriander or chopped spring onion on top.
If you like a thicker soup, you can add a tbsp or 2 of corn flour to a little water and mix in while it is simmering towards the end of the cooking time.

Eat up and enjoy!

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On a different subject, I wanted to tell you about a great idea to help all the people affected by the floods here in Australia,
the amazingly talented Sarah London has come up with the
Crochet a Rainbow appeal and is asking for crocheted granny squares to be made into blankets for those who have lost everything in the floods.

It is a small way of bringing a bit of sunshine into their lives at a pretty dark time, and is a great way for someone (like me!) to show that we care and are thinking about our flood affected countrymen and women.

So check it out if you want to help, Sarah is taking sign up on her blog here.

Pottering and Meandering.....

Hello there!

I don't seem to have much to blog about at the moment with the holidays in full swing, we are happy meandering through each day, the boys are having massive sleep ins so are really only getting a bit over half days to do things in ( but they do like to stay up at night, they are becoming nocturnal I think, or vampires!).

I have been pottering around in the garden, so I thought I'd show you how some of the vegetable patch is getting on. The photo above is a view over my main vegie garden, with carrots in the foreground and my sweetcorn bed at the back, also can see some of the huge zucchini plants.



The sunflowers are well over my head and beautiful, so summery!




The sweetcorn has gone off this year and produced a great crop of cobs, they should be ready to eat soon, yum!


Another thing that has grown really well this summer is this stuff, perpetual spinach, which is a cross between silverbeet and english spinach, it looks like silverbeet and tastes and cooks like spinach, delicious! I am told it should keep going for about 5 years if we keep picking it, pretty good value I reckon!


The zucchinis have gotten away from me this year. I keep finding these monsters under the leaves That I swear weren't there the day before, this is a collection of big whoppers that are destined for the chooks! I picked around 12 that were good eating size so I'll be looking for recipes to use them up.


This is what I collected for dinner today, I'm making fried rice with most of it, the potatoes might wait till tomorrow.


On the crafty front, I am trying to work out a pattern and write it down, not my usual way of working but I would like to make more of these toys, and maybe share a tutorial down the track.

So what happening at your place?
Have a great day!

Chillaxing in the sun.....

So how is your weekend going? Having lots of fun or chilling out and relaxing? We are doing a bit of both. Yesterday the sun finally came out after a very wet, humid week, so my friend and I took the kids to a local beach. The water was really nice but had a brown tinge near the sand due to all the rain washing lots of debris into it from a couple of creeks.


The boys had lots of fun with their mates swimming out to a pontoon and jumping off and playing in the sand.


This is my friend relaxing on the beach, we pretty much chilled out and enjoyed the sun with a few magazines and a swim when it got too warm, not a bad way to kill an afternoon!



Max and his friend with a buried younger brother that looks like he has eaten a bit of sand! I remember doing this when we were kids on our summer holidays, good fun!
We went out to dinner at a friends place last night and had a great time, a late night but so worth it!


Meanwhile back at the house I had this messy space waiting for a bit of finishing off. Hopefully later today I'll get a chance to get stuck into it. I am going to try and have some more things finished soon to show you!

I am glad to see that the flooding in Queensland is slowing down, now all those poor people have a huge clean up ahead of them, so much damage!
It looks like it's Victoria's turn for floods, I hope everyone stays safe and the damage isn't too extensive. I don't think it will effect us here too much, but I am thinking about all the people in the north of the state.

Kitty Cat arrives....

I think I told you last post that I'm enjoying making toys at the moment, well here is another one! It's supposed to be a cat, hope you could tell! Maybe I'll call her Kitty Cat, not too original but whatever......


She is a bit bigger than Eddie Owl, and took a bit longer with the arms and legs, but fun to make!


....whiskers are a bit wonky....but what the hey.....


Who can believe all the rain we are having, and all the terrible flooding up north, so sad and terrifying. I hope everyone is safe and dry, with plenty of time to get out of the waters path.
Although it looks like some areas were taken completely by surprise, very scary. Mother Nature is certainly showing how wild and extreme she can be. Stay safe all you Queenslanders.

Little owl softie....

Hi there!

Meet Eddie Owl!

Here are some photos of my finished owl project, it was fun to make, as I didn't have a pattern (except for the sunburst granny square) and just made it up as I went.


Did a bit of embroidery around his face - you like?


.....standing up......


......back view with wings......

I am right into making toys at the moment and I have another made up critter nearly finished, so should be able to show you soon.

It's a pretty crappy day here, over cast and humid, so I am going to take the boys to spend some Christmas money, and then I might get a bit more hooky time in, sounds like a good plan to me!
Have a great day!

Holidays......

Hello there!

Well, I have taken some cute photos of my new project finished, but I can't upload them at the moment because our USB connectors all seem to be stuffing up and won't read my memory card. Huge bummer!! I realise how it is so hard to write an interesting post about crafty things without pictures! So sorry, the big reveal will have to wait till we fix the problem!

On other fronts, we are having nice relaxing summer holidays here, just come home from a few hours at the beach in Somers, (our local beach, there are a few other nice swimming beaches close by too) the water was divine, just right for a 35 degree day! The boys and I had a lovely swim and then bought killer pythons on the way home, to satisfy our sweet tooth! I don't envy Gary, who is slogging it out on the golf course, but each to their own!

Off to a friends place for dinner tonight, so will have a lovely evening I think!

Hope you are all having a nice weekend, too!

New project.......

So, just a little peek at something I'm working on today, making it from my imagination so there is a fair bit of frogging going on, but it's fun making something from a wisp of an idea!
Just more granny goodness!

New Year Resolutions...where do I start...

OK , 2011 (I mean the year, I don't actually have 2011 individual resolutions!) resolutions, might be better to call them goals....

1. cook more from my lovely library of cookbooks, say once a week try a new recipe.....

2. eat better, eat less, drink more water, drink less alcohol......

3. Get back some fitness...

4. do the above, and hopefully 16kgs will melt away by November for my 40th birthday..

5. start a shop online, maybe etsy, and sooner rather than later, say February for a goal...

6. finish crochet and knitting projects completely, not 'nearly complete', that is not good enough this year, especially if I want to actually have some things to sell...

7. save a heap of money, deposit more than I withdraw and I hope this goal will be achieved!...

8. get my potentially very productive garden up into peak production again...

9. grow most of our vegetables (if I do 8, then 9 will be possible)...

10. be an ace mum to my boys, remember to listen and hear them, and remember they are fab individuals with their own ideas and interests, which will probably be very different to mine..

11. continue to dream big, but also do more to make the dreams reality, less procrastination, more action...

12. laugh a lot..

13. appreciate my man a bit more, have a bad tendency to take things for granted sometimes..

14. blog more consistently..



I think I'll stop there, that should be enough to go on with I think!
Soooo... I'm sure everyone has plenty of resolutions at this time of year, I like how it feels like anything is possible for the coming year. My life is pretty ace, so if it's just more of the same I'll be happy with that too!

Bring on 2011!