Hooray for the Holidays!

Over the last couple of days apart from the time I took to make these costumes for Chicky Babe and Bek. They loved them! (oops! the way I've cropped these makes it look like the text has decapitated them! But they like to remain a little anonymous in this forum at least! )

I've spent a lot of time sifting through my computer bookmarks and linked posts etc to try and figure  out why I bookmarked them in the first place. Some of them are a complete mystery, I don't know what I was thinking others gave me a glimmer of inspiration and some complete envy! Anyway I've been sorting and 'Pinning" the photos of the ones that I want to keep as a reference. I am so totally enamoured with this sharing function BUT enough is enough! So very, very late last night I started drawing and decided that I needed to do some things rather than just think about them.

So today I've made a slip cover for a very comfortable but ugly chair that had scratchy acrylic fabric cover on it. Now it is comfortable and makes a bit of a statement in the hallway 'office' area where it currently resides. (Usually it lives in Bantam Boy's room but I'm sure he wont mind the new cover when he gets home again next week-Yay! He misses home too much. Awwwhhh. Anyway he painted one of his walls navy blue so it will fit nicely with his decor.)

My next job is to shorten the new curtains I bought for spring. And maybe continue with the drawing / painting that I started last night. I was considering abandoning it but Chicky Babe thinks it is ok as it is. I get very frustrated at my lack of drawing skills - I really need to do more! (Mental note: draw every day, practice makes perfect.) But as you know I don't like anything I do but I am trying to 'get over it' and just 'get on with it'. Because I am certainly not as hard on others as I am with myself.

I drew most of it with my left hand although I'm right handed generally I think I might be left handed when I am an artist???? I actually like the things I do with my left hand much more than those I do with my right! I'm tempted to keep playing with the face, but Chicky Babe said it looks Ok and that she look Spanish, let's just pretend I wanted it exactly that way.

Right! Back to it!!!!

Where has the time gone?

I spent most of my holidays unwell and this last week at school has been a blur. The low point included an abusive, graphically rude note put in my letterbox by a student I had growled at at school on the last day of last term. I don't expect that all kid will like me but I don't expect to be bothered at home by them. The mother was informed and she was beside herself with embarrassment so hopefully it wont happen again.

At least one little girl was so pleased to be back at school, in her words she missed me so much she wished there were no holidays. Everyone told me not to take it to heart but it isn't nice to be on the receiving end of something like that and when it follows you home it is a little unpleasant.
Bantam Boy's mocks are done, only a couple of weeks to the real thing. I am not convinced that there is anywhere near enough study being done. We are all a little grumpy and stressed around here at present so I have tried to stay away from here so as not to bore you all silly with my whinging! My posts my be few and far between until the end of this TEE caper. Although if I am not working (I was at school till 8pm on Friday getting stuff ready for art blast- a huge cross district display of children's art work.) I may have more time just to potter, organise my house and myself and maybe take some photos of what I've been doing.

My friend D and I went into the travel agent today to book our flights and organize our elephant trekking trip to Thailand. We plan to spend a night in Phuket, from there the elephant hills people will pick us up and take us into the national forest. Where we will do these things. (Photo's from the Elephant hills luxury tented camping tours website.)

This is D's 50th birthday wish - to trek on an elephant.

This is included...

if she can do it I'm sure I can!

I've started walking this week to help improve my fitness to make sure I can. I also bought one of those weekly tablet containers with the days marked on them to make sure I take my thyroid medication every day as I am supposed to... it might help me loose weight so that I am not mistaken for an elephant!!!!

One of the tents...
inside the tent. My kind of camping!


We will stay at the campsite in the middle of one of the oldest tropical rain forests in the world for a few nights then instead of returning to Phuket we are going to Krabi for a night or two. From there we will take the train to Hua Hin where we will spend a couple of nights before heading to Bangkok. We decided that the train trip would be an interesting way to see a bit of the countryside rather than seeing the inside of an airplane! We also thought that the contrast between the forest in a tent and such a huge city like Bangkok would be fascinating.

I have to admit I am a bit nervous, mostly as I will be leaving Chicky Babe here. But she will be 17 by then and is looking forward to spending 10-12 days on her own! I am worried that she might follow through on her threat to get rid of some of my junk-or tea cups and fabric as I call them. I'm sure she wouldn't....yeah I'm pretty sure she wouldn't ...would she?!?!

Holidays (Again!!!)

Oh my goodness the holidays are here again, I'm not complaining but gosh the time has flown past! Here's my holiday to do list.
1; Sew lots and lots of things for george st.
2; Go out into the garden and sit in the sunshine.
3; Maybe tend to the garden
4; Buy some soil and put it in the garden bed outside my french doors and plant some plants there.
5; Paint the bottom half of my house (outside) it is exactly the wrong shade of cream that does not match with the other shade of cream both chosen by the people that owned the house before I did.
6; Fix ie replace the bathroom sink top that has suffered water damage from a faulty tap.
7. Fix the faulty tap!!!!
8; Visit friends
9 Have friends come to visit;
10 NOT spend too much time looking at all the lovely things other people are doing on line.
11; More sewing
12 See a movie
13 Read at least one book.
14; Sew some new cusion covers for the patio area.
15; Sew myself some new clothes.
16; Get children's art work ready for a district wide schools art exhibition.
17; Transfer the last drawings onto the wall for the mural- that was supposed to be finished 5months ago!
18. Go swimming more often (if I did this once it would be more often!)
19; More sewing for stall
20 Even more sewing.

Teacup Tueasday - holiday projects

This is my afternoon tea and today's teacup. Pretty isn't it? The cake is my creation a plain vanilla cake with crasins (dried cranberries) added the icing is a butter icing with rosewater flavour.

Cranberry vanilla cake with rosewater icing.

125 g butter
3/4 cup caster sugar
1 tspn vanilla bean paste
3 eggs
3 cups SR flour
1/2 cup milk
About 2/3 cup crasins

Cream the butter and sugar beat in the eggs one at a time. sift the flour and add to the creamed butter an sugar alterating with the milk, folding in with a large metal spoon. Mix in cranberries. Spoon into prepared cake ring tin and bake for about 40 mins in a moderate oven. (aprox 180'C)

icing:
about 75g butter
about 1cup pure icing sugar
about 1 tspn of rose water

cream butter and icing sugar together add the rose water. if the icing is too thick add a tspn of milk at a time until desired consistency is achieved.
( I just had a thought that coconut milk in the icing and a sprinkling of coconut on the top would also be good. Being allergic to food colourings, I might try the juice of the preserved wild hibiscus flower that we put in champagne to give the icing a pink colour.)

I've been out of blogging action as we had used up all of our downloads and I was terrified of being charged outrageous ammounts for the excess.


This was supposed to be my holiday project!!! This is as it looked prior to the cleaning lady came. It did get tidied a bit but it is still not too good.

Some people from the council came yesterday and I think my studio is safe!! So once the letter arrives I will be able to continue with that and somewhat declutter the living areas of the house- although this is what I do and enjoy and house is where you live and do the things you love and enjoy so perhaps my whole house should be my studio! New thought I will ponder that a little more........




This is the house after the cleaning lady had been......Ahhhh, lovely!

I've actually had two of them in the last tree weeks. The first lady came and then she said she couldn't do it but she had a friend who could. I didn't mind I just wanted some help. It turned out that the 'friend' was her son's girlfriend who has come over from Thailand to be with her boyfriend who has been transfered back to Australia. Her English is not good enough for her to work as a personal assistant here yet so she is cleaning. Lucky for her I am a "Random Talker" (see previous post for definition) I can help her with her conversational English.

Over the holidays I have caught up with friends, done some baking

The ingredients...

mix them all together...

press them into the tin and bake...

Yum, Cammy's Father's Favourites!

I've crocheted some flowers that will end up on a floral fabric panel on a bag and done some sewing. I've made a skirt for a friend, like the one Chicky Babe modeled for me but purple not green and Ive made a wrap dress for me....

Have I said I love paisley before???? It's tricky taking pictures of yourself! Although I quite like the angle of it. Chicky Babe is at work and Bantam Boy is at the library studying on the holidays! I'm so proud of him!!! Proud of them both actually!!! They have grown up well - and I did it myself! (well... with some help from my friends and family)

I have another dress almost finished, another wrap dress but this time in black. I'll be off now to get back to it!