Thrifty Goodness

Picked these up from Camberwell Market a couple of weeks ago. Loving the 50s design on the cup/saucer set...thrilled with the price...$5.

When the woman was putting it in my bag she spied the Recipe Box and asked me how much I'd paid for it. I told her ($5) and she said ''A dealer bought it from me this morning for a $1. Argh. All swings and merry-go-rounds.

A little bit of sewing.

Thump, thump.

My hand-made hearts.

Have you ever put your head underwater and listened to the sound of your heart beating?

Corners of my Home

Soule Mama started corners of my home ages ago. Here's one of mine.

Emma and I both went a little stamp crazy last weekend...but who could resist these?? Not me. The trees/acorn set came from zakkaya. So lucky to have such a beautiful shop near by, well, closer than Japan anyway.

Picked up some fabric, too from IKEA (solid red and white stripes) and bright and breezy pieces from calico and chintz in Auburn Road, Hawthorn.

Had such a lovely time pausing, pondering over colours and patterns. Now I have to do something with it!

Have a great weekend.x

Yayy. Finally got around to making some of these, thanks to two great tutorials over at Craftapalooza and Hello My Name Is Heather . Not sure what I'm going to do with them, but I'll think of something. Yesterday Em and I went to the Camberwell Market...don't get there very often, so it was great to get some bargains. I scored about five metres of fabric for $2!! I always seem to find a whole heap of stuff I can't live without; cute 50s recipe box, white cane basked, old jars (put all those buttons in) and four enamel bowls covered in big red flowers.

Finally the rain arrived. As soon as the wind cooled, flung every door in the house open. Bliss.

The Remarkable Disguised As The Ordinary

Lately I've been looking a some my stuff with new eyes; things I've dragged from city to country, house to house.

I think it's all part of getting used to the idea of having our own home (we plan to start serious house-hunting in lat Feb). Anyway, I was thinking about how every-day objects can be significant - a vessel we fill with private meaning and significance.

I don't treat every single thing I own with the same level of intensity but I think it explains my habit of picking up rocks, sticks, feathers and shells - they each have a secret life. They all become a little talisman, a reminder of a happy moment I'm not quite ready to forget.

TABLESPOON

My mum gave me this Tablespoon years and years ago. I think it was when I first moved out of home. I have a vague recollection of cooking something - feeling very independent and not having one.

I love this spoon - it's strong, faded, reliable, lovely to hold and to look at, slightly battered and I've used it a billion times and it's always exactly where I think it will be.

Loobylu inspired me to have another go at making a doll. This is my version of her lovely doll from this fantastic Japanese craft book. It took me about five hours to make but I enjoyed most of it - except stuffing and turning out her skinny arms - that part nearly drove me crazy. It was good to be sewing again, picking out fabric, winding on thread. I always feel a little giddy when I've finally finished making something.

The rest of the weekend was spent trying to put the house in order, packing away the last of Christmas, going through The Drawer - you know the one you open, stuff junk in and walk away from. I do a lot of that; magazine clippings, receipts, old train tickets, pens, notebooks. Em and re-arranged some furniture and I cleaned out three boxes full of woollen scarves and put half in a bag for GoodWill.

By seven o'clock the house was clean and cozy, candles on the mantle were lit and Em had made her famous Bean Burgers for dinner with homemade honey and walnut yoghurt for dessert.

The only downside was the time we spent watching the horribly disappointing The Lady in the Water by M. Night Shyamalan. Can this be the same guy who made The Sixth Sense? The lead, Paul Giamatti did a good job but the story just crumbled under the weight of Shyamalan's heavy-handedness.

Sorry Em. Your pick next time.

Free Book Friday

If everything goes according to plan, Emma and I will be house-hunting next month, so it's time for me to let go of some stuff, hence the return of FBF.

1. Be the first to post I Want This Book!

2. Email me your name and postal address.

3. I'll send the book to you for free.

4. Enjoy book.

Second Honeymoon by Joanna Trollope. I really enjoyed this one - gentle, observant, Trollope has a talent for revealing the core of her fictional families.

I think Em and I have waiting for the right moment to buy a Chasseur pot for about three years. Well friends, the moment has arrived. We found this navy blue, round, dutch oven on sale in Echuca. I'm pathetically excited. I want winter to hurry up so I can make a hearty soup or cook a hunk of something for a seven hour stretch!

I know a pot can't make me a better cook - just like a beautiful new journal with creamy paper and deckled edges can't make me a better writer... but it makes me want try.

READING:

Decca: The Letters of Jessica Mitford

Loving it. JK Rowling reviewed it for The Daily Telegraph

We've unloaded the last of the bags from the car but the sand lingers. We had six lovely days by the beach and I've come back feeling as if I've finally exhaled a year's worth of tightly woven stress.

The second I saw the sea I felt the muscles in my shoulders relax. I'd forgotten just how wonderful it is to be near a large body of water, especially one that's strongly connected to so many of my memories growing up.

What compares to a wave? The sound, the contours? I think I'm still drunk on fresh air. A few highlights: cricket on the beach, swimming with my family at dusk, watching a dog chase a ball into the surf, cooking prawns in a pan with butter and garlic, walking in the rainforest, climbing a hill that overlooks the town and the harbour, watching a sting ray unfurl itself in the shallows, eating crayfish three times! Staying up late playing board games, collecting stones and shells, finding a perfectly round rock-pool crowded with starfish, listening to the rain on the roof, reading a book... for hours at a time, watching the night sky turn pink as flares shot into the air at the stroke of midnight... with people I love.

I hope you had a good one too.

Merry Christmas

One last frantic post before Christmas arrives. Every year I hope to greet the day feeling calm and self-possessed. Maybe next year. Then again, Em and I are always much more organised than we think. All that's left to do is wrapping and few more cards to write. Tuesday night was supposed to be the night I baked. I did bake, in the sense that I made a massive mess in the kitchen. Stupidly I decided not to make my usual batch of Gingerbread cookies and just whip up a very simple butter cookie recipe. I'm still not sure about the details but when I took the first tray out of the oven, something didn't look right. I tasted one. Arhhhh. Hmmm, hot flour cookie is what I got. I think I forgot to double the sugar.
Em thought I was nuts and tried to convince me that all that was needed was a slap of icing sugar...but it was hopeless. Ended up hurling said cookies into the bin. At eleven I was still up to my armpits in sticky mixture, flour, snow-flake cookie cutters, spoons and trays. Sigh. I made my Gingerbread instead...last night and they turned out beautifully. So there's a Christmas miracle for you.


Em and I are off for a couple of weeks, heading to Apollo Bay where we plan to swim, walk in forest, eat crayfish and read.

I hope you all have a bright, peaceful Christmas full of laughter and love. See you in a couple of weeks. x

PS: Christmas lunch was brilliant!

...meanwhile, preparations for our Christmas lunch continue. Here are the place-cards. Kept it simple...that part, anyway. At the risk of sounding corny...Em and I came up with something nice to say about each person in my family...and wrote in on the back of the card.
Em and I both have Friday off work, so up goes the bunting, tables, chairs etc out onto the verandah. Saturday morning we'll start on the final touches: flowers, cloths, napkins, ice and Em will get a chance to fire up our bbq before my lovely brother-in-laws turn up and demand ''burning food'' rights.

Let It Snow - Man!

So here is my Snowman. The idea came from Marth Stewart Living Magazine (December). I don't have it with me...but I think he's meant to look like a vintage, cotton decoration that were popular in the early 1900s. He was a little fiddly. Basically it's a couple of polystyrofoam balls, fuzzy pipe-cleaners, white craft glue mixed with water and tissues cut into thin strips. Martha uses cotton wool...but I didn't have any on hand, hence the tissues.
I've made...whatever the collective noun is for four snowmen...a huddle of snowmen? A frost of snowmen? A drift of snowmen? Anyway, lots of fun.

So glad today is cooler than the last two days of intense heat. Our town was covered in thick smoke, despite the fact that we're about 150ks from any major bush fire. Fires are still burning now - thousands of hectares but luckily, no lives lost.

Em and I caught up with friends on Saturday but Sunday afternoon, I had a bit of time for crafting. No photos yet but it did strike me as slightly odd to be making snowmen while outside, it was the hottest December day on record for 53 years. Even Toby was zapped of all energy.

Also gearing up for our Family Christmas lunch on the 16th...arrrhhh. The dining room has been turned into Command Central where everything from tablecloths, glasses, platters to cake stands are all about to topple over. Still, it's kind of fun to get ready for a big event. Our mantra has been "keep it simple" - but it never turns out that way.

For more cute Snowmen look here Rock Paper Scissors, My Little Mochi

o tanenbaum...

Had a lot of fun making these...Soft Tree pattern kindly posted by Little Birds Handmade. Thank you!

Colliwood

Last Sunday Em and I went to the premiere of Charlotte's Web. I adored the book when I was little but wasn't a fan of the animated movie...but the new film version was great. Julia Roberts did a great job as the voice of Charlotte, too.

Little Dakota Fanning turned up...with a tiny pig on a leash...the "after party" was at the Collingwood Children's Farm, which they'd done up to look like a New England Country Fair complete with rides, pumpkins, lemonade stands etc. I'll admit it...I took my camera and couldn't help but snap a few shots of Dakota. Mr and Mrs Fanning looked very Hollywood and it was all slightly surreal but there were hundreds of kids who looked like they were having the time of their lives...and yes, we had fun, too!

They look like little hats but they're actually paper cones. On Saturday 16 December Em and I are having my family over for a Christmas BBQ ... that means 22 for a sit down lunch! I should be busy collecting chairs because the way we're going - people will be pulling up a nice, sturdy crate to sit on. Instead, I've been folding and sticking these - a little departing gift we'll fill up with goodies.

12 down, 10 to go.

I've just finished reading The Lost Happy Ending, a beautiful picture book by UK poet, Carol Ann Duffy with illustrations by Jane Ray. It's about a little girl who collects Endings and releases them every night into the "violet evening air". When a (very) nasty witch steals a sack of happy endings, every bedtime story ends on a bad note: Hansel and Gretel are trapped in the ginger-bread house and Snow White dies. I won't spoil the ending...
The illustrations are rich, colourful and vibrant...but, like original fairytales (before Disney got hold of them) it's on the darker side of happy.

I've also started re-reading Holidays On Ice by David Sedaris. I rarely re-read books but this guy's experience as a Macy's elf is priceless.

I crafted like a crazy woman this weekend. Yes, felt did fly. Finished my ornaments for the swap, made some rubber stamps, typed up some little cards, baked an apple cake, made an elephant, kitty, duck.. - NOTHING got in my way. My sewing machine was on fire! Fun.