A cappella tribute to John Williams

Thanks Sirpa!!

Thoughtful Friday

Be still and know that I am God........ Psalms 46:10

A fantastic giveaway!

Grosgrain: Commissioned Watercolor Portrait GIVEAWAY!!!!

the making of a Funky Ball

or...... how to turn this:
into this:

Filling: 1/4 cup rice or sand (and we used small round balloons)

Uses: countless...... stress relief (squishing the ball is very relaxing), juggling, throwing/catching to name but a few..

Tip: when adding the second and the third balloon layer, make sure the opening to the previous layer is covered. This adds strength.

Time to measure up

After a little pondering on the subject, I have come to the conclusion that the public health ads on TV are most effective in this household when the kids have seen them...... Hence Turtle's insistence that I have my pap-test (he still does not know what it means, only that I need to have one every 2 years).

The most recent ad to register on Doodlebug's radar is the Dept of Health's "Measure Up" campaign. Doodlebug was sitting next to me as the ad came on the screen, and he was paying close attention, then there was a little frown on his face..... and then:
D: "Mum.... is your waist bigger than 87 metres?"
me: "Do you mean centimetres, sweetheart?..... and yes, it probably is"
D: "But, Mum...... that means your at increased risk of heart disease!"
(can't argue with facts, now can I?)

Doodlebug has been on my case for a couple of years now.....
we've had

"Mum..... you should do the Special K Challenge!"

followed by:
"Would you like those?" (Jenny Craig meals)

and then (and I particularly like this one!):
"Mum...... do you just eat too much, or do you have a low metabolism?"

So....... I'm hearing you, Doodlebug, and adding your voice to my inner voice.....it's time for me to measure up (or down, as the case may be).

I am enlisting the help of my lovely friend Jenny the naturopath, and I dread to think what sacrifices I will have to make :) but she promises me that my sweet-tooth will actually disappear. I might mourn the loss...... we have been companions for such a long time, my sweet tooth and I...... :)

(no chocolate was consumed in the production of this post, but the choc muffins in the oven are dangerously close!)

a thought on the environment

Rev Richard Sizic on our responsibility and stewardship:

"God is not going to ask us how old we think the Earth is, but He will want to know what we have done with His creation"

(I heard him say this in a radio interview yesterday morning and thought he hit the nail on the head)

engage Smell-O-Vision...

Maybe if your nose is close enough to the screen you will be able to smell this Apple Cinnamon muffin, fresh out of the oven.....

In an effort to make our school canteen a little more healthy, we have cut out 3/4 of the items on the menu and replaced them with freshly made items. The iceblocks and other assorted frozen sweet/coloured water confections went and Funky Fruits arrived - frozen grapes, frozen orange slices and watermelon bites (blended watermelon frozen in plastic shot-glasses) These are extremely popular!

We're not completely cold-hearted, so although we have done away with the commercially made choc chip muffins, we did decide to put home-made apple cinnamon muffins on the menu.

Here's the recipe for these deliciously moist, cinnamony muffins:

Ingredients:

1 cup wholemeal self-raising flour

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 cup natural yoghurt or sour cream

1/4 cup vegetable oil (I use canola)

2 tsp ground cinnamon

1 large egg

1 Granny Smith apple, peeled, cored and grated

(makes 12 muffins)

Mix all ingredients together, spoon into muffin cases , sprinkle a mix of cinnamon and sugar on top and bake at 180 C for 12-14 min.

Enjoy...... mmmmm

more inner growth and a fabric collage for the wall

Yesterday after school Little Possum and I dived into a pile of scrap fabrics. Armed with scissors, a blank canvas and a pot of ModPodge (marvellous stuff) we set about making a fabric collage.

LP told me what should be in our picture, and I made pencil sketch lines on the canvas - lines for the sun, clouds, hill, tree etc.

We talked about the colours that we'd need for our picture, and we made it a mini art lesson as we discussed the use of darker vs lighter shades of colours to define depth and to add perspective (although we followed our own rules here.....)

Let the fun begin! Fabrics were selected and sorted into piles according to colours and values. Finding floral fabrics on a green background was a bonus - we cut out the flowers to use in our picture.

Then we went to work cutting the fabrics into random shapes before gluing them into place on our picture. We started with the blue of the sky (leaving the spaces for the sun and clouds)

It was a gloriously sticky jigsaw puzzle.

When all the pieces were in place we painted ModPodge all over. I love our new sunny picture which now hangs on the wall.

I wish I had some photos along the way, but our fingers were seriously sticky and I also didn't want to break the flow of creative juices :)

Some time ago Carli, my montage inspiration, made her scrappy tree collage using papers. As I visited her post to make a link here, I re-read it and realised that her collage was also a Friday creation. There must be something about Fridays and glue! Free from homework Friday makes a perfect day for unhibited gluing.... and sticking..... and painting.....

today....... ahh, today was a great day!

"Every human being has the capacity to create - not only the capacity, but the need to create.

To create is part of inner growth"

- Michele Cassou

Welcome to the Twilight Craft Zone!

I thought I'd do some laundry - but I was out of detergent, and decided it could wait another day

I thought I'd tidy the toyroom - but decided the children will turn it upside down as soon as they come home from school. That too can wait another day.

I thought I'd do some other housework-like things - but decided I can do those things while talking to the kids this afternoon.

So, instead I decided to do a few projects I can't do while the kids are around, projects involving stapleguns and rotary-cutters and moments of concentration and solitude (free of interruptions).

/sighing contentedly/ It's been a great day:

Made a cover and penholder for my journal. The penholder idea came from a Flickr demonstration/tutorial.... I'll see if I can find it again to post a link!

Managed to use some fabric stash! Result!

Decided to do some work on my "Butterfly Garden" quilt (by Leanne Beasley)... and did some more cutting and assembling of blocks ready for applique and embroidery as well as a little stitching on this block.

Made the first border for Little Possum's stitcheries.... am still trying to decide whether to just have the gingham border or to add another strip of a darker fabric..... but which one? Have decided on white frames.

Started working on this message board.... but ran out of purple ribbon. To Be Continued..
Made some sketches.... I am not an artist as you can see, but I have some ideas that I wanted to play with..... can you tell what the figures are?

My inner growth is so far ahead of my outer growth that I am going to have a snack before going out to do the canteen stocktake at school. Productive day? I think so.

Thoughtful Friday

"Nature will bear the closest inspection,

She invites to lay our eye level with her smallest leaf

and take the insect view of her plain"

- Henry David Thoreau

crafting for a higher purpose

This week I find myself inspired. The source of this inspiration is SouleMama and her project Mama to Mama. This website was set up to give us crafters an opportunity to make a difference by doing what we love doing - crafting! The initial project (I am sure there will be more to come!) will benefit newborns in Northern Haiti where maternal mortality is the highest in the Western Hemisphere. Women mostly give birth without skilled help, and 1 in 40 women die from pregnancy or childbirth related complications. Konbit Sante is a volunteer organisation working to improve health conditions and they need basic maternity packs. The contribution we are invited to make is these little newborn knotty caps. Perfect opportunity to find a use for old cotton t-shirts! Patterns are available on the Mama to Mama website.

This afternoon I was sorting through Little Possum's clothes looking for outgrown items to recycle/reuse. I found some leggings and experimented a little. Guess what? The legs are perfect to turn into little beanies/knotty caps! Cut the leg off, a couple of seams to taper the leg a little more and hemming up (I haven't done the hemming yet in the photo below).

I would imagine that sleeves from long-sleeved t-shirts would work equally well as long as the diameter isn't too big!

This particular pair were a bit of a drab colour perhaps..... not many newborns in chocolate brown...., but it worked for a practice.

by popular demand....... Witches Fingers recipe!

A little late for this year's Hallowe'en, but you should have lots of time to plan for next year... :)

WITCHES FINGERS

1 cup butter

1 cup icing sugar

1 egg

1 tsp almond essence (and remember.... you now have to be 18 to buy this here in Oz....)

1 tsp vanilla essence/concentrate

2 2/3 cups plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

3/4 cup whole almonds - blanched

red cake decorating gel/writing gel

Preheat oven to 160 C

Beat butter, sugar, egg, almond essence and vanilla until soft.

Gradually beat in flour, baking powder and salt until mixed.

Cover dough and refrigerate for 30 min - makes dough easier to work with.

Work with 1/4 of the dough at a time -

roll a tbsp worth of dough into a finger shape

press almond into one end for a nail

shape the knuckles - you could be really creative and score the knuckles slightly to make them look even more authentic.

Place on lightly greased baking sheet and bake for 20-25min or until a nice pale golden (shortbread sort of colour)

Cool cookies down for a few minutes, then pull the almond off gently, put some red gel on the nailbed and press the almond back down... the gel should ooze out around, making it look deliciously disgusting.

Eat....

stitch by stitch

One little princess, one castle and one fairy princess, all genuine Little Possum designs lovingly embroidered by me.

Now I will be diving head first into my scraps tub to find the perfect fabrics to frame these treasures with. LP has some very nice cotton pyjamas that she has outgrown, and the fabric has some beautiful small roses. Might just do the job for one of the borders.


The final goal? I pondered a cushion, and I pondered a wallhanging before finally settling for 3 separate pictures that I will have framed. I am thinking family heirloom here! :)


Turtle is asking for his own work to be immortalised, so I am gathering some of his monster drawings and rocket/space drawings until I decide on a theme.

fairy friends

Take one mango box, some cardboard rolls, some scraps and glue..... the fairies are happy to have a home as luxurious as this, I am sure.


Although I do believe that the natural fairy habitat is in our flowerbed, it would seem that these particular 3 have become quite used to the trappings of indoor living. Making themselves right at home, they are. Given to have tea parties anywhere, anytime! The blue-winged one is a rather messy eater too, by the looks of things!

Little Possum has entered into correspondence with the fairies still in the garden, and she leaves tiny cards among the flowers for them to find. They are very polite fairies and always leave a card in return. LP saves these in her little treasure chest.

In a moment of doubt LP asked me to provide a handwriting sample to make sure it wasn't me writing the cards...... but my sample script wasn't small enough so LP is satisfied that it is indeed her little fairy friends leaving her letters.

lost for words?

My best find for the kids in October was this website. My kids all love doing wordsearches, and I think they are fantastic for helping with reading skills as well as being fun. The Wordsearch generator allows you to type in the words that you want to use in a puzzle. This way you can set the degree of difficulty (eg the number of words) and the theme. Setting the theme around a child's favourites like Pokemon characters or fairytale creatures makes it even more fun, and you can sneak a few spelling list words in too!
Happy puzzling!

trick or treat!

the food.......

the costumes......

the loot......

and the comments in the car on the way home from the Trunk or Treat activity:

"Mum, that was AWESOME!"

"This was the best day of my life!!"

if only it were so simple.....

Doodlebug is 9 years old now, and is starting to pay serious attention to the world around him and the issues at hand. Like the upcoming US election.

D: "It's the US presidential election on Tuesday"
Me: "Yes.. do you know who the candidates are?"
D: "Obama... Barack Obama and John McCain", "but who's the woman?"
Me: "That's Sarah Palin - she is McCain's running mate and will be the VP if he wins"
D: "So who's Obama's mate?"
(more discussion on the VP role)

Doodlebug then wanted to know who was the republican and the democrat, and
D: "What's the difference?"
cue a very simplified explanation of tax, welfare, health and education issues (we'll save foreign policy for another time) and how the 2 parties have different ideas of how to run the country, how to get money in and how to spend it.

When we got to tax and welfare, and the Democrat idea of increasing taxes to help those who need it, spreading the wealth. Doodlebug thought this was a great idea.

"After all, Mummy, those who are doing allright and have lots of money can help those who need it. They'll still be doing allright".

How do I explain the nature of greed, the attitude that "I earned it, I keep it..... let others sort themselves out" to a 9 yr old who thinks sharing makes perfect sense? If only it were that simple.

Thoughtful Friday

" The quality of mercy is not strain'd,

It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven

Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest;

It blesseth him that gives and him that takes (...)"

- William Shakespeare

("Merchant of Venice")

it's getting a bit spooky around here....

Another great giveaway!!

Indie Fixx has put together the most amazing bundles for this giveaway. Click on the image, enter the competition....... and let Jen know you read about it here..... Good luck!