Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

Things I have learnt this week

• I can break steel knives with very little effort. I must have the strength of wonder woman. I am sure it had nothing (much) to do with the knife being accidentally dropped on the hard kitchen tiles the day before it broke.
• My mum cooks the best roast lamb. And a mean cauliflower with cheese sauce too, yum! It is a shame my girls did not like the roast, why have they gotten so fussy with food all of a sudden?
• People who pour concrete for a living can not do so in the rain. I have a ditch in the front garden that needs filling with concrete to complete our path. A ditch that has been there for 6 days now thanks to all the rain that fell in Melbourne last week (oooo, Concrete Man just called, ditch to be filled today, yay!)
• This week I tried wool felting for the first time. Add one (hand knitted) wool cardigan from the oppy to your washing machine. Wash on a long, hot cycle, and voila, one (much smaller) wool felted cardigan is made. Now I just need to find the time to cut it up to make Abbey a pair of home made slippers for kinder (pattern from this fab book I borrowed from the library)
• Gosh I love chocolate self saucing pudding on a cold, dreary night. Abbey will tidy up, all by herself, a whole, very messy room, just to have a piece of it also.
• Said chocolate self saucing pudding is healthy if I use wholemeal flour, right?
• Abbey loves pumpkin soup but does not like roast pumpkin any longer.  That is too weird.
• Why has it taken me 5.5 months of sole parenting to realise that getting the girls both ready for bed at the same time (pj's and teeth brushing) is so much easier than doing it separately. Now that was a long lesson learnt. 
• I was in a hurry to clean our en-suite bathroom this week, and used a very strong cleaning product.  Now I remember why I usually use the more natural/not as strong cleaning products - I have an almost allergic reaction to them.  I had a head ache for 12 hours.  One hour of this, in the middle of the night at least, I could not even move to get out of bed to get a panadol.  So does this mean I am allergic to cleaning? 

What have you learnt this week?

Have a lovely week peeps.

Cat

My (Bunting) Creative Space

This really should have been last weeks My Creative Space, but I ran out of time. Last week, my big girl turned 5. Five! Last Thursday I was still recovering from her birthday party.

I can show you in photos, how my bunting evolved. First, I cut out the "Happy Birthday" letters from black felt. I had read a very handy tip (can't remember where) that to stop the felt moving around too much when you cut it, sticky tape the felt to your template, don't pin it. It works a treat, I can tell you.

I was originally going to use 2 or 3 different fabric's for all the flags/triangles. Once I had raided my fabric stash, I was quite surprised how many different pink fabrics I really had to choose from. I had more than enough to use a different one for each letter.

This was my first fabric arrangement, but it did not sit right, I was not convinced.

I played around with the fabric selection and order some more and came up with this arrangement.

So lush, all that beautiful fabric. I am happy with my selection, as many of the fabrics used have previously been made into dresses for Abbey or presents for friends and family.

I even had Chris helping out at one point, tying off all the ends after I sewed the letters on. He did not mind, he had beer and the TV remote control (and Dotty doll to keep him company)

Almost done, one lovely pile of bunting triangles ready to be sewn all together. I top stitched around each bunting edge.

Pegs worked better than pins going through all those layers of fabric.

There is no easy way to photograph bunting hanging up, I have decided. Especially when it is hanging in the darkest room in your house.

Yay! Finished. Pop over to Kootoyoo for more Creative Spaces.

Cheers, Cat.

Things I have learnt in the last few weeks plus a date, a date, a very important date (has been set)

In the last few weeks I have learnt:

• That I will never tire of Abbey's drawings and doodling. How cute is her little girl on a scooter?
• Random acts of vomit in the car are really not much fun. They can be a little bit funny though when the 19 month old involved looks down at herself, covered in vomit, and says "yuuuuck, weeeeet". I will be eternally grateful we were only one street away from home when it happened. And more grateful still that most of it was very chunky and went all over her and not the car. Little girls are much easier to clean than car interiors.
• It is NEVER a good idea to attempt to re-thread the over-locker while cooking dinner. It only ends badly for everyone involved, especially dinner.
• It is possible to have bags under your eyes that stretch to your chin - I am living proof.
• I love freecycle. People are very willing to take away the stuff I do not want any longer. So far, an old fridge, two very dusty lounge chairs, one kitchen block, three bags of cloth nappies and one children's lamp have all been picked up by lovely people and taken to new homes. Not to mention, I have picked up 25 (did I say, free!) excellent quality packing boxes. Love it.

Oh yes, I better mention that important date. The girls and I are aiming to move to Hong Kong in the first week of July. That gives me 2 months to go crazy with packing, sorting and giving away all our unwanted stuff. Can I do it? I hope so! Wish me luck.

What have you learnt this week?

Have a great week, lovelies.

Cat.

Things I have learnt this week and a funny note from my Granny

This week, I have learnt:

• Dust is universal. There is no escape from dust.
• I am missing my sewing machine more than my dishwasher.
• I will never tire of watching my girls play together. The fighting, though, is another matter.
• I am continually amazed at how imaginative Abbey is. At this very moment, she is cutting up a banana (with a bread and butter knife) and serving it in plastic mugs for her and Zoe to eat.
• Hong Kong is so clean. I like it.
• I love school holidays.
• I love staying in my pajamas for as much of the day as possible.
• I feel like a bad mother as I get so bored when I take the girls to the playground. I yawn constantly and can hardly keep my eyes open.
• I think I need to learn to crochet, so I won't be so bored at the playground.
• I need to find our local library here in Hong Kong. We are all a bit sick of reading the same books over and over.
• I miss Zoe's cloth nappies. I personally don't like using disposables. When we do the big move to HK, I will be bringing the cloth nappies with us.
• It really is quite difficult writing this post with a 19 month old Zoe climbing all over me.

On a final note, I want to wish my gorgeous Grandma a HUGE Happy Birthday for today. How cute is her little note to me in the photo above? I bought her a lovely hand made birdie brooch for her birthday, I hope she likes it.

Have you learnt anything this week?

Have a lovely day, peeps.

Cat.

* If you can't read Grandma's old fashioned writing, it says "for being a good girl and also keeping in touch with old granny". Gosh, I love her!

Scrappy fun.

So, what do you do with your fabric scraps? Your ribbon scraps, pieces of pretty wrapping paper after a present has been unwrapped? I had been collecting all of these in a plastic box for Abbey. Once Zoe was born, this box was overflowing (all the ribbon and wrapping paper from gifts for newborn Zoe filled it up very quickly)

I don't like throwing out perfectly lovely fabric, ribbons or paper, so I needed to find some ways to give away my overflow. I gave some to friends, with a glue stick, for their children to have as an arts and crafts activity.

For the last 3 and a half years, every Friday during school term, I have taken Abbey to one of our local libraries for Story time (and now Zoe comes, too) Our librarian (and her helpers) are fantastic. There is usually a theme each week, and our librarian reads books, finds songs to sing and dance to, plays silly games and at the end there is always an arts and craft activity relating to the days theme. This part Abbey loves. It can be cut and paste, colouring in, making little people out of pipe cleaners to sit on paper surf boards or spiders in a web for Halloween.

It is always lots of fun and I am sure I enjoy it as much as Abbey. I have given our librarian two large snap lock bags, mainly of fabric off-cuts. I have started another large bag to give to Abbey's kinder.

These are some fabric covered people Abbey made recently. The two on the blue paper she did at the library, and the other ones she made at home.

We will definitely be taking this scrap box to Hong Kong when we move over permanently. Abbey so often uses it for crafting and creating, and I am sure Zoe will too, when she is a little older.

As I said in yesterdays frog head tea post, the girls and I are in Hong Kong at the moment for the school holidays. We are a family again. We hope to do some more exploring, find the local library and find some more playgrounds close to our apartment. The last two days have been wonderful, crossing the road from our apartment and going to the outdoor pools, of which we can see from our apartment windows. It feels like we are living in a resort. The warm sunny weather is so lovely and making up for the very cold January we spent in Hong Kong earlier in the year.

Cheerio for now, Cat.

Frog head tea, anyone?

Would you like a cup of frog head tea? I am not sure if this was one of Abbey or Zoe's creations. I had to take a photo as it looked so colourful and almost drinkable.

We are actually in Hong Kong at the moment for the school holidays. It is lovely to be together as a family again, not just for a whirlwind weekend.

The weather at this time of year is gorgeous, between 21-27 C most days and not too humid - yet. Interestingly, Hong Kong has an ozone layer. I can feel the ozone layer working. It is such an amazing feeling, the sun on your skin, but not feel like you are burning instantly. We are still wearing sun screen, it is such a habit to always apply it when you come from Australia. It is a good habit to have, I know.

Have a lovely weekend. Enjoy your tea, with our without frog heads.

Cat